NICKY WAGNER (National) : I move, That the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I thank the members of the Government Administration Committee and its chair, the Hon David Parker, for dealing with this bill so quickly and efficiently. The select committee reported back to the House on 10 September and recommended that the bill, with amendments, proceed. This was good news for the board of governors of Christ’s College and for the school itself, as it cleaned up after the 4 September earthquake.

Christ’s College, which was established in 1855, is one of the oldest schools in New Zealand and has a cluster of beautiful heritage buildings in the centre of Christchurch. Luckily they have sustained only minor to moderate damage. Like many heritage buildings in Christchurch, the damage has been mostly to chimneys and the gable ends of buildings. The school had done substantial earthquake strengthening in the past, and the boarding houses, which have been strengthened to 67 percent of the building code, were undamaged. Several buildings will need further earthquake-strengthening work but that had already been planned, and specialist workmen are now busy restoring some of the most intricate stone and slate work. The school is fully insured and will continue the repairs until all the buildings are restored. The boys, although evacuated after the earthquake, have returned to school and it is now functioning as normally as possible.

The Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill seeks to amend the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Act 1910 to remove difficulties in administering trust funds invested in the college. Over the past 155 years the college has received numerous bequests from various donors. The terms of some of those bequests require that the annual income generated by the funds be applied to specific purposes—for example, the provision of prizes for certain subjects or sports, or the provision of scholarships for pupils who meet those criteria. Accordingly, the school holds the funds on trust, to be applied for those specified purposes.

However, over the years the stated objects of a number of the trusts have become largely redundant. Also, some of the trusts receive income that is either in excess of, or insufficient for, their needs. The board of governors’ submission to the select committee advised that of the 148 mostly small trusts that the board administers, approximately 28 could not be administered because of changed circumstances. In the past, when problems of implementation had occurred the board had engaged directly with the original donors to agree to a variation of purpose. In many cases, variations had been agreed but nowadays many of the original donors have already passed away, and even some of the agreed variations are in need of amendment.

Trustees can apply to the High Court, under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957, to approve a new trust purpose in certain circumstances. The new trust purpose must be as close as possible to the original one. The process involves the submission of a trust variation scheme to the Attorney-General, who will report on the scheme to the court. There is also a public notification and objection process. However, the college would need to make a separate application to the High Court for each trust variation, and the board estimates that it would cost approximately $50,000 each time. That is not practical when we consider that many trusts are small. One example is the Balfour Divinity Prize, which was established in 1880, with a bequest of $100 for a gold medal to be awarded to the boy who passed the best examination in divinity in the four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles—in Greek! Other examples of bequests with redundant purposes include the 1919 gift to the college to provide bursaries for the sons of soldiers. They include the sons of those who had fallen or suffered as part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, and the sons of members of various forces of the British Empire, or who had served in the Great War. Another estate was left in trust to educate orphans from named Christchurch orphanages, which no longer exist. Funds can now no longer be distributed from those trusts and are just accumulating, to the benefit of no one.

The select committee found that the amendment bill was generally consistent with the law related to charitable trusts, and reported that the issues, as described in the preamble, were proved to its satisfaction. Similar problems have been identified by other organisations and have been addressed in legislation such as the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill 2009, which was recently passed in this House. The select committee suggested that the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill use the wording from the Charitable Trusts Act, which has an established body of case law supporting it. It recommended that clause 5, which proposes a new subsection to vary the proposed purposes of charitable trusts in certain circumstances, be rewritten. It also suggested inserting a new subsection 4A in clause 5, which would allow the governing body to use, for another purpose, excess income from trusts that generate more than necessary for the donated purposes. That is consistent with the Charitable Trusts Act.

Finally, the committee was not comfortable with the term “for the benefit of the college”, in case the functions of the college changed over time, and then trust funds could perhaps be applied to non-charitable purposes. The committee therefore recommended amending new section 5(3) in clause 5 to require that trust funds be used for charitable purposes, and that new section 5(4B) require that any new purpose be as close as reasonably possible to the purpose for which the property was given.

The board of governors has always made it clear that the college wishes to and, as a trustee, must ensure that to the fullest extent possible the objects of the trust continue to be met and that the board’s approach to any variation of purpose would be as sympathetic to, and consistent with, the original purpose as possible. The board of governors has also assured the select committee that before exercising this power to vary the original purpose, it will complete a detailed review of the trust to ensure that the original purposes cannot continue to be met fully.

