Mr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon Darren Hughes seeking to debate under Standing Order 380 the Government’s appointment of the Hon John Carter, Associate Minister of Local Government, as chair of the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee. Standing Order 380 requires that the matter for debate be a particular case of recent occurrence involving the administrative or ministerial responsibility of the Government. The appointment of the chairperson of a select committee is a matter for the committee when it first meets. There can be no ministerial responsibility for such a decision. Furthermore, the committee has not yet met and elected its chairperson. The ministerial comments relate to actions that are likely to occur in the near future. There is therefore no particular case of recent occurrence that would be grounds for a debate. The application for an urgent debate is consequently declined.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The House is in Committee for consideration of the performance in 2007-08 and current operations of Crown entities, public organisations, and State enterprises. The debate on the performance of Crown entities, public organisations, and State enterprises is a series of debates on individual financial reviews of Crown entities, public organisations, and State enterprises as reported by select committees. A total of 3 hours is allocated for the debate.

The debate on the individual financial reviews should be relevant to their performance in the 2007-08 financial year and to their current operations. A member may have no more than two calls on each financial review. A list of the financial reviews available for debate is appended to the Order Paper. Reports on entities yet to be reported cannot be debated.

I understand that members have indicated the Crown entities, public organisations, and State enterprises that they wish to debate. I understand that the first entity members wish to debate is the Human Rights Commission.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : On behalf of the Greens, I praise the work of the Human Rights Commission, under the very capable leadership of Rosslyn Noonan. I think its work is even more important today; it is well spelt out in the annual report of the Human Rights Commission. I think the commission is continuing that good work, which is relevant in the sense that the Government itself has dropped the ball in this area over the last while, particularly regarding international human rights. The current operations of the Human Rights Commission—in particular, sending people like Joris de Bres to the United Nations World Conference against Racism and Rosslyn Noonan to the United Nations Committee Against Torture hearing on New Zealand recently—are really holding New Zealand’s end up in the international arena.

A little while ago, when the Government decided that it would not take up the seat that it had long campaigned for on the UN Human Rights Council—instead giving it to the United States—the head of the Human Rights Commission, Ms Noonan, expressed concern that the withdrawal of New Zealand’s candidacy would be interpreted as a lessening of New Zealand’s commitment to strengthening human rights internationally. Unfortunately, not too long after that, we saw Ms Noonan’s words come true when New Zealand was one of only eight nations to boycott the United Nations World Conference against Racism held in Europe. It has been quite upsetting when I have questioned the Minister of Foreign Affairs on why New Zealand was not present. It all seems to hinge on clause 63 of the declaration of the earlier World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in Durban, which talked about the Palestinian issue in very objective terms—defending Israel’s right to defend itself but also talking about the foreign occupation that Palestinians suffer in that place. I do not think that New Zealand should line up with Israel, considering Israel’s human rights violations.

It was good that the Human Rights Commission was present at the World Conference against Racism in Europe. Joris de Bres, who was the Race Relations Commissioner under the Human Rights Commission, even spoke on behalf of several of the non-governmental organisations of the countries that were represented at the conference. He expressed the views of the nations present to the overwhelming majority of the nations in the United Nations that—unlike the official New Zealand delegation—turned up to the conference. Joris de Bres attributed great success to the conference in terms of monitoring and providing education on human rights. Out of that World Conference against Racism there was clear support for New Zealand to sign the international Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which also came out of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s audit of New Zealand’s human rights. The Government would be well placed to agree with the direction of the Human Rights Commission that New Zealand should sign—or at least support—the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Human Rights Commission submits regularly to select committees. It states quite clearly that the “three strikes and you’re out” bill is contrary to international law, and it points out in its submission that life imprisonment is not used in New Zealand even for war crimes. So why should it be used in this “three strikes and you’re out” provision, whereby for committing a much smaller crime than a war crime someone could be imprisoned for the rest of their days?

It was left to the Human Rights Commission to report back fully on the success of the UN review of New Zealand’s human rights, and on some of the problems that the New Zealand Government should continue working on, such as the problems in the immigration and counter-terrorism legislation whereby the rights of those affected—people alleged to be terrorists or who have problems in coming to New Zealand—are not fully recognised. Problems with classified information prevent those people from fully understanding their rights. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Just before I call the next speaker, I say that at least 13 discussions are going on in the Chamber. There is too much—[Interruption] I am on my feet. There is just too much chatter. Please keep it down.

Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) : I join the Green Party member in congratulating the Human Rights Commission on its work, under the leadership of Rosslyn Noonan. Engagement has been welcomed from the new Government and we have met on a number of occasions on a range of issues that the commission has wished to bring to the attention of the new Government.

In response to some of the matters that the member has raised, but particularly as Minister of Justice with some responsibility in this area, I want to briefly take this opportunity to advise the Committee of some matters that the Government has been working on in this area. Protecting human rights in New Zealand is a daily, weekly, and monthly process, gradually changing opinions and eroding older barriers and quietly building away in the background. Under all Governments, both present and past—and, I hope, future—New Zealand has always taken its human rights commitments seriously. As a country we have been involved with the UN since its inception and are party to most major international human rights instruments. The Human Rights Commission plays an important role, as I said earlier, in advising the Government on human rights issues and advising the Government on issues both domestic in nature and, of course, on the international stage.

On 7 May this year I was fortunate to present New Zealand’s first Universal Periodic Review report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. This was the first time that New Zealand had participated in this review. Civil engagement was a vital element in the development of New Zealand’s Universal Periodic Review report. The commission itself took a leadership role in the run-up to the presentation of the report, leading three round-table discussions in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. Ms Noonan was present in Geneva for the presentation of the Universal Periodic Review report for the New Zealand Government, and the Government is appreciative of the commission’s input into that process.

New Zealand’s participation in the review mechanism represents part of our continuing dedication to human rights not just in New Zealand but across the globe. The process that was entered into was a very interesting one. It works something like this. The country that is currently undergoing an examination of its human rights record makes a presentation, effectively choosing the length of time it wishes to present for, but for the course of the entire presentation, which is some 3 hours in scope, or which has the potential to be some 3 hours in scope, it is allowed to contribute for only 1 hour in total. There is literally a clock running down behind the presentation as it is delivered.

On behalf of the New Zealand Government I chose, in consultation with different organisations, to make a presentation that lasted roughly 15 to 20 minutes. Before the process commences, member States queue up to ask specific questions, make specific recommendations, or point out specific shortfalls in the presenting country’s report. In this case, it meant that in representing New Zealand we had to respond to 38, I think it was, member States’ questions and recommendations during part of this process. If you like, it was a little bit like an international question time. We were not quite sure what was coming from some countries, and others had already submitted their questions prior to the process beginning. We were fortunate that the mission, I believe that is the right phrase, in Geneva that represents New Zealand was there to assist me with this process, and we had some Ministry of Justice officials there who had particular specialist areas. There were people from the Crown Law Office and from the Department of Corrections. That meant that we had access to immediate knowledge to answer questions from member States.

We took an approach that was pretty straightforward, in that we acknowledged some of the things that the country over time had done well. To be fair to the previous Minister for Disability Issues, the Hon Ruth Dyson, this was one of the areas where we had made considerable progress and were given considerable kudos by the fact that the Hon Ruth Dyson and Don McKay, in that case, had worked so hard towards achieving those particular goals.

Questions were asked about some of the protocols, declarations, and optional protocols where New Zealand had not signed up or become party to some of those instruments, and I, in my capacity as representing the report, was able to put the case for why it was that some of those instruments had been ratified or adopted in a slower, more considered way. Part of that stems from the fact that over a long period of time New Zealand has taken the view that it will only ratify or sign up to these instruments where our domestic legislation meets the grade. In other words, we view the reservation process as one that should be entered into only in the most extreme or difficult of circumstances, and that by and large signing up to one of these instruments should be done in a full way.

I guess I am signalling to the Committee today that the best way we view, and I think the last Government viewed, this process, is to make sure that all our domestic policy and legislation is in a row prior to signing up, rather than the other way around, and to take reservations on each of those instruments on the way through. I think that that is a sensible and serious way to engage with the process, and shows a fair amount of integrity from successive Governments as to the way they have approached this particular process.

Speaking to the matters raised by the member from the Green Party, Keith Locke, about the Durban Review Conference, I tell the Committee that New Zealand did not attend that conference in April 2009, as Keith Locke pointed out. It became apparent in the days leading up to the review conference that some consensus was lacking around the matter of whether the conference itself would be productive. However, New Zealand is a strong supporter of the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and remains firmly committed to combating all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance. One of the issues raised, by way of statement from some member States, was the issue of a declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. Members are welcome to look at the report, to see how that matter was addressed by the Government in that case.

Balancing the human rights of New Zealanders against legislative domestic processes—that is, making the comparison on an international stage with what is occurring domestically—can be difficult, and can be contentious. But one of the things we must realise is that New Zealand historically has had a leading role in this area, and should continue to have that in a way that signals we are prepared to lead in this field. But I emphasise this final point: it is no use being a party to some of these instruments unless we are prepared to do what is necessary domestically, which is why, as I said earlier, we have always had a history of having minimal reservations to instruments to which we have become a party. I think that that in itself is a method of engaging in this process that shows a high degree of integrity. There are challenges we still have, in this fora, as the member who took the first call will understand, but I assure him that I take these issues seriously, and that we are working as best we can towards those particular goals.

One of the things I think was essential for New Zealand to do in its first Universal Periodic Review report was to be honest about some of its shortcomings, and I believe that the report we submitted was an extremely honest and transparent report. As I said, this is an area in which I have taken some considerable interest. Historically, it has been an area farmed off to an Associate Minister of Justice; I was determined to keep this matter under my own warrant, and I have enjoyed the work immensely.

• Report noted.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) : If members of the Committee look on the website of the Ministry of Health, they will see a photo of the word “HOPE” written in large letters in the sand on a New Zealand beach. It is a still from the world-acclaimed Like Minds Like Mine advertising campaign—the campaign that most recently featured John Kirwan, standing tall and telling New Zealanders his story of hope and of recovery. Well, despite Tony Ryall’s axing of the mental health target from the focus of district health boards and the Ministry of Health, that photo of hope still remains on the ministry’s website, illustrating the now-axed target. In my view—and I certainly hope that my view is correct—it is a show of some healthy subversion remaining in the Ministry of Health, despite that ministry’s staff now being cut instead of being capped. I will be very interested to see how long after my contribution in the Chamber—and it is now 12 minutes past 3—it will take the Minister of Health to instruct his officials to get that sign of hope off its website. I do not think that it will take very long.

The Mental Health Commission started about the same time as the Like Minds Like Mine campaign. It is designed to give the Minister independent advice; it acts as an advocate for the interests of service users and their families—that is, for one in five New Zealanders. By the late 1990s New Zealanders had reached a level of shame and disquiet about how we treated our own, and we began this journey of hope to reduce the stigma, and to see mental health issues through the lens of support and recovery. And that has been working. Until now, there has been a cross-party agreement in this Parliament to ensure that those with mental illness are supported through recovery.

Since 2007 the mental health sector has been focusing on a target of having at least 90 percent of long-term clients with up-to-date relapse prevention plans. In the last year, over 1,500 more clients have had those plans—a 16 percent increase since the first quarter of the year before, when this target started to be measured. That is a total of 7,476 people—76 percent of all clients—who have up-to-date relapse prevention plans. But now that work is no longer considered a priority by the Minister of Health. The National Government has turned its back on some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders by saying that mental health is no longer a priority. The Government does not think mental health is important enough to rate as a target for the health system in New Zealand, so more than 7,400 people can now feel shunned by the National Government. Well, I say that that is a disgrace. It will be an everlasting shame to the current Government that it treats in that way some of the most vulnerable people in New Zealand.

Peter McGeorge, the Chairman of the Mental Health Commission, recently warned about the increase of mental health problems as a result of the recession. He said that rising unemployment is a critical factor, and that every 1 percent increase in unemployment leads to a 2 to 3 percent jump in the number of people at risk of developing mental health issues. There seems no better time to support the most vulnerable in our community, and to support those who are now even more at risk of developing mental health problems. Now is exactly the wrong time for the Government to turn its back on those people and to say that it is more important that people can get into accident and emergency departments in a speedy time than it is that someone with a mental health illness can get the support he or she deserves.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) : During the Health Committee’s financial review of the Mental Health Commission, the commission expressed its concern that district health boards sometimes used the ring-fenced funding that is provided for mental health for other purposes. However, its greatest concern was the possible removal or reduction of the funding itself. It acknowledged that the transfer of existing services into the ring-fenced area, without additional funds, would cause problems. Against that backdrop, we have the removal of mental health targets from the Government’s priorities. Although the Minister of Finance has assured us that a target’s removal from the list of priorities does not necessarily mean that funding will not be available, we are already—

Hon Ruth Dyson: Yeah, right!

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Yeah, right! I can see the Tui billboard now. We are already seeing the effects of this policy in real terms on the ground and at the coalface of mental health in our district health boards.

At a recent meeting of the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board with its community mental health providers, a note was made to say that recent correspondence indicated that the district health board was spending $1.8 million over and above the expected ring-fenced levels, and that total savings of $1.8 million therefore needed to be made in mental health and addiction services for the 2009-10 and 2010-11 years to assist the funding of new Government priorities, most of which Nelson Marlborough District Health Board had not been given additional funding for.

That means unfunded priorities, and it means that the additional money over and above the ring-fenced funding for mental health has got to go, and that will include no more workforce development. That comes from a Government that has stated that it is absolutely focused on front-line services. How will the Government develop front-line services, and how will it recruit and retain people who work in the mental health services, if it will not offer workforce and career development to make the sector attractive and to get people in there for the long term, so that they can get to know the sector well and build relationships with their clients? How will the Government do that when the money is being stripped away and the sector is no longer a priority?

