Hon ANNETTE KING (Acting Minister of Trade) : I move, That the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill be now read a second time. I begin by thanking the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for its consideration of the bill and for reporting the bill back to the House with the recommendation that it be passed with no amendments.

The select committee also conducted an international treaty examination of the Free Trade Agreement between the Government of New Zealand and the Government of the People’s Republic of China. It is clear that the select committee has carefully considered the views of submitters. The report reflects the strong support in this House and in the wider business community for the free-trade agreement, and it also reflects alternative views. The select committee sees the agreement as being a major event in New Zealand’s history, and as being fundamental to the future economic well-being of this country. Among the main benefits that the select committee highlights are the increased access for New Zealand trade and investment, the frameworks established for resolving issues in the future, the support to New Zealand’s objective of broadening and deepening relations in the Asia-Pacific region, and the support to New Zealand’s wider trade policy interests in strengthening economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region and multilaterally. The select committee notes that the agreement will bring considerable value to New Zealand and to our economy.

The agreement is China’s first free-trade agreement with an OECD member country. Being the first developed country to negotiate a comprehensive agreement with China gives New Zealand a time for unique competitive advantage. It raises New Zealand’s profile in China. Chinese tariffs on New Zealand products cost exporters almost $120 million each year. The agreement will remove tariffs on 96 percent of New Zealand’s current exports to China. The removal of these tariffs will deliver significant gains for our exporters. I acknowledge the select committee’s view that the removal of the remaining New Zealand tariffs on Chinese imports will be done in such a way as to allow New Zealand industry time to adapt. The removal of Chinese tariffs under the agreement will result in a far greater increase in New Zealand’s exports to China than in Chinese exports to New Zealand, in significant part because Chinese tariff levels are currently higher than those of New Zealand.

In addition to reducing barriers to our trade with China, the agreement promotes cooperation in a broad range of areas, including intellectual property, which was identified as an important area by submitters. It provides a platform for further engagement at governmental, cultural, and people-to-people levels. There are safeguards to ensure the New Zealand Government retains the right to reasonably regulate in the interest of public welfare, including to protect public health, safety, and the environment. As the select committee notes, investment is likely to become an important aspect of the China - New Zealand relationship. The legally binding agreements on labour and the environment will enhance communication and cooperation on those issues and, we believe, help towards achieving the objectives of raising working standards and improving environmental protection in both countries.

The select committee notes concerns raised by a number of submitters on human rights. Experience shows that engagement with countries speeds up the process of reform and change, but that isolation slows down that process. I share the select committee’s hope that New Zealand’s closer relationship with China, as a result of this agreement, will make a small but positive indirect contribution to China’s reform in that area.

The bill amends New Zealand’s domestic legislation so that the agreement can be brought into force.

In conclusion, I say the agreement is important for New Zealand as a trading nation. It will give us access to a vast market for our goods, services, and investment. The accompanying agreement on labour and the environment will encourage cooperation in those areas. The bill’s passage will be one of the final steps in a long process of bringing the agreement into being. I commend this bill to the House.

TIM GROSER (National) : The National Party strongly supports the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill. As members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, my colleagues and I listened very carefully to the submitters during the select committee process. There is an understandable tendency on any of these trade issues, in a numerical sense, for a majority of submitters to have concerns about these agreements. Often these concerns are based on longstanding objections to trade agreements per se, or on a view of the political relationship—and I will try to come to that presently. But the major thrust of the submissions from major New Zealand institutions that took the time and trouble to make submissions was overwhelmingly supportive of this agreement, and very much consistent with the views of the two major parties. I want to use my brief time here to focus on what I think is the reason for that. It is the bigger picture rather than the minutiae that I think New Zealanders should have in their heads as they consider the passage of this bill.

One of the interesting factoids about globalisation for me is that around the world we have already achieved an extraordinary degree of political unity. Roughly half the people in the world are governed by two capitals, New Delhi and China, and the other half are governed by 190 different Governments, including our own, of course. The implication of this is very important for New Zealand. It means that if we can, to use the vernacular, tie up access into just two capitals—if we can come to an accommodation with Beijing and New Delhi—New Zealand, this tiny country of 4 million people, will essentially have access to half the consumers in the world. That is an amazing factoid to contemplate. With the passage of this bill, we in New Zealand will be in a position to put in place the first piece in that jigsaw puzzle.

As members will be aware, the very preliminary steps have been taken in respect of the other great developing capital, New Delhi, to try to get a similar agreement—it will take a number of years, and it will be extremely difficult—with India. Even now, with this Chinese free-trade agreement, we have already achieved a historic result for this country. I am not suggesting, by any means, that I am the only New Zealander who has been involved in this; in the last 35 years generations of New Zealanders have been involved in this fight for access. No developed country in the world has had its economic prospects so tightly constrained by a lack of access for its principal exports than New Zealand. It has been one enormous struggle for generations of New Zealanders—farming leaders, trade Ministers, Prime Ministers, trade negotiators like myself—to try to find a way to open opportunities for New Zealand.

This has been the story of New Zealand in terms of our external trading regime since 1973, when we lost access to the United Kingdom. Historically, the United Kingdom had set up a great deal of its farming systems 15,000 kilometres away in New Zealand, to furnish the food needs of its consumers. It then entered into what was then a viciously protective system known as the common agricultural policy, a system that has been enormously transformed for the better, may I say, in the last 15 years. That system was a dagger pointed at the heart of our economy, and it has taken 30 years of enormous struggle to deal with the implications of this.

When we think about that and then put this bill alongside, we see that this is a watershed event for New Zealand in terms of our long-term economic prospects. In 30 years we have gone from a situation where we have had to fight for every kilogram of access for our highly competitive and wonderful food and beverages to a situation where we are essentially getting, within a decade, free access to the world’s second emerging economic superpower. That is the big picture. That is the picture that I hope New Zealanders keep in their minds as they listen to the criticism, some of which has some legitimacy here and there, but the big picture is that picture.

Access to markets has been the fundamental problem, and this free-trade agreement provides a huge qualitative shift for the better for New Zealand. It is not the whole answer, and I would like to take this opportunity to wish the New Zealand team in Geneva well in the next crucial 4 or 5 days. Obviously, I know them extremely well, having chaired the agriculture negotiations prior to entering politics, and I know how difficult it will be. They have the skills, I have no doubt about that, but they will need luck, as well, to pull this together.

The World Trade Organization system is about the international glue that surrounds these free-trade areas. It is the only way we can accomplish disciplines on either export subsidies or production subsidies, and on certain other trade issues of considerable importance to New Zealand. But these free-trade agreements, of which this is really the jewel in the crown now for New Zealand, are about one aspect of this, the market aspect, which does not require forward progress in Geneva to celebrate today.

When we look at China, I think we have to bear in mind that this is a market that will probably become New Zealand’s largest single export market—I would say for it to happen within 5 years is quite possible. For those who think that that is far-fetched, I say they should reflect on the fact that China, according to preliminary estimates of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, has already—incredibly—passed Japan as Australia’s largest market. Sure, Australia has giant mineral exports that have fuelled that, but I believe that New Zealand’s agricultural future will also fuel the future growth of our exports. I see no reason why the current average growth rate of 11 percent—that is, the compound average growth rate of New Zealand exports to China over the last 3 years—should not be maintained at or near those levels for some time to come. And the reason is the very success of the Chinese in lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. As they have moved out of poverty, 34 percent of the Chinese population is now in that crucial $1 to $2-a-day bracket. Broadly speaking, agricultural economists would argue that at $1 to $2 a day, people are struggling to put two very basic meals on the table. Maybe they can afford some primary school fees for their kids; probably not.

It is in the next income bracket, of above $2 a day, that we will see in the next 20 years further massive growth in the number of these people, as hundreds of millions of Chinese move out from that $1 to $2-a-day bracket into the $2 to $10-a-day bracket. It is precisely in those income brackets that we will then see significant increases in the consumption of meats of all types, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and edible oils. They are products that are really off limits for people in the $1 to $2-a-day bracket. So quite apart from celebrating, as we would, the transformation of people’s lives in terms of their being pulled out of poverty, this is fundamentally positive news for New Zealand, and I think it will underwrite this country’s export growth over the next 20 years.

So that, if you like, is the bigger picture. In my remaining minute or two I just want to concentrate on the legitimate concerns that people have raised on human rights and give my own perspective, which I think is the predominant view of the committee, although I will use my own words. It is probably unwise, when we talk about human rights, to try to categorise things in relative terms. It is a bit like theologians arguing whether there is such a thing as relative sin. It is better to stay off that ground. One could make a case that when 26 million people were estimated to have died during the Cultural Revolution, there has been a very considerable improvement in human rights. But, of course, individual events still occur. I think that by opening up to China we can make a very limited, but necessarily positive, contribution.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) : As the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, it obviously gives me great pleasure to comment on our report back, and to acknowledge the previous two speakers. Along with my colleague the deputy chair of the committee, Dr Wayne Mapp, I take this opportunity to thank all the members of the committee for their very hard work. In particular I acknowledge Tim Groser’s contribution. In my view he has given a very thought-provoking and comprehensive contribution to the House this afternoon. In terms of the writing of the report and some of the research, in some of his work—and I am sure Dr Mapp will agree with me—he gave a very, very good contribution, obviously acknowledging his own experience and the role he has played for this country over a number of years.

As we are a very broadly based committee, I also acknowledge—notwithstanding that he is the author of a minority report—our Green Party member, Keith Locke. He made a very good contribution and obviously, in terms of this democratic Parliament, this democratic House of Representatives, this afternoon, he will clearly in his contribution give alternatives—give voice to some alternative viewpoints—which of course the committee heard.

I acknowledge that a number of people had significant misgivings about this agreement. I certainly acknowledge the very comprehensive contribution of Dr Jane Kelsey, just to name but one. On the other hand, I acknowledge the very favourable responses that have been made publicly and through the committee, including one from the chairman of Fonterra, Henry van der Heyden: “This is a good, positive step for New Zealand and a good, positive step for dairying, so it has got to be good for Fonterra.”, and also I think good for New Zealand. In that context, I think the previous speaker alluded to the growing numbers of the middle class in China, in terms of their consumption. Of course, members can guess what products they will increasingly be consuming, as the per capita income in a whole section of Chinese society goes up.

In terms of the cross-section of Māoridom, I also acknowledge a public comment by Ngāi Tahu general manager, Geoff Hipkins, who stated that the tribe’s fishing arm exports more than $100 million worth of live lobsters to China annually, and also takes a large amount of pāua product. He said that in a country with 1.3 billion people, the deal has “amazing potential. The sky’s the limit really. To me, it’s a land of opportunity.” Zespri chairman Craig Greenlees made again what was a public comment, not necessarily in evidence to the committee, but it certainly reinforces some of the submissions we had to the committee: “China’s agreement to reduce the 20 percent tariff on kiwifruit to zero over the course of the next nine years is a very significant achievement—one that will be worth many millions of dollars to the New Zealand kiwifruit industry over time.”

Meat and Wool New Zealand chairman Mike Petersen said: “This is a good outcome for New Zealand sheep and beef farmers as it will immediately provide preferential access for New Zealand meat products in China compared to our competitors, plus it will let us build on the current trade.” Seafood Industry Council general manager of trade, Alistair McFarlane, said in a public quote: “China has become an important provider of seafood processing services to New Zealand seafood companies. Overall, it’s definitely good news.” I will give a final quote, in terms of quoting from prominent people in the business community. Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe said: “Having spent the last three days here with leaders from across the New Zealand business community the resounding feedback I’ve had was that people were thrilled with the opportunities created by this deal.”

As a member of Parliament I commend the leadership of the Prime Minister, and of the Minister of Trade—overseas trade—the Hon Phil Goff. Again, I do not think we should underestimate the huge opportunities that this particular agreement, in potential, has for New Zealand, notwithstanding the fact that there will be challenges for us, as well, in this context.

To conclude, I will quote a couple of paragraphs from the select committee report. Obviously, I and others will have an opportunity to make a further contribution during the Committee of the whole House and in the third reading, and I certainly anticipate doing so in some detail. I urge members of Parliament to read the select committee’s report back to the House, although I am sure they have already done so, because obviously they would not be sitting here participating in this debate if they had not. The document is for public circulation and is available on the web. I urge people to read it.

I think the select committee has given a very comprehensive report and obviously it has acknowledged a minority viewpoint, as well: “We have considered the alternative views submitted to us and concluded that the China-New Zealand FTA is of long-term strategic benefit to New Zealand. Lifting New Zealand’s export performance is among the most important economic objectives facing the country. New Zealand has historically suffered more than any other developed country from lack of assured access to markets for our traditional primary-based exports, because of severe agriculture market access barriers and subsidisation. China is the second emerging economic super-power, and within four to five decades may become the largest consumer market in the world. Through this FTA, China has essentially offered New Zealand the opportunity of all but free access for our goods exports in around a decade. As the recent Fonterra commercial announcement shows, substantial benefits have started to flow immediately, as companies in both countries anticipate the provisions of the agreement coming into force.”

I further quote from the committee’s report: “This is a historic opportunity for New Zealand and should be taken without equivocation. It also demands a coordinated response from New Zealand Inc. to fully exploit the advantages of the agreement, but such an examination was outside the scope of our inquiry.” I have nothing further to add at this point, except to thank members of the committee, to thank all the submitters, irrespective of their views, to acknowledge that there was a cross-section of views, and to say that we report back both the New Zealand - China Free Trade Agreement Bill and the free-trade agreement itself between the Government of New Zealand and the Government of the People’s Republic of China, and the majority of the committee supports the progress of this bill. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : This week Parliament will pass into law the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill, and that will be an important strategic gain for our country. It will, in fact, trigger the first round of tariff reductions on 1 October, and that is why it is a priority to get the legislation passed into law. Traders are waiting for us to do our legislative work so they can get ahead and reap the gains of the agreement. As the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, Mr Gallagher, noted in quoting the concluding comments of the committee’s report, this is a historic opportunity for New Zealand, and it is one that we as a nation must take.

Those parties that are voting against the bill, however well intentioned they might be, really are looking past New Zealand’s opportunities. Could they seriously suggest there could be a free-trade agreement better than this one? The New Zealand First Party, for instance, says that, yes, obviously there could be a better free-trade agreement, and, indeed, if there had been a better one—that is, faster liberalisation—I guess it would have supported it. Is that the case with either the Māori Party or the Green Party? I would think not. Based on what I hear, those parties are essentially against free trade. But I want to ask one of those three parties—the one that said that under appropriate conditions it would support such an agreement—whether it could actually imagine a country the size of China negotiating a free-trade agreement that would go from the current level of tariffs to no tariffs at all in just over 10 years. That party is simply quibbling about a year or two, surely, and that is not a good reason to vote against the bill.

One of the ironies of sitting in this House was demonstrated today when, during question time and before this debate, we heard all the New Zealand First members extolling through their questions the wonderful virtues of their leader, saying what a marvellous Minister of Foreign Affairs he had been for the country, and the Prime Minister agreeing—although one would have to say somewhat reluctantly—with those comments. Perhaps she felt she had no choice but to do so. But if their leader is such a marvellous Minister of Foreign Affairs for our country and if he is advancing our nation’s interests at every possible turn, then surely he should be doing the one decent thing he could do at this point in time—that is, to actually persuade his party to vote for this bill. We all know that it is in fact just naked political calculation on their part that apparently has them voting against this bill.

Let us be clear about this. This is an enormous strategic opportunity not just for New Zealand but also—as that country sees it—for China as well. We are talking about the second-largest trading nation in the world—not the second-largest economy in the world, but certainly the second-largest trading nation in the world—deciding that it would go for a full free-trade agreement on all goods, with no exceptions. There might be a delay of 1 year in one sector, but within 10 years there will be complete free trade across all sectors. China knows full well that every other country in the Asia-Pacific region knows that it has done that. In fact, Australia is negotiating with China as we speak and will also be getting, I assume, a full, total free-trade agreement. Members should think of the significance of that in the Asia-Pacific region, because we are talking about other countries that really struggle with that concept—countries like Japan, Korea, and also the United States when it comes to agricultural products.