Again, I thank the select committee for its thorough and thoughtful work. The bill, as amended, will solve the problems of dealing with numerous small trusts administered by the college. It contains enough checks and balances to protect those trusts, and the Attorney-General still maintains his role as the protector of charities. He will still have general oversight and will be able to inquire into the trusts if he believes that the trustees, at any stage, overstep their powers. The committee has done an excellent job in reshaping this bill. It is good legislation, and I commend it to the House.

BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) : I am very pleased to support the second reading of the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill, and to note, firstly, how important it is that Christ’s College, one of the great, important façades and institutions of my electorate of Christchurch Central, has come through the quake with only modest damage. It is important to know that an institution like that is up and operating. That is important for Parliament and for the nation to know. Of course even though Christ’s College has had some earthquake strengthening, that was no guarantee that it would come through a force 7.1 quake.

I note that the Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, which has had $700,000 spent on it in the last 3 or 4 years, is still closed and may be closed for another year. Many other churches, in particular, and other buildings across our city centre have suffered much worse than Christ’s College has.

Christ’s College is an independent school finely led by the headmaster, Simon Leese. The purpose of this bill is to acknowledge that changes are required to the trusts that have been supporting the college from its founding days in the 19th century. There have been changes in the nature of those trusts and this bill acknowledges that. This bill is parallel to another bill that I brought through the House last year for the Methodist Church, which is also headquartered in the Christchurch Central electorate, and which similarly faced trusts that were out of date. The process to take change through the High Court was enormously difficult, complex, and expensive. This bill seeks to assist that issue.

We, the Labour Opposition, support this bill, but I note that through the course of the Government Administration Committee process changes were made, and those changes were quite important. They were on the issue of what the college’s trustees were able to do in introducing new purposes for a trust. There were concerns about that; we wanted to ensure that those purposes would still be charitable purposes. I understand that those changes are recognised and accepted by the Christ’s College Board of Trustees; that is appropriate and was in the legal advice to them. That issue reflects similar concerns about the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill. It is a very important principle that when a trust is established, albeit that could have been a century ago or thereabouts, the people setting up that trust have very clear intent about what they want it used for. Although we as a Parliament want to change a trust’s purpose where it is no longer appropriate at all, we do want to generally ensure that the moneys still are directed towards the kind of intent that the people who founded the trusts envisaged a considerable number of decades ago.

So the Labour Opposition supports the second reading of the bill and its progress through Parliament. Thank you.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) : The Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill, which was brought to the House by MP Nicky Wagner, has had a thorough scrutiny in the Government Administration Committee. I commend my colleagues in that select committee because we gave this bill the scrutiny it needed.

I will tell members why I felt the bill needed a bit of scrutiny. A number of years ago, over a period of years, families throughout Canterbury, South Canterbury, North Canterbury, and, indeed, the length and breadth of New Zealand made bequests to Christ’s College traversing matters such as scholarships for tutelage, for sons and grandsons of soldiers, and for the purposes of a sporting activity such as fives. A number of trusts were set up and kind donations were made into those trusts, but over the years the funds are no longer needed, the activity is no longer appropriate, or the sport is no longer played.

So the proprietors of Christ’s College found themselves in the position of holding on to sums of money for which they had no good purpose. As they told us in the select committee, the sums of money served no use. There is no use having funds accumulating in various accounts for which there is no purpose, so the select committee looked at the provisions of the bill.

There are a number of precedents for the circumstances surrounding this bill: the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Act was recently passed in this House and dealt with the same problem of funds given by bequest for a purpose that no longer exists. There is also the Anglican Church Trusts Act 1981, the Presbyterian Church Property Act 1996, and the Roman Catholic Bishops Empowering Act 1997. So we can see that this is not an uncommon problem, and it was one that we were happy to deal with.

I must credit Nicky Wagner MP for bringing this bill to the House and providing such a good link. I think it is really important for a good local MP to provide a good link between the promoters of a bill and the select committee—and, indeed, this Parliament. Nicky Wagner has done a particularly good job in this instance in keeping the connections going between the promoters and Parliament.