As a result of these funding cuts, and as a result of mental health no longer being a priority for the National - ACT Government, some community providers are already indicating that they may need to move away from district health board contracts. In order to provide the level of service that they feel comfortable with, they need to move away from district health board contracts, and instead provide services only to fee-paying clients. That is user-pays in the health system.

Where have we seen that before? We have seen it before in privatised health-care. Despite the token concessions and lip-service paid to its commitment to public health, the previous National Government slashed spending in the public sector and introduced part payment within its health reforms. The move was deliberately calculated to reduce demand for health care. People could not access the services that they needed, and hospitals were forced to become debt collectors. They had tills at the front door.

Who can forget Tony Ryall and John Key saying that the market would decide general practitioners’ fees? They said the market would provide. They said that only when the media flushed them out to ask what was not in National’s health policy document, and later they did a quick U-turn on that. Already we are seeing the sowing of the seeds towards privatised health-care and user-pays, because those mental health services will not be able to provide the services that are necessary, given the funding allocations that they will no longer receive because their sector is off the priority list and unimportant. It is not an area that the Government thinks the health system should be focusing on.

The Health Committee also expressed some concern about the paucity of services that were available to treat addictions in New Zealand, particularly for young people. The select committee asked the Mental Health Commission for its thoughts on this point, and it noted that addiction services were actually quite new to the blueprint, and new to the mental health sector.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Associate Minister of Health) : It is a pleasure to rise and speak in this debate, because a couple of things need to be corrected and put on the record. First of all, it is incredibly ironic that Labour members have chosen to debate the Mental Health Commission. Of all the entities they could have put up, they want to put up the Mental Health Commission and place a big, fat target on its back. Quite frankly, the previous Government’s performance over 9 years on mental health was absolutely abysmal.

Hon Annette King: It was fantastic!

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: You see, Labour members are the only ones saying that. They spent $1 billion, they extended spending by 75 percent, and was anyone better off in terms of their mental health by the end of it? Absolutely not. We can tell by the way that mob is shouting that they know it is absolutely true. If those members talked to the families of mental health patients, if they talked to the patients themselves, they would hear them say that they were let down by the previous Government. Quite frankly, it is pathetic for those members to go on about the axing of Labour’s bureaucratic target. The target was that 80 percent of long-term patients should have a long-term relapse prevention plan. If that target was the sum total of Labour’s plan in mental health, it was pathetic.

When we look at what National inherited from that mob, it is incredible. We have to narrow down those targets to crucial stuff that makes a difference. This is what we inherited from Labour: a system overburdened with 13 health priorities, 61 objectives, an additional subset of 13 health objectives, a set of 10 health targets measured through 18 indicators, 25 other indicators of district health board performance—not to mention four hospital benchmark indicators assessed through 15 measures and an outcomes framework with nine outcomes measured against 39 headline indicators. No wonder morale in the mental health service is absolutely at rock bottom. Those people focused on meaningless targets but if they had spent some time focused on what would make a difference in mental health, they would have focused on very different stuff.

The Labour Government had 9 years but it did nothing to get mental health into primary care—absolutely nothing. It was the families of mental health patients who had to carry the can when that failed Government failed to provide the access to services that were needed. If Labour members talked to ordinary New Zealanders rather than viewing everything through a political lens, they—and Mr Lees-Galloway—would know that it is the families who are left to carry the can. When people cannot get into hospitals, when they cannot access primary care, when they cannot get to the services—whether the patients are Māori, Pacific Island, elderly, or children—it is the families who carry the can. [Interruption] Labour members would not be shouting like this if those comments were not true.

Mr Lees-Galloway is buying into the propaganda. He has been in Parliament for 6 months and already he believes the rhetoric. He said there were funding cuts in health. Why does he not tell members about the $26 million that National has announced to treat people who have eating disorders? It is because he is ashamed. He joined the Labour Party, and he knows that Government did nothing for people with eating disorders. It had 9 years, it had plenty of opportunity, but it did not do it. It absolutely did not do it, because there were no votes amongst the anorexic. It was not a politically pressure-pointed issue for Labour. It was an absolutely shameful performance. Now with this $26 million—$6.5 million in this year’s Budget—there is, finally, some relief for those families with children with anorexia, who were never listened to by the previous Government. Labour members have gone quiet because they know the truth; they are ashamed.

I tell members that Labour’s record on Māori mental health was pathetic. Māori could not get the access to services under the last Government. Why was that? It was because Labour had written off Māori at the ballot box.

Hon Ruth Dyson: What are you going to do, Jonathan—one thing?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Ruth Dyson asked for one thing; one thing is $26 million for eating disorders. That is a priority for this Government in this Budget—health and mental health. There is more money, and it is new money. Labour members know that, and they are ashamed because they let down ordinary New Zealanders over a much-extended period.

We remember the debate on the Mental Health Commission Amendment Bill back in 2007. We remember in the Health Committee listening to family after family—[Interruption]. Well, that guy opposite does not have an eating disorder. Those families could not get access to the services that were needed. They told us that the Mental Health Commission had become ideologically bound up under the previous Government. The commission had lost sight of what it was trying to do in mental health, it had lost sight of the interests of patients and families—it was ideologically captured. And what did the previous Government do? It just went along with it for way, way too long until the pressure built to such a level that the Government could no longer ignore it.

In the debate on the Mental Health Commission Amendment Bill, National members said they wanted to have a review clause after 3 years to see whether the Mental Health Commission should have its life extended. I am happy to say that under this new National Government the commission will be doing a great job advocating not only for patients but also for families.

There is plenty of money in mental health; the problem under the previous lot was that the money was tied up in meaningless bureaucracy. Labour spent so much money and did not know where it was going. When I was in Opposition, I asked the district health boards what had happened to the $300 million spent on non-governmental organisations. And do members know what? They could tell us they were spending the money, they could tell us which district health boards it went to, they could tell us where the money went to from the district health boards in terms of the non-governmental organisations, but they could not tell us what it produced. So when Mr Lees-Galloway gets up and talks about cuts in funding, it is a complete inaccuracy.

I can tell members what happened. Pete Hodgson, as Minister of Health, was given a report by the non-governmental organisations saying that that system was unsustainable because of what the Labour Government was doing to it. And—do members know—he never released that report. Why did Pete Hodgson not want that report to undergo the disinfectant of the light of day? He did not because it showed that the Labour Government had spent $1 billion on mental health, it had upped the amount by 75 percent over the 10 years, but people were getting less access to services, not more. The money was tied up in bureaucracy, and no one knew where the money was going. It was an absolute disgrace, and it was letting down New Zealanders.

We only have to do a flick through our media file to see the failings of the last Labour Government in terms of mental health. Look at Hillmorton Hospital—that was a disgrace. Look at the Auckland City Hospital acute unit; again, those guys failed. They had 9 years to do something about it and there was nothing they could do—another disgrace. Look at what happened over Lake Alice Hospital. When the Labour Government was in power Cabinet clipped the compensation for the Lake Alice Hospital patients. The Government thought it could get away with that dirty little secret; it was an absolute disgrace. It took $3 million from the most vulnerable people in New Zealand society, and it thought it could get away with it. But, no, the patients themselves brought it to the light of day—the disinfectant of sunlight—and the Labour Government finally had to cough up.

When Labour members are stupid enough to bring up the Mental Health Commission and open up the debate on mental health, one really has to wonder who is calling the strategy shots on the opposite side. When one looks at Labour’s performance in the Chamber over the past 6 months in terms of health in general, there have been very, very few questions on health. There has not been a single question on mental health, and I do not know who made this decision today to actually bring up—

Hon Trevor Mallard: That is Melissa Lee’s fired minder!

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Oh, it is the sad old man of the House—Trevor Mallard. He has stirred from his stupor to weigh into a debate that he knows nothing about. The pathetic so-called kaumātua has nothing to add to this debate, I can tell members now.

I go back to the central point, which is that $1 billion a year was spent on mental health under those guys opposite. People had less access to services, not more. People were not able to get their relatives into acute care when they needed to. The care-in-the-community model had a lot of holes in it. A lot of people were left on the street, and families picked up the can. There is no question that when Labour was in Government the only thing it would react to was political pressure. It would do nothing until the pressure was so bad at the ballot box that it could not hold off any longer. National has been in Government for 6 months, and what have we done? We have put $26 million into aiding people with eating disorders—that is Labour’s shame.

Hon Steve Chadwick: The work was done under Labour. I did that work!

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Labour never would have done it; that is its shame. National will make sure that we have better primary-care mental health services. We will make sure that people can get the care they need, and I tell members that mental health services will be much, much better.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) : I begin by congratulating the Mental Health Commission, which, over many years, has done a fantastic job for people with mental illness in New Zealand. I commend the work that it does. As a Government, Labour extended the life of the commission, not once, not twice, but three times, because we believed that it needed to be in place until we had the best possible mental health services in this country.

Today New Zealanders have just listened to a political rant from a man who claims to be a doctor. If that is the case, he should know something about mental health. I am absolutely ashamed of the speech he has just made. If he knew a single thing about mental health, he would know that one of the things that needed to happen in New Zealand was a major change to the way we provided mental health services. The reason why we needed to make a change was that when Labour became Government in 1999, there had been 75 inquiries in the 1990s into failures of the mental health system in New Zealand. The most significant inquiry was the Mason report, which set out for us a very clear way forward.

From my time in Government, I know what happened—I was the Minister of Health for 6 years, I say to the Minister. I know exactly what priority we put on mental health. First of all, we said that mental health was not the Cinderella of the health system, and that mental health needed to be right up there as a major issue. We said that it should not be sidelined—it is not something a Government does when it has done everything else—and that it was a major issue for New Zealand. Labour needed to take it seriously. We needed to implement the blueprint on mental health services in New Zealand, and we needed a strategic direction as to what we were going to do in the years ahead. We set out to implement that blueprint and to put those services in place. I am particularly proud of what we did in the area of mental health, with the support of the Mental Health Commission and with the support of the mental health workforce of New Zealand.

Let me give the members an example of what we did not have in this country. Today people glibly talk about the need to have mental health services for adolescents and young people. Could we have provided that before we became Government? No, we could not have done so. There was no training of mental health workers in child and adolescent mental health. That did not start until we invested in the John Werry centre in Auckland and started training people in the area of adolescent and child mental health. The work to produce such a workforce started under the Labour Government. Anyone who had read what had gone wrong in mental health in New Zealand would know that our problem was a lack of money, a lack of a trained workforce, and a lack of priority for mental health services. This is such a sad day because that is no longer a priority. I fear that if it is not a priority for the district health boards—because that is the message they will get from the Minister’s statement—the emphasis on improving mental health services for New Zealanders will no longer be there.

The reason why I ring-fenced the mental health money into district health boards was to ensure they spent it on mental health services. Over many decades, when money went into area health boards, into Crown health enterprises, into hospital and health services, and, finally, into district health boards, the easiest money to rob was mental health money. It was taken for whatever else was needed. Acute care always got priority, and mental health money was taken. So we ring-fenced that money, and we saw the improvement in mental health services over the time that we were in Government. It was a huge improvement—over 27,000 New Zealanders every day of the week were receiving mental health services in the community. We improved access to acute mental health services. We built new mental health units around New Zealand. We made it a priority—it must be a priority. Any humane country would make it a priority.

I went to the World Health Assembly conference in 2001. The theme of the conference was mental health. I happened to chair the plenary session, and I listened to Ministers from 40 countries provide their descriptions of the mental health services in their country. I listened to what they were doing. I listened to the Minister from Nigeria—and I heard him today in the form of the Associate Minister of Health. The health Minister in Nigeria said: “We have no mental health problems in Nigeria, so we don’t have a mental health system. It’s not a priority.” And that is what we heard today. I heard the French health Minister say: “In France we have a huge mental health problem. The problem is we have too many psychiatrists.” What I heard from countries all around the world was that most of them know there is a problem, but some deny it as a problem. We heard today a denial of the problem from the Associate Minister of Health, who was trying to say that the previous Government did nothing and to complain about the legacy we have. It was total hogwash. I have never heard more distortion and untruths put together in one speech, in my time in Parliament.

The priority on mental health has to remain. It must remain. It is no good for the new Government to say that it thinks 13 priorities are too many. Well, why have any? If everything has the same priority, why have any priorities? The Government could just make everything the same. How ridiculous! One has to set priorities, and mental health must be one of them.

A second priority the Government has removed is that of oral health. Good heavens above! There would not be a member opposite who did not write to me when I was the Minister of Health and ask what I was doing about oral health. Members asked what the Government was doing about the provision of child oral health and adult oral health, so we set about bringing back the training of dental therapists. Can members believe it? The previous National Government had got rid of all training of dental therapists, so how were we going to be able to provide such a service?

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The debate is about mental health.

Hon ANNETTE KING: I am talking about the priorities that have been put forward by this Government, Mr Chairperson. That was the second priority that a National Government got rid of. I noticed that the Minister had quite a good whack at Trevor Mallard; I did not notice that that was in the financial review.

The big announcement the Government has made in mental health is that it is putting money into eating disorders. New Zealanders should know that the work on the eating disorder approach to be used in New Zealand was actually done by Steve Chadwick when she was Associate Minister of Health. That work was done under a Labour Government, and if Labour was still in Government it would have funded this in the Budget. That is the only announcement the Government could make in mental health. I say “Thank God for the Mental Health Commission”, because it will not matter what priority the National Government puts on mental health—and it is none—the commission will keep it honest. The Mental Health Commission will keep this Government honest. Its members are fearless; they say what they believe. They have conviction and commitment. The Mental Health Commission will show this Government up for the callous one it is. National does not give a damn about mental health—it never did.