This agreement will put real pressure on those economies to actually ante-up and shift their game. We have already seen that in relation to Japan. Can anyone seriously think that Japan would be in full free-trade agreement negotiations with New Zealand if it were not for this agreement? The Japanese know full well that this agreement puts the acid on them to shift deeply held views in relation to agriculture. Japan of all countries, along with Korea, has been extraordinarily obdurate in relation to freeing up agricultural trade. It wants to protect its farmers, who are grossly inefficient, at all costs. It knows that that day is coming to an end. It knows it will have to talk to those people and take them along a path of opening up their trade to a much wider approach. In truth, this agreement will end up being the precursor of full free trade within the Asia-Pacific region. It might take a bit more than 10 years—realistically it will probably take 20 or even 30 years—but it will have started with this agreement. China in particular knew what it was doing by going into these negotiations with New Zealand at this time. This is China’s attempt, I guess, not only to gain a further economic leverage within the Asia-Pacific region but also to boost its own prosperity by increasing trade within the region.

One of the remarkable things about the submissions was seeing who was in favour of the agreement. I am saying this directly to the Māori Party, which was not actually present during the submissions in the select committee. I am not suggesting it was deliberately absent, but because it does not have representatives on the committee it simply did not have the opportunity. So I think it is quite important for the committee members to report to the Māori Party that the leading Māori business organisations—the Federation of Māori Authorities and all the leading fishing companies—universally said they needed this agreement. Probably of all the business organisations they were the most strongly represented by their submissions. The mainstream—for want of a better term—business organisations saw this as a kind of pro forma exercise and tended to just let Parliament get on with it.

The Māori business organisations were making a very specific point here, however. It seemed to me that they were signalling two things. The first was that they were interested in an international engagement and that they had stepped out of their usual pattern of being passive recipients of Federated Farmers, the meat companies, the fishing companies, and so forth to being active traders in their own right rather than through intermediaries in the international arena.

The second point, which is perhaps more interesting, is that those Māori organisations saw that China, because it is a new economy and an emerging international trade partner, would provide special opportunities to Māori businesses to get ahead, to get a foot in, because they would kind of understand each other—both coming to a resurgence in recent times. So there would be empathy, sympathy, and a gain in trade. That was a hugely significant point, and I would suggest that the Māori Party needs to talk to a wider range of its own supporters to understand that this is actually a very strongly supported agreement because of the opportunities it provides for iwi-based organisations.

I would have to say to those submitters opposed to the agreement that they were running the autarchic ideas—well-intentioned though they might have been—that have been run in this country from the 1930s through to the 1950s, 1960s, and even the 1970s. Those days are gone. It is about as relevant as assembling railway wagons and trains in New Zealand. The truth is that we have to get to a situation where we have free trade, and where we find our points of international competitiveness. The Māori community has done precisely that by their submissions. Many other submitters saw this.

National is very pleased to support this agreement. We see it as a historic and unique opportunity for this country to get ahead. The single biggest challenge facing this country over the next decade is how to get back up the OECD ladder instead of—as we have done over the last 9 years—going down it. It may have taken 9 years for Labour to get to this point, but it seems to have finally realised that this country needs to get ahead. However, I suspect it will not have time to convince the voters of that.

R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) : New Zealand First opposes the New Zealand - China free-trade agreement, and we do so with some sadness. We talked about this in the first reading of the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill. New Zealand First opposes free-trade deals with low-wage economies, because in a deal with a low-wage economy the deal is always in the best interest of the economy with the low wages—never the other way around. That has been proven in several other free-trade deals we have had—one deal was with Singapore—and it will be proven in this case. As I said, we talked about these concerns in the first reading of this bill, and we are now seeing the beginnings of newspaper articles where other people in the community find that the deficiencies in the free-trade agreement with China are becoming apparent—they are causing them concerns. I have an Independent article of 10 July of this year, which is only a wee while ago, where Tourism Holdings, Fletcher Building, and even Fonterra pointed out some of the dangers of the free-trade agreement with China to employment in this country and to the well-being of our businesses.

In the case of New Zealand, everybody here knows that we removed tariffs years ago and we have gone on OK. There was a lot of pain in that period, but we have got over that and, as Mr Groser was saying, we have spent 30 years looking for other markets. But I will point out that under the free-trade agreement with China—and Dr Mapp mentioned that we are arguing over a few years—it could be as late as 2019 before tariffs are reduced to nil on milk powders and produce like that. I remind people who say that that is of no consequence that produce like that is 20-odd percent of our exports right there—from the dairy industry—yet it will be 2019 before tariffs finally come off those products. Even then, there is a claw-back clause that allows China, if the deal causes too much trouble to China or if it impacts on its industry in any way, to push that date out even further. So I do not think the agreement is anything to get too excited about.

This article of 10 July is headed up “Hidden hooks emerge in China FTA”. A professor at Victoria University, Roger Bowden, says that it could be a problem for local tourism if the Chinese choose to take the advantage they are given under this free-trade deal to its greatest extent. He says people can virtually organise their tours to New Zealand from China, operating through Chinese companies with Chinese guides, and New Zealand merely provides the platform for them to drive through. We have talked about those things in the first reading of this bill, and we are talking about them now.

I have also talked about other issues in debates that we have had in this House, when I have said that China clearly does not intend to pay world prices for our products. Admittedly, China is opening up its economy, but that is because it has to. It will not be free-trade agreements that put us into China; it will be because we produce the best goods at the best prices for world markets. I am surprised that a so-called free-market party like the National Party says we need these sorts of agreements in order to get into China. We do not. We are getting into China because of the value of the produce that we make, in the same way as we are getting into all of the other markets around the world.

I have said, and I will say this again—and it will happen—that ultimately China will look to this country, just as England did, as a producer of those things it does not want to produce itself. So the Chinese will lease or buy farms in this country—they are already buying dairy factories and other plants—because it is cheaper for them to vertically integrate what they need by buying land here, in Australia, and in South America. They buy a plant and run the product through it, thus getting the product at a better price in their own country. We do not blame the Chinese for doing that; we understand why they would want to do that. But we cannot understand why politicians in this country do not support New Zealanders. We are hearing here all about why this agreement will be wonderful for China; I am not hearing about absolute cases that show why this agreement will be wonderful for New Zealanders. Will this agreement put up New Zealand wages? Will it help with regard to salaries in New Zealand? No, it will not.

Mark Blumsky: One hundred grand.

R DOUG WOOLERTON: No, it is not, and I will challenge the National Party—or the Labour Party, for that matter—to show me where that will happen.

We will not put product into China if it is not at the best price, we will not put product into China if it is not of the best quality, and we will not put product into China if China does not want it. The only reason—

John Hayes: So what? That’s nothing to do with the agreement.

R DOUG WOOLERTON: You are right. It has nothing to do with the agreement, because the agreement means nothing. The Chinese are taking our product because they need it. They are taking our product because they are short of water, and they are taking our product because they need it. They are not taking it because of the free-trade agreement. In fact, the free-trade agreement makes sure that they will not lower their tariffs on many of the products that we produce for many years into the future.

We also know, as does every other parliamentarian here, that China is making a big move into the South Pacific. The Chinese are making their presence known there and are spreading their largesse throughout the region, providing courthouses and whatever facilities those countries want—and I say “Good on them.” But China is not doing that for the Pacific Islanders’ benefit either; China is doing that in order to spread its influence. We do not blame China for doing that, but let us not be totally naive when it comes to this free-trade agreement. Let us not be blinded by the numbers we see in China. Let us not be blinded by the numbers we see in India, where we are also negotiating a free-trade agreement. The money for our products—which are at the top end, by anybody’s language—is still in America and Europe, and will be there for many years into the future.

Sadly, because New Zealanders are not going to be advantaged by this bill to the degree they think they are, New Zealand First will have to vote against it.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : In the first reading of the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill, the Green Party outlined its objections to this implementing legislation for the New Zealand - China free-trade agreement. In the minority report back from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee there is a summary of the Green Party’s objections. In this second reading speech I want to talk about the timing of this bill and the signing of the free-trade treaty, in the light of the pressure that is being put on the Chinese Government internationally to improve its human rights record around the time of the holding of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

I would like to say in relation to some of Tim Groser’s comments that the Green Party is not against trade with China, and it is not against trade agreements with China per se, but that we believe it is very bad timing for us now to be signing a preferential trade agreement that gives the Chinese regime advantage at the very time when it is so violating the human rights of its citizens and international attention is on China around the time of the Olympics. It is our view that if enough pressure goes on to the Chinese Government during this period, we might be able to give extra leverage to the many millions of Chinese who are trying to achieve greater freedoms. For this bill to go through at this time is a betrayal of the international movement that is pressing for greater democracy in China.

Let us now look at the background to that international movement. Back in June 2001, when Beijing was trying to get the games, its mayor, Liu Qi, said the games “will also benefit the further development of our human rights”. Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, told the BBC on 23 April 2002: “We at the IOC urge the Chinese Government to improve, as soon as possible, their record in human rights. However, the IOC is a responsible organisation, and if either security, logistics, or human rights are not acted upon to our satisfaction, then we will act.” There should have been action, because the Olympic Charter projects its sporting competition as being “with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” It further states: “Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.” That refers to belonging to the Olympic movement, yet here we are talking about a host country for an Olympic Games.

Can we really say there is no discrimination on the basis of race, when we think of the treatment meted out recently to the Tibetan people; can we say there is no discrimination on the basis of religion, when monks are beaten and arrested, and when we think of the persecuted Falun Gong practitioners; and can we say there is no discrimination on the basis of politics, when we think of the many thousands of people imprisoned in China, simply for dissenting with the Government in various ways? But when has there been action from the International Olympic Committee? The main concern of that body seems to be to prevent protests on human rights issues at Olympic venues by athletes or officials or anyone else. The New Zealand Olympic Committee, unfortunately, has backed the International Olympic Committee on that, going beyond the Olympic Charter and even warning New Zealand athletes that a protest could be defined as something that happens at the New Zealand athletes’ accommodation.

All of that inaction is despite the fact that in some ways the human rights situation in China has become worse in the lead-up to the Olympics. It is worse than it was in 2001, when the Mayor of Beijing made that statement about human rights. It is worse for the Tibetan people. Their peaceful protests back in March were brutally crushed, and many monks are still in jail. Freedom of movement—a crucial right—is denied to most Tibetans. The foreign media is largely shut out of Tibet, despite the fact that Sun Weijia, the head of Beijing’s media operation for the Olympics, said on 27 September 2006: “We have no restrictions on travel for foreign journalists in China, so once they get the visa they can travel anywhere in China.” That is not the case. Some foreign journalists have been hassled or even arrested for reporting outside acceptable bounds, such as reporting on the faith of dissidents.

It makes a joke of human rights at the Olympics for Chinese democrats like Ye Guozhu, Hu Jia, and Yang Chunlin to be imprisoned specifically because they stated publicly their intention to raise human rights issues during the Olympics period. They were chucked in jail. A pre-Olympic crackdown on dissenters has been going on—a clean-up, as they call it—and we have seen the arbitrary detention of many petitioners, human rights activists, and the like. We do not know the full details of that, and one thing that our Government and the international movement should be demanding is the full details of all of those people and what they have been arrested for. They should also be demanding the release of those people. The media has not been granted access to those details.

Some of the people who have been arrested, both recently and over the years, have been treated quite brutally. There is a programme, with about 300,000 people in it by some Chinese reports, called “re-education through labour”. It is forced labour that sometimes involves ordinary prisoners, but at other times involves political dissidents and many thousands of members of the Falun Gong organisation in particular, whose crime is to insist that their organisation be independent of the Communist Party of China and not be under its control. For that reason they are deemed to be part of an organisation that is illegal and is, effectively, to be crushed. Some dissidents have been killed. It is clear that in terms of the exercise of capital punishment, which is something New Zealand is very much against, the Chinese Government is the largest executioner in the world today.

So this is not the time to be signing a preferential trade agreement with the Chinese Government, particularly in the situation where we can make some progress around the time of the Olympic Games. The memorandum of understanding associated with the treaty on labour issues is a very weak one. It just involves discussions between officials if something comes up—not even ministerial meetings, as in the Thai - New Zealand free-trade agreement. There is a reference in the memorandum to the ILO commitments. Those commitments include things like allowing free association of people or unions, and being against forced labour, being against child labour, and being against discrimination in employment. Those things are non-evident in China. There is a very weak provision—much weaker than the Thai - New Zealand free-trade agreement provision, which states: “The Parties respect their sovereign rights to set their own policies and national priorities and to set, administer and enforce their own labour laws and regulations.” Well, in the case of China that means very weak regulations in terms of protecting labour rights.

This bill and the treaty it implements are not good for the human rights of Chinese working people. They are not good for the Chinese people as a whole. It is quite the wrong time for us to take this step, at a time when our Prime Minister and others should be getting behind the international campaign to help democracy in China.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Hoi nō, i te hui ā-tau o te Rōpū Haina ki Aotearoa i tērā tau, i puta te kōrero a te Ahorangi a Mākere Mutu, kia mahi tahi te Māori me te Hainamana, kia haere whakamua wā raua wawata, haerenga tangata. Tū, he uri nō Ngāti Kahu, nō Te Rarawa, nō Ngāti Whātua hoki, a nāna te kī, kua hōhonu haere te whanaungatanga i waenganui i te Māori me te iwi o Haina. Ki a ia, ka puta tēnei whanaungatanga i te mahi kaikiri a tauiwi, ki a ia, “Kei te pēhia, kei te whakaparahakotia tāua tahi.”Tērā te piri tahi e whakaaro nei au, i au e wānanga ana i tēnei pire, arā, te Pire Hokohoko, Kore Utu o Aotearoa me Haina. E hangaia ana he ara kia watea ai te uru atu o ngā taonga hokohoko me nga pūtea whakangao ki Haina; ā, a tōna wā, kia tangohia ngā here utu kei runga i ngā taonga o Niu Tīreni, me te whakawatea anō i te haere o ngā kaipakihi ki Haina. I nāianei, kua tau mai te honore he whenua aronui a Aotearoa me ōna tikanga kore here, kia ōrite wā tātou kaiwhakarato moni, ki wērā ake o te ao.

Ko te kōrero, ka pēnei i te mea, koia nei te oranga mō Aotearoa. Nā te aha i riro i a tātou te tūnga whenua aronui? Nā te aha i riro i a tātou tērā tūnga, hakoa mai rā nō tō mātou whakaiti i a rātou i roto i ngā ture, me ngā kaupapa, hei kati kia noho-ki-waho, wērā e kīa nei e te tuhinga tawhito, ko te “taniwha kōwhai”? He kōrero tawhito tēnei kia kaua te Hainama e uru mai nei, ki Niu Tīreni. Ka kitea ēnei kōrero i te tatau taake i te tau 1881, e ōrite ana ki te utu o te Hainamana mō ngā tau e whā, ki te ono. Kotahi rau pauna kia haere mai ki konei, kia utaina ngā kōrero whakaparahako ki runga i a rātou, ngā kōrero he paruparu, he tahumaero, he tāhawahawa, ā, he whakakinotanga. I whakaritea ko te tekau mā rima anake ngā Hainamana, kia haere mai i runga tima i te wā kotahi. I tohua anō he whakamātautau kia mōhio mai rātou i ngā kupu Ingarihi kotahi rau, engari i tupurangi te whiriwhiri o te kupu. Tae atu ki te tau 1920, i tohua mai te tiwhikete whakaaetanga anake, ka uru mai.

Tae atu ki te tau 1925, i tohua te Kāwanatanga kia kaua te wahine e uru mai, kia kore tōna iwi e whakarahi atu. Tae atu ki te tau 1951, e kore taea te Hainamana kia tū hei iwi whenua, ā, tae atu ki te tau 1965, ka taea tonu te pirihimana kia uru atu ki roto i ngā whare a te Hainamana i raro i te ture Rahui i te Rongoa Whakamoe, hakoa horekau he pukapuka whakaae. Ka mutu, ko ngā ture kaikiri, kia kore ai ngā toa hoko hua rākau, horoi kākahu, hoko kai hoki o te Hainamana e tukituki i ngā toa o te Pākehā. Nā, i runga i tēnei momo hītori, kaikiri, whakahāwea i ngā Hainamana, he aha te take e tino hiakai ana tēnei kāwanatanga, kia whakaritea i tētahi tiriti kia Haina. He aha te tikanga nei, kia hurikōaro te kotahi rau tau o ngā whakaiti, tūkinotia, kia hoa tahi tātou ki a Haina? Maumahara mai ki ngā kupu a Mutu: “Kei te pēhia, kei te whakaparahakotia, tāua tahi.”