This bill amends the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Act 1910. Members can see, without even my comments prefacing this part of my speech, that the legislation is well and truly out of date. What the bill seeks to do—and I think we have achieved this in the select committee—is to remove difficulties in administering trusts and property that have been invested in the college.

The select committee needed—and wished—to tighten up a couple of the aspects of the bill as it was presented to us by the promoters. We recommended replacing the wording in the original bill as presented to the House with words from the Charitable Trusts Act. It was felt that aligning the words of that Act with those in this bill provided certainty to the intention set out in this bill. I think the promoters accepted the suggestion of the select committee to do that and were very happy to have those words put in.

Another concern raised by members of the select committee was that the wording in the bill was a little bit loose. Some of the sums of money sitting in redundant trusts were intended for the benefit of the college, yet if we go back to each individual trust we see that some of those monies were given for quite specific purposes. So it was the select committee’s wish, with the agreement of the promoters, that a new purpose be as close as reasonably possible to that for which the property was given to, or vested in, the college. If the bequest was to advance sporting interests then it was the intention and wish of the select committee that the wording in the bill reflected that. So, in time to come, when the proprietors of Christ’s College decide to use a bequest fund it will be for a purpose as close as possible to that which was intended in the first place.

I was particularly happy as a committee member to see the tightening up of the wording in the bill. We did not want to see a bequest made many years ago by the family of a fallen soldier to go to something quite unrelated to that bequest, because maybe the family would not have liked that. In a bequest associated with the family of a soldier or soldiers—because a number of boys, of course, of Christ’s College fought for our country—I felt that we needed to keep the purpose as close as possible to the original intent.

The bill as returned to the House for its second reading keeps the spirit of the bill introduced to the House by the promoters of the bill and, indeed, by Nicky Wagner, who brought it before us. We have also managed through the select committee process to keep the spirit of bequests as close as possible to the original intention of those people who made the bequests. With those words, I commend this bill to the House.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) : I beg your indulgence, Mr Assistant Speaker Roy, at the start of my contribution and say that on behalf of all members of the House who reside south of the Bombay Hills, we wish you all the best for tomorrow evening in Invercargill. I think I can speak on behalf of most members. [Interruption] There may be a few noises from north of the Bombay Hills, but I hope that things work out well in Invercargill.

Paul Quinn: Until Wellington goes down.

GRANT ROBERTSON: That is right; that is precisely the point. Mr Quinn has totally blown my cover. Here I am, congratulating the member for Invercargill and Paul Quinn blows my cover. I am sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker, this week you can hang on but after that we want the shield back.

It gives me pleasure to rise and speak in the second reading of the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill. The bill was referred to the Government Administration Committee, and the member who has just resumed her seat, Jacqui Dean, reflected on the discussions that took place at the committee. I think it was a good example of a private bill coming to the House. Generally speaking, I think most members think that is fine—the particular organisation needs to be able to do what it needs to do to continue to operate, and we should just let the bill go through and it will be fine. However, I think that what the select committee process drew out was the importance of select committee scrutiny. This is not a bad mark on Christ’s College, at all. The college governors have been entirely cooperative with the committee, but I think it draws out the importance of every bill getting the scrutiny it needs in this House, and not bypassing the process and thinking it does not matter. This certainly was a situation where the select committee, I believe, has added significant value and has ensured some consistency and—

Jacqui Dean: It’s a great select committee.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, it is a great select committee, and it is chaired by the Hon David Parker. Mr Gilmore—

Jacqui Dean: Who’s the deputy chair?

GRANT ROBERTSON: The deputy chair is Jacqui Dean. While we are at it, let us name all the members—there are not that many. On this side of the House we are very proud of our chair, David Parker. He led the Government Administration Committee through its often trying and difficult work programme so that it was able to come up with a good result with this bill.

I want to pick up on what Jacqui Dean was saying about the fact that all of us on the committee understood what the preamble of the bill means. For many organisations, including Christ’s College, when they are dealing with trusts that are based in the past and with bequests that are from long ago, it is difficult for them to be always able to continue the exact purposes of those bequests and trusts. We understand that the administrative burden that can fall on organisations when they want to vary a trust can be very hard. A school has education purposes and it would like to see as much money as possible go directly to that; it is certainly not in our interests to put a further administrative burden on those organisations. We can understand why Christ’s College instigated the bill, and why it wants the changes to be made.