To hear from the Associate Minister of Health Jonathan Coleman that the former Labour Government put no priority on mental health, and that we did not improve it, is to hear nothing but hogwash. He will go nowhere as a Minister if he cannot front up with the truth to New Zealand, and if he cannot take off his political glasses and see what improvements were made under Labour. I could provide him today with many testimonies from mental health patients and providers who know that huge improvements were made in the 9 years Labour was in Government.

• Report noted.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) : This year has been a sad year for accident compensation, because the accident compensation system has been under attack not from members of the public but from the Minister for ACC, Nick Smith. The Minister, soon after coming into office, claimed that the system was fundamentally broken. He said that unless drastic changes were made to the scheme, the costs would rise by $2,400 per household. He claimed that the scheme was insolvent. The words he used in the general debate on 4 March were: “The reality is that ACC is effectively insolvent.” When challenged about that on Morning Report on 1 April, he thought the whole of the country was foolish, because when I said: “You’ve been calling ACC insolvent. It is not.”, the Hon Dr Nick Smith said: “I have not.” He obviously contradicted his express statement in the House that the scheme was insolvent.

It is true that accident compensation costs have increased. Why have they increased? There are a number of reasons. The breadth of cover has been increased. Why was it increased? It is because there was unfairness in the previous scheme. I will give members an example. Some seasonal workers had an out-of-season accident—they were knocked over by a drunken driver. Their earnings-related compensation was calculated on the basis of the short period of their earnings prior to their injury. If they were disabled for life, they would never get any earnings-related compensation relating to their seasonal earnings, even though they paid accident compensation levies and their employer paid accident compensation levies in respect of their earnings. That was an unfairness that was righted by the previous Government—and so it should have been—and that did increase costs.

There were other areas of increased costs in the scheme, and there were some areas where expenses did increase. I have acknowledged previously, as has the outgoing chair of the Accident Compensation Corporation board, Mr Ross Wilson, that changes needed to be made to physiotherapy, because those cost increases were higher than was predicted. But that comes under the heading of housekeeping, and it does not point to a fundamental flaw in the scheme.

In terms of the outstanding liabilities of the scheme, it is true, too, that they grew. It is also true that the amount of accident compensation that was pre-funded grew from 45 percent of its liabilities in 1999—when the previous Labour Government took over from National—to 64 percent when we left office. The amount of the scheme’s assets increased from $2 billion to $12 billion, so to suggest that it was insolvent was a nonsense. National introduced a new definition of insolvency to accident compensation that made wrong every audit certificate the scheme has had since the day it was formed. If that was the measure of insolvency, the scheme was insolvent from the day it was formed, because it has never been 100 percent pre-funded, although it is more pre-funded now than it ever has been in the past. The Government cannot have it both ways.

What did the commentators say? They saw Dr Smith’s comments for what they were. The Minister’s gross exaggeration was roundly criticised by a number of commentators. An actuary pointed out that National was scaremongering, that there was nothing wrong with the scheme, and that much of the increase in liabilities arose from the decrease in the rate of return on the scheme’s investment portfolio, which meant there needed to be a bigger portfolio in order to fund the tail of claims in years to come. That independent actuary said that there was nothing wrong with the scheme, and that this was a case of scaremongering.

Fran O’Sullivan from the New Zealand Herald criticised Dr Smith by saying there was a fine line between using the international financial crisis to create a position to justify fundamental change and downright chicanery. Brian Fallow described Dr Smith’s behaviour as “bizarre”, which is very strong language from a moderate commentator. He said that the Minister’s actions were bizarre, and that he was causing unnecessary worry and stress to the many thousands of New Zealanders who were reliant upon accident compensation. Vernon Small at the Dominion-Post said it was largely a manufactured crisis—manufactured by the Minister for his own ends. Rod Oram did the analysis. He showed that the vast majority of the increase in liability was a consequence of the decreasing rate of return on international finance markets.

What is the underlying agenda here? It is to go back to prior mistakes. The Government wants to privatise accident compensation.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for ACC) : I think the numbers with regard to accident compensation speak for themselves. I will read the actual numbers with regard to the state of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) over the previous Labour Government’s last 3 years in office. That Government increased the liabilities of the accident compensation scheme in just 3 years by $10.5 billion. That equates to $5,000 for every household of New Zealand. That is a deterioration of $5,000 for every Kiwi household as a consequence of Labour’s management of accident compensation over the last 3 years.

The members opposite, and Mr Parker, said they accepted there was a mess with physiotherapy, but that it was just housekeeping. I have a housekeeping bill in my home, and I tell Mr Parker how expensive his housekeeping bill over the physiotherapy mess that his Government made over the last few years, has been. The extra cost of accident compensation in physiotherapy has added $500 million to the accident compensation scheme’s liabilities. That is not a bad housekeeping bill! That is an extra $100 million per year.

I would like any Labour member opposite to explain why they ignored advice from the Department of Labour, because I have very clear advice here from the department stating that the physiotherapy decision was wrong before the Government made it. A further point I ask is this. The changes were made in 2004 to physiotherapy. ACC reported to Ministers in 2005, in 2006, in 2007, and in 2008 that expenditure was out of control in physiotherapy. What did Labour do? It did absolutely nothing—absolutely zip. Labour handed this new Government a hospital pass of which physiotherapy is just part.

It is the view of this Government that a 24/7 accident insurance scheme along the Woodhouse inquiry principles is absolutely critical. But if we are to save that heritage for New Zealanders, we have to deal with the loose financial management of ACC. That will involve levy increases. That will involve changes in ACC—this week the corporation will be announcing redundancies in terms of head office corporate staff, which has also grown out of control. That is in line with National’s provisions and promises to put the focus on front-line services. We will review some of the expensive extensions made to the accident compensation scheme by the previous Government, but not funded.

I say this new Government has been left a hospital pass, a $10 billion increase in liabilities, and we will have a difficult challenge that will require compassion, a strong heart, and a strong head as we ensure the security of this important New Zealand institution.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) : I rise to speak on the financial review of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). From the Minister for ACC today we have heard a continuation of his manufactured crisis in ACC. I have one question for the Minister: how can the New Zealand accident compensation scheme be too generous if it is still cheaper than the Australian scheme? The National Party likes to compare us with Australia all the time. It says that Australia is better at this and better at that; they are always doing better than New Zealand, and we have to catch up. But our accident compensation scheme, with 24-hour-a-day cover, is cheaper than the Australian scheme. Why, then, is it too generous for New Zealanders?

I think the comments made about the Minister’s behaviour, which totally embarrassed his colleagues for a number of weeks, were picked up on by many commentators. Comments about bizarre actions, scaremongering, and many others were made at the time about the Minister’s actions. I think that they were true, because this was a manufactured crisis to reduce services to New Zealand.

One other thing the Minister said today is he wants to retain the 24-hour-a-day cover for accident compensation—our iconic cover. He wants to focus on front-line services. Well, I have a question for the Minister today. I want to know why the plug has been pulled on the sexual abuse crisis line hat was funded by ACC. That was a 24-hour-a-day service, a front-line service. It had over 8,000 calls a year, yet ACC has just pulled the funding from the 24-hour-a-day crisis service. ACC has funded that service for 8,000 callers a year at a cost of about $350,000 a year, but ACC will not continue that funding in the new financial year, and that is a question that needs to be answered.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yes, it will.

Hon ANNETTE KING: No, ACC does not intend to fund it. We now have organisations scrabbling around Government departments, trying to find money, and I know departments have gone to the Minister of Justice looking for money. Why is that sexual abuse crisis line 24-hour-a-day service for New Zealanders not funded by ACC? That has been a crucial service, particularly for women who have needed that crisis line. The line provides counselling, advocacy, and information on a 24-hour-a-day basis. It is a call-out service for women who have been raped. As far as I know, that has been covered under ACC for quite some time. Getting advocacy, assistance, and information at 2 a.m. will not be available through ACC any more; the corporation is not going to fund it. How can the Minister say he wants a 24-hour-a-day front-line service, offered by ACC for a mere $350,000 a year for—I got it wrong before—8,500 calls a year, when that money is being chopped? The service must go somewhere else and find the money. Why does ACC not accept that it can provide that service? It picks up other cover; why not pick up that 24-hour-a-day service?

The service has been a marvellous assistance to many women who have faced sexual abuse in this country. We make a big play about the fact that we are trying to reduce family violence and sexual violence in this country. We have a task force on sexual violence that is aimed at reducing sexual violence and encouraging women to report rape and sexual violence, because we know—and the police will tell the Minister this—that the number of women who report rape is the tip of the iceberg. They are frightened to report rape as they know what they will have to go through, but that issue can be addressed in another place.

One of the small assistances they had was the crisis line. I ask the Minister why he is cutting that funding.

Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS (ACT) : The Minister for ACC’s analysis of the financial position that the new Government inherited from the previous Labour Government is, I believe, an accurate one. To call it a disgrace would be to treat it rather lightly. The question now is what the new Government intends to do about the situation that it inherited. The Minister said that there would be redundancies at the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and there would be increased charges, but I say to the Committee and to the Minister that such an approach is not likely to work over the medium term.

The real problem with ACC is that it is a monopoly, and that is the fundamental problem that the changes the Minister is talking about will not overcome. Monopolies always fail, and they fail for one simple reason: they are not required to offer cost-effective and good-quality services to attract customers. Monopolies fail to meet consumer demand because consumers simply have no other choice. Monopolies fail to reduce costs because they have no competition to drive out their high-cost structure. Only competition in this area will make the fundamental changes and restore ACC to some level of reasonable performance.

ACC is bankrupt. There is much confusion on this point—fostered, I might add, by the Labour Opposition—but the fact remains that if ACC was a private company or corporation, it would already be in liquidation. It has what is called an unfunded liability, and I ask the Minister what he intends to do about this unfunded liability over time. But the Minister has inherited more problems than just the unfunded liability. It may well be the biggest problem, but another reason why ACC is bankrupt is that there are now 1.7 million claims per annum. Almost 40 percent of New Zealanders are making a claim. I note that despite that figure, ACC is spending millions advertising its “You’re covered” campaign. What does ACC want to make it—2.5 million claimants?

According to ACC’s PricewaterhouseCoopers 2008 report, only around 5 percent of these claimants could attribute any fault to another party. Yet before 1972, we had a situation where around 5 percent of people who could prove third-party fault got compensation. There is something out of whack here. Now only 5 percent of people say they can attribute fault to someone else. Before 1972 only 5 percent could not show that fault could in fact be attributed to someone else.

The corporation’s administrative spending is incredible. We have seen a situation where it now spends $468 million in operating costs. By my calculations, that amount has increased by 30 percent since 2005—up from $341 million. Doing a quick calculation, I think it is now $127 million more than it was 3 years ago. I would be interested in what the Minister in the chair, Dr Nick Smith, intends to do about that.

But coming back, I say it is really only competition that will rectify this situation. I ask the Minister what he will do about the situation where the scheme shields the negligent. The accident compensation levy schedule is based on aggregates. For example, it presumes—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for ACC) : I will take the opportunity to respond to the point that Annette King raised in relation to the very sensitive area of support for women in Auckland who have been sexually abused or raped. I wish to put her correct in terms of this issue. Nikki Kaye, the member for Auckland Central, raised these issues with the Associate Minister for ACC, Pansy Wong, and me late last week. I and the Associate Minister met with officials from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) yesterday to work through these issues.

The fundamental difficulty is that the funding currently provided in lump-sum form for the Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation helpline is outside the legal boundaries of what ACC can legally fund, in terms of payment for a service, and that has brought about this need for the review and the notification. I and the Associate Minister for ACC, who is also the Minister of Women’s Affairs, are concerned about the impact of this matter. For that reason, the Associate Minister for ACC wrote to ACC yesterday, requiring a 3-month extension of the funding, which will give us the time frame in which to work with the other Government agencies. The Ministry of Social Development also has an interest in this. It provides funding of about $350,000 a year for this service as well. Funding also comes from the Auckland District Health Board.

Over the 3-month time frame we want to review the service to see that there is fairness in who receives funding. But I want to provide on behalf of the Government an assurance to the people of Auckland who are dependent on that service—

Hon Steve Chadwick: What about all women of New Zealand?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, a review is taking place right now around the services for people who are affected by both rape and sexual abuse. The Government is looking to receive that report in June and we will not be making any decisions until then. I will say to Ms Chadwick, however, that Labour had 9 years to address these issues in communities like Nelson. What did the member do?

Paul Quinn: What did she do in Rotorua?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We have that reality in Rotorua and in all sorts of places. I would say, firstly, that Pansy Wong has been absolutely on top of this very sensitive issue in Auckland. She has made the right decision—

Hon Shane Jones: When will ACC be sold?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That really is a sign of how desperate the Labour Party in Opposition is. When Labour has left for the incoming Government a $10 billion hole around the accident compensation scheme, the greatest intellectual contribution that we can get from those members is the tired old rant of privatisation. This Government is committed to ensuring New Zealanders have security around accident compensation. That will mean addressing the financial mess that Labour left in this area. But, as is evidenced in the very correct action that was taken by Pansy Wong yesterday, we will do that in a sensible way, where key services like those available to victims of rape are not compromised in the process.

Hon Steve Chadwick: Right across New Zealand?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: They will not be compromised in the way that the financial mess left by Labour would have allowed.

I seek leave to table the two letters that have been sent by Pansy Wong to the corporation and to the Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation Trust, so that the Committee can have the true record, not the misrepresented view that we heard from the deputy leader—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Leave is sought to table those letters. Is there any objection? There is not.