Kotahi anake te kaupapa hei tautoko i tēnei pire. Kia peke ki te tuarā o tēnei whenua tino kaha rawa, kia wātea ai te iwi nui nei hei hoko taonga. Ko te wawata kia whai moni a Niu Tīreni i te iwi rawa, o Haina. Engari, he whakaaetanga koura tēnei, kāhore rānei? Kāhore te rōpū whakawā i mōhio, mēnā ka kite koe i ngā kōrero i tae mai ki te komiti hei whakatau. 15 i tautoko, 12 ki runga tonu i te taiapa, 27 e kore e whakaae. Ahakoa te tini o ngā yuan i te ao, kore taea te whakarere kē, he nui ake wērā e kore whakaae, ki wērā i whakaae. Ka hoki mai ki tērā rere kētanga, o te tūunga whenua aronui i tētahi ringa, ki te mahi whakahāwea tangata i tērā atu.

I whakaae ake te komiti whakawā, ko te tikanga a te tangata i Haina a “he nui, herahi ōna raruraru”. I whakaae taua komiti i mōhio rātou ki ngā āwangawanga kua kōrerohia mō ngā mahi takahi tangata i Haina. Engari, i te mutunga ki ngā pāti nui, horekau he āwangawanga. Tika ana te whakarāpopoto a Unite. Ko te “FTA” nei, he kaupapa mō te painga o ngā kaipakihi, ehara mō te painga o ngā kaimahi, ngā whānau, ngā iwi kei tāwāhi, kei te kāinga rānei. Ko ngā whakaaro mō rātau, kei muri noa atu. E whakapono ana a Unite, ko te “FTA” nei, he mahi tukituki kia whakaiti te utu o ngā kaimahi o konei, i te whakataetae utu mō ngā taonga o Haina. Nā te mahi a ngā kaipakihi nui i waho atu o te ture o tēnei whenua, ka whakaiti te mana o te kāwanatanga whakahaere ā-iwi, rangatiratanga hoki.

Ki tā Ahorangi Jane Kelsey ki te komiti, ko te mate o te tohu whenua aronui, koia ko te hinga o te rangatiratanga o te kāwanatanga, i a “FTA”. Ahakoa e whakahokia mai ana te mana whakahaere o ngā kaupapa ā-tangata ki te kāwanatanga, i te mea, e kore te kaupapa mākete e whakamana nei i a Niu Tīreni, engari, ko te “FTA” nei kua rere kē atu ki taua whakapono.

Kore taea e mātou o Te Pāti Māori te tautoko i tēnei pire. He nui wā mātou āwangawanga mō ngā mahi takahi tangata a Haina. He āwangawanga hoki mō ngā taonga ka utaina e Haina ki runga i a tātou. He āwangawanga tā mātou mō ngā mahi kia ngaro. He mahi tinihanga hoki tēnei kia tukua mai te pepa nei kia tirohia. Kua oti te whakarite me pēhea rā te haere, kua tāmokohia ngā pepa. Kua oma kē te hōiho, he moumou taima te kati i te kēti. E mara whakamutua atu. Ko te iti o te utu, ko te kore e aro ki ngā kaupapa whakaruru kaimahi, ko te kore e manaaki i te taiao, ko ngā taumahatanga ka tau ki runga i ō tātou kaimahi, ko ēnei katoa ngā āhuatanga, e kore mātou e tautokongia i tēnei pire.

Kua rongo ripoata mātou, e rima miriona ngā tamariki i raro i te tau tekau mā rima, e mahi ana mō ngā hāora roroa, mō te utu iti noa. E rima miriona ngā take nei, kia kaua mātou e tautoko i tēnei pire. Ko ngā iwi whenua e kore nei i kitea i ngā Whakataetae o te Ao, te tini o rātou nō Tibet kua mauheretia. E kore taea te aro ake mō ērā momo mahi tūkino.

Me mihi atu ki ngā kaipakihi Māori, ngā rōpū ā-iwi hoki, e whai ana i te oranga mō o rātou ake uri, kia whai whakaaro, kia whai pūtea mō rātou. Kei a rātou tērā, ā, e mōhio ana mātou ka taea e rātou te whakanui i tō rātou ake pūtea. E mōhio anō hoki mātou, ko te tū o te kaipakihi he mea nui ki te Māori, ā, e tautoko ano mātou i taua whāinga. Engari, e titiro tonu ana mātou ki ngā taumahatanga, ka tau mai ki runga i nga papakāinga Māori, rātou te pani me te rawakore, rātou e kore e kitea i ngā painga, e māturuturu mai nei i ngā mahi kaipakihi. E tautoko ana mātou, kia tōtika te utu mō te taonga engari, e kore tautoko i te kōrero kia kore utu nei. E tautoko ana mātou i te whakangao e whānuitia ana tōna painga, me te mea anō e hiahia ana mātou kia kitea, ko ngā wāhi mahi i konei i Haina hoki, he wāhi pai mō ngā kaimahi. E kore e taea e mātou te nohopuku, ina maukinohia ngā kaimahi i tāwāhi mō te painga o tō tātou ao, ā, kore hoki mātou e noho pōhēhē ana, e tiaki ana te pire nei i wā tātou kaipakihi. E hiahia ana mātou kia mōhio, ka tu tonu te Māori hei iwi motuhake i raro i te whakaruruhau o tōna Tiriti o Waitangi. Me te mōhio anō hoki, ka taea te pire nei ki te whakamarumaru, ki te whakanui anō rā i tō mātou whenua me ōna iwi i mua noa atu i te painga mō ngā kaipakihi nunui o te ao. Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, kia ora tātou katoa.

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

[At the annual conference of the New Zealand Chinese Association last year, Professor Margaret Mutu told the hui that Māori and Chinese should work together to advance their political agendas. She stands as one of Ngāti Kahu, Te Rarawa, and Ngāti Whatua genealogy, and told the conference of the significant relationship that had developed between tangata whenua and Chinese. It was, in her words, a relationship formed in reaction to Pākehā racism: “We areboth oppressed and discriminated against.” It is that relationship I think of in considering the New Zealand - China Free Trade Agreement Bill. The pathway is being set for increasing access for New Zealand trade and investment in China—for the removal over time of tariffs on current exports to China, from expanding the movement of business people. We are now being honoured with the treatment of a most favoured nation non-discrimination provision to ensure that our investors remain no worse off than investors of any other countries.

It is all being painted as a major development, as fundamental to the future economic well-being of Aotearoa. How did we achieve most favoured nation status? How could we achieve this, based on a history of consistently passing laws against the Chinese, of creating policies to restrict and exclude what the history books describe as the “yellow peril”? This is a history to keep the Chinese out of New Zealand. a history that derives its source from the 1881 poll tax, which was the equivalent of between 4 and 6 years’ earning for a Chinese person at the time. One hundred pounds to come here, to be subjected to attitudes associating Chinese people with terms like filth, dirt, disease, contamination, and degradation! L imits were set on the numbers of Chinese able to travel to New Zealand—a limit of only 15 Chinese passengers per ship. A reading test of 100 English words chosen at random was imposed, and in 1920 entry was allowed by permit only.

In 1925, the Government decided to exclude women from the quota, in an effort to prevent reproduction. Up until 1951, the Chinese were not allowed to be naturalised; and up until 1965, under the Opium Prohibition Act, police were able to enter any Chinese home without a search warrant. Finally, a series of laws were passed to stop Chinese fruit shops, laundries, and groceries from competing against Europeans. So how is it that in a land with such a shameful history of exclusion and institutional racism against the Chinese, the Government is suddenly bending over backwards to become party to a treaty with China? What has been the dramatic turn-round to reverse over a century of racism into a determination to develop ties with the region? Remember Margaret Mutu’s words: “We are both oppressed and discriminated against.”

There is one motive for this free-trade agreement. It is about jumping on the back of an economic superpower and gaining access to the largest consumer market in the world. It is about the forlorn hope that New Zealand will make money from the wealth of a burgeoning Chinese middle class. But is this agreement all it is worth in gold, or not? The jury is out, when we look through the submissions that came into the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. Fifteen supported it; 12 abstained, and 27 opposed the deal. All the yuan in the world doesn’t change the fact that the numbers of “No” votes outnumbered the “Yes” votes. It comes back to the fundamental mismatch between being most favoured nation on one hand, with a past that is less worthy.

The select committee acknowledged that, yes, the human rights record in China has “many and substantial imperfections”. The select committee acknowledged, yes, they were very conscious about the legitimate concerns raised about human rights in China. But when cash came to crunch, major parties did not care. Unite summed it up. The free-trade agreement policy is designed to serve interests of big business, with the interests of workers, of families, the people abroad or at home who have to suffer the consequences being very much a secondary concern. Unite believes that the free-trade agreement will create competition and drive our own internal wages and work conditions down, as firms struggle to compete with Chinese imports. The opportunity for big business to trade outside of Government influence or control, in its effects, serves to both erode democracy and economic sovereignty.

What Professor Jane Kelsey also brought to the attention of the committee is that the most favoured nation obligations mean that each new free-trade agreement will have the domino effect of removing foreign investments further from control of Parliament. So at a time when the Government is reregulating services and resuming State ownership because the market model does not serve the national interest, it is acting in quite the other direction in pursuing free-trade agreements such as this.

The Māori Party cannot support this bill. We have ongoing concerns about China’s human rights record. We have ongoing concerns about the potential for China to dump goods on our domestic markets. We have ongoing concerns about the potential loss of jobs in our manufacturing sector. And we believe that being allowed the opportunity to scrutinise the free-trade agreement at this stage of the proceedings, only after it has been signed, makes the whole select committee process a farce. The cheap labour, the weak health, safety, and environmental standards, the poor protection of workers, the adverse impacts that will be suffered by New Zealand workers, are all reasons why we cannot support this bill.

The reports of some 5 million Chinese children under the age of 15, lumbered with long hours for low pay, are 5 million more reasons why we are voting against this bill. The dissidents being hidden out of the radar of the Olympic spotlight, the hundreds of Tibetans being imprisoned, the international stigma of China’s human rights issues, cannot simply be ignored.

We fully respect the right of organisations, of iwi, of Māori businesses, to take up the opportunity to pursue their own best interests, and to return dividends to Māori shareholders. That is their prerogative, and we are confident that they will be very competitive and achieve impressive returns. We believe that economic growth is essential for Māori businesses to succeed, and we will support them all the way. But we are also charged with looking out for the impacts on Māori communities, especially those who may be least resilient and least likely to benefit from the trickle down of economic growth. We support fair trade, not free trade. We seek socially responsible investment. We want to see the provision of healthy and safe working conditions both here and in China. And we cannot sit by and be silent when workers overseas may be exploited to benefit our economy, or pretend that New Zealand industry and services will be protected. We must know that the rights of Māori will be actively protected, as provided for under the Treaty of Waitangi And we need to ensure that our laws serve to protect and enhance our nation, not globalist agendas. Greetings to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and to us all. ]

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : I say to my colleague in the Māori Party that there is no fairer trade than free trade, simply because nobody has their fingers in the pie or the till, and I would like the member to think about that as we go through the rest of this debate.

This legislation is the most important legislation introduced during the life of this Parliament over the last 3 years. I think it is one of the most important bilateral and commercial agreements ever negotiated by a New Zealand Government—certainly since the Closer Economic Relations agreement with Australia was signed 25 years ago.

I would like to go back to comments made in this House by my colleague Mr Woolerton of the New Zealand First Party, who challenged the National Party and other parties in this House to explain why this agreement was so important and to outline the benefits that it would bring to the people of this country—be they Māori, be they Pākehā, or be they any other ethnicity. Well, let me say this. In the work completed by the joint study group within the Government that focused on the returns that would come from this agreement, it was measured that over a 20-year period, from about 2007 to 2027, New Zealand exports to China were expected to grow between $180 million to $280 million a year. Chinese exports to New Zealand were also expected to grow by an annual average of between $40 million to $70 million a year over that same period. If we think of that in percentage terms, this equates to New Zealand exports to China increasing by between 20 percent and 39 percent above the baseline and Chinese exports to New Zealand increasing by between 5 percent and 11 percent.

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

JOHN HAYES: For the benefit of listeners, I say that before our tea break I responded to my colleague Hone Harawira, who said that the Māori Party supported fair trade, not free trade. I said to him that there was no fairer trade than free trade.

Metiria Turei: But that’s rubbish, John, and you know it.

JOHN HAYES: For the benefit of the Māori Party, and the member of the Green Party who is squawking from the sidelines, I say that I think they both need a crash course in economics. The point to understand about a free market, I say to the Green Party, the Māori Party, and also New Zealand First, is that buyer and seller can opt out of a transaction. There is no compulsion. A transaction will not go ahead in a free market unless the thing someone is buying is worth more to that person than the asking price. So in a free market no one is forcing a transaction. That means that a free market improves efficiency, because the transaction makes both parties better off.

Doug Woolerton from New Zealand First challenged the House just prior to the tea break to prove that Fonterra and the dairy farmers would be better off with this agreement. For New Zealand First’s benefit I rattled into my papers during the tea break. I will quote from the Fonterra submission to our select committee, and I will table it at the end of this speech. Essentially, it stated: “Within weeks of the signature of the agreement, we have already seen a concrete and commercially very valuable example of these benefits. Since it was announced that tariffs on nutritional milk powders … will be eliminated by 2012, and despite strong competition from other countries, Fonterra has been able to secure an agreement to supply these products to a large multinational customer directly from New Zealand. We expect this business to generate revenue in excess of $300m over the next four years. These value-added dairy products will be manufactured in NZ factories using NZ milk, capital, labour and technology. Without the FTA with China, lower priced product from New Zealand would almost certainly have had to have been processed offshore in Asia.” However, I have digressed.

The National Party supports this legislation because it knows that New Zealand interests are global interests. If we are to improve the prosperity of our communities, if we are to stop the outward flow reported in this morning’s Dominion Post, which was recorded as being 80,000 people turning their backs on this country and its Government each year—its overbearing Government, I suspect—we must look outward with clear priorities. New Zealand must secure access to the markets of growing economies. Trade access for producers and manufacturers will do most to improve wealth for our people. To maximise our effectiveness as a country with limited resources but global interests, we must continually and carefully prioritise our foreign affairs effort.

Asia is a very vitally important part of our region. It is crucial to our longer-run security and prosperity. As China and India continue to grow, we can expect geopolitical weight to shift towards Asia. China’s economic growth for three decades has been exceptional. Millions of people have been lifted out of poverty because of pragmatic reforms made by the Chinese Government. This free-trade agreement, which this House will pass this week, will deepen the relationship between our countries and improve market access for businesses trading in both directions. As China grows it will need resources to fuel its economy. This drive for resources—timber, food, and particularly energy—will underpin China’s growing presence in our region, and it highlights why this relationship is of such vital importance to New Zealand.

The free-trade agreement with China will give us access on reasonable terms, but this is no guarantee of success. We still need to get our tax levels competitive, we need our infrastructure to be up to scratch, and we need our education system—including Mākōura College in Masterton—delivering acceptable results if we are to turn trade access into economic access. We also have to be pursuing other trade agreements, particularly with Japan, with Korea, and with America. I think that we have to put huge effort into doing this, because freeing up international trade over the last 40 years, since we signed the CER agreement, has been a key driver for New Zealand’s economic growth.

Global negotiations for the World Trade Organization (WTO) round are at a crucial stage, but I do not think that they will deliver commercially meaningful outcomes. But trade—trade liberalisation, particularly—involves more than the WTO. The last 20 years has seen a plethora of free-trade agreements signed between countries on a bilateral basis and also by groups of countries. Their very nature is that they are exclusive. I have said previously in this House that the greatest risk to our future is that we are excluded from bilateral free-trade agreements signed up between other countries—for example, America and Australia’s bilateral agreement. If we are excluded, then we are in a very difficult position; we are cut right out. So our trade policy effort must be designed to mitigate that risk.

At a bilateral level the major gap in our free-trade policy architecture, as I have said, is a lack of free-trade agreements with our major partners: the US, Japan, and Korea. We have to pursue those with all the vigour, resources, political bureaucracy, and research institutes—including universities and businesses—that we can muster. It will be a long and daunting task, which can be achieved only by a coordinated “New Zealand Inc.” approach—a cooperative partnership—which is why we are working in a cross-party manner tonight on this bill. We are doing that because our future absolutely depends on it. Viewed against this background it is obvious why the National Party actively and unambiguously supports the ratification of the China - New Zealand free-trade agreement.

I will make just one other point in commenting again on earlier speakers who have said that there is a lot of opposition to this trade agreement. I can tell members that I have gone around the Wairarapa electorate and I have knocked on doors. I can tell the House that there is huge support for this agreement, particularly from farmers, but also from people like John Whitehead of Whitehead Productions in Masterton—

Ron Mark: Ha ha!