Having said that, I point out that when the committee came to analyse the bill a number of concerns were raised about the exact wording. Again, other speakers have referred to this. Firstly, it is a question of any inconsistency between the wording here and the wording in the Charitable Trusts Act. The Charitable Trusts Act does try to operate across a range of very different trusts, but the point is that charitable purposes are what should lie behind any situation where the Act comes into play. Therefore, the committee recommended changing the language so that it is consistent with the Charitable Trusts Act, and the board of governors at Christ’s College was happy to go along with that.

Another area where the committee wanted an amendment was to allow the governing body to use for another purpose excess income from the trusts that generate more than is necessary for their donated purpose. We were comfortable that this was consistent with the Charitable Trusts Act, but we needed to make sure that the language was correct.

The area that I think concerned the committee the most, as Jacqui Dean alluded to, was the more general language about being able to extend a new purpose for the trust for the benefit of the college generally. Again, this is no black mark on the college itself; it was merely trying to create an environment in which it felt it could manage the bequests and the trusts in a way that was beneficial to the college. But we felt that it could spread things too far, particularly around the notion that perhaps the college may be undertaking activities that are not for educational purposes. They may be doing different kinds of activities that support the wider purposes of the college and the board of governors. We wanted to be able to keep some kind of management that was close to the idea of a charitable purpose. That is why we have inserted an amendment that requires trust properties to be used for charitable purposes. This is an area where it would have been easy for the committee to simply let that pass, but we wanted to make sure that these trusts are used, as closely as possible, for the purposes for which they were originally put forward.

So following on from that, the committee is also inserting a requirement for the purpose of the trust to be as close as reasonably possible to the purpose for which the property was given. I do think that is important. Jacqui Dean has alluded to cases involving soldiers who died in the war, where money came from their families, and to trying to make sure there is a way of reflecting that. More broadly, we want to make sure that, particularly, the educational purposes of these trusts are kept in mind.

On this side of the House we are obviously acutely aware that one of our former members, Dr Michael Cullen, has in this House expressed his gratitude to some people who helped him get his scholarship into Christ’s College. Perhaps he did not express his gratitude in a way that noted just how grateful he was, but he certainly did note the people who had paid for his education through Christ’s College. There was a scholarship that had a particular purpose, to allow someone like Michael Cullen, who would not otherwise have been able to afford to attend Christ’s College, to be able to be there, and what great benefit the country has had from that scholarship. I am sure those farmers in the South Canterbury area, whom he alluded to, are very pleased they were able to put him through Christ’s College. It is an important example of the fact that there are a lot of different trusts and scholarships go through Christ’s College, and it is obviously important that in the future, if there is a need to make change, Christ’s College will make that change and it will be as close as possible to the purposes of the original trust.

We are happy to support the bill with those amendments. We think that this has been a good exercise in drawing the attention of the select committee and the House to the fact that we will need to amend private bills from time to time to ensure there is consistency. The governors of Christ’s College have been helpful and have worked with the committee to ensure that we now have a workable situation whereby they can deal with trusts and the property of those trusts and can make changes, but that when they do make those changes it will be done for charitable purposes. Any changes will ensure that the property is used for a purpose that is as close as reasonably possible to the original giving of that trust. For all those reasons the Labour Party is very happy to support the second reading of this bill.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) : I will start, as others have today, with a mihi to the whānau, hapū, and iwi of Sir Archie Taiaroa of Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Apa, Ngāti Wairiki, and other iwi, and to the whānau whānui of Hauraki for the loss of Jim Nicholls, who was one of the rangatira of the area in which I live. I recognise those rangatira. What they have brought to this nation is very important to the Green Party.

I turn my attention to the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill. The purpose of the bill is to change the trust deed of Christ’s College. It is reasonably innocuous. It hardly caused a flood of submissions; in fact, there was only one, I believe, which was from the college itself. The Green Party voted against the bill at its first reading because we thought the manner of amending the trust deed lacked the checks and balances that other legislation involving trust deeds has upheld. However, the Government Administration Committee recommended that some changes be made to the wording, particularly in relation to new trust purposes. It is important to us that resources created for charitable purposes can be modernised without losing the overarching charitable purpose. We are in favour of the clauses amended as a result of the select committee’s work, notably new section 5(3), inserted by clause 5, which requires that trust property be used for charitable purposes. I think it has been quite well explored.