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

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) : I will start by talking about the one thing that I agree with in relation to what we have heard from our friends on the other side of the Chamber. The Hon David Parker said this has been a sad year for the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). But there, sadly, any agreement ends. To suggest that the situation ACC finds itself in is somehow manufactured by the new Minister absolutely beggars belief.

ACC really is an organisation that is simply too important to have that sort of politicking done to it. Last year, 1.7 million New Zealanders made a claim with ACC. That is 1.7 million people who had an expectation of a fast and lasting return to work or to independence to the maximum degree possible.

ACC is one of this country’s largest public institutional investors. It has more than $10 billion invested. It has built up those funds over the last 10 years or so out of a plan that was put in place to achieve what is known as “fully funding the scheme”. Full funding and the solvency of the scheme—we have got into some definitional questions here—are such that the assets of the scheme will meet or exceed the net present value of the future costs of the claims that are currently on the books. We have a situation where a residual claims levy was put in place that was intended to have those claims fully funded by 2014, and new claims coming through should have their costs fully funded by the levies that were collected in each year.

I have been doing a bit of an analysis of the scheme’s drive towards solvency, and I have been plotting the corporation’s performance on this graph. The black line is the goal year on year towards achieving that solvency by means of fully funding accident compensation in the year 2014. As members can see, the red line, which represents progress towards that target, has shown that the corporation was performing extremely well until about 2005-06, when things did not just change but took a veritable U-turn. Suddenly, the solvency ratio of the scheme went down. This is very important, because we have heard for the last 6 months that this has somehow been caused by an economic downturn—

Hon Shane Jones: Market volatility.

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —and by market conditions changing. Well, let me tell members—and everybody knows this—the corporation was outperforming the market in 2005-06 and in 2006-07. Its rates of return were considerably more than the average that was expected of it and more than what had been budgeted for. The fact is that the downturn in the scheme’s solvency had very little to do in those years with the financial performance in the market.

If that is the case, then what was happening? Well, I think that about three things were happening. Firstly, there were very poor estimates of the cost of new cover in the scheme. We can think of treatment injury. In 2004 it was expected to cost $8.9 million a year; now it costs something like 10 times that amount. The cost of the endorsed provider network for physiotherapists was meant to be around $50 million. Now it exceeds a quarter of a billion dollars, and it is climbing. There is a plethora of such examples.

There has also been some levy decision-making that I do not think has been very good. Officials went to the previous Labour administration and said they thought the levies should be set at a certain level. What has happened? That level has not been set. Why? Probably because of political expediency. It is sad for the corporation, but the chickens are now coming home to roost.

Thirdly, rehabilitation performance has gone south. Claims rates are increasing year on year by 4 or 5 percent, despite the efforts at injury prevention, and claims duration is increasing. Three-month rehabilitation rates are down by 5 percent. Six-month rehabilitation rates are down by 4 percent. Twelve-month rehabilitation rates are also down. Those rates are a really important indicator of the long-term costs of the scheme, and they have gone down.

What has been most disappointing is the fact that the previous Labour administration knew all that and failed to disclose it, despite having had successive opportunities to do so. Labour has used as a smokescreen a report that, despite having a finding that Labour was in breach of the Public Finance Act, puts some of the blame on to Treasury. I do not think that is acceptable. I will continue to explain what Labour members said. They said that insufficient detailed scrutiny was given to the $305.5 million of new money that Vote ACC needed just in order to sustain the non-earners account alone. Frankly, whether it was $285 million, $295 million, or $305 million really did not matter. The previous Minister for ACC and the previous Minister of Finance knew they had a duty to disclose that situation in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update and at other opportunities, and they did not take those opportunities. That is a shame on that administration. It is the reason that the accident compensation scheme is in a sad state.

Accident compensation is too important for New Zealanders to be treated in the manner that they were under the previous administration. New Zealanders deserve to be given greater clarity about what they can expect from the scheme and about the costs of entitlements to the scheme, so that we do not have these lurches in levies year on year. Frankly, in the last couple of years the lurches have been upwards only. I look forward to working with and for a Government that understands those things and will bring some rigour and discipline back to the accident compensation scheme in future years.

• Report noted.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) : The Education and Science Committee report on the financial review of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd was not very informative. A number of issues about the way this Crown research institute spends money need looking into. I actually learnt more about the institute from the media—and particularly from Tom Frewen’s article in the National Business Review—than I did from the select committee’s investigation.

The article discloses that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd has been through a major rebranding exercise. It has beefed up the number of staff in communications and marketing, has ordered new letterheads and a new logo, and has extended to a new building. The institute has moved its Auckland offices and undertaken a refit of the new building. The annual report from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd reveals only that there was $58 million of capital spending on a number of issues, which included accommodation upgrades. It is impossible to find out how much was spent on accommodation upgrades, but I understand that the institute has moved from Newmarket to the Viaduct Basin.

I asked the Minister of Research, Science and Technology, the Hon Dr Wayne Mapp, by how much the rent had increased, and the total refit cost of the new building. The Minister refused to answer my written questions, on the grounds that the matter was an operational matter that he took no interest in. But I understand that the rent far more than doubled, that the old premises were plenty big enough for the staff, and that the refit cost around $3 million. If those figures are wrong, I would like the Minister to correct them in the Committee, but as far as I am aware at the moment, those are the figures being talked about. That is $3 million—plus the rest—that could have been spent on science, particularly the science that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd does around climate change, which is one of the foremost issues of the day. The select committee itself made the very mild observation that it thought that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd could address climate change issues in a more proactive and public way. The money could have helped them do that.

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd’s mission statement is “to conduct leading environmental science to enable the sustainable management of natural resources for New Zealand and the planet”. But when a National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd scientist tries to address climate change issues in a more proactive and public way, he or she gets into very deep trouble. One scientist who previously worked at the institute has been the public face of that organisation for years, is well known on television, and is well loved by the public for explaining clearly what is going on with the weather and climate—that is Dr Jim Salinger. He was a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and contributed to the Nobel Prize that the panel and its leading scientists received. He is world famous. Last month he was sacked for addressing climate change issues in a more public and proactive way and was given 3 hours to clear his desk. Again, I invited the Minister to take some responsibility, and asked a question in the House, but the Minister replied that it was an employment matter for the board and chief executive of the institute and not a matter for the Minister. That is absolutely right when we are dealing with matters of administrative detail, but when does a scandal over the sacking of a world-leading Nobel scientist for doing his job—a scandal that reached the pages of Nature magazine—become a matter for the Minister? When does New Zealand’s international reputation become a matter for the Minister? It appears to be never for this Minister.

Salinger is not the only one. Dr Andy Reisinger left the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd and now works for Victoria University, where he has more academic freedom. He described the sacking of Dr Jim Salinger as “incomprehensible”. Dr Dave Lowe left the institute 18 months ago and now works independently, because he wanted the freedom “to get on with the job”. The problem here is that the institute has a culture where corporate bureaucracy is put above good science. It has a culture where obeying bureaucratic rules is more important than being a world-leading scientist. It has a culture where academic freedom and the freedom to speak out is a sackable offence. I am not talking about criticising the organisation or Government policy; I am talking about the freedom when on the West Coast to ring a television presenter with whom the institute has a contract and say that it is raining so hard the rivers are flooding.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Energy and Resources) : The member who just resumed her seat, Jeanette Fitzsimons, started her speech by saying that the work of the Education and Science Committee in conducting the financial review of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd was not very informative. I suppose on the details of what are essentially employment issues the report is not informative, but on the substance of what the institute does I think it is very informative. I will give some of the information that is contained in this report so that people can get a sense of it. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd is a very fine organisation and very focused on the work that is precise to it—in other words the long-range forecasting and consideration of matters relating to our atmosphere.

In the year in consideration the institute employed in excess of 750 people at some 15 locations across New Zealand. The member was upset that of a $58 million capital spend, some $3 million was spent on refitting facilities. I simply suggest that even scientists like to have up-to-date facilities to work in. I do not see too much of a difficulty in an organisation that was able to turn a $10 million profit last year spending some of that money on making sure that facilities are right and appropriate for its workers.

In that regard it is worth noting that in New Zealand we are often critical of the extent to which there is a Government agency involvement in the sciences. This particular organisation is a commercial organisation, but it is owned by the Crown. In the last year, its revenues were some $120.7 million, and that was money paid to the organisation, in one way or another, for particular pieces of research, for some information, and for activity that blends science with our economy and our economic activity.

I will point to some of those current activities. Firstly, one of the activities that the Education and Science Committee wanted to highlight in this report was the ensuring of a secure and sustainable energy supply for New Zealand. A collaboration of Crown research institutes has been brought together under the lead agency, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, and funded by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, to give New Zealanders better information about what we need for a future energy supply that can be produced and relied on as a fuel source, from sustainable fuel feeding.

This agency was also involved in achieving higher returns from aquaculture—something quite different. New Zealand is a country that makes a reasonable amount of export dollars from aquaculture. In my view, aquaculture has one of the biggest potentials for rapid expansion, and the work that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research does in working out the best places to locate aquaculture facilities and the best species to farm, etc., is extremely valuable.

It also undertakes a lot of other fisheries work. For example, I know that tuna fishermen will routinely contract with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research for water temperature information, and from that information the fishermen will be able to work out where the tuna are most likely to run. The net effect of that is that the fishermen can position themselves for those runs using the least amount of fuel possible and can be at sea for the least number of days possible. Those sorts of mergers between the science of climate monitoring and the activity of fishing indicate how closely science and business can work together.

The wise allocation of fresh water is part of the work that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research does—it provides the advice stream around that. No one in this Chamber would not understand that the future of our freshwater supplies in New Zealand is a matter that we should all be concerned about. Throughout the country there are issues around the overallocation of groundwater resources and the potential for water storage above ground. Those activities can be augmented by much of the work that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research does in this particular area. I think it is a very good organisation, and this is an excellent report; the Committee should be eager to adopt it.

• Report noted.

Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) : The Committee is debating the Land Transport New Zealand financial review, which, alongside Transit New Zealand—as it was—now makes up the New Zealand Transport Agency, for which the Minister of Transport, the Hon Steven Joyce, has full and sweeping authority and power.

One of the things that the Opposition would like to question the Minister on today is the attitude he has taken to important transport projects in New Zealand. My colleague Darien Fenton will raise some public transport matters with the Minister, but I am particularly interested in—

Hon Shane Jones: Ask him about Melissa Lee.

Hon DARREN HUGHES: I will get to Melissa Lee. Mr Jones should not worry. Labour is happy to talk about her; National never mentioned her at all. In fact, all through question time today I listened for her supplementary questions and I waited for her primary questions, but they never came along.

Hon Tau Henare: What are you going to do when you get there?

Hon DARREN HUGHES: No doubt Tau Henare will be giving a lot of advice to Melissa Lee as to how to run a stellar political career. I think “TAU101” is the advice that will be given in that particular regard.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Tau just went up the list in Auckland.

Hon DARREN HUGHES: No, nothing could get Tau up the list in Auckland; I think he is flatlining in that respect.

Coming back to this transport matter, I will talk about the No. 1 roading project for New Zealand—that is, of course, the Waterview Connection, which completes the western ring route. We want to know whether the Minister has had a chance over the adjournment to reflect on the attitude he has taken towards this decision, and on the way he has described the debate on this issue. Today in question time the Minister allowed the Prime Minister to describe the Waterview project as a $3.2 billion project. The cost of this project keeps going up and up every time National mentions it. In fact, I understand that Mr Joyce is now asking the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to do the costing for the Waterview Connection—if we could build the road via a trip to the moon and back—because he is so keen to try to discredit this most important roading project for the people of the Waterview and Mount Albert communities. We know that Mr Joyce is now able to fund a project at a cost of $1.4 billion, which apparently can all come from the National Land Transport Fund, but a tunnel option—at $1.98 billion—requires $550 million financing costs to go alongside it. So if the Minister could, once again, try to succinctly explain to the country why he has cooked the books with regard to the Waterview Connection, that would be much appreciated, because I think that has been a disgraceful way to handle it.

The Minister is now presiding over the loss of 365 homes in that community, and appears to be quite cavalier about that. The Minister colluded, in the last sitting week, to ensure that that announcement was made after parliamentary question time had been held, so that the Opposition could not ask questions about it. The Government denied the Opposition leave to ask an urgent question about the announcement, and, in what I regard as a continued abuse of parliamentary procedure, it made the announcement from the Minister’s office the very second that the Speaker resumed his seat after having declined an urgent debate on that topic. That action goes along with the abuse of process we have seen over the Auckland super-city legislation, in terms of getting a Minister in charge of a bill to chair the parliamentary select committee. That is a theme we are seeing, and I want the Minister to reassure the Committee that he is not allowing this cavalier and highly political attitude to pervade his decision around Waterview and around the completion of the western ring route.

I am particularly interested in what the Minister thinks the impact of losing the Alan Wood Reserve would be for the people of that community. I have had a chance to talk to people who live there—

Hon Tau Henare: The member would not know where it is.

Hon DARREN HUGHES: Sorry, Mr Henare? I will just indulge the member briefly.

Hon Tau Henare: You haven’t even been on the select committee.

Hon DARREN HUGHES: Who has not been on the select committee?

Hon Members: You.

Hon DARREN HUGHES: The Waterview proposal has not been to the select committee—that is actually the point about this issue. The Waterview Connection has not been to the select committee, but the agency responsible for it has been. Tau Henare, in his fifth and final term in Parliament, cannot work out how the review of Crown entities works. I used to feel sorry for that member, but every time he opens his waha nui, he proves why he sits over there. In fact, Mr Henare has been over-promoted by sitting there; he should be sitting at the back with his whanaunga Paul Quinn, to whom Mr Henare has taught all the parliamentary procedure. Tau Henare is a very, very interesting man.