JOHN HAYES: —which manufacturers a lot of stuff for the military, I say to Mr Mark. It makes a lot of clothing for the military. That industry has adjusted because it has already been exposed to tariff reductions. The only industries that I could find that will potentially suffer from this agreement are those like the Stihl dealers, which have their very good products having to compete with the $10 gardening-type equipment that comes from China. Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to support this bill.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : I seek leave to table the submission on the free-trade agreement between New Zealand and China prepared by Fonterra.

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

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Disability Issues) : I move, That the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I will move that the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee for consideration.

This bill forms part of the steps that will enable New Zealand to ratify the United Nations convention. The bill will do two things. It will amend various legislative provisions that are considered to be inconsistent with the convention and, secondly, it will amend the Human Rights Act 1993 to clarify the scope of its provisions enabling a person to refuse to accommodate a person’s disability in certain areas of activity. The bill does not itself provide for ratification, but instead it removes obstacles from this path.

Historically, New Zealand has set a high standard for ratification of international human rights treaties. We ratify only when the Government is satisfied that our laws, policies, and practices are not inconsistent with the treaty at issue. Since the release of the New Zealand Disability Strategy in 2001, there has been sustained progress by Government departments and agencies in removing barriers that prevent disabled people from participating in society. New Zealand has received international recognition for our efforts.

Since 2002 New Zealand has been a leader in negotiations on the convention. We worked in partnership with disabled people in shaping the convention. This included ensuring that disabled people were part of our official delegation to the United Nations. We were able to use our experiences domestically with the New Zealand Disability Strategy to inform our contribution to the convention process. I was honoured to represent New Zealand at the United Nations on 30 March last year, where I signed the convention, along with 80 other States. This was the largest number of States ever to sign a human rights treaty on the same day. Since then I understand that 129 States have signed the convention and 28 States have ratified it, indicating very strong global commitment.

The convention does not create new rights for disabled people. Instead, it builds on conventional understandings of what is required to implement existing human rights as they relate to disabled people. The convention provides practical guidance on the implementation of those rights, both immediately in the text and over time through the regular periodic reporting process to the United Nations. Given the level of activity already undertaken to implement the New Zealand Disability Strategy and our human rights obligations, no one in the House will be surprised that an assessment by Government agencies showed that New Zealand policy and practice does not present any substantial issues of inconsistency with the convention.

Some domestic enactments require primarily minor and technical amendments before ratification can proceed. The bill proposes these legislative changes in two parts. Part 1 amends the Human Rights Act 1993. Discussion amongst officials indicated that the Human Rights Act is not sufficiently clear about prohibitions relating to discrimination. The proposed amendments will mitigate any risk of ambiguity. Specifically, the amendments clarify that partnerships, professional and trade associations, qualification and vocational bodies, educational establishments, and dealers in land, housing, and accommodation are required to accommodate or to take account of the needs of disabled people to an extent that is reasonable. By definition, reasonable accommodation does not impose an undue burden on those needing to make adjustments to accommodate disabled people. This is not a new obligation.

Part 2 of the bill contains amendments to various enactments that are concerned with disqualification from certain public offices where a person is mentally disordered within the meaning of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992. This is an inappropriate and unintended use of the Act, which has no mechanism for determining legal capacity or capability to undertake a role or function. Although there is no problem with the Act itself, status under the Act should not be used as a proxy for determining capacity.

The amendments in Part 2 either do away with automatic disqualification for mental disorder or replace it with a test based on the exercise of certain powers under the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988. Different amendments were required for the various enactments, depending on whether the enactment already included an alternative test for incapacity. Part 2 also repeals two inconsistent provisions relating to the hospital rates of social security benefits and New Zealand superannuation.

As a result of activity to remove barriers to participation by disabled people, the Government considers there will be minimal financial costs incurred by New Zealand as a result of ratifying and then implementing the convention. The monitoring process already in place for the New Zealand Disability Strategy will be adapted to meet the convention’s different reporting requirements. There is widespread support and high expectation in the domestic disability sector that we will ratify the convention quickly and take a leading role in its implementation.

I appreciate the support of other parties in the House to expedite the passage of this bill. Ratification of this, the most significant United Nations human rights treaty of the new millennium, will add to New Zealand’s strong role in the United Nations as a human rights champion. I pay tribute to the many people and organisations that made the convention happen, officials both current and past, disabled people, and disability sector representatives. I thank my colleagues in the House for supporting and assisting the passage of the bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) : Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this very important Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill. National is very pleased to support this bill’s referral to the Justice and Electoral Committee.

I appreciate that the Hon Ruth Dyson has made considerable efforts to ensure that all parties were informed of this issue, even before her own Cabinet saw some of the papers. However, I am concerned about the likelihood of this bill coming up for some long time. It is worrying, given that it has been on the agenda, that the Government now wishes to see the bill rushed through by the end of September. National members are very happy to do what we can to make sure that it goes through expeditiously, but we feel that it should be thoroughly and properly scrutinised during that time.

National is highly aware of the support given to the convention by our own disability sector. We acknowledge the tremendous amount of work it has done in order to prepare for this happening. We also regard the New Zealand Disability Strategy and Pathways to Inclusion as fundamental documents that need support. But again, we are concerned that the ongoing select committee inquiry into disability services and how they might be improved has shown an incomplete implementation of the New Zealand Disability Strategy, not to mention Pathways to Inclusion. In fact, a graphic example of that occurred in Christchurch just 2 weeks ago. Although it may be slightly insensitive for me to mention it, I think I should.

There was an occasion at the town hall in Christchurch where an elderly man with Parkinson’s disease had been to a concert with his wife. His wife had attempted to pick him up outside the town hall, which she usually does, only to find the area cordoned off by the prime ministerial entourage. Much to her concern, when she approached the young police officer, she was told that if she did not move on she might be arrested. Consequently, her 80-year-old husband had to shuffle down the street—more than 100 metres in the wet and the dark—before she could pick him up.

Why this is of concern is that this demonstrates the fact that we have not properly implemented the New Zealand Disability Strategy in this country. The rhetoric is high, but it is very important that we meet the rhetoric with practical applications. And although the Prime Minister has said that she was shocked at this incident, I have rung the woman several times and she has said to me that there has been no apology whatsoever for the considerable shock and discomfort that this elderly couple experienced.

Undoubtedly, the purpose of this bill is to “amend legislative provisions that are inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” and to “amend the Human Rights Act 1993 to clarify the scope of its provisions enabling a person to refuse to accommodate a person’s disability in certain areas of activity.”, and New Zealand signed the convention on the opening day for signing, which was in March 2007. Just to reiterate the point that I made: anticipating getting this bill through Parliament has actually had quite a lot of time.

As the explanatory note of the bill states: “The Convention came into force in May 2008, when the Convention received its 20th ratification by a State Party.” I understand that there are now something like 27 ratifications, but they do not include ratifications made by Australia, the UK, or Canada. However, the ever-enthusiastic Disabled Persons Assembly tells me that Australia will sign up to this convention imminently.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Keep up—they have.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: It has already? Well, that is excellent. Last week it had not.

It is very important, in our view, that the select committee is given the opportunity to scrutinise the bill, as the changes to the domestic law are extremely widespread. It is very important that Parliament gets this right, as we want to ensure not only that the rhetoric is right but also that the practical implementation for the disability sector is right, which is very important.

Minister Dyson mentioned monitoring. This aspect, again, is quite important, because there is a framework to promote, to protect, and to monitor implementation of the convention in article 33. Although New Zealand has instruments such as the Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Ombudsmen, the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner, and others—and those are very important—it is also important to ensure that we put a monitoring regime in place. I understand that the Minister is planning for this to happen after ratification, and that she have it reported to her by 5 December 2008. It is also important to point out that the monitoring implementation of the New Zealand Disability Strategy to date has largely focused on the activity of central government departments, but it does not extend to local and regional government, and that is the sort of situation that led to what happened in Christchurch only a month ago.

The other area that perhaps has been lightly gone over is the financial implications of this bill. Again, the Minister said there are no immediate or significant financial implications. However, it is really important that the longer term ones are looked into. Again, I understand that Government agencies may experience increased pressure from disabled people and disabled sector organisations to accelerate activity to meet the obligations under the convention. As is already the case the risk will need to be managed through a considered setting of Government priorities and budget allocations, and open communication in respect of how the Government is meeting the convention’s obligations. This is very important in order to make sure that, once again, the rhetoric meets the practical applications.

Thirdly, I will talk about the timing issues, because it is necessary to get the legislation through by 30 September if indeed New Zealand is to become a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Certainly, the disability sector in New Zealand is very anxious that this happen. That is why National is keen to work rigorously at the select committee with other parties to make sure that we look at this bill thoroughly, and, hopefully, we can expedite it quickly.

I understand that if the legislation can indeed get through on 30 September, then ratification will take place 30 days after the deposit of an instrument of ratification. Thus, if New Zealand ratifies at least 30 days in advance of the conference of State parties, which must be held by November 2008, it will be able to participate fully in the conference. This would put New Zealand in the best position for ensuring that the standards we advocated during convention negotiations are not diluted. I think that that is very reasonable, provided that we ourselves have our own house in order. In addition, ratification of the convention will reinforce New Zealand’s reputation as a State that leads and demonstrates in practice a commitment to human rights.

National does indeed support this bill’s referral to the select committee. We are keen to work hard with the other parties and the Government to see that the bill gets the scrutiny it deserves, and, hopefully, it will be in time to ratify the convention in an appropriate way.

TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) : I rise for a moment to put on record the extraordinary story around the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and, in particular, to note that it was really a combination of work by Don MacKay, an extraordinary New Zealand diplomat; Ruth Dyson, leading the political thrust, and some key figures in the disability non-governmental organisation sector, including Garry Williams, the chief executive of the Disabled Persons Assembly; Mike Gourley, the president of the assembly at the time; and, notably, Robert Martin, who was previously a resident of Kimberley Hospital—which in itself in an extraordinary statement about the way in which people with disabilities were once treated in our society—and was part of the New Zealand official delegation. The delegation worked tirelessly and received international commendation for its work on this convention.

I also recognise the comments of both Minister Dyson and the Opposition spokesperson that New Zealand likes to do these things properly. That is why, quite rightly, the bill will go through the select committee process. It will be great to see it come back to this House and go through all stages before the election.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) : National will be supporting the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill going to the select committee. The purpose of this bill is to amend legislative provisions that are inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and to amend the Human Rights Act 1993 to clarify the scope of its provisions enabling a person to refuse to accommodate a person’s disability in certain areas of activity.

These amendments will enable New Zealand to ratify the convention that it signed on 30 March 2007. After signing the convention in March 2007 a process of consultation with disability groups and the Human Rights Commission began. As of April 2008 I understand that 126 countries have signed the convention and 71 have signed the optional protocol. This bill begins the parliamentary stage, and National will be supporting the bill going to select committee in order for public submissions to be heard.

If this bill is passed into law it will mean that a regular report to the United Nations on implementation will be required. The first report will be due after 2 years, and then after every 4 years. I read the United Nations fact sheet on persons with disabilities and, quite frankly, the facts were chilling. Around 10 percent of the world’s population, or 650 million people, live with a disability. This figure is increasing through population growth, ageing, and medical advances. In countries with life expectancies over 70 years, individuals spend 8 years on average living with disabilities. Eighty percent of people with disabilities live in developing countries. In OECD countries disability rates are significantly higher among groups with lower educational attainment. Ninety percent of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school. On average, 19 percent of less educated people have disabilities compared with 11 percent among the better educated.

In most OECD countries women report a higher incidence of disabilities than men. The World Bank estimates that 20 percent of the world’s poorest people are disabled and tend to be regarded in their own communities as the most disadvantaged. Women with disabilities are recognised as being multiply disadvantaged, experiencing exclusion on account of their gender and their disability. Women and girls with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to abuse. Mortality for children with disabilities may be as high as 80 percent in countries where mortality among under-5-year-olds as a whole has increased below 20 percent. Unemployment among the disabled is as high as 80 percent in some countries. Often employers assume that persons with disabilities are unable to work. Companies report that employees with disabilities have better retention rates, thereby reducing the high cost of turnover. There is also concern about violence. Persons with disabilities are more likely to be victims of violence or rape, and less likely to obtain police intervention, legal protection, or preventive care. Research also shamefully indicates that violence against children with disabilities occurs at annual rates at least 1.7 times greater than for their non-disabled peers.

What about the New Zealand situation? I think we have a lot of work to do, according to the 2006 New Zealand Disability Survey. In 2006 an estimated 660,000 New Zealanders reported having a disability—approximately 17 percent of the total population. That figure is significantly lower than the two previous surveys in 1996 and 2001, and it is really unclear why there has been a drop in the percentage. The report does caution about making an inference about trends.

Māori have higher disability rates than other ethnic groups in every age. The majority of Māori with a disability—that is, 63 percent—are younger than 45 years old. Nearly one-third of children with disabilities and nearly one-quarter of adults aged 15 to 44 with disabilities were Māori. In 2006, 82 percent of people with disabilities were adults living in households, 5 percent were adults living in residential facilities, and 14 percent were children under the age of 15 living in households. The percentage of people with a disability increased with age, from 10 percent of children under the age of 15 to 45 percent of adults aged 65 and over.

An estimated 5 percent of children have special education needs, and this was the most common disability type for children. Chronic conditions or health problems, and psychiatric or psychological disabilities, were the next most common disability types. Conditions or health problems that existed at birth, and diseases or illnesses, were the most common causes of disability for children. The most common disability types for adults were physical and sensory impairments. Disease, illness, accidents, and injuries were the most common causes of disabilities for adults. The most common types of accident or injury causing disabilities were those that occurred at work. Nearly all adults living in residential care facilities reported having a disability—99.7 percent—and most had multiple disabilities and high support needs.

I would like to mention learning disabilities specifically. An estimated 5 percent of children have special education needs. That equates to 41,000 children in New Zealand. I visited a local SPELD group, which is the acronym for Specific Learning Difficulties, that caters for children who learn differently. Parents and SPELD tutors provide assistance to people of all ages with learning problems, notably dyslexia. It is thought that as many as 10 percent of the population may have learning problems. These children are often very intelligent, and often incorrect assumptions are made. One of SPELD’s greatest concerns is that children with learning disabilities almost inevitably develop behavioural problems as a result of frustration and anger, unless those difficulties are diagnosed and treated. The behaviour then becomes a symptom that attracts attention from school authorities that are oblivious to its real cause. One has to wonder how many adults with learning disabilities fill our prisons at the present time.

SPELD is concerned that learning disabilities are under-diagnosed, and that teachers are poorly equipped to intervene. Like anything in health, early detection means better outcomes, but this is not happening in this particular area. In summary, National will be supporting this bill going to the Health Committee. Thank you.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) : On behalf of New Zealand First I rise to support the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill going to a select committee. We will be very interested to read the submissions from the interested parties, because we do not have a member on that particular select committee. We must publicly say that we appreciate the efforts of the Minister to ensure that we have been fully informed of all aspects of the legislation, and we congratulate her on the work that she has done in this area to ensure that New Zealand performs well on the international stage. To win an award is a fantastic achievement in itself.

New Zealand First has a few concerns about the way that the process around conventions is carried out in this Parliament. Traditionally, we always amend the legislation after the convention has actually been signed. We believe that the process should be the other way round: legislation is amended and then we sign the convention. It has happened on many occasions, and we will be interested to find out why it has to happen like this.

New Zealand First recognises the right of every New Zealander to equality of opportunity. We have come a long way with the recognition of equal rights for all people, but we realise that there is still quite some way to go. Today I received an email from a deaf person who is experiencing some challenges with the lack of sign interpreters being trained at this point in time. We have to be fair and say that although the New Zealand Sign Language Act is not old legislation—it was only relatively recently passed—we expected that the training of sign interpreters would have shifted a little further south than just having one college up in Auckland. So we know that this group of people in particular are hindered by the lack of progress being made in this area.

New Zealand First is only too aware that 20 percent of New Zealanders have a long-term impairment, which is a significant number. In many cases the real handicap to full participation in society by people with disabilities is not the disability itself but the environmental barriers, ill-informed attitudes, and inadequate support services that we have here in New Zealand. I was very interested to hear from the previous speaker, Jackie Blue, that this includes people with learning difficulties, from those attending SPELD to those with more complex learning difficulties. Autism is another area that we really do have some challenges with in New Zealand. New Zealand First believes that the New Zealand Disability Strategy needs to be fully implemented. This needs to be done by both local and regional government, and it needs to be monitored continuously in order to ensure that changes are actually made.