As we understand it, some major issues have been addressed, so the Green Party is happy to change its vote. That is why the select committee process is valuable. It allows us to do such things and to hear in depth the detail of legislation that can be improved. Then we can review whether we are voting the right way. Select committees provide an opportunity to improve badly drafted legislation and bring it into line with best practice. We all put together bills in haste, and it is great when they are brought into line with best practice.

We are pleased to see that the select committee reported issues about the circumstances in which charitable trusts can be varied and a new trust purpose begun. We are pleased that these changes have been accepted by the instigators of the bill. We still have some concerns about the lack of independent oversight of the trust changes, such as churches have had in their deeds when that legislation came through the House. But we recognise that if we want to, we can make suggestions by way of an amendment during the Committee stage of the bill.

We are pleased to be able to support this member’s bill now that it has been tidied up without losing its original intent. We have no problem with varying trust deeds if they are done properly, and we will continue to seek improvement. As a smaller party we cannot be on the all the select committees, but we deeply value their work when they are able to improve a bill.

As the education spokesperson for the Greens, I am much more concerned about the resourcing and development of the public school system and kura kaupapa for the benefit of all than I am about some of the wealthier schools in the country. I am deeply concerned about national standards, public-private partnerships, and special education in the public system.

However, we are focusing on the Christ’s College bill, and the Green Party is happy to say that it can support it at the second reading debate. We look forward to the Committee stage as an opportunity to introduce amendments if we think they are needed. We recognise the effort that the member Nicky Wagner and the select committee have put in to improving this bill. Kia ora koutou.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) : I come to the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill today as the MP for Te Tai Tonga, recognising the changed context between when this bill came before the Government Administration Committee and this point, the second reading. Between then and now—this will be news to members—a massive earthquake struck, which caused damage to the older buildings of this high school.

Grant Robertson: Really? Why didn’t anyone tell us?

RAHUI KATENE: Look, it is just completely missing from the media. I am sorry, but it has happened! Christ’s College is one of New Zealand’s oldest schools, being over 160 years old, and it was clearly distressing to witness the damage that happened when the chimneys tumbled down into the dining hall below. But like so many communities and families affected by the quake, it is not the damage to the bricks and mortar than have stood out in the response to this natural crisis. The spirit of generosity, indeed the expression of manaakitanga, has been very humbling to observe. I make reference to the support that Christ’s College has offered, for example, to ULearn. It has opened additional classrooms to ULearn in order to replace the old Cranmer Centre, which is now no longer able to be used.

The ability of Christ’s College to think outside itself and adapt to circumstances is actually at the foundation of this bill, which is being presented for debate by the local member, Nicky Wagner. Specifically, this legislation enables the trustees to change the purposes of the original trusts. The change is required to remove difficulties in administering trusts vested in Christ’s College that can no longer be applied in accordance with the original intentions of donors. There is, however, a commitment that trust property should still be applied for educational and charitable purposes, or near enough to that. But just as Christ’s College opened its gates to consider the needs of ULearn during the aftermath of the earthquake, in this bill the college has recognised that the purposes and intentions of donors in the earlier days are no longer relevant to modern times. As Nicky Wagner has pointed out, outdated bequests to left-handed rifle shooters, sons of World War I and II soldiers, and pupils from orphanages really no longer fit the times, just as the prizes for sporting events that are no longer run and subjects that are no longer taught no longer fit the times.

The bill allows trustees to vary the purposes of charitable trusts in certain circumstances. It will also allow the governing body to use for another purpose any excess income from trusts that generate more than is necessary for their donated purposes. That is consistent with the Charitable Trusts Act. The college’s board of governors has assured Parliament that before exercising the power to vary the original purpose of a trust, it will complete a detailed review of the trust to ensure for the avoidance of doubt that the original purposes cannot continue to be met fully.

The Māori Party is happy to support the college in updating the framework upon which its bequests and assets have been given over the years. This bill modifies the 1910 Christ’s College (Canterbury) Act, seeking a law change that will enable the school to use the funds it has been privileged to receive in a way that is appropriate for this century, rather than the last. We have read the advice of the Government Administration Committee on the bill, and we are happy to extend our support for the further progress of a bill that is very much along the lines of providing a necessary and useful update.