I want the Minister of Transport to provide an explanation to the Committee and to the people whom I have met in Waterview, who have lived there for 70 years and who were told that they would not lose their homes—now that he has reversed that decision and they will lose those homes. Three hundred and sixty-five families will be affected by what the Minister is doing. I want to know from him why the National Land Transport Fund can fully fund a $1.4 billion project with no borrowing, but $550 million would be required in financing costs if the twin tunnels had to be built.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Will the member answer a question?

Hon DARREN HUGHES: I am happy to answer a question.

Hon Trevor Mallard: How come “Cougar Bait” can beat Peters but Quinn can’t beat Peters?

Hon DARREN HUGHES: I say to Mr Mallard that that is a question for another day that we will happily come back to.

Paul Quinn: Darren, who’s the real shadow leader? Tell me!

Hon DARREN HUGHES: Well, I will tell the member—

Paul Quinn: You have to take instructions, do you?

Hon DARREN HUGHES: Let me give the member some advice: if only he took instruction he might be doing a whole lot better in Parliament right now. If he listened to the advice that his own colleagues give him about his performance, he would be in much better shape.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) : There are no easy options in respect of the Waterview Connection, of course, unless the member Darren Hughes is now telling us that the proposal of the previous Labour Government, whereby 160 houses would go, is not on the table. At the end of the day the difficult thing for all of us, unfortunately, is that these things are measured in monetary terms. It is an important time to think about that, given that this week is Budget week.

I actually have some questions for the Opposition around the issue of Waterview; I have a couple of questions that I think members opposite need to answer. They can say what they like about the Mt Albert by-election, but this Government has been upfront with the voters of Mt Albert, and it has said: “This is what we can afford to do. We understand the costs it imposes. We are going to be upfront with you. We are going to talk about Waterview before the by-election, so you get the opportunity to make your choices.”

Of course, Opposition members are not taking that approach. They are saying everything is possible and the expenses are not real. In Budget week that is a particularly ironic thing for them to be saying. They have criticised the Government policy statement. They have criticised the new Government’s changes to the policy statement that the previous Government put together, which put more investment into the State highway infrastructure. That, for the benefit of my learned—and I say that advisedly—friend Mr Hughes, is why we can build this particular project from within the National Land Transport Fund.

Here is the first question for the Labour Party. Its members have been criticising intently the Government’s changes to the National Land Transport Fund. Are they now saying they would endorse those changes? They have to say they would endorse those changes before they would be able to even begin to build the Waterview tunnel. Let us get that clear. I invite the next Labour speaker to advise us whether that is something Labour is planning to do. If Labour is not planning to do that, then we know it is all complete puffery and a Labour Government would have to borrow the $2.77 billion or the $3.2 billion. As the Prime Minister pointed out today, the cost of borrowing money for and building twin three-lane tunnels is $3.2 billion, and that is the direct comparator with building a three-lane option in each direction from within the National Land Transport Fund. Labour members need to tell us whether that is what Labour is proposing to do.

They need to tell us that as well in terms of the Budget this week, because the $3.22 billion, or the $2.8 billion if we go with the non - future-proofed option, would have to go on top of the Budget spend this week. Whatever debt the Government turns in in its Budget on Thursday would be added to by whatever amount these people say they would spend in order to build Waterview. That is what the country has to face, and that is the difficult part. Members can sit there in Opposition and say they will do this, that, and everything, but we find that nobody believes that is what they will do. Voters will look at those members in 3 years’ time and ask whether they can trust them with the Government finances—with taxpayers’ money and with taxpayers’ income. If those members persist in saying that a Labour Government would spend that amount of money on Waterview, regardless of the economic situation in New Zealand, then I am sorry but they will never get voted back in in this country while they have that attitude. It is simply not conscionable for anybody to make those sorts of statements in a financial sense. If Labour takes that approach, that is fine. Will Labour members also say that a Labour Government would find a way to build the central business district tunnel in Auckland and that it would all be costless, or that it would build a train line to Manukau, out to the airport, and that it would all be costless?

Perhaps the Hon David Cunliffe, who has just entered the Chamber, would be prepared to answer these questions as the Opposition spokesperson on finance, ahead of the Budget being delivered on Thursday. I think Labour members owe that kind of honesty to the people of Mt Albert, before they vote in the by-election. Are Labour members really saying that in the current economic environment, a Labour Government would go out and bore the deep tunnels at Waterview, particularly when this Government has identified an option that addresses a large number of the issues in the Waterview community? It does not address all of them; I am completely open about that. It does cause issues with regard to the Alan Wood Reserve. The only thing I can point out with regard to that is that, at the end of the day, it is a railway reserve. I know that option is not the whole answer, from the people’s point of view. But the questions that Labour members must answer are whether they now endorse the Government policy statement on transport, and accept that the Government’s approach is the only reasonable approach to building the Waterview project in Auckland. Thank you, Mr Chairman.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the financial review of Land Transport New Zealand. First of all, I say to the Minister in the chair, Steven Joyce, that he is the one in Government, so we get to ask the questions and he has to answer them. It was a bit confused there, for a little while. I refer to the Government policy statement. Labour is criticising it. I want to criticise it in particular concerning public transport services infrastructure and the cutting of up to $335 million over the next 3 years.

I ask the Minister why he has such a motorway fixation. The Government is roads mad. It is very interesting. I live in Auckland, unlike many Government members, and I have to get around Auckland. I know the issues. The Minister is on record as saying that Aucklanders do not use public transport—they go to work in their cars. Does he know why? It is because of the underfunding of public transport for decades, prior to Labour becoming the Government.

I have news for the Minister. Aucklanders do use public transport. They use the trains. The trains are used to capacity. The Northern Busway is used to capacity. Who was involved in building new infrastructure, public transport infrastructure, like the Northern Busway and the double tracking of the railways? It was the Labour Government. And people use them.

I would like the Minister to answer a question. What does he think needs to be done about Auckland’s car ownership? There is a big problem in Auckland with car ownership. Auckland, per capita, has the second-highest car ownership in the world. On the North Shore, car ownership is equal to the first-highest country. That is shocking. People have cars, and when we build more roads, people get on them in their cars. [Interruption] That is true. “Crusher” might take care of a few of them. The more the Government builds roads, the more they fill up with cars, unless there are alternatives. Labour increased funding, over many years, by 15 times, to fund public transport alternatives so that Aucklanders had a choice. But now we have a Government that has cut back that funding.

What else has it done? It has cut the regional fuel tax; it has dumped it. That has left Auckland $200 million short. Where is the railway station in New Lynn? Where are the new ferry terminals? Where is the electrification of the railways? Where are the new railway stations, and other forms of public transport infrastructure? I say to the Minister that they have been dumped. Aucklanders are extremely disappointed and extremely worried about it, and they are desperate for alternatives and for the Minister to give them an answer to the question about the alternatives to driving on clogged motorways, other than building more roads.

He is “Tarmac Man”. At the moment there is a tarmac vision. [Interruption] I thank the member for referring to cycleways, because National is making a lot of its $50 million for a cycleway. [Interruption] No, “Crusher” will get their bikes, if we are not careful! The $15 million that cyclists are losing was designated for making life safer for commuters. As we know, making life safer for commuters gets cars off the road. It means one fewer car on the road, and it means less pressure on our roading infrastructure. There is cleaner air, people exercise more, and communities are healthier. I do not think these simple facts are understood by National.

In fact, there was a great quote in the weekend from Christine Rose from the Auckland Regional Council. She said that we need a city run on fat, not oil. Cyclists are trying to encourage this Government to build more safe cycleways throughout the city, not across the country.

The other question I have for the Minister is how he plans to ensure that by removing $41 million from previously budgeted spending on road policing over the next 3 years, the road toll does not go up. I want to know what the Minister thinks his legacy will be in terms of road deaths.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) : I cannot let the moment go without putting some facts right and also responding to the honourable member, of course. I notice that she has quoted the noted right-winger Christine Rose from Auckland on the subject of transport. I note also that the member is seeking that the Government do something about car ownership in Auckland. I gained the complete understanding that that meant there was too much of it, and that we should therefore somehow control it. I think the good burghers of that city will be interested to know Labour’s view on that. I am wondering what the limits on car ownership are.

I know it was someone from this side of the Chamber, but I remember a Spanish gentleman in the mid-1980s called “Carlos Days”, who came out of this Parliament. I just wonder whether the member opposite is actually proposing that “Mr Days” reappear on the scene in New Zealand, or whether perhaps she has some other method of control to reduce the number of cars in Auckland. I think that would be an important policy for the Labour Party to announce before the next general election, and possibly even before the upcoming by-election. It would be nice to know that Labour is planning to put some sort of limit on the number of vehicles that people are allowed to own—perhaps one per every second house—or maybe it was saying that cars could be driven only on certain days of the week.

The point that I think the member has not grasped is that we are trying to promote all transport options in Auckland, while recognising the history of the city and how it has evolved over the last 150 years, in terms of the way people have been transported, and while also recognising certain financial realities along that way. I took it from the member’s speech that the Labour Party remains opposed to the Government policy statement; if that is the case, then that is fair enough. But, as I said, Labour members need to be very clear, prior to the by-election, about what they are actually holding out to the people of Mt Albert. I think that the people of Mt Albert would be pretty concerned if Labour took a policy to that by-election that said it would do this and that, and then, subsequently, prior to the next general election or in a couple of years’ time, it then had to turn that policy around.

Let us also point out, in terms of the record on public transport, that the previous Labour Government spent $484 million on public transport over the last 3 years—

Paul Quinn: $400?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —$484 million on subsidising public transport over the last 3 years. Over the next 3 years, this Government will be spending $633 million. So we are going from $484 million to $633 million, which is a 31 percent increase.

Darien Fenton: What were you spending in 1999?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: “Not enough!”, says the member, “It should be higher.” But that is the same member whose partner in crime, Darren Hughes, said in the previous speech that the Government needed to invest more in roads, and that it could have done that out of the National Land Transport Fund. So Labour members just have to make up their minds what they are taking money from.

Similarly, on the issue of road policing, I tell the Committee that this Government will be spending the largest amount ever on road policing over the next 3 years. The sum is going up from $774 million to over $900 million. The member opposite has tried to say I will have the road toll on my hands because I am not lifting that sum to $949 million. Well, I am sorry, but I reject that assertion; I actually find it quite distasteful. Nevertheless, I ask what is so magical about $949 million. Why is it not $989 million, $1.2 billion, or $1.5 billion? If the issue is all about how much extra money we spend, why are we not spending the whole fund on it? I ask Darien Fenton to tell us why we are not spending the whole fund on road policing, because her rationale is that more is always better.

The Labour Government left no plan for how that money would be spent. We have increased it from $774 million to $949 million, but Labour had no plan, at all. Labour just said that was what it thought the police would want, so therefore it would provide it. The trouble is that that is another indication of Labour having no understanding whatsoever of the value of money or the cost to taxpayers. With the Budget coming up this week, I think that Labour members should take a bit more care and, in the face of the world’s biggest recession since the 1930s, look a little more at the money and ask themselves whether they can afford to do what they say they would do. I suspect that that will be the challenge for the Labour Party, but it was always the challenge for that party. I suspect that is why Labour did not stay in Government after the last election. People looked at Labour and said they were not actually sure they could trust that particular party with their cheque books any more—that was the issue.

I think that the discussion about the value of the National Land Transport Fund and how it is spent has been very illuminating, but the Government stands by its decisions and thinks that the New Zealand public will do so, as well. Thank you.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I want to make a couple of comments especially directed at Darien Fenton. You see, the problem is—

Hon David Cunliffe: What’s he doing for westies?

Hon TAU HENARE: Oh, that is right—the member of Parliament for New Lynn yelled out: “Look at that westie!”. Well, at least I am a westie. At least I do not pretend to be a westie; at least I do not go home at 5 o’clock, clock off, and bugger off to somewhere in Ponsonby. But that is all right; we are not here to do that.

I want to ask how anyone can come up with an idea of a three-lane tunnel that will cost $3.5 billion, then forget to figure out where the money is going to come from. How does that work? I mean, Labour was in Government for 9 years. Just before it went out it came up with a figure, but it did not come up with a method of paying for it. Labour expected the people of Waterview and the people of Auckland to fall for that. Well, if they had fallen for it, we would still have a Labour Government, but—thank God—we have a National Government instead. The National Government has looked at Labour’s dodgy figures from last time it was in Government. Then it has looked at what we can afford. I tell members that most red-blooded—or blue-blooded—Kiwis out there would have looked in their wallet or bank account and said that they have $1.5 billion, so they will go and buy a house worth $1.5 billion. But they would not go and buy a $3 billion house when they do not know how much is in the kitty. And that is the big difference between those members and us.

Yes, people will be moved from their houses—unfortunately. But let us look at history, as well. When there are big projects to be done, people always have to be moved, and I am confident that our Government and our Minister of Transport will look after those people as well as they can be looked after. Let us not forget that out of the 300 houses in line—

Hon Member: 365.

Hon TAU HENARE: I apologise for getting my figures wrong, but let us not forget that 160 of the houses are already owned by the Government—already owned by the Government. So what does that mean? It means that there are 160-odd houses that we do not own, and the people who live in them are the ones we should be concerned about.

I say that the merger of Land Transport New Zealand and Transit New Zealand has been a good thing—a very, very good thing. Those two organisations were faced with a $28 million deficit in 2008-09, so I am glad to see that their merging has seen some significant savings found. I think that as the New Zealand Transport Agency goes forward, it will do a far better job as one organisation than as the two former organisations.