I was interested to read in the commentary on this bill that a large number of minor amendments are affected by this bill. I was also interested to read in the bill that section 16AA of the Juries Act allows a judge to discharge the jury summons of a person with a physical disability. One of the grounds on which a person is not capable of acting effectively as a juror is physical disability. I found that quite surprising. This does need to be reviewed; it is important. Section 19(6)(b) of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act of 2001 gives the chief executive a discretion to pay a lower rate of superannuation to hospital patients, “having regard to the patient’s capacity to appreciate the payments.” I found that to be of extreme concern. I believe that it does need to be reviewed; it is very surprising.

These amendments being made have to be made in other Acts as well, and there is quite a long list in the bill of some of the Acts that do need to be amended. I was interested to read that even the Human Rights Act needs some amendment. I thought that this Act in particular would already have worked through this particular issue. Obviously these examples all need input from affected parties, who were quite pleased to see that quite a lot of work has already been done in this particular bill. New Zealand First supports this legislation going to the select committee. We will be looking forward to the work the select committee will do, and to hearing back from it. Thank you.

METIRIA TUREI (Green) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Green Party is very pleased to support this bill today, to begin the process for the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This convention, along with the New Zealand Disability Strategy, is a step towards the recognition of human rights as rights including all human beings. It is quite nice to see a new UN convention that does that. We are very impatient for such rights to be extended to indigenous peoples, but we will not be holding our breath. I would like to give credit to Minister Dyson for her advocacy of the UN convention, the New Zealand Disability Strategy, and the issues around disabilities in New Zealand.

This UN convention is the first human rights treaty to be adopted in the 21st century. It is the most rapidly negotiated human rights treaty in the history of international law. Although the convention does not include new rights for people with disabilities, it spells out the rights that people with disabilities already possess, alongside everyone else. I think that the expeditious ratification of this convention is another signal to people with disabilities that we recognise how important and overdue this is.

The signing of the convention was the result of hard work by Government agencies and the disability sector. New Zealand consumer rights advocate Robert Martin, a member of the delegation, was the first person with an intellectual disability to speak before the UN General Assembly. Special thanks are due also to the Disabled Persons Assembly, the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand, IHC New Zealand, IHC Advocacy, CCS Disability Action, the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind, the New Zealand representatives of Disabled Peoples International, and Inclusion International. They were very active and effective in negotiating this convention, using the platform “Nothing about us without us”.

One of the key issues identified by those with disabilities, of course, is the need to develop and have access to their own leadership. The Green Party believes that people living with impairments are entitled to take leadership roles and to have a powerful voice for effective change in their communities and services. In the disability field, independent advocacy organisations like DPA (New Zealand), People First New Zealand, and the Down Syndrome Association struggle to get the resources they need to be effective. If we were to nominate a percentage of funds allocated to services to go directly to these initiatives, their share would increase automatically as the services grew.

I am very pleased to announce that today the Green Party has released our disabilities policy, Removing the Barriers. One key policy plank is that 3 percent of the disability services budget should be set aside to directly fund leadership training for people living with impairments and for independent advocacy organisations. These resources are critical, especially for the advocacy and proper audit of disability services. People with impairments are entitled to take leadership roles in auditing services. Too often, audits concern money and buildings but not the people whose lives are made either joyous or wretched by those services. Many of the tick-box audits are done by teams who lack the skills to evaluate whether the needs of tangata whenua and other groups are being met by a particular service.

The Green Party policy says that people with impairments are entitled to take leadership roles in the evaluation and auditing of services, and that tangata whenua must be involved in auditing all mainstream and kaupapa Māori services. We fully support the provision of services by Māori for Māori, and we would also work with the sector to resource and implement improved pay, conditions, and training for disabilities service staff and caregivers.

Also key to the disability sector is the provision of lifelong educational services. Despite the rhetoric, parents constantly have to advocate so that school principals and trustees understand their obligations and work in positive, non-discriminatory ways. Some teacher education still does not include a component on supporting children with diverse needs. Many children living with impairments are made to feel unwelcome when enrolling at their local school, partly because of prejudice but mainly because the resources are not adequate to meet those families’ needs. With individual funding capped, this means that children with moderate needs often miss out, and then we sit in this House and wonder why there are so many behavioural issues in our schools.

A recent report by the organisation See Here, which focuses on supporting children with mild and moderate vision impairment, has found that only 44 percent of Māori and 29 percent of Pacific Island children access vision screening programmes. Up to 20 percent of our children have mild to moderate vision impairment, which, if undiagnosed, can greatly impact on their learning and confidence, leading to learning difficulties and behavioural issues. Our policy supports the 2006 IHC Code for New Zealand Schools, and we agree with DPA (New Zealand) that schools must be brought into the New Zealand Disability Strategy implementation and reporting process. All children have the absolute right to attend their local school and have the resources available to do this. Schools must be accountable for the way they use disability funding. Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme funding must be doubled and the special education grant ring-fenced.

CCS Disability Action’s recent campaign, Early Family Support, has highlighted the fact that if a whānau has proper access to community services, their lives as a whānau can be significantly better simply because they have the support they need to lead an ordinary life. Our children’s policy supports an integrated framework to monitor the development of every child and young person through the coordinated assessments at key life stages, and we look to increasing the child disability allowance, given the extra financial needs that parents and caregivers have when raising a child with special needs.

We know that quality education is key to accessing quality employment. People living with impairments are still overrepresented in low-paid occupations and amongst the unemployed and those on benefits. Only a few have access to supported employment. Many with impairments are setting up small businesses, but with little support. Even the Government’s mainstream programme providing subsidies to Government departments employing people with impairments can be effective, but it urgently needs expanding. People with impairments who are in employment must have the same employment rights as all other workers. Exemptions to employers to pay statutory minimum wages to workers who have impairments should be granted only on the basis of the individual’s productive capacity and as assessed by the Department of Labour. Employers should also have access to financial assistance for adaptations for equipment and personal support where they employ people with impairments.

Many people living with impairments, particularly those with intellectual impairments, are subject to discriminatory treatment when it comes to sexual and reproductive rights. Currently, some people with intellectual disabilities are subjected to compulsory sterilisation and/or chemical castration. The Green Party believes that people with impairments are entitled to the protection of their bodily integrity just as much as anyone else and should not be subjected to treatment or invasive processes that they would not otherwise be subjected to, were it not for their impairment. The Green Party would ban all sterilisations and chemical castrations of individuals under the age of 18 years, unless they are being performed as a lifesaving measure or as a medical emergency. Implicit in this is the recognition that individuals under the age of 18 cannot be expected to provide informed consent to sterilisation or chemical castration.

The 2007 report from the Minister for Disability Issues on implementing the New Zealand Disability Strategy noted that three core Government agencies did not deliver on the obligation to report on progress. This highlights the need for advocacy and implementation, and the Green Party would establish a Disability Issues Commission to provide the leadership needed to ensure that disability services become more responsive, flexible, and empowering. The commission would work with key sector leaders and families to develop a national strategy, oversee and monitor its implementation, and provide advice to the Minister.

The Green Party fully supports individualised funding for all people living with impairments and their families who wish to choose this option, and services available must be available based on the level of need and not on the cause of impairment. The Green Party would get rid of the discrimination in funding between the Accident Compensation Corporation and the Ministry of Health.

Our new disabilities policy is very comprehensive. I simply cannot describe it all here in this 10-minute speech. So much still needs to be done, and we have amazingly skilled advocates in the disabilities community ready to do that work. We want to speed this legislation through the House as quickly as possible so that we can refocus ourselves on the implementation of the details, especially our own policy, and so that we can truly make a difference to the lived lives of the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders with impairments. Thank you.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) :Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kei te raruraru tonu au ki te whakapākehātanga o tēnei mea o te hauā. Ko te hauā ki te reo Pākehā, he disability, he kaha-kore. Kāre au e pai kia whakakorea tētahi āhuatanga o te tangata. E ai ki te reo tauhou o te rangatahi, ko te “dis” i te tangata, he whakaparahako i a ia, he whakaiti i a ia. Otirā, i a au e kōrero ana ki te tangata hauā, ahakoa nā te aituā, nō te whānautanga mai rānei tōna āhuatanga hauā, ka rongo au i te wairua motuhake o te kōrero. Tēnā, kua rongo au mō tētahi waiata kaha nei kua waiatatia, e ai ki tā ētahi, nā Patrick Thompson i waiata mai, koia hoki te kaiwhakahaere ratonga Māori o te Hunga Turi i tērā wā. Ko tāna waiata, kāhore he rangi, kāhore he reo engari, arā anō te hōhonutanga o te kōrero.

He wā whakahirahira tēnei e matapakihia ai te pire nei, te Disabilities (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill, kāti me mihi atu au ki te tūranga motuhake o Te Reo Waitohu o Aotearoa rāua ko te reo Māori hei reo e whakapūmautia i roto i ngā ture o Aotearoa. “Ko te reo Māori te kākahu o te whakaaro, te huarahi ki te ao tūroa.”Pēnei i te reo rangatira e whakaputa ana i ō tātou ake whakaaro hōhonu rawa atu mā tō tātou reo waitohu ka kitea ai ngā taonga kōrero a te Iwi Turi. Kei roto i ō rātou tikanga ka kite tātou i te hiahia manawawera o te iwi Turi Māori kia taea e rātou te ao Māori me tōna reo motuhake. Me whai wāhi ngā tangata Turi Māori i roto i ngā hui, ngā marae, ngā tangihanga kia whai wāhi ai ki te reo me ngā tikanga tuku iho tae atu ki te whakapapa.

Nō rātou anō tērā tikanga tō rātou mana motuhake, tō rātou mana tangata e ōrite ana ki ngā mana o ngā iwi katoa o te ao. Ko te herenga o ngā tikanga o te hunga hauā ki ngā tikanga o ngā iwi taketake, he take kōrero ka whakatakotohia ki tēnei marae kōrero. Ko te pātai nui ko tēnei, he aha te kāwanatanga e nekeneke ai kia kaua e whakahāweatia tētahi momo tangata, kia manaakihia rātou, kia whakawhanaungatia rātou ko ngā iwi o Aotearoa, i taua wā anō ka kaha whakahē kia pērātia anō mō tētahi atu momo tangata?

Ko te tikanga o te pire nei, he whakatika i ngā pōhēhē me te kī, ko ā tātou āwangawanga mō te hunga hauā he rite ki te kahakore o te tinana hauā tonu. Nō reira, ka whakarere kē tēnei pire i ētahi atu ture, pērā i te ture e mea ana, me kaua te tangata wairangi e tū hei mema komiti, hei kaitiaki rānei. Nā konei ka takataka mai ētahi whakarere kētanga ture, kia hāngai tonu tēnei motu ki te Kawenata o te Whakakotahitanga o ngā Whenua o te Ao mō nga Tikanga Tangata Hauā.

Ko tā mātou o te Rōpū Māori e pīrangi nei, kia whakatika te kāwanatanga i ōna ake mate hinengaro e kore ai ia e manaaki i ngā tikanga o ngā iwi taketake. E whakahau ana mātou kia whakamutua āna whakaaro kōaro, kia whakawāngia ngā whakaaro painga kanohi, i waiho ai ko Aotearoa tētahi o ngā whenua e whā anake i huri tuarā ki te Whakaputanga o ngā Tikanga, o ngā Iwi Taketake o te Ao. Kua tae ki te wā kia kaha tātou, kia mutu te mataku, kia āwhina i ngā iwi taketake ki te whai wāhi i waenganui i ngā iwi katoa, kia pakari. Ko tēnei te wā ki te āta whakaaro ake mō ēnei take, ki te titiro whakamua, ki te whakawātea mai i ngā taiapa, kia kōrero tahi me te iwi taketake.

Koia nei te wā nā te mea, i ngā marama tata nei kua tautoko te nuinga o te Pāremata o Kānata i tētahi mōtini tautoko i taua whakaputanga nei. Ko te wā tēnei hei whai atu i te kāwanatanga o Ahitereiria kua tahuri nei ki te whiriwhiri kōrero kia takahurihia te whakatau whakahē i te Whakaputanga o ngā Tikanga o ngā Iwi Taketake. Ki te kore tātou e mataara, ka whakarērea ko tātou anake o te ao, ko tō tātou kāwanatanga Reipa e pupuri ana i ngā ringaringa o Amerika, e whakahē tonu ana i ngā mana tangata o ngā iwi taketake, e kore nei tātou e tū ki te whakapai ake i te noho a ngā iwi taketake o te ao.

Ka kite mātou i roto i a mātou whiringa kōrero me ngā iwi taketake hauā, ko te pire nei he taumata tiketike mō ngā iwi hauā. E mōhio ana mātou ki ngā kōrero mutunga kore a ētahi mō ngā tikanga motuhake o te hunga hauā, arā, ngā arapiki ki ngā whare nunui o te marea. He rite tonu ki ngā kōrero nō mai rā anō mō te iwi Māori, ngā kōrero e rangona ana i roto i tēnei Whare mō ngā tikanga motuhake e ai ki ngā whakapae hei whakarangatira i a mātou.

Kāhore he tangata kapō atu i te tangata kāore e hiahia ana ki te kite. Ko tā te pire nei he huri anō ki ngā tauira kia hanga tātou i tētahi kaupapa āwhina i te hunga hauā, kia ōrite ō rātou tikanga ki ngā tikanga o te katoa. He tohutohu tonu kei te haere, kia whakakore i ngā taiapa e aukati ana i te hunga hauā, kia whakawāteatia rātou. Tērā te whakatauākī tika, “Taihoa e, tangohia te koi i te kanohi o tō teina kia tangohia rā anō te poro i tōu ake kanohi.”

E mōhio ana tātou, ko ngā hua ki te hunga hauā i Aotearoa nei, he iti iho i tō te hunga kaha: ngā tūranga mahi, te utu mahi, nga tohu mātauranga, te hauora o te tangata. Ka whakakaha ake te whakataunga nei i te Rautaki Hauā kia ora ake ai te hunga hauā. Ko te tūmanako, mā te whakaaetanga ki tēnei kawenata e waia ai te hunga kaha ki te hīkoi i te taha tonu o te hunga hauā. He manaaki i ngā wawata o te hunga hauā, ehara i te whai i ngā taumata i tohua mō rātou e ngā kaimahi kāwanatanga. He whakangāwari i ngā ratonga mō te whānau kua ruarua noa iho ngā kaimahi e torotoro ana i a rātou. Kia whakamauru atu te hunga hauā ki ngā tohunga kia riro mā te whānau anō e whakatutuki. Kia mātau ake, kia whai tikanga te whānau kia taea te hiki i ngā taumahatanga o te wā, koia nei tāna mahi. Kia piri ngā whānau ki ngā ratonga, kia piri ngā ratonga ki te kāwanatanga i runga i te whakapono me te aroha.

Heoi anō, ka waiho ki mua i te Whare tēnei kōrero whakahihiko ngākau mai i a CCS Disability Action. Ko tō rātou kupu whakakaupapa, Te Hunga Hauā Mauri mō ngā TangataKatoa he kōrero māna. He kōrero whakamahara i a tātou, he mauri tō tēnā, tō tēnā he ōrite katoa. Ko tā rātou hiahia ki te whakapū ki roto i aua kupu kōrero kia noho kotahi ngā iwi maha, ngā tangata rere kē katoa o Aotearoa. Kua taea tētahi taumata teitei mō tēnei motu ki te tautoko i tētahi ture whakapūmau i te Kawenata a te Kotahitanga o nga Whenua o te Ao mō ngā Tangata Hauā, otirā, he ture anō hei whakapūmau i te Whakaputanga o ngā Tika o ngā Iwi Taketake o te Ao. Kei Mr Assistant Speaker, he tohu tērā, tūturu he ōrite katoa ngā mauri! Tēnā koe, tēnā tātou katoa.

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

[The concept of disabilities is one I have always had a problem with. “Dis” is commonly applied to words to show an absence of something, a removal, a separation, a disadvantage. In the lingo of the street, to “dis” someone is to indulge in disrespectful talk. Yet when I speak with people who, whether by accident or by birth, experience limitations in their movements, their senses, or their activities, I often find myself in awe of the additional powers they bring to our conversation. Indeed, I have heard of what some say was the most powerful song they have ever heard, that sung by Patrick Thompson, who at that time was the Māori services manager for the Deaf Association. It was a song in which no sound was transmitted, but the meaning was profound.