AARON GILMORE (National) : Unlike some families, in seven generations there has never been a Gilmore to have blessed the grounds of Christ’s College as a student, and I suspect that in the next seven generations there probably will not be one, either. I think that in the 160-year history of Christchurch, Christ’s College has represented all the things that are good and bad in Christchurch. In my own little world, I attended a school on the other side of town called Shirley Boys High School. We had constant battles against Christ’s College on the rugby field and occasionally on the cricket field.

It gives me great pleasure to stand here today and support the further progression through this House of the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill. Christ’s College has an enviable reputation in Canterbury and in New Zealand, and this bill will help to enhance that. I just heard someone say jokingly before that left-handed rifle shooters will no longer receive scholarships. As a left-handed shooter, I am a bit devastated by that, I must say! I believe this bill puts into place in the legislation a tidy-up and a change of intention that I believe the people who made those bequests would be very happy about.

I have had the pleasure of working on similar bills to this one that have been before this House—in particular, the tidying-up of similar trusts relating to Anglican and Catholic societies, which had large numbers of trusts with small amounts of money. This bill in a very similar way goes towards tidying up uncertainties that may exist and applying them to things that make sense. It was good to see the Government Administration Committee put forward some of those tidy-up changes with regard to the Charitable Trusts Act. The same problems existed with regard to the Anglican and Catholic bills that came before the House.

It is also good that this bill has been brought to the House by the wonderful member Nicky Wagner, who I know has spent many years living in the area close to Christ’s College. The land and the issues around the college have been very close to her heart.

I will share a little story about Christ’s College that I remember vividly. I had the misfortune of playing a game of cricket there a number of years ago. It was a two-innings game. In the first innings I was out first ball, which was very embarrassing. But I had the very great fortune—

Hon Member: No kidding.

AARON GILMORE: Yes, that was very embarrassing, but in the second innings of the game I managed to get 100 not out. I always remember that story about Christ’s College and remember what a great school it is. The person who bowled me out with the first ball ended up playing cricket for New Zealand, and he was one of the great players from Christ’s College. The reason I did not get out in the second innings was that he tore a ligament and could not bowl in that innings, so I was very happy about that.

Now I have a 7-year-old son. We constantly drive past Christ’s College, and he always calls it the Harry Potter school. Some members may know the grand hall that exists in Christ’s College. It is very similar to the grand hall that is used in the Harry Pottermovies. The fact that it survived the earthquake, which Rahui mentioned earlier on, is an interesting example of how great that school is and of how well it was built.

The funds discussed in this bill could be applied to the school in future to send students there to get the benefit of the great education that the school provides. I look forward to more good students coming out of that school. It has been pointed out that Dr Michael Cullen was an ex-pupil, as was Robbie Deans, one of the great Cantabrians, who has been lent to Australia to basically ruin his career and blot his copybook before he comes back and takes the Canterbury Crusaders to another Super 15 title, which is what I think will happen.

One of the interesting things about the bequests and changes is that a number of very wealthy former students of Christ’s College have not been touched on. They may be able to donate their own funds in future to this school or to some of the trusts. There are people like Bill Hamilton, the founder of HamiltonJet. He was one of New Zealand’s great business people. That gentleman was an former pupil, and he did a lot of good things not just for the school but also for the community of Christchurch and New Zealand. Another great former pupil of the school is Sam Neill, a famous New Zealand actor. I suspect that he will also donate handsomely to the school, and maybe even to some of the trusts and organisations. That may occur with these changes. The school has had some other great former pupils, like Sir Charles Upham, New Zealand’s only VC & Bar. The spectrum of politics, sport, and business shows us of the breadth of students who have come from this fine institution.

This bill, in terms of where we are in its second reading, goes only to help enhance the quality of students in the future, and not just so that we may have left-handed shooters, or the situation where one scholarship was awarded to the person who came second in the under-15 hurdles, as Mrs Wagner just informed me. I say good on the person who had that scholarship put into an enactment, but this legislation’s tidy-up will mean that many other students will benefit from it for many years to come. I think that is a good thing. Thank you very much.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) : It is always privilege to follow a speaker as eloquent as Mr Gilmore. I reassure him, despite what he may think, that the college was not named after him. However, I was impressed at the way in which he managed to work Harry Potter into his speech. I want to recap on what a good job the Government Administration Committee did on this bill—

Grant Robertson: Great committee.