I say in closing that I think it is a brilliant move to come up with seven roads of national significance. That says that somebody is thinking about the problems of transport in this country. Somebody, finally, is thinking about the most significant job of public works we have to get done in the next 15 or 20 years. That job is not only about Waterview; it is about Hastings, the Waikato, and all the other little blocks we have to put together.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) : Following on from that very good point my colleague made about the roads of national significance, I think it is important that we just take some time out in this debate to reflect on the change we have seen in this portfolio, with the new Minister. I think we are very fortunate to have a Minister with great financial expertise, as he detailed in his last speech to the Committee in regard to this financial review. The Minister also has good business nous, which has been sorely lacking among the Labour members who have tried to take on this portfolio in previous years. The reality is that we see that in those roads of national significance. It is not an unusual concept. It is not something that the previous Labour Government could not have thought up or followed. It is actually something that is done in Australia, where the major infrastructural developments are taken away and put in a different pot. That pot has a much simpler system, which enables those roads to be built a lot more quickly.

This has been going on worldwide for many years, but consecutive Ministers of Transport under the previous Labour Government failed to do it. Those Ministers thought that their job was just to look after the portfolio, and to make sure it did not get too much publicity. They were keen to go into budget rounds to try to pump up what they were doing and to make it look better than it actually was. They had no constructive plan for what was important for New Zealand’s infrastructure going forward. They made no concerted effort at finding out what we actually could do to make our infrastructure programme more viable and effective. I congratulate this Minister of Transport on doing that, on taking out the roads of national significance and putting them in a different pot, so that we can build those roads and deliver the major infrastructural projects that the Government needs to deliver for this country, and that the public expects of this Government.

That is the vital thing that I think previous Labour Governments failed to do. Those Governments failed to look at transport and this portfolio in a wide sphere. They just looked at babysitting the portfolio, and the result is that we have had to make some more fundamental reforms, in the sense of the projects of national significance.

This financial review relates to Land Transport New Zealand and Transit New Zealand, the two organisations that were put together by the previous Government. Whether that combination will be as effective as was planned, is yet to be seen. However, it does give us the ability to go forward with the programme we are undertaking. That programme is a result of years of a lack of value for money in transport. There were continual projects and reports on how the transport sector was not performing, in the sense that the Government was not getting value for its money and its investment. Through those review processes, the previous Government basically tried to hide the problem, and said that it would reinvent the wheel.

Hon David Parker: Rubbish!

DAVID BENNETT: David Parker just has to look at the reports that were commissioned while he was the Minister of Transport, because those reports say that he was not doing a good job, not getting value for money. If he looks at those reports, he will see that they say why the Government should reform the transport sector, when he says that it was all going fine. The Government made the reform of merging the transport authorities because the existing arrangement was not performing. There was report after report that said the Labour Government had not performed, and that is why we have the situation that we have of a combined financial review—

Hon Steve Chadwick: Oh, rubbish!

DAVID BENNETT: Labour members can say “rubbish”, but those are the facts of the matter. That is the reality of what happened, and it is what we are dealing with now in Government.

The current Minister of Transport also needs to be applauded for the way he has looked at the sector from a very commercial point of view. The initiatives in public transport, especially in the rail sector, indicate a real understanding of what it actually means to run a business, and to be in control of all elements of a business, and not to farm out parts of the business, expecting somebody else to deliver the resources and requirements that we expect from our operations. That is a fundamental change that has gone through in the last few months, and it will deliver results in the transport sector. Labour members have been talking about public transport, and have been trying to push that angle all through this debate. The reality is that they cannot have it both ways. They want to have public transport anywhere and everywhere, but, at the same time, they want to build the biggest road in New Zealand.

• Report noted.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) : It is a pleasure to take a brief call on the Retirement Commissioner because, of course, the Retirement Commissioner is charged with helping New Zealanders prepare for their retirement. It is particularly important to draw attention to this matter in Budget week because here we have the coming together of two great objectives: providing for our senior citizens’ future, and making sure that we have enough savings in our economy.

It is a matter of amazement to the Labour Opposition that this Government is toying with the irresponsible idea of suspending contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. At a time when credit-rating agencies are saying that the No. 1 problem facing New Zealand is our external deficit—not our Government debt—and that a key part of that deficit is actually our savings gap, which those payments help address, why on earth would we suspend payments? The argument that is put up by members opposite, of course, is that we would have to borrow money to put money into the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. Well, here is some news for those members: the Government has a borrowing plan across the whole of the Government Budget. It is totally arbitrary and totally illegitimate to say that that borrowed money goes on any one component.

The Government should take the advice of the chief executive of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, who said in front of the Social Services Committee that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy assets when assets are cheap. It is ironic—is it not—that this Government is led by a former financial trader. Traders typically seek to buy low and sell high; this Government is seeking to buy high and sell low. It is absolutely ridiculous. The bottom line is one that Bill English has often reminded Parliament about. [Interruption] Craig Foss is a smart guy, and he knows it: there is no free lunch. If we stop paying money in now, we will have to do one of a number of things. Either we will have to stop paying out at the same rate later, which means raising the age of entitlement or cutting the benefits, or we will quite simply have to pay in more later, or fund it by some other means. There is no free lunch.

Paul Quinn: That’s an Alan Low quote.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Members opposite know that there is no free lunch, and Paul Quinn knows it too. I know that it is a long time since that member has seen the inside of a gymnasium: he knows that it is easy to stop going to the gym, and hard to start again. That is exactly what the Government is doing with this policy. Paying into the New Zealand Superannuation Fund is a form of financial fitness for the Government. Once the Government stops doing that, it gets loose and flabby like that member is getting. It is very, very important that we maintain this programme for the sake of the Retirement Commissioner and for the sake of our senior citizens.

What is most amazing about this idea is not how ridiculous the policy is, but how National has tried to get away with so much double-speak around it. During the election campaign, John Key said: “National is committed to continuing the New Zealand Superannuation Fund in its current form and”—wait for it—“with its current contribution rate.” That was before the election, when the only thing National was going to cut was taxes. John Key then said on Television One’s Agenda programme, just 2 weeks before the election, that the fund was an investment in our future and that along with having a strong economy, we need “to ensure … we pre-fund that liability of the ageing of the population.” He was right then. What has changed now? Only one thing has changed: it is now after the election. There are some things one says when one is trying to get into office; there are other things one says because they are convenient once one gets there. One cannot have it both ways. There is no free lunch. We do not pre-fund superannuation.

Paul Quinn: Cliché after cliché!

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: When that rapidly ageing member is about to draw his superannuation, there will not be any left for him. David Carter is worried because he is closer to retirement than that member, and he is a damned sight closer to it after the pig fiasco of last week.

The voters are about to retire him for his double-speak. But that double-speak pales in comparison with John “a buck each way” Key, who lauded the value of the fund before he got elected, and then chose to trash it once he was in office. It makes no economic sense; it does not even make any political sense. The reason I am a bit uptight about the fund is that I know it is causing great worry to the many thousands of senior citizens in New Zealand, and to people approaching retirement age, like David Garrett. The poor man will be out of here with barely a brass razoo to feed his family.

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) : Let me stand to take a call on the Retirement Commissioner. I make the point, first of all, to the few poor people who may be listening that National proudly says there will be no cuts whatsoever to superannuation. It is locked in securely; we said we would lock it in. It is slightly above 66 percent of the average wage at the moment; it is a little bit more than that. It is with quite some pleasure that I can say that, as of 9 April, there were 539,000 superannuitants and people receiving the veterans pension. I am proud to stand here right now and tell superannuitants that superannuation is locked in and is there as a surety for them. We know that these are tough times for those on a fixed income like superannuation, and they need an assurance that that money is there for them.

Let us talk a little about the work that the Office of the Retirement Commissioner has been doing, which is pretty impressive in many respects. There is no doubt that, when it comes to the need for people to fund their retirement, we should be talking to people earlier rather than later. The office has done work on that, such as the www.sorted.org.nz website. It does it in a part-time capacity. I think that, given the work that it covers, it does an outstanding job in the time that it has got.

The office has been working in conjunction with the Ministry of Education to teach financial matters in the classroom. That has been very impressive. It was brought in by the previous Government. It is something that the office has been running with and something that we have taken close notice of. We have seen it work for those young people, who work out how they can get themselves better sorted financially so that they can accomplish the things they want in life, such as buying a home, going down to one income in order to raise a family, and managing themselves through the most difficult times.

Superannuation is locked in under this Government. That was a promise that John Key made, and it is a promise that he is quite happy to stand up and make absolute.

Hon David Cunliffe: It’s unfunded!

Hon PAULA BENNETT: If the Labour shadow spokesperson on finance had any idea on how finance worked, he would know that what happens with superannuation funding and with benefits funding is that it is there and there is no question about it.

Listening to him, I recognised some of the things he was saying; did he not capture for members that Labour members are still living in 2008? They are still living in the year 2008. They do not comprehend that it is a new year, that there are new pressures on families, and that there is less money in the bucket. They keep asking us why we are not paying for this, why we are not funding that, and why this is not happening. I can tell those members that the reality was that, as new Ministers, we looked round for the buckets of money, and we found that we did not have the hundreds of millions of dollars that Dr Cullen had had. If we look for the buckets of money, we cannot find even the bucket! That is the reality; that is the tough times we are in. With that reality come tough decisions. We have to make decisions on what we actually want and what sort of country we want to live in.

This area is one that we are dealing with transparently. We tell the public what is locked in, what is there. We guarantee the core benefits, which we see as very important. Vulnerable families need surety now that they can walk through the doors of Work and Income and know that their superannuation is there for them. They know that their benefit is there and will be paid quickly. They know that they can turn up there to get those sorts of funds, as well.

Hon Annette King: Super is not a benefit.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: If the member was listening, she would have heard that we are talking about core benefits as well. If she was listening to the speeches, she would have heard that we have moved on and are talking about core benefits as well. We are talking about core benefits. We are talking about—

Hon David Cunliffe: You’re being defensive.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: There is selective hearing going on—just what suits Labour members. That is another indication of what has been going on. But we are in 2009, people are losing their jobs, things are getting tougher, and we need to front up and make sure we give that certainty to New Zealanders. We need to recognise that there are tougher decisions to be made, and to recognise that there are things that need to be done, but we also need to stand by those people who are on superannuation and those people who need our assistance. They need to know that there is regular money there for them, and that they can rely on it week after week. There is an absolute guarantee of that.

I would like to talk a little bit more about the www.sorted.org.nz website and some of the work that has been done with it, because after all, this debate is about the Retirement Commissioner—

Hon David Cunliffe: Distract from the real issues!

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I think the website is really impressive. The www.sorted.org.nz website is getting 500,000 calculations each month, so it looks as though it is really working. I was one of the original ones who locked in some numbers to try out the calculations.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I am delighted to follow the excellent Minister the Hon Paula Bennett. She is absolutely right. Right now our superannuitants want certainty; they do not want scaremongering from Labour. They do not need Labour members of Parliament going out and telling people that things are not as they are. National is standing by superannuitants, and people should not listen to the scaremongering of Labour members of Parliament. All those members do is undermine people’s sense of well-being by scaremongering. The Minister is absolutely right that we need to give people the certainty and the surety that they are supported during these tough times. That is why she is such a great Minister.

She is absolutely right when she talks about the website www.sorted.org.nz. That has been a huge success on the part of the Retirement Commissioner—absolutely huge. So many more people are visiting that website now. Last year more than 1.2 million people visited it, and more than 220,000 booklets have been distributed throughout New Zealand, as well. Diana Crossan, the Retirement Commissioner, says that people are not taking just a cursory look at this website, but are taking a really close look at it and using the calculation provision on it.

It is all about improving people’s financial literacy and that is really, really important as well. That is why the Retirement Commissioner is working not just with the over 65s, but with our young people in primary schools, and with high schools and the tertiary sector. It is about financial education and financial literacy for the whole spectrum of our society. It is about instilling some financial literacy in our generation and in future generations—future adults—to keep that literacy going. It is such a huge step forward in the way the Retirement Commissioner has been operating, and I applaud all her efforts in that regard. This is a very big part of the focus of the Retirement Commission.

The Retirement Commission’s national strategy for financial literacy has a vision about personal financial well-being for all New Zealanders. The sooner we can start educating our young people about the importance of managing money and managing it well, the better. There has been a huge disconnect in that regard for a generation and we need to pick up on that, improve it, and make such a difference in people’s lives as they plan for their future and their retirement security. This is not just about people who are over 65, but it is about our young people, as well—getting them to plan and plan ahead for their own retirement. The mission statement states: “New Zealanders are financially well educated and can make informed financial decisions throughout their lives.”

That is one thing National is really good at—managing money. I have to say that Labour members have never managed money. Mother Hubbard stripped the cupboard—it was bare.

The Labour Government knew how to spend that money ahead. So if anyone ever wants financial advice, I would say: “Never go to a Labour member of Parliament.” They just cannot cut the mustard when it comes to money. That has been proven time and time again. When we took office, when the New Zealand public decided they needed a Government that could actually look after them, particularly in regard to their money, we opened up the books and saw that the cupboard was absolutely bare, and then some. Labour spent ahead, and spent more than it had. I take as an example the Nature Heritage Fund. Labour spent the next 4 years—

Hon David Carter: They’re laughing!

SANDRA GOUDIE: They think it is funny. I would not put the Labour Opposition in charge of a piggy bank.