It is a particularly powerful week to be considering the Disabilities (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill, as I recognise the unique status of the New Zealand Sign Language and te reo Māori as two of the three official languages of New Zealand. “ The Māori language is the cloak of thoughts, the way forward in a sustainable world.” Te reo rangatira enables our most vivid thinking to be understood; the use of sign language also enables the rich artistic expression of the stories and traditions of the Deaf culture. Within that culture, we recognise the passionate desire of the Māori Deaf community to access te reo Māori and Te Ao Māori: Māori Deaf who deserve to be full participants in hui, marae events, and tangi, and therefore to increase their access to Māori language and culture, including genealogy.

This is their right to self-determination, to enjoy the full and equal entitlement of all human rights and fundamental freedoms. The intersection between the rights of people with disabilities and the rights of indigenous peoples is an association we are pleased to bring to this House. The irony that the Māori Party demands be part of this debate is to ask the question: how can the Government move to support rights to address discrimination and social inclusion for one group of New Zealanders, while at the same time vehemently opposing them for another group?

This bill before us now seeks to demonstrate that the accumulated myths and fears about disabilities are as much a handicap as may be any physical limitations that flow from actual impairment. So the bill has the effect of amending various statutes, such as removing the automatic disqualification of persons with a mental health disability from certain public or fiduciary offices. The bill sets in train a chain of amendments that will make our nation consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

What we are seeking as the Māori Party is that the Government seek to address its own mental health limitations in recognising the rights of indigenous peoples. We seek to urge this Government to overcome its prejudices, to face the racist attitudes that have resulted in New Zealand being one of only four countries to oppose the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Now is the time to dig deep, to confront those fears, and to enable the full participation and engagement of indigenous peoples in society to progress unhindered.

Now is the time, because in the least few months a majority of the Canadian House of Commons have adopted a motion in support of the declaration. Now is the time to follow the leadership of the Australian Government in announcing that is consulting with stakeholders about reversing its opposition to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If we do not watch out, because of this Labour-led minority Government we will be the only country left in the world holding hands with the United States in rejecting the opportunity to respect the human rights of tangata whenua and to make a stand to improve the lives of indigenous peoples right throughout the international community.

We understand from our consultations with indigenous peoples with disabilities that this bill today is being thought of as a significant benchmark to meet the needs of disabled peoples. We know the perpetual myths that some in society see associated with the signs of what they call special privileges for the disabled: the ramps and elevators of public buildings. It is a similar argument that Māori have always experienced: the references to so-called race-based special privileges that are so frequently chucked around this House.

There are none so blind as those who will not see. What this bill does is to build on best knowledge about what is required to actually enable disabled peoples to enjoy human rights on an equal basis with others. It delivers guidance about how to remove barriers that may serve to deny disabled peoples the opportunity to take up their full human rights. It may be a case not so much of focusing on the splinter in your brother’s eye, but of pulling out the log from your own.

What we know in terms of outcomes for disabled peoples in Aotearoa is that they typically experience lower employment rates, lower incomes, lower education attainment, and more inadequate health than non-disabled peoples. This convention will serve to strengthen the New Zealand Disability Strategy to help to make a real difference in the lives of disabled peoples. We hope that the greatest thing that could come from signing up to this convention is the willingness for non-disabled persons to walk in the shoes of the disabled. It is about respecting the outcomes that individuals and family are seeking, rather than bureaucrats prescribing outputs that they consider in their best interests. It is about ensuring that service delivery is whānau-friendly, minimising the number of agencies traipsing through their lives. It is about reducing the reliance on formal and specialist support structures by instead building up the strength of family capability. It is about families having knowledge and strategies that will give them greater resilience during cycles of stress. It is about building relationships of trust between both services and family, and services and the State.

Finally, I want to leave with the House the inspiration I have found in the words of CCS Disability Action, including all people. Their foundation statement, Te Hunga Hauā Mauri Mō Ngā Tāngata Katoa, forms the basis of their identity. This statement is a powerful reminder that all people have a life force and that all life force is equal. The vision that CCS Disability Action believes in, encompassed in its foundation statement, is to build a truly inclusive New Zealand—a country that embraces diversity. It would be a moment of great significance in our history, if we could not only move to support legislation to enact theUN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, but if we could also support legislation to enact the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Such an act would be a powerful sign that all life force is indeed equal. Greetings to you, and to all of us. ]

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) : I rise on behalf of United Future to speak in support of the first reading of the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill. United Future believes it is a good thing that New Zealand joins with other countries, and that we benchmark ourselves against international best practice and against international standards.

United Future believes that New Zealand is a world leader in its thinking and its philosophy towards the disability sector, but we also believe that New Zealand is currently underperforming when it comes to meeting its own standards, let alone any international ones. Let me give members some examples. Currently, schools in my area are dipping into their general operational grant to meet the shortfall in Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme funding for students with special needs. This is unsustainable and unacceptable. Any Government that is serious about changing outcomes for people with impairments needs to look seriously at new money for that part of the education sector.

In some areas in New Zealand we have a chronic shortage of appropriate respite carers for children with high and complex needs, for teenagers with high and complex needs, and for adults with high and complex needs. However, I suggest—and United Future would suggest—that if we were actually supporting families better with their impaired family members, the need for respite may drop significantly.

Previous speakers have talked about the need to increase and improve the services around supported employment opportunities and about the general ability for people to participate in things that are happening in their community. We need to upgrade the needs-assessment protocols here in New Zealand, and we need to make sure that needs-assessments are kept separate from those who fund and provide services, so that honest and true assessments are done even if we have to admit that we cannot currently meet the level of service that those needs require. We also believe that New Zealand is falling behind in some areas in providing services in a timely way, and that people are waiting far too long for an upgrade of essential equipment to help them participate in everyday New Zealand society.

United Future supports the call from the sector to have a much greater level of individualised funding. We have too few people—we could count them; it is fewer than 100—who are currently receiving individualised funding. This is the only sector in New Zealand society whose members get told how to live their lives, who is going to walk in the door, and who is going to clean their flat. They have so little say, so little power, and so little autonomy over their own lives.

We also believe that the way in which we audit service providers needs to be fixed up. Currently, we are very focused on compliance and safety standards. We have very little focus on service development, an area that would be hugely welcomed by people who are reliant on those services. We do very little to include the clients themselves in the audit process.

United Future agrees with the Green Party that currently this sector does not enjoy proper parliamentary scrutiny. We would welcome the establishment of either a commission or a ministry that focused solely on the needs of this sector in a holistic way, so that clients are not having to get needs-assessment for every little pottle of money around Government departments that they need to access. We would also like to see parliamentary scrutiny of how that money is spent, because one of the things that concerns us is that there is a huge amount of wastage currently. That alone, if it were tidied up, could provide some much-needed resources to people who currently go without.

Our approach to accommodation within the community needs to be reviewed, because what we have done is close down institutions, and in many cases we have established a lot of mini-institutions with similar philosophies and similar protocols. We need to change that so people have homes to live in, not an institutions.

It is unacceptable to United Future that there is a huge gap in services between those with trauma-based disabilities and those with non - trauma-based disabilities. I think we have to be honest about the fact that this is going to be costly, and that the money is not going to be easily found in current budgets. So we need to be looking at new funding models to discover how we are going to address the complete inequity that currently exists for people with non - trauma-based impairment.

I think greater acknowledgement needs to be given to those who enjoy a different culture because of the world they live in due to impairment. I think the deaf community is a classic example of a group of people who enjoy a specific culture of their own, and that needs to be recognised, acknowledged, and celebrated here in New Zealand.

In the last couple of weeks my family has welcomed into our ranks a new little girl who has Down’s syndrome. We are very excited to have her as a member of our family. I have spoken to her grandparents and parents and said this is a great time in New Zealand for a special child like this to be born into our family. I believe that the types of things we are setting in place by ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will be building for her a future that 20 years ago families would not even have been able to dream of. So our commitment to this is at a very personal level. We are also committed to all those we have spoken to over the last few months who live with impairment, and who, because of the constraints and barriers we place as able-bodied people on their inclusion, are therefore labelled disabled. United Future is happy to support this first reading.

KATRINA SHANKS (National) : It is my pleasure to rise tonight and speak to the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill. New Zealand signed the convention at the United Nations on 30 March 2007, along with 80 other States. Since then, 129 States have signed the convention and 28 States have ratified it. The convention does not create new rights for disabled people. Instead, it builds on conventional understandings of what is required to implement existing human rights as they relate to disabled people.

When signing the convention in March 2007, the Hon Ruth Dyson stated: “It is important to bring the Convention into force as quickly as possible, so as to fill the gaps that exist without it and to redress some of the discrimination and injustices that persons with disabilities have faced over many years.” Yet legislation was introduced into Parliament only in July 2008. Disability is a significant issue for New Zealand, and for many New Zealanders. The 2006 New Zealand disability survey estimated, for example, that 414,000 disabled people—one in 10 of all New Zealanders—relied on some form of disability support. Of these, about 105,000 people needed daily help with tasks such as preparing meals, shopping, housework, bathing, or dressing. A further 308,000 people need an assistance device or help with heavier or more difficult household tasks.

Most disabled people live at home, with a small proportion living in community-based residential services. Although most support is provided by family, friends, and other people in the community, disabled people can also receive a range of Government-funded support through a range of Government agencies to help them live as others do at home and in the wider community. This ranges from support with household and personal care to support for education and employment and to move around the community. Much of the support is provided directly by paid and unpaid caregivers, but also it can include items of equipment and home and motor vehicle modifications.

Over the past 50 years there has been a considerable shift in the way that disability and disability supports are thought about. This shift has been away from the medical model of disability and an emphasis on charity towards disabled people, to a focus on human rights for disabled people and the social model of disability. Under the medical model, disabled people are seen as having various illnesses and diseases that require intervention, especially by people with specialist medical knowledge. This leads, for example, to many services being provided through hospitals and being delivered by health professionals. At its extreme this model can lead to some disabled people being removed from society because they are perceived as being unable to function effectively.

Associated with this was the notion that some disabled people were more deserving and therefore entitled to support. The human rights approach focuses on disabled people being recognised as having the same human rights as all other members of society. This led to notions such as mainstreaming and normalising the lives of disabled people, with implications for disabled support. Disability was included as a prohibited ground of discrimination in the Human Rights Act 1993, and in 2001 it was extended to cover discrimination in Government services. Then in 2007 the Government signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

In 2001 the New Zealand Disability Strategy was developed in collaboration with disabled people and their representative organisations and was based on the social model of disability. It has a vision of a fully inclusive society in which people with impairment live in “a society that highly values our lives and continually enhances our full participation.” This strategy emphasises that improvements for disabled people will arise from changes in societal attitudes and in their environment, as well as improvements in disability supports themselves.

The type of pressure for change is not unique to New Zealand. For example, Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People set out a programme of initiatives for improving disability supports in response to serious concerns that had emerged in the United Kingdom. That document had a strong focus on improving the lives of disabled people through moving to individualised funding and supporting disabled people to work.

In 2001 New Zealand moved in a positive direction with the New Zealand Disability Strategy, but unfortunately there has been limited progress in implementing this strategy. Firstly, the disability strategy is given insufficient priority within Government agencies. This is reflected in various types of issues. No Government ministry has overall responsibility for policy funding and implementation. This means there has been a lack of guidance, and that has led to approaches to implementation that are inconsistent with each other.

Although central government agencies are required to have disability strategy implementation plans, there is a lack of a national implementation plan that applies to local and central government. The monitoring of the strategy is not robust enough, and its coverage does not extend to all Crown entities, local authorities, disability support providers, and all community organisations. Second, there is still inadequate involvement of disabled people in decision-making processes at all levels. Third, there continue to be negative attitudes towards disabled people within society, which many disabled people see as the single biggest barrier to disabled people leading an everyday life and achieving full participation in society.

These attitudes are a reflection of such things as society continuing to do things in ways that exclude disabled people and disabled people having difficulty finding employment. Nowhere does it tell us who is accountable for the ongoing difficulties, although it states we should improve the disability-related accountability of Government agencies. It seems there is far too much emphasis on holding others accountable and no indication of how Government agencies themselves will be held accountable.

We can have as many strategies and conventions as we want, but this country needs commitment to implement change. So why is this country in a worse position when it comes to workforce training than ever before, despite the creation of such things as Careerforce? Why is there no cross-departmental strategy to implement the national disability strategy 5 years after it was launched? Who will take responsibility for seeing that families and people with disabilities are not passed endlessly from one place to another? How will the issue of the very significant funding discrepancies to support people with high needs in everyday services be addressed? Why can we not develop an effective, national developmental evaluation programme that is cost-effective, does not involve endless duplication, and is neither difficult nor costly compared with present processes?

The disability community fairly vigorously stated its belief that when disability gets involved in competing with health it will inevitably come off second-best, and that when it comes to resource allocation, it is offered, at best, bureaucratic medical-model solutions to what are disability issues. Despite these changes the Health Committee, during the disabilities inquiry, heard of many problems related to ministry-funded disability supports, and some of the stories heard by the committee were particularly distressing.

The committee heard about the following types of things. Disability supports are funded and provided in ways that unnecessarily limit disabled people’s choice and control over the supports they receive and how they live their lives. Many submitters pointed to the National Health Committee’s report, To Have an “Ordinary” Life which described the ways in which community-based residential services for people with intellectual disabilities limit their choice of controls over their lives. The disability supports that some people receive are not of an acceptable quality and expose them to unacceptable risks of harm. This was emphasised recently with the release of a report by the Health and Disability Commissioner, which describes the deplorable quality of support that one person received in a residential service. Disabled people’s autonomy is not always respected and supported.

The select committee heard about the lack of advocacy support, inadequate complaints processes, and inappropriate responses to concerns when matters of risks of harm are raised. There are gaps in the availability of disability supports. They unreasonably limit the ability of some disabled people to participate in the wider community. The select committee was told about gaps in the funding available for home and vehicle modifications. The disability strategy has not been implemented as much as disabled people would like or consider acceptable. The responsibility of human rights in terms of disabilities stops with central government. Without the ability to implement and make change, conventions and strategies are just words. What disabled people actually want are actions.

• Bill read a first time.

• Bill referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) : Thank you for the call, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: This will be interesting!

Nathan Guy: They are looking forward to it.

ALLAN PEACHEY: I am delighted the Ministers opposite have chosen to join me in the House. It is a bit of a privilege for me to be able to speak to the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill, and I need to declare my hand very quickly, because I am one of those authors who, from time to time—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Do you write your own speeches?

ALLAN PEACHEY: No, I make them up as I go along, unlike the member. I have, from time to time, observed that member’s ineptitude when he gets to his feet, and I try to do better than members opposite. I am one of those authors who benefit from this scheme, and very gratefully too. When an author writes a book many people seem to just think it is free property. It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who say: “I saw your book in the shop. Give me one.” The material that New Zealand authors write has a value. This fund has been in place in various forms since 1973, I think, by way of Cabinet minute, and one of the things it does is acknowledge that such material has value. The National Party will be supporting the referral of the legislation to the Government Administration Committee, but we are very aware the committee has a big job to do. This is typically late Labour-proposed legislation.

It has been interesting to survey previous speakers on the bill, and I enjoyed the way the Minister in charge of the bill, the Hon Judith Tizard, took the opportunity to try to rewrite a bit of New Zealand history! I note that amongst the authors she identified she left out probably the greatest author ever to sit in this Chamber. I wonder why Labour members did not mention the name of the former Labour Member of Parliament John A Lee, who was probably the greatest author to have ever sat in this Chamber. In many ways John Lee’s writings probably redefined our understanding of life in New Zealand. His book Children of the Poor describes growing up in poverty in Dunedin in the 1890s. That was followed by Delinquent Days, the book he wrote describing his experiences at the First World War. Most unlike a Labour man in the First World War, he went, he served, and he lost his arm. Probably his most significant work, and probably why the members on the opposite side do not want to know anything about it, was Simple on a Soapbox, in which he exposed to the New Zealand reading public the real truth of the nature of the first Labour Government. And what did that Government do? It threw him out. It expelled him from its caucus and sent him on his way. It would have been nice if the Minister, when introducing this bill, had taken the trouble to acknowledge a former Labour member of Parliament who was, and probably remains, the greatest author to sit in this House—John A Lee.

I was interested also to find, amongst the speakers, no mention of another great New Zealand writer, Frank Sargeson. I note with interest that the member who spoke on behalf of New Zealand First raised the issue of whether there should be a claim on the estate of dead authors for the continuing use of their work. I do not have a view on that, but I think it is nice to acknowledge the writings of New Zealanders who have gone before us. I think, in particular, of Sargeson and his collected stories, which I used a lot in my previous life—just one-and-a-half, or two-page, little stories that are observations on life and on people—to teach young people a few basic, common-sense, good lessons in life. They are the sort of thing that would not be taught under a curriculum maintained by the socialists.