CHRIS HIPKINS: The all-powerful Government Administration Committee is chaired by the Hon David Parker, who did a sterling job. The committee is very ably deputy chaired by Jacqui Dean from the National Party, and she is accompanied by Mr John Hayes, who is always a beacon of light and hope. He is a bit like the Waldorf to Allan Peachey’s Statler; he always brings joy to the room whenever he arrives at the Government Administration Committee.

Aaron Gilmore: That was actually funny.

CHRIS HIPKINS: I thought it was quite good. I enjoyed the hearings on this bill. The Government Administration Committee took it very seriously, as we do all of the legislation referred to us. Not very much gets referred to the all-powerful Government Administration Committee and it is always a privilege to have a piece of legislation that we can actually do something with.

We raised a number of concerns throughout the hearings on this legislation. The first concern was whether there was any justification for the wording in the bill being different from the wording in the Charitable Trusts Act. I put that question to the college. The college lawyers, who appeared before the committee several times, could not really give us a good quality reason why it needed to be different from the Charitable Trusts Act. They had drafted the bill in such a way that it did not link to what the Charitable Trusts Act said, and I thought there may have been a reason for that. They were unable to give us that reason, so we thought that in terms of the legal situation it was probably safer to go back to the wording of the Charitable Trusts Act so that if at any point there is a dispute about what this bill is intended to achieve, the courts will have a body of case law already there. There is a strong body of law already around the Charitable Trusts Act, and we wanted to make sure that that was not overridden simply by the minor wording changes that the original draft of the bill contained.

The committee also recommended inserting a new section to allow the governing body to use for another purpose excess income from trusts that generate more than is necessary for the donated purpose. I think that is quite important, and it is consistent with the provisions in the Charitable Trusts Act. We saw no reason why those trusts should continue to grow unnecessarily, simply because the purpose does not require the amount of money that trusts are able to generate, so that was a fairly pragmatic and sensible thing to do.

The committee was concerned about what some of the more redundant trusts involved and whether it would be fair to say they were redundant, and we had robust discussions with the college about this. One trust that was listed in the schedules we were given by the college related to providing financial support to a student experiencing hardship. The committee put some pretty tough questions to the college as to why it needed to change that trust deed. To this day I do not believe that the college could seriously put its hand on its heart and say that there are no students experiencing financial difficulties and therefore it could not dispense that money somehow. The college gave us a variety of reasons, and in the end, after we had quite a long discussion about it, I was satisfied that there was justification for rearranging the trust as part of the wider rearrangement of the trusts it is doing.

We were concerned that the bill as introduced was too general in describing a purpose for a trust as for the benefit of the college. “For the benefit of the college” could have included renovating the grand hall that Aaron Gilmore talked about before and which he likened to the grand hall in the Harry Potter books. We thought that although that would certainly be for the benefit of the college, it would probably be inconsistent with what the money was gifted to the college for in the first place. We wanted to make sure that it was for charitable purposes, not simply for the benefit of the college, and that was one of the changes we made by inserting a requirement for trust property to be used for charitable purposes. Again, I think that was a fairly sensible amendment.

The committee also recommended inserting a requirement for a new purpose of a trust so that it is to be as close as reasonably possible to the purpose for which the property was given. In the case of the example I mentioned before—supporting students who might otherwise be in financial hardship—if there were reasons why the trust as it stood could not practically be used for that purpose, we wanted to make sure that it was applied in such a way that it was as close as possible to that purpose. For example, it could be that a number of very small trust funds could be grouped together and a common purpose found for them that was as consistent as possible with the original trust funds, but accumulating a more substantial sum of money so that it could be a more meaningful grant, and so on. I think that is very sensible. We did not want the college to be able to simply say “Well we don’t think this is important any more so we’re going to focus on our priorities.”, potentially against the wishes of the people who had donated the money.

I think it is really important, when we are talking about bequests and donations, that we show good faith towards the people who make those kinds of donations and bequests. I think that if we create a situation whereby somebody cannot be certain when giving money to any kind of trust that it will be applied to the purpose that they wish it to be, they will be more reluctant to do so. We need to tread very carefully to ensure that we do not create a precedent that allows a college such as Christ’s College to apply the funds in such a way that was never intended by the donor.