Let us get back to the Retirement Commissioner, as we are wont to do, and in particular to www.sorted.org.nz. I think it is so important that we build the financial literacy of all New Zealanders.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) : The speaker who has just resumed her seat tried to reinvent history and say this Government inherited a poor set of books. The reality, as the fourth estate knows and as anyone who is informed knows, is that the incoming National Government inherited the third-lowest Government debt to GDP ratio in the world. The previous Labour Government had run surpluses, which were criticised every year by National, which called for higher tax cuts. Labour ran surpluses and we left the Government books in very good order, indeed.

We heard the Minister Paula Bennett refer to the “few poor people who may be listening”. I do not know what that meant, but I can tell members that a lot more poorer people will be listening in future years, because without the pre-funding of superannuation it is far less likely that superannuation entitlements will be able to be maintained in the future. The National Party appeared to have a road to Damascus experience about 4 years ago, when it changed its mind on the issue of advance contributions in order to pre-fund superannuation. We all know that our population is ageing, and that as it ages a greater proportion of people than at present will be reliant on Government superannuation. Intergenerational unfairness, as well as real Budget pressures, will be created if we do not put some money away now to create a fund for superannuation for that larger number of people.

We also know, of course, that about 3 or 4 years ago the National Party was so desperate to get back to the Treasury benches that it would tell people anything that it thought they wanted to hear. So National tried to perpetuate the myth that people could have everything they already had, plus tax cuts. During the election campaign John Key promised that he would maintain contributions to the Superannuation Fund at the same rate as was the case previously. We already have a broken promise there, but why should we be surprised about that? In a former National Government, Bill English cut superannuation, and the Muldoon National Government introduced the superannuation surtax. The next National Government, under Mr Bolger, broke promise after promise on superannuation, as well.

Here, again, we have a broken promise by National on superannuation. I say to Mr Garrett that he should be listening to this, because he knows what National promised during the election campaign and that it has now resiled from its promise and is not pre-funding superannuation. Now we hear Paula Bennett say superannuation is locked in and loaded. Locked in and loaded—what does that mean? That is another metaphor that does not mean much. It sounds like the fire-at-will provision for people who are employed under the 90-day legislation. Superannuation in the future will become as insecure as employment is now under that Minister’s Government.

Superannuation is very important to New Zealand. It is, perhaps, even more important that we improve our savings in New Zealand. We have a current account deficit, and we have poor levels of private saving. What has the National Government done in response to that? It has cut the generosity of KiwiSaver, which, instead of having a 4 percent savings level plus a 4 percent employer contribution, has been cut to 2 percent plus 2 percent. The National Government has cut out the tax credit that was going to pay most of the employers’ cost, and it has also cut out much of the tax credit for employees. We now have reduced incentives for saving, and that will inhibit the future performance of New Zealand economically. There will be less investment capital available to our economy and lower savings available to people in their retirement, and, even more important, the Government is cutting the contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, in breach of its earlier promise.

In my opinion, this is disgraceful politics. This Government came into power on the promise that it would keep on pre-funding superannuation. That promise was explicitly made time and again. It was an issue of political controversy when National was on the opposite side of the debate, so it changed its position in order to get on to the right side of the politics. It reversed its stance, only to flip-flop again once it was in Government. National has broken its promise to the electorate. Now Mr English says he cannot pre-fund superannuation because National would have to borrow in order to do so. It borrowed for tax cuts—the tax cuts that were so unfair that an incredible one-third of the cuts was delivered to the top 3 percent of income earners. How can that be fair? Of course, the people in that 3 percent are not very worried if they do not have their future superannuation entitlement; they do not really need it as much as most people do. But the majority of New Zealanders will still be reliant on superannuation in years to come. It is disgraceful that this Government is not pre-funding superannuation at this time, because it makes it less likely that superannuation will be able to be afforded at current rates in the future.

• Report noted.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) : I am so pleased that the Hon David Carter welcomes my contribution tonight with a big smile and a cheer. I have to say that the Families Commission has been in the news a little bit lately. It has made the headlines in the news over the last few weeks.

This organisation was first established in 2004, so it is relatively new. It is the brainchild and baby of the Hon Peter Dunne. When he was in coalition with a Labour-led Government, he put this issue on the table as very important for him, so we saw the establishment of the Families Commission. It was set up with three main activities: to listen and to identify issues; to research, which means to promote and commission research on issues that matter to the family; and to act to encourage debate to raise awareness and advocacy for the family. If one could identify a major issue that the Families Commission has been closely involved in over the last few years, it would be the It’s Not OK campaign. The Families Commission has been a driving force behind the It’s Not OK campaign to reduce family violence. So it has been working up to become, I think, a very effective commission, indeed.

I believe that the latest appointment of Christine Rankin to the commission shows that it is being set up to be dismantled. Ms Rankin has made it very clear that she does not even know why the commission exists, yet she has just been appointed to it. Her appointment was not done in a straightforward way. It was not done in a transparent, honest way. It was done by the Minister for Social Development and Employment, who took this appointment to the Cabinet appointments and honours committee but failed to tell her Prime Minister the full facts about the appointment that she was making.

Hon Paula Bennett: That’s not true.

Hon ANNETTE KING: I say to the Minister that I think many New Zealanders out there know that Christine Rankin is a person who certainly knew how to find the bucket. She knew how to find the bucket. She also knew how to spend up large. She created the culture of extravagance that became very much associated with her time as the chief executive of the Department of Work and Income. She was the person who invented the culture of extravagance.

We are told she was appointed because she was a long-time advocate against child abuse. Many people, including the media, have set out to find out what Christine Rankin’s long-term advocacy against child abuse has been. In fact, we have been able to find her first public comments against child abuse in July 2007.

In National Government terms that might be a long time in terms of advocacy. If the Minister was serious about putting a person on that commission who was a long-time advocate, I say that I could think of many. I will just name one: Dr Ian Hassall, the former president of Plunket. He has been a long-term advocate against child abuse.

I have to say that there is real concern in the community about the appointment of Christine Rankin. First, I tell the Minister that there was no proper consultation. Peter Dunne came into Parliament at the same time as me. I know him to be an honourable man. If he said there was no consultation with him after the initial consultation, then there was no meaningful consultation. He is a man of his word. I know that the Māori Party was not properly consulted. I heard what Minister Tariana Turia said about the appointment; the Māori Party was not in the loop. The National Government’s own members were not in the loop. Chester Borrows, an honourable member of this House, has already raised his concern about the appointment of Christine Rankin to the Families Commission.

Then we get to the issue of due diligence. I served on the Cabinet appointments and honours committee for 9 years, and I happen to know what due diligence is. It is not a matter of getting on the blower and giving Christine a call and asking her what she has been up to, and whether any of the rumours that are circulating about her are true. That is not due diligence. Due diligence is ensuring that if the Minister appoints someone to the Families Commission, she does the work. I tell the Minister in the chair that she did not do the work. I say shame on her. It is a poor appointment.

JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) : I think it is helpful to reflect, given that we have had a lot of feedback in the last 18 months or so from New Zealanders asking what the Families Commission is and just exactly what it does. It is an autonomous Crown entity whose functions include encouraging debate on issues that affect families. Certainly, no New Zealander would say that that was not a good thing. The Families Commission is responsible for promoting and undertaking research about families and helping to shape Government policies that promote or serve the interests of families. It is important that it works in partnership with front-line services and non-governmental organisations to carry out those functions. That is an introduction to what the Families Commission does, but where do we find that there are concerns on the part of New Zealanders?

The Social Services Committee prepared a financial review of the Families Commission, and it would be fair to say that the committee acknowledged that there were some things that were good, but that it also had some concerns. I will briefly talk about what we as New Zealanders feel we deserve from the Families Commission, but also about what does not stack up with some New Zealanders—those people who are feeling the squeeze and want to know that their taxpayer funding is going to very good effect.

New Zealanders want value for money. New Zealanders want research that translates into action. What is wrong with that? Not a thing. New Zealanders want a voice for their families, a voice that connects with how it feels to be in their family. There is no great surprise in any of that. In fact, some would say there is no great surprise in some of the recent findings from research that the Families Commission undertook—such as the research that found that teenagers feel they spend enough time with their parents. Actually, a lot of teenagers probably feel they spend way too much time with their parents, and they would like to put a bit of distance between themselves and their parents. The research showed that teenagers feel they spend enough time with their parents. There was also the finding that as a result of the recession some people are working longer hours. Well, hello! Did we need research to work that out? I am not so sure.

There are also some examples of Blue Skies funding through the Families Commission that gave me cause for concern. I will read out the description of one particular example: Strengthening Rural Families: An exploration of industry transformation, community and social capital. The description states: “This project seeks to understand how rural families adjust to changes in the social and economic landscape and how rural families participate in the accumulation and utilisation of social capital within their communities to bring about balance between paid work, community commitments and family life.” I have to say that it sounds a bit waffly, does it not? So I wonder what the researchers found out about rural communities other than the fact that rural communities just do. They get on with it. Rural communities do not wonder; they just pull together and get on with it. In terms of studying rural communities, one should study what they do not have good access to, such as general practitioners, oral health professionals, pharmacies, or high-speed Internet access. Those would be good projects indeed for the Families Commission. But New Zealanders, in rural communities in particular, just get on with it.

The Families Commission has a job to do. It needs to be relevant as an advocate for families and for family members. I have a really good example of something the Families Commission did that I believe was incredibly useful. There was a report entitled Elder Abuse and Neglect: Exploration of risk and protective factors. The Social Services Committee discussed this with the Families Commission and we were told that it was a really good example of the commission’s work having a practical effect, because that research has been used by Age Concern in its work with rest homes and the community, and in helping it to develop other pieces of work. It is absolutely vital, in fact, that the Families Commission is seen to be relevant.

Probably never before, in the last two or three decades, have New Zealanders been so intent on knowing that their Government and Crown entities are making very good use of the money that New Zealanders pay in their taxes. Right now it is particularly important for those who have lost their jobs to know that their taxpayer funding—the funding that is actually going out there and being used by entities such as the Families Commission—is being put to good use.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) : It would be a relatively easy task to drill down into any social policy to ascertain the relationship of dysfunctional families to policy responses. We can learn about the effects of low income, poor housing, and alienation in rates of educational achievement. We are told that the most severely dysfunctional families may constitute no more than 10 percent of the population, yet are responsible for 70 to 80 percent of serious criminal offending. We will see ghettoisation effects, with pockets of poor health associated with low-income communities—and so it goes on. Yet, when we come to the 2007-08 financial review of the Families Commission, we read “results are difficult to measure or evaluate”. The lack of logic appals me. How is it that we can report on the evident states of crisis and trauma within some families, that we can reveal the chronic, the chaotic, and the destructive lives their members live, and that we can identify families that society would say are failing, yet we cannot measure and evaluate the state of well-being that we in the Māori Party describe as whānau ora. It is this uncertainty—long before Christine Rankin’s appointment was even announced—that has made us seriously question the capacity of the Families Commission to live up to its statutory commitment to act as an advocate in the interests of families generally.

In the same breath as it discloses that the commission is unable to describe the good results it believes it has achieved, the report states that the It’s Not OK campaign against family violence has been very successful to date. The concept of success needs further explanation. Is it really successful when there has been a significant rise—39 percent—in family violence notifications? Although more people are evidently reporting family violence, would real success not be yielded by a reduction in family violence statistics, reflecting an actual reduction in family violence overall? If we are to go on reports we receive from providers and community organisations, it appears to be one thing to have an increased demand for services, but quite another to have the capacity to respond. So the Māori Party welcomes the Community Response Fund for being able to specifically have the means to channel the increased demand for family violence services.

In much the same way, Age Concern using the Families Commission’s research on elder abuse and neglect in its work with rest homes is surely only partial success, restricted by a focus on outputs and activities rather than outcomes.

This is why the Māori Party has been advocating for work to achieve outcomes emerging out of whānau ora. If we are to really see results in whānau ora, we will see a developmental approach that promotes whānau capability. Whānau ora focuses on the whānau as a whole, not children, elders, women, or parents as individual subsets of the whole. Why can we not pool the Children’s Commissioner and the Families Commission together to really focus our efforts on whānau ora?

We went into the relationship agreement with National to achieve significant outcomes in whānau ora, and we hope to see the first foundations of this approach laid in a couple of days’ time in Budget 2009. The Families Commission is legislatively required to have regard for the needs, values, and beliefs of whānau Māori, and to the factors that enhance and maintain whānau strengths and resiliences. These are issues we would absolutely support, but we do not believe that wonders can work in isolation. We want to see whānau-centred policy that facilitates positive and adaptive relationships with whānau. We also want to recognise the interconnectedness of health, education, housing, welfare, employment, and lifestyles as elements of whānau well-being. If the debacle over Christine Rankin has shown anything, it is that we need commissioners who are totally committed to whānau ora, and to respecting the needs, values, and beliefs of whānau Māori as an essential part of their work. New Zealand does not need cheap shots such as that Māori abuse their children more than anyone else.

DAVID GARRETT (ACT) : I rise to speak in the debate on the financial review of Crown entities. One of the many things we learn when we come to Parliament is the sheer number of boards, agencies, and commissions that use taxpayers’ money. We have a list of them, and I think we are looking at 60 of them today. We are standing and talking about the Families Commission. When I take a quick look at the long list, I wonder how we managed without all of these organisations and how we managed to grow to adulthood without them.

Let us talk about the Families Commission. Christine Rankin is not the issue; the issue is whether the Families Commission should exist at all. It was established in 2004 with the lofty goals of identifying issues by talking with families and organisations, of encouraging debate, and of raising awareness. It may just be that I have not been in Wellington long enough, but to me that sounds like a bunch of waffle. I note it with interest because it is my hope and the hope of the ACT Party that the Families Commission will be part of the fat that is cut from the National-led Government’s expenditure in this Thursday’s Budget.