I also note Mr Jones’ reference to Barry Crump. I, too, want to refer to Barry Crump, who, again, is a great New Zealand author—and a good keen man, as they say. As a teenager at school I read every one of Crump’s books the moment it came on the market.

Brian Connell: Which one did you like the best?

ALLAN PEACHEY: Oh, it is hard to go beyond A Good Keen Man, frankly. One’s first book is often one’s best. But the point is that the writings of the New Zealand author Crump have introduced many teenage boys to the enjoyment of reading. I know my own sons both read Crump, and Crump will be an enduring literary presence. I share Mr Jones’ sort of despair when talking to a teacher of literature to hear the works of Crump passed to one side as not real literature. That sort of thing is nonsense. Barry Crump deserves all the recognition he has received and all the recognition he should continue to receive, even beyond his death, for the ability that he had—which any author who is able to publish must have—to use words in a creative way, to use imagination, to use colour, and to use explanation so that other people can enjoy that ability.

Libraries are great places. Libraries, really for generations, have underpinned where we get our knowledge from. I do not care how technologically smart one gets, or how small a laptop one carries around, there will always be a place for the book borrowed from a library, read and enjoyed, and returned for somebody else to read. When that cheque comes each year, and in my case it is not particularly significant, I do not even think about the amount—although I must say as an aside I get really, really frustrated as to how much of it I have to give in taxation to that crowd on the other side to waste for the simple reason that they think they can spend that money better than I can—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: That’s a good bit of speech.

ALLAN PEACHEY: Is that Mr Cosgrove? He really does not know when to sit down and be quiet. I recommend to Mr Cosgrove Simple on a Soapbox by John A Lee so he can find out about one of his predecessors, a former Labour member of Parliament. Lee was a decent member and the Labour Party threw him out. The Labour Party threw that great author out.

I will refer generally to the clauses of this bill, because it worries me. It is not a long bill, for which one is mercifully gratefully, but it does not need to be a long bill in terms of what its objective is. Authors will appreciate having some sort of statutory authority for the protection of their work. We in the National Party actually believe in protecting the personal, private property of people. When one writes a book, that, in effect, is what one is creating—one is creating something in one’s name over which one has ownership and over which one deserves some sort of recognition and consideration. But when I look at the clauses and wander down, as inevitably one will, I see clause 10, entitled “Matters that may be dealt with in regulations”. Writing a book is a creative act. It is not something that one does when one is stifled, and that sort of thing. Labour would regulate to define a New Zealand author, it would regulate to define a New Zealand book, and, finally, it would regulate to define a library. What a nonsense way to approach such a creative activity as writing a book.

• Bill read a first time.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) on behalf of the Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage: I move, That the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill be referred to the Government Administration Committee for consideration and that the committee report finally to the House on or before 22 August 2008.

• Motion agreed to.

METIRIA TUREI (Green) : I am presenting the Green Party position supporting this bill on the basis of points that have been provided by my colleague Keith Locke who sat on the Government Administration Committee, which considered this legislation, but who is unable to be here tonight to deliver our position himself.

First of all, this bill was a victory—in our view—for the MMP system. When this bill had its first reading most parties in the House, including the Greens, were not aware that it so fundamentally undermined the free access that we have had to births, deaths, and marriages records, access we have had since 1848. The country’s genealogists, historians, biographers, and journalists soon put us straight and their complaints dominated the select committee hearings. Two of the smaller MMP parties, the Greens and United Future, then got together to restore open access and Peter Dunne and my colleague Keith Locke made a joint submission to the select committee; the fact that Labour no longer had the majority for the original bill meant that it had to be dramatically transformed, possibly more than any other bill in recent times.

Open access is largely preserved in this reformed bill. There will be some access restricted by regulation, which is why it is important to put clearly on record in this third reading—to guide future regulation makers—what MPs intended when voting for this bill. It is not intended that anyone can simply exercise a choice to close off records or to close them off for any period that one may like, and it is not intended that there be more than a few cases of this happening in any one year. Those wishing to close off their own birth, marriage, or civil union records have to have a substantive reason, as laid down in regulation, which means something like being chased by a former partner who may want to find out one’s new location details from those marriage or civil union records. This is an issue of safety. Also, the closure must be for a defined period, which does not mean many years other than in exceptional circumstances, and renewals should not be easy to get.

This retention of openness is particularly important for us as a young nation. Many New Zealanders are desperate to trace their family roots and for Māori being denied access to records that could prove one’s whakapapa would be very hurtful. My colleague thinks it is also a sentiment among select committee members to keep down the costs of access. As far as Government costs go they should be cheaper than in the past because of the increasingly computerised databases. We would expect people in the future to be able to access details by computer, with the right identification provided, and their access actions will be added to the new access register under this bill.

The whole question of the effect of the computer and Internet age on how this legislation works is still a bit uncertain. The idea expressed in this bill is that the Government helps access through the computerisation of records, keyword checking, and the like, and we sincerely hope that this happens. When we review the legislation, under the review clause in the legislation, we can deal with those matters further. It is best that the Government matches up to the task of providing easy access, because the reality is that we live in an age when everything is being digitalised and there is no way of stopping people accessing birth, death, and marriage records in newspaper files or in other ways, using keyword searches, or the classic techniques. Genealogical databases are being stored on overseas sites beyond the reach of our law.

We agree that the Government was right to be worried about identity fraud, but there was not that much evidence that the Births, Deaths, and Marriages database was much of a source of false identities. The main problem with identity fraud is that many private agencies in New Zealand are slack when checking identities, and the law cannot substitute for those agencies getting their act together and providing a quality service. Actually, there is a huge amount of information about us on various databases, and any agency can ask any applicant for a credit card, or for whatever, plenty of tricky questions so that he or she would have to be the genuine person to be able to answer them properly.

In effect, the Greens are pleased with the outcome of this bill. We are very pleased to have worked with the other MMP parties to make the changes that were made. We are pleased that the MMP parties were able to exercise the influence that MMP was designed to provide to those parties. It is a victory for openness, for the community, and for MMP itself. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) : Tēnā koe. Nā reira, kei te tautoko te Pāti Māori ki tēnei pire kia mōhio mai ā tātau mokopuna ko wai rātau, nō whea rātau. Kia kitea hoki ēnei mātauranga e ngā mokopuna, e ngā kairangahau nā te mea he hītori, he kōrero rānei mō te whanaungatanga me te mana o te hapū, o te iwi hoki. Kia kaua e noho huna ēnei kōrero. Kia puta ēnei kōrero nā reira, mehemea e pīrangi ana te Pāti Reipa ki te moe tahi i a mātau o te Pāti Māori, ka pai! Ka whakakite mai, kia kaha ki te whakapuakina. Kaua e noho wahangū. Mēnā hoki he tino wawata tā te Pāti Nāhinara me kuhu ki roto i te moenga o te Pāti Māori anō. Whakakitea ki te ao, kia rongo ai ngā kaipōti katoa. Hei aha te kōhimuhimu, erangi whakapuakina mai i runga rā anō i ngā tihi rākau ki te ao. Nā reira, Mr Deputy Speaker, tēnā koe, tēnā tātou.

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

[The Māori Party supports this bill so that our grandchildren will know who they are and where they are from—so that grandchildren and researchers as well can find items of knowledge such as these, because they are historical, or about relationships, or about tribal and subtribal jurisdiction, too. These matters should never be hidden; they should be made public. So if the Labour Party wants to get into bed with the Māori Party, that is OK. But make it known, make it really public, so that voters hear about it. Do not keep it quiet. Now if the National Party really wants to get into bed with the Māori Party as well, make it known, say it, so that the whole world knows about it. Never mind the whispers; shout it out to the world from the treetops! So greetings to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to us as well.]

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) : I have to say that I am very deeply indebted to the National junior whip for giving me this opportunity to come down and speak on a bill that is of such interest to the House and to me personally. Anyone who has followed this debate in the House knows my position on this Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill very clearly, and it is this. This bill has been introduced into this House because we have a very tired Government coming to the end of its tenure, and thank God for that! The voting public of New Zealand, who are desperately—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Speaking of political deaths, bring out the body bag for this member.

BRIAN CONNELL: Oh, the pigeon puff from Waimak is at it already, and I have hardly even got into my speech. But I will come back to him in a couple of minutes. All I can say is that he is all the evidence we need to accept the fact that genetically modified organisms have escaped. I say that Mr Cosgrove should leave it at that, while he is ahead.

The point I was making is that this bill is on the legislative agenda because the Government was desperate to find something to fill up its programme. That is the only reason that this garbage is before the House. The member for the Green Party made some good comments; I accept that. She shared my concerns about the state of the bill when it was first introduced to the House, and I think that some progress was made on it through the select committee process. But I will come to that, because it is easier to read history backwards.

The only reason that this bill is in the House is the Government’s lack of a legislative agenda, but the bill will not solve anything. It will not solve anything, because there was never a problem to fix in the first place. It will not add anything other than to the frustration and compliance costs of those who want to engage in legitimate, authorised genealogical research. Those people will be frustrated.

A number of renowned guest submitters come to the Government Administration Committee, and I will quote to the House from a selection of their comments. A journalist by the name of Graeme Hunt had this to say to the committee: “The bill encroaches on well established principles held sacred within open and free democracies.” He went on to state that the latest Government move to clamp down on the public’s right to sight public information is an outrage, and that it is out of step with the trends in similar democracies, such as the United Kingdom and the United States. But still the Minister wanted to punch on.

So why does the Government want to do this? First, we were told by the Minister that it was to stop identity fraud. That is a smokescreen if ever I have seen one. Just a cursory investigation of the evidence about identity fraud in this country blew that argument right out of the water. Officials could quote something like only six to eight cases in our recent history, and I think I am making a very liberal interpretation of the evidence that they presented to the committee. I do not think that it was even as many as that. Secondly—and here is the real reason the Government is putting this legislation before the House—some of the Government’s PC mates, and they were probably using an example of one, wanted to restrict access to information. They wanted to restrict access to information, and that very issue brought submitter after submitter to the select committee to say that this is not right and that it is an attack on our democracy. The suggestion, to use their PC speak, was to incorporate appropriate privacy safeguards.

Probably some of the Government’s placard-waving Labour supporters raised this issue because they were concerned about which side of the bed grandma or grandma had slept on 20, 30, or 50 years ago—as if anyone really gives a damn. But the Minister jumped into it, anyway. He just could not help himself, because he thought he had an issue. [Interruption] Sorry, no—grandad or grandma—I agree with that. Even if there was a privacy issue, this legislation will not fix the issue. I thank Ms Rich. I think that I did get that wrong, but with the benefit of hindsight, I will put it right later in the debate.

The Hon Peter Dunne in the course of the select committee debate summed up the flaw in this legislation very nicely when he said: “Wander down to any cemetery and you will be able to do your own research and find all the information you want about any individual any time you like.” None of these arguments is new, which of course is the irony about this. Peter Dunne, the National Party, and hordes of people who came to the select committee pleaded with the Government to back off. But it still pushed on—too proud, too blinkered, too arrogant to heed advice.

Let us sample some of the advice that we got from some of those submitters at the select committee. The first submitter I want to refer to is Professor Geoffrey Rice who is none other than the head of the school of history at Canterbury University. He said to us: “If passed, this amendment bill will render the writing of New Zealand’s 20th century history well nigh impossible.” What a chilling warning that is. One of New Zealand’s leading academics, a historian, told the select committee that and still the Labour members on the select committee and the Minister rejected that advice. He went on to say that the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Barker, referred to the prevention of identity theft as one of the aims of this amendment, but that such cases are rare in New Zealand, as I have already alluded to, and this legislation will not prevent them. Here is an example of a bad law being proposed to remedy a very small problem. I suggested to members of the select committee that we get some of these leading academics to come in and give their advice to the select committee so that we could be aware of all the facts and make informed decisions. But again, the Minister and the Government members of the select committee refused to do that.

The National Party commentary on the bill, which I commend to the House—it is extremely well written and very concise—also points to our concerns, and I will quote from that as well. I know it is available to members, but I doubt very much that the Labour members have taken the time to read it.

Katherine Rich: Read it.

BRIAN CONNELL: Just in part. It states: “It is the view of National members that these restrictions will continue to hamper academic and genuine genealogical research, and other legitimate purposes needing access to births, deaths and marriages information. National members support openness and transparency, and we believe more can be gained from the tradition of public access to the registers with the government continuing to act in a custodial role.”

I really believe that it was when the Minister went home and picked up the National Party report for his bedtime reading that he suddenly realised the error of his ways. It was then that he started to say in the public domain that he felt he needed to start to listen to submitters who were coming to the select committee and accepted, in political-speak, that maybe he had got things wrong.

These were not isolated examples. The Minister, being torn and bruised, then introduced a Supplementary Order Paper. This is where I differ from the Green member. Although we now have legislation that will not bring the House down, what it does do is erode one fundamental principle of our democracy, and it is that by introducing a Supplementary Order Paper that completely guts the bill, it denies the public their democratic right. They were not allowed to argue or articulate their points of view in the select committee, and that is wrong. That is the fundamental reason why the National Party continues to object to this bill. None other than the Government’s own socialist rag, the Christchurch Press, went into attack mode over this as well, and climbed into the Government by saying: “There is no compelling need for the secrecy provisions of the bill and certainly no sign of any public call for them.”

That is the issue that I started with. There is no call for this legislation to be in this House. It is a waste of our time and it is a waste of Parliament’s time, which is the biggest offence. It will not solve a problem, because there was no problem to solve in the first place. As Peter Dunne said, the access to information will still be available and we have spent God knows how many hours in this Parliament debating legislation that will have no bite at all.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Associate Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Attorney-General: I move, That the Judicial Matters Bill be now read a first time. It is my intention that this bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee. The Judicial Matters Bill is an omnibus bill. It makes some important technical amendments to two statutes relating to the judiciary. These amendments will enhance public confidence in the judicial complaints process and ensure that adequate resources are available to meet the growing workload of the judiciary.

Part 1 of the bill amends the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004. The Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner was established by the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004, with effect from 1 August 2005. The office provides the public with a transparent and accessible judicial complaints process. It allows for a proper investigation of matters that may lead to the removal of a judge, while adhering to the principle of judicial independence. Mr Ian Haynes was appointed as the first Judicial Conduct Commissioner for a 5-year term in 2005.

The Judicial Conduct Commissioner’s office receives approximately 100 complaints a year. Of those, approximately 80 percent are dismissed. In his annual report to Parliament, the commissioner has noted that the most common reason for dismissing a complaint has been that the complaint stems from a complainant’s disagreement with the judge’s decision, rather than the judge’s conduct. In the first 2 years, four complaints have been referred to the relevant head of bench and resolved through the voluntary internal judicial complaints process. So far, the commissioner has not made any recommendation for the appointment of a judicial conduct panel.

The amendments contained in Part 1 of the bill aim to strengthen the Act’s primary objective of ensuring the prompt handling of judicial complaints. They are based on the commissioner’s recommendations in his 2005-06 and 2006-07 annual reports to Parliament. Currently, the Act does not permit the commissioner to delegate the power to conduct a preliminary examination of a complaint. That has caused difficulty where the commissioner has had a conflict of interest regarding a complaint or has been unavailable. The bill enables the appointment of a permanent deputy commissioner, to whom the commissioner can delegate his functions in such situations. Where the deputy commissioner has a conflict of interest, he or she will be able to refer the complaint to the relevant head of bench or the commissioner, as and when appropriate. The bill also allows the commissioner to dispose of a complaint if, in all the circumstances, further consideration of the complaint is not justified. That is appropriate where the complainant is satisfied following an explanation or an apology from the judge.

However, the bill clarifies that the resolution of a complaint following an apology by the judge will not of itself justify disposal of the complaint. In such cases there may still be a question of conduct that the commissioner may want to refer to the relevant head of bench, even if the complainant is satisfied with the outcome. Those provisions will ensure that judicial complaints continue to be handled efficiently and independently.

Part 2 amends the Judicature Act 1908 by increasing the current statutory cap on the number of associate judge appointments from six to nine. This is the first increase since 1991. The 1986 amendments to the Judicature Act provided for the appointment of Masters of the High Court to provide a more effective and efficient service by clearing the court lists of the smaller miscellaneous matters. Since their inception, the jurisdiction of masters has steadily increased from hearing matters, such as summary judgment applications, to hearing more complex commercial matters, such as insolvency proceedings. In 2004 Masters of the High Court were renamed associate judges and secured permanent tenure. Associate judges have a specialist civil jurisdiction and are invaluable in alleviating the workload pressures of judges by undertaking a range of companies and insolvency work. They have extensive jurisdiction in interlocutory matters, including summary judgment applications. They also have jurisdiction to assess damages. The increase in the statutory cap will enable future associate judge appointments if and when required, without unnecessary legislative delay. This in turn will ensure adequate resources are available for the growing workload of associate judges, especially since the commencement of the Insolvency Act 2006.