The Families Commission costs $8 million a year to run. Some would say that is not a lot of money. To paraphrase a saying of our grandmothers, I say we should look after the millions, and the billions will look after themselves. What does $8 million buy? I am told it buys 500 hip replacements, 267 coronary bypasses, 2,280 cataract operations, or 6,957 grommet operations for children who suffer from glue ear. But what did the $8 million that was spent in the last year on the Families Commission get us, other than keeping my Labour colleague Rajen Prasad in a job? What did it give the average family—those outside what the Labour Party now cutely calls the “beltway”, as if that makes us somehow special? What did the people for whom the Families Commission is supposedly set up get for $8 million? It got them a nice, glossy, 66-page brochure. I have a common or garden black and white version here, entitled Reaching Out: Who New Zealanders turn to for relationship support. I wonder how many people have a copy of it on their coffee table at home.

I have had a bit of a leaf through the brochure, and it tells us some quite incredible things. It reads like a sociological thesis written in somewhat down-home language. The section on page 33 is entitled “Informal and Semi-formal Support”. Amazingly, it tells us that passive support in relationships is the receipt of advice and information outside personal interaction. Examples include watching TheOprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil, and that was done mainly by Pākehā and Māori participants. Asian and Pacific people talked to their families—gosh, that is amazing! They tended to talk to their aunties, rather than to their workmates. Is that not fascinating? I wonder how much that all cost? This ridiculous document tells us things that anyone with a modicum of common sense would have known. Apparently, many Pākehā males talk about relationship problems with their mates at work. Well, gosh, I never knew that!

What else did we get for our $8 million? In a splurge of activity not long before the last election—and I am sure it had nothing to do with list candidate Rajen Prasad—the commission published a number of recommendations, including one to increase paid parental leave from 14 weeks, as it is now, to 56 weeks. There is a word for that: reckless. Why?

Hon Steve Chadwick: Families, actually.

DAVID GARRETT: I ask the members who are making a noise who pays for it.

Dr Rajen Prasad: We do.

DAVID GARRETT: The taxpayer? How high would taxes have to be, Mr Prasad?

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) : The Minister responsible for the Families Commission, Paula Bennett, has developed a bit of a reputation for liking to get stuck into things. Sometimes it is a brawl and sometimes it is a controversy. It seems that she less frequently is prepared to get stuck into an answer. I would like to give her an opportunity to answer this question, which the Prime Minister could not answer at question time today: will she remove Christine Rankin if it turns out that she has been lying over the last few weeks about allegations that have been made about her? Will the Minister remove Christine Rankin from the Families Commission?

Well, there we are. That is just about as good an answer as we got from the Prime Minister. So it is all right for the Minister to totally ignore not just common courtesy but also an agreement made with the Hon Peter Dunne, in regard to the future of the Families Commission, as part of the establishment of the Government. It is all right for the Minister to ignore that, and it is all right for the Minister to be squeaked through a Cabinet row by the Prime Minister, who then hung her out to dry. And it is good enough for Christine Rankin to be appointed a Families Commissioner, getting taxpayers’ money, when she herself admitted she did not even know what the commission did.

Those are fantastic standards that David Garrett and Roger Douglas are backing in this Parliament. That is a fantastic new standard set by Paula Bennett. No wonder John Key has his staff running round the press gallery rapidly distancing him—saying that he had not been told these things. I am sure that he will distance himself further and further from his weakest link—proven to be not only arrogant but also stupid and dismissive—more rapidly than any of us can imagine.

It is not often that people in this House hear me praise or defend the Hon Peter Dunne. He and I have had more political battles with each other than I have even had with the Hon Sir Roger Douglas. But I want to put on record that I think Peter Dunne is honest and has integrity. I disagree with many of his political beliefs, but I have worked with him within my own party and outside it, and in the context of a confidence and supply agreement, and he has not misled me personally or the party.

I would not support Peter Dunne’s politics. He said that he went to Paula Bennett and told her he had strong objections about Christine Rankin, and that Paula Bennett said that she heard his concerns and would get back to him. Her way of getting back to him was sending him a copy of the press statement stating that Christine Rankin had been appointed. That is about as arrogant and stupid as any Minister could possibly get.

I want to raise another concern about Christine Rankin. There is a long list of concerns and they have been aired publicly; some of those concerns are very personal and very tragic, and they have been denied. But I raise another question that I am sure the Minister has been alerted to, because Wellington is a village. We all know what other people talk about and hear about in this little village.

Hon Member: You want to hear what I know about you!

Hon RUTH DYSON: When Christine Rankin was with David Garrett’s colleague on Dancing with the Stars—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the member. Members cannot use the word “you”.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Thank you, Mr Chairman. When Christine Rankin was on Dancing with the Stars with Rodney Hide—I think she made it to only the first round; that was a pretty strong indication of public opinion—she was raising money for a trust called For the Sake of Our Children. This was the good cause that she was raising money for.

The three people who texted “Christine” to Dancing with the Stars to donate their tuppence ha’penny were donating to an organisation that employed two people and did no research, did no service delivery, but did only advocacy. The two people employed by For the Sake of Our Children were Christine Rankin and her son. That is a very unusual charitable organisation for which one would say publicly on television: “I am dancing for a good cause.”

• Report noted.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : The Green Party is really concerned about the way in which the National-led Government seems to be transforming the housing portfolio into another outreach of the hard-line law and order policies on which it campaigned in the last election. Just as some children and young people aged 12 to 17 are headed into military-style youth training camps in another wing of this blitzkrieg on crime, the Housing New Zealand Corporation is being increasingly used as a way of winning the Sensible Sentencing Trust vote.

The question of so-called problematic tenants was raised many times by National MPs under the previous administration. Now that they are in charge, they are not backward in coming forward to find ways to make sure the Housing New Zealand Corporation takes action to deal with those deemed undesirable. First of all, in March this year, came the news that the Housing New Zealand Corporation would no longer take cases of what it deemed to be severe antisocial behaviour to the tenancy tribunal. Instead, the Housing New Zealand Corporation itself would make the decision and issue a termination notice requiring the tenant to quit in 90 days or even less.

Just this morning we discovered that the Housing New Zealand Corporation—quietly and under the radar—had inserted a new clause in its standard tenancy agreement. This clause requires tenants to have express permission from the Housing New Zealand Corporation to live on a property if they are on bail, on parole, or on home detention, unless they are already registered on the tenancy agreement. At first blush this does not sound too onerous. However, on closer inspection, there are ramifications that cause substantial disquiet to those of us who care about the welfare of our most vulnerable citizens.

I have several questions I would like the Minister of Housing, Phil Heatley, to answer. For example, what will happen if a family member who lives away from home and is not on the tenancy agreement gets into trouble? The Housing New Zealand Corporation will not want the person on the property, but he or she will have nowhere else to go except back to his or her mother, father, sister or brother. Is the Minister happy for that person to end up on the streets, in the local mental health acute unit, or back in prison? Will he put more money into homeless shelters, mental health services, or emergency housing as a result? I somehow doubt it.

I wonder what approach the Housing New Zealand Corporation will take to people who are on the waiting list for housing and who are on bail, parole, or home detention. Although the corporation says that its policy is not to take criminal matters into account when handing out tenancies, I will be very interested to hear how this is implemented in practice in the months ahead. I will also be interested to hear about the luck people in this situation have, or do not have, in achieving a State tenancy in the current environment, when numbers on the waiting lists are growing without a parallel acceleration in the acquisition or building of new State houses.

State houses are supposed to be the housing of last resort for those who need it most, for the most vulnerable in our society. People who are in trouble with the justice system are certainly in this category. The Green Party believes that people should not be presumed guilty before conviction, and that even if they are guilty, they should not face the double jeopardy of being penalised twice for offences—once by the court, and once by the Housing New Zealand Corporation. I do not know whether Mr Heatley and the corporation have even thought about the economic and social implications of their latest move. Plenty of research shows that people are far more likely to reoffend if they are homeless or are disconnected from friends and family. If the State is not willing to help those most in need, very few other options are available. Telling people to take their chances in the private market is not a viable answer for most of the Housing New Zealand Corporation’s problematic tenants, now or in the future. I do not know why the State thinks that private landlords are more likely to take its rejects—unless the latter are really hard-out criminals with enough money and enough front to play high-rent, fake-ID tenancy games. I doubt that that is something the State really wants to encourage, either.

These new Housing New Zealand Corporation policies are a recipe for increased rates of crime, poverty, ill health, and homelessness. I hope the Minister will think again about the potential impacts of the path on which he and the corporation have embarked, and consider whether there might be more constructive and proactive ways of working with tenants to make sure that people are safe, without pushing some of those most in need out on to the streets or into institutions.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Kia ora, Mr Chairman. Kia ora tātou katoa. It makes for a fairly depressing read to look at the 2007-08 financial review of the Housing New Zealand Corporation and to learn that “HNZC’s key initiatives on service delivery for Māori were not met in 2007/08.” I ask what the penalty is for the systematic failure. Does the chief executive get her pay docked, are contracts withdrawn, or are individuals held to blame? I have not seen this happen for myself.

Reading on we find that not only has the corporation seen a slight increase in the number of people presenting with urgent housing needs but also it appears likely that there will be challenges in reducing waiting lists. We would remind the Committee that the operating premise for the Housing New Zealand Corporation is to provide State housing for people on low incomes or with unique housing needs. Māori inevitably fall into both categories. We know that some 67 percent of all Māori are renting or boarding and that homeownership is still in the hands of the relatively few. These housing needs are also unique in response to the Crown’s article 3 obligations to invest in all the rights and responsibilities of Māori gaining equal citizenship.

So we would expect this commitment to be demonstrated in the most appropriate and enduring application of the estimated $15 billion value of the Crown entity’s assets. I am sure that we have all experienced enough horror stories about wet, damp, mouldy State houses, and the direct impact that they have had on the health of tenants, but I can say that from the day that we in the Māori Party came into coalition with National, healthy housing has been a huge priority for us. So we were delighted a couple of months ago to support the injection of an extra $104 million into State housing upgrades.

We have been concerned about the squalor that some tenants have lived in. It is a reality that is demonstrated in this financial review, with the understatement that “The Housing New Zealand Corporation has allowed some of its housing stock to becoming run down.” I reckon! There has been talk about the State being a slum landlord, turning a blind eye to housing that has fallen into a disgusting state of disrepair. We know that many rural renters, in particular, have suffered from poor property conditions, less choice, and lower levels of maintenance.

We are hoping that that was then and this is now. We have certainly appreciated the willingness of the Minister of Housing to work constructively with the Māori Party. We have made clear the aspirations and enthusiasm of iwi and hapū groups to take control of their housing options, and it appears possible that the Housing Innovation Fund will enable these same aspirations to be achieved.

Of course, it is not just about addressing the urgency of need for tenants. The Housing New Zealand Corporation is in a position to work with Māori housing providers and iwi on how we can actively be involved in upgrade work and advancing papakāinga housing. I have real evidence of this involvement in action. In fact, last Friday I was in Te Puke with Simon Bridges and the people there—Tāpuika—and was able to see the great initiative they have taken in conjunction with Ngāti Tuheke, Makahae Marae, and Rangiuru 2G Trust to lessen the struggle of building homes for their people on Māori land. The possibility of building papakāinga housing on multiple-owned Māori land has challenged our people for decades. The Māori Party has consistently raised the issues around investing in better utilisation of Māori land, and we are absolutely delighted that the Government has been so responsive in its readiness to listen to the aspirations and solutions of tangata whenua as they come up with their own solutions.

It is about time that the great land mass owned by Māori in the western Bay of Plenty, for example—we are talking about 22,000 hectares—is now able to be utilised for affordable housing on ancestral land. It is not just my electorate of Waiariki that is benefiting; Northland’s three district councils are also coming to the party to deliver a unified approach to papakāinga land. The far north, Whangarei, and Kaipara district councils are working with Te Puni Kōkiri and Te Hauora o Kaikohe to establish some clear processes to enable housing subdivisions in residential unit construction on multiple-owned Māori land. We are really pleased that the new approach of listening to the ideas that Māori have for developing their own housing solutions on their land is starting to bear some fruit.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) : I will take just a brief call on the subject of the policy that was revealed today about banning people on bail from applying for a State house. It seems to be a Draconian policy. I really hope we will hear from the Minister as to why this policy has been adopted. It is just not appropriate for a social housing agency to set itself up as judge and jury on the innocence or guilt of people appearing before the courts. I would have thought that the Minister in the chair, Maurice Williamson, has some real sympathy with that position and will be able to tell the Committee why on earth this policy has been adopted. We all know in this country that, under the law, people are presumed innocent until proven otherwise, but the current Minister seems to consider his agency to be above the law in adopting this policy. It is a plain fact that many people on bail are never convicted of the offences they are charged with. The delays in the court system mean that people can remain on bail for a year or more before their case is even heard.

The Housing New Zealand Corporation, as one of the previous speakers noted, is a housing provider of last resort. It has 68,000 properties nationally, housing 200,000 people. More than 30,000 State housing households are on an income of between $210 and $300 per week, and more than 38,000 tenants pay between $51 and $100 per week. That shows just what the situation is and what this provider was set up to be. It is there to provide a home for families in need, but the decision about banning people who are on bail from applying for a house could actually force families into homelessness or into a situation whereby parents are forced to separate either from each other or from their children, in order to ensure that they are housed. Surely, neither of these scenarios is appropriate nor acceptable.

• Report noted.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The debate on the performance of the 2007/08 and current operations of Crown entities, public organisations, and State enterprises has therefore concluded. I will report the debate to the House.

• Report adopted.