The proposed amendments are important improvements that will enhance public confidence in the judicial complaints process and will ensure that adequate resources are available to the judiciary. I commend the bill to the House.

Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) : I have listened with interest to the comments that the previous speaker, Mr Cosgrove, has made on this legislation. I think he is very competent in his field, but certainly this is not his field. I think it reflects a tragedy in the present Labour-led Government that those who have been put in positions of responsibility in respect of judicial roles do not have any legal training or any sense of what is appropriate or what is not appropriate. It is not a particular criticism of the member—he has just been put into a position that is unenviable—but, sadly, it also applies to the Attorney-General. As others may well know, we have not had a situation in the history of New Zealand where an Attorney-General without legal qualification has occupied that particular responsibility for so long.

National is strongly opposed to this bill for what I suggest are really good reasons. There are two essential elements to the bill. The first relates to changes to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act. That legislation was recently enacted to deal with what was perceived to be a mischief—instances where judicial conduct fell below an acceptable threshold. Under the Act the commissioner’s role was to receive and assess complaints about the conduct of judges. What basically happens is that the commissioner, following the receipt of a complaint about the conduct of a judge, notifies the judge of the complaint, and seeks any comment that the judge may wish to make. He can obtain court documents, transcripts of hearings, listen to any sound recordings, and make whatever inquiries he considers appropriate. Once he has completed his preliminary examination he dismisses the complaint on one or more of nine specified grounds. If the commissioner does not dismiss the complaint, then he must either refer the complaint to the head of bench or recommend that a judicial conduct panel be appointed.

This particular Judicial Conduct Commissioner has made two reports: one for the year ended 31 July 2006, and the more recent one for the year ended 31 July 2007. There would be some who would cynically observe that this process is very much akin to a whitewash. If I look at that second report and the outcomes of the work he carried out in that year, which ended 31 July 2007, I see that he dismissed 72 complaints, he did not refer any complaints to a head of bench, under section 17 of the Act, and that a reasonable number of complaints are not finalised. It seems impossible to credit that there can have been in that complaint history not one complaint that was justified. I would say that beggars belief. We have here a system that I strongly believe is not sufficiently robust. Of course, the justice system is a man-made system. It suffers from imperfection, but I cannot accept that of 72 complaints received, 72 should have been dismissed.

In both these reports, as the previous speaker has said, the commissioner criticises the structure of the legislation and considers the desirability of having a deputy appointed. I think the argument he advances is interesting. It is presumably an argument that the Parliament is being asked to accept here tonight—that there are circumstances where the commissioner has a conflict of interest. This particular commissioner is associated with a major law firm in the city of Auckland. I find it incredible that conflicts of interest should be of real concern to him. He is not a court lawyer. The background of this man is that he is skilled in commercial law. He is not involved in situations of conflict with the judges. There are no such conflicts. So in this argument we are being asked to accept what Mr Cosgrove has told us, which is that there is a situation of real difficulty here, to use the commissioner’s words, when these conflicts of interest—which I think are completely unreal—arise.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: So you’re opposed to it.

Dr RICHARD WORTH: The Act provides that the commission is to act independently. Mr Cosgrove is calling across the House that National is opposed to this legislation. Well, I said that right at the outset, and we are. But that is only one part of the legislation that I think is of concern.

The second part of the legislation, proposed by the Government to be enacted in this death rush to the election date of 8 November, is a series of changes to the Judicature Act to increase the maximum number of associate judges of the High Court from six to nine. I would like to say something about that in the context of what it is that these associate judges do. As at January 2008 the High Court consisted of 34 judges, and seven of those were associate judges. That is an interesting circumstance, because the proposition here for the Judicature Act is to increase from six to nine the maximum number of associate judges of the High Court. So an inference is that there is a current breach of that legislation. But members should leave that aside. Associate judges have a specialist civil jurisdiction; they undertake a range of companies and insolvency work; they have extensive jurisdiction in interlocutory matters, including summary judgment applications; and they have a jurisdiction to assess damages.

I would suggest that what this issue seems to be more primarily about is that there needs to be a sharp focus on the productivity of our judges and the processes in the courts today. The reality is that the commercial community is bailing out of civil litigation for two main reasons: the continuing long-running unhappiness with the Chief Justice’s refusal to let judges specialise in either commercial or criminal matters, and also the vast amounts of money being spent on the needless discovery of documents. These associate judges are not involved in criminal work; they are simply involved in the civil jurisdiction. So why are we proposing to appoint more associate judges who are confined to the civil jurisdiction, when the reality is that the commercial community is bailing out of such litigation?

There are some very interesting figures on judicial productivity. My understanding of the position is that each High Court judge with support staff costs taxpayers more than $630,000 a year, plus superannuation. I would say that with that sort of money the public is entitled to expect fast, inexpensive, fair, and just resolution of criminal and civil matters. Maybe the judges work harder than they did 40 years ago. But if we look at the statistics, we find that although the population of New Zealand has grown by 73 percent since 1960, the number of High Court judges has risen by 200 percent. In 1960, 12 High Court judges dealt with 2,610 cases a year, which is 218 cases each, but in 2005, 36 High Court judges handled 2,500 cases, which is 69 cases each. So to look at the issue of productivity per judge—I accept in a somewhat crude way—the judges of the past were doing 218 cases each a year, and now they are doing only 69. What is desperately and urgently needed are solutions that will see less complicated and shorter trials, and greater productivity from the judges. That is why National is opposed to this legislation—it makes no sense.

• Debate interrupted.

Hon MARK BURTON (Labour—Taupo) : It is always a very positive thing to follow His Excellency the chairperson of the Regulations Review Committee and the honorary consul for Monaco, Dr Richard Worth. He made a fine contribution.

As the Minister noted, the Judicial Matters Bill before us implements some important but minor amendments relating to the judiciary by amending the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 and the Judicature Act 1908. The office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner provides an important and, I think, generally accepted service that enables the lodgment and examination of complaints from the public about the conduct of judges—that is the point of the bill that we should not lose track of—while, of course, upholding the all-important independence of the judiciary. To date the commissioner has not found it necessary to refer any complaint to a head of bench, nor to recommend that the Attorney-General appoint a judicial conduct panel, but the inaugural commissioner, Mr Haynes, has identified some desirable and beneficial technical amendments to the Act in his 2005-06 and 2006-07 annual reports to Parliament. This bill effectively implements those recommendations.

It is my pleasure to support this bill. It is a useful and important measure for Parliament to advance, and it reflects this Labour Government’s commitment to a robust, transparent, and fair justice system, which we recognise as being essential to a well-functioning society.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : It is always a pleasure to follow the person who is so happy to be the MP for Taupo. In 2004 National opposed the substantive legislation. We said that it was an unwarranted attack on judicial independence and that it would encourage ineffective and stupid complaints—in fact, that it would encourage a culture of complaints. And colleagues of mine, like Judith Collins, who spoke against the legislation were indeed prophetic, because it has basically been a waste of time. We were right to oppose this legislation in 2004, and we are right to oppose this amendment bill, the Judicial Matters Bill.

That is not to say that complaints against members of the judiciary should be treated in a frivolous or light-hearted manner. This is, in fact, a very serious topic. Most judges conduct themselves competently and with integrity, consistent with the judicial oath they take when they are sworn in. But sometimes judges do indeed need to be disciplined.

The worst example I have come across in recent times is the 2005 case of a New York judge who jailed all 46 people in his courtroom after someone’s mobile phone went off. The judge was presiding over a domestic violence case in Niagara Falls when he was interrupted by the offending phone. He proceeded to rage: “Every single person is going to jail in this courtroom unless I get that instrument now. If anybody believes I’m kidding, ask some of the folks that have been here for a while. You are all going.” When nobody owned up, the judge was true to his word and ordered the arrest of every single person in the courtroom, with bail set at US$1,500 per person. Those who could not stump up the money were shackled and taken to prison. This judge was later removed from the bench, with the chairman of the state commission on judicial conduct describing his actions as “two hours of inexplicable madness”.

Then there is the case of Justice Peter Smith, who was the judge in the famous Da Vinci Code case. He entered into vitriolic correspondence with a law firm in England that he had hoped would employ him as a consultant. He then failed to recuse himself in a case involving that firm. The Court of Appeal was very critical of the judge’s actions, describing them as “somewhat extraordinary”. Then there was the famous case in 1983 of circuit judge Bruce Campbell in England, who was dismissed for smuggling substantial amounts of cigarettes and whisky into the country on his private yacht. Thankfully, we have never had anything like that.

In fact, the annual report of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner for 2006-07 makes very impressive reading. In that financial year 92 complaints were received, and there were 11 unfinalised complaints from the previous year. As Dr Worth said, 72 of those complaints were dismissed, and the number of unfinalised complaints at 31 July was 31. No complaints were referred to the head of bench under section 17 of the Act, and no complaints were referred to the head of bench at the outset with the consent of the complainant because of a conflict of interest. It appears from reading the report that by far the most common complaint was that a decision, ruling, or order of a judge was wrong. But that simply cannot be a ground for complaint to this type of disciplinary body; such complaints are utterly misconceived.

Other grounds of complaint included rudeness, inappropriate remarks, failure to listen, and bias. There are various ways in which these matters can be dealt with. We can take for example a judge who is always being rude or who is taking too long to write a judgment. The sensible thing to do is to have a senior member of the profession have a quiet discussion with the relevant head of bench, who can then sort it out. That is the National Party approach—do it subtly, but do it effectively.

The Labour Party approach is illustrated by this foolish legislation: set up an office, create procedures, appoint a commissioner, and then bring on the inevitable amendment bill that seeks to appoint a deputy commissioner. The next thing we will have is a registrar, a council of worthies, hundreds of bureaucrats, and, lo and behold, a culture of complaint being encouraged and nurtured. There are plenty of litigants out there who, having lost their cases, will personalise them against judges. They are encouraged by this ridiculous regime to make complaints.

Of course, judges can be rude, grumpy, or discourteous. In many cases one can hardly blame them, given the quality of submissions they have to hear from lawyers. But are we such a weak-kneed, sissy society that if a judge barks at us we have to run off to some judicial complaints body? I do not think so.

We do not see any need for a deputy commissioner. In fact, we do not see any need for a commissioner. I noted from the commissioner’s report that he said it would be helpful to have a deputy because of conflict of interest, but Dr Worth has dealt with that. This person does not need a deputy, because the prospect of conflict of interest is minimal. As I said earlier, the number of complaints referred to the head of bench because of conflict of interest was nil in 2006 and 2007, and two in 2005 and 2006, so there is no demonstrated need. There is no need to legislate the obvious, such as clauses dealing with the disposal of complaints, and we are, therefore, opposed to this stupid legislation.

The second part of the bill concerns an amendment to the Judicature Act to provide for an increase in the number of associate judges. These were created in the 1980s to assist High Court judges in a range of civil work, and that is more specifically referred to in sections 26I and 26J of the Judicature Act 1908. In the 20 years or so since the office was created, the incumbents have done great work and have made a huge contribution to civil justice. Without them the already crippling workload of High Court judges would have been made worse, and it is to be noted that associate judges these days do great work in presiding over settlement conferences. But I wonder whether simply increasing their number at this time masks the real problem with civil litigation, an area of the law that this Government has neglected throughout its term.

The President of the Bar Association, Jim Farmer QC, commented in The Independent Financial Review recently that the court system is fundamentally strong. He said, and I agree, that we have an independent judiciary, respect for the rule of law—except with the Labour Party over the Electoral Finance Act—and a lack of corruption. But that system is undermined by costs, increasingly prescriptive processes, and delay. A real problem in civil litigation is the vast amount of money being spent on needless discovery of documents. Another problem, in my opinion, is the prescriptive case management procedures, which unnecessarily delay the resolution of a case.

Earlier this year I attended a very good Bar Association conference on the topic of civil litigation in crisis. One judge said that the adversarial system was seriously flawed and had passed its use-by date. “Citizens”, he said, “no longer had meaningful access to the courts.”

I am very concerned about this issue, and indeed I have been for a number of years. I look on the work of this Government with contempt. It has failed to address any of these important issues. Fundamental reform of the civil justice system is required. I do not think we need more associate judges; we need fundamental reform. We also need to free judges from the burdens of administration, so that they can concentrate on their core job, which is to judge. This Government increasingly treats judges like civil servants, and that is wrong.

This bill will not be supported by the National Party. The material dealing with the Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner is as misconceived as the contents of the substantive legislation. Secondly, although National has great respect for associate judges and the work they do, simply increasing their number is not the answer. Reforming the civil justice system is the answer. Of course, this Government not only does not know the answers; it is so hopeless that it does not even know which questions to ask.

I will be very interested in what my friend from New Zealand First will say, because New Zealand First opposed this legislation in 2004. I hope that it will not backtrack on that and support this foolish legislation, because Mr Dail Jones has a lot of experience in the law. He knows what works. He knows what needs to be done. I very much look forward to his contribution to see whether New Zealand First will be staunch in the defence of judges or will backslide.

DAIL JONES (NZ First) : Although I really appreciate praise like that from any sector of the House, and especially from Mr Finlayson in the National Party, I regret to say I will have to disappoint him on this occasion. That is probably not for the first time or the last time, but I can see that he will go home terribly disappointed—his handkerchief is out already—and he may not be able to make it back tomorrow morning because he will be so upset. The Judicial Matters Bill is really just a technical, minor bill—that is all it is. The bill allows the Judicial Conduct Commissioner to have a deputy, and it increases the number of associate judges. That is all it does.

I am disappointed that the old tradition we used to have in the National Party in this House from 1975-84, where one sat and listened to the next speaker, is not continued by current National Party members of Parliament. I raise the point that Mr Finlayson’s speech was in direct opposition to the speech made by Mr Worth, in so far as associate judges are concerned, and regarding judges. On the one hand we heard from Mr Worth that judges are not working hard enough—and he came up with some statistics on that—but on the other hand we heard from Mr Finlayson that High Court judges have a crippling workload. The National Party is hopelessly confused in so far as its approach to this legislation is concerned. I wonder what the next National Party speaker will say. We have had a sort of flip-flop already—we have had only two National Party speakers, and they have contradicted themselves in the space of two speeches. Out of respect I listened to what they had to say, and I think perhaps the next speaker from the National Party will clarify its actual view of the workload of High Court judges.

Mr Finlayson is in fact more accurate than Mr Worth. Mr Worth was referring to practice in 1960 and comparing it with that today. Well, strangely enough I did appear in the High Court in 1969, so I can say I practised in the 1960s—doing a jury trial or two and other High Court matters at the time; usually that divorce court stuff that we used to do, hoping we would get Justice Woodhouse rather than Justice Moller to do the decree nisi. But the workload of a judge in the 1960s was quite different from the current workload, and Mr Finlayson hit the nail on the head. In those days we did not have the needless discovery of documents; today that can go on forever. We did not have methamphetamine cases that go on forever, and all those new types of issues that arise. We did not really need masters—or associate judges, as they are now called—in those days to any extent, and we used to just deal with those issues in front of a judge in chambers, and usually in the High Court library. I am speaking about what used to be the Supreme Court in those days; we changed the name to the High Court in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

So I can see the need for an increase in associate judges absolutely immediately. Of course, the cap is a maximum. One does not necessarily have to appoint the additional associate judges immediately. It will all depend upon the circumstances and whether the Minister and the appropriate authorities decide that they are required. I was disappointed in the disagreement on the part of the National Party on that particular issue.

Of course, the most useful role of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner turns out to be that members of Parliament do not have their time wasted by people who say the judge got it wrong, and ask what they are going to do about it. I am sure any number of members of Parliament, especially those of us who have been constituency members of Parliament—I am not one now, but for 9 years I was a constituency member of Parliament—would invariably get at least one or two cases bundled around various members of Parliament. One might have been the first or the fifth member to be contacted by the particular litigant, who would be very upset about the outcome. Now, of course, that type of issue is referred to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner, who must have a handle on how to deal with those types of issues and deal with them as gently and as wisely as possible. Really, they are examples of upset litigants who are not happy with the outcome of a case.

The other issue, of course, and again I was very disappointed in Mr Worth when he seemed to attack the Judicial Conduct Commissioner—

• Debate interrupted.