We did look at the Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Methodist Churches and at the way in which they had brought similar legislation before the House. We modelled a lot of our discussion around the provisions in that legislation to ensure that it was consistent. I will be interested to look at the Supplementary Order Paper that the Greens will put forward. I understand that they want to put forward a Supplementary Order Paper that strengthens some of the checks and balances in a similar sort of way as the Methodist Church of Australasia in New Zealand Act does. At the moment the bill, even as reported from the select committee, does not contain quite as fulsome a checks and balance process as the legislation regarding the Methodist Church does.

Generally speaking, the Labour Party is comfortable with this bill. We put some pretty tough questions to the college during the course of the hearings on the bill. I was pretty comfortable that the college answered the concerns and the questions we raised. I acknowledge Nicky Wagner. She sat through all of the committee’s deliberations on this legislation. It was a test of stamina and I was impressed that she had the perseverance. I acknowledge her contribution and that of the other committee members. Overall it is good legislation and I commend it to the House.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) : It is interesting that I have been given an opportunity to speak on the second reading of the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill. I am not from Christchurch and I am certainly not an old boy of Christ’s College. In fact, my schooling probably could not be any more different from what one would have had at Christ’s College. Ruapehu College is a long way from the august, historic grounds of Christ’s College. In fact, I suspect that for the first time ever Ruapehu College and Christ’s College have been mentioned in the same sentence—and it happened in this Parliament. There are certainly no Ruapehu College amendment bills on the books that I am aware of. I doubt whether I will ever have the privilege, unlike my fine colleague Nicky Wagner, of bringing such a bill to the House.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the debate this afternoon has been hearing of Mr Gilmore’s experiences of playing cricket on the hallowed green grounds of Christ’s College, and noting that he made a duck. I once made a duck in an interschool cricket match. It was against Taihape College. I remember it well. It was 45 years ago and it was my first game as the captain of the Ruapehu College first eleven.

Grant Robertson: There were only 10 players.

ALLAN PEACHEY: We always struggled to have 11 players; I can tell Mr Robertson that I think my sister filled in. I remember it well. We arrived at the ground in Taihape and the first thing we had to do was clear the sheep off the paddock. It was on a school day, so classes were in. We had to mop up the droppings, mark our own wicket, get changed behind the tree, and proceed to play the game. But it was very character-building, I am bound to say.

This is a very simple bill. It amends the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Act 1910 to remove difficulties in administering property vested in the college. I suppose we could say it is legislation for pulling things into the 21st century. I have been very impressed during the debate by all the great talk of the Government Administration Committee—is that what it is called?

Grant Robertson: That’s right.

ALLAN PEACHEY: I had never heard of it before. But clearly it plays a very important role in this Parliament, because it gives Chris Hipkins something to do. It gives the young man some purpose in life, so all credit for that to Nicky Wagner. I commend the committee for tightening up the provisions of the proposed bill, and for calling on the wording of the Charities Act. I think it shows the value of having a committee like that, and of the select committee process generally.

I conclude my brief remarks by paying tribute to the member whose name this bill is in. Nicky Wagner is a very fine representative of Christchurch. She works very hard for the people of Christchurch. I have spent time with her in central Christchurch and know how widely recognised and appreciated is the work that she has done. It is to Nicky Wagner’s credit that the bill has come for its second reading. In the great tradition of Ruapehu College I wish Christ’s College well, and commend the bill to the House.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) : It is a pleasure to speak during this second reading of the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill, and I must pay my respects to all those who have spoken before me. I also recognise those families in North Canterbury, which is the bottom end of the Kaikōura electorate, who still—to this very day—seek out such colleges to send their children to. No doubt they include families whose bequests have brought about the situation we are now confronted with, with regard to this particular bill. I also thank the Government Administration Committee members for their diligence, and there is no doubt that their advice, which was taken and applied to new section 5(4), inserted by clause 5, of this legislation, is very appropriate. If we just turn our minds back to clause 4, earlier in the legislation, about the purpose, we understand just how important it is to tie in things in a seemly way, and I am quite confident that the integrity of the trustees, principal, and teachers at Christ’s College will ensure that. One has to marvel at the strength of the old boys’ network that emanates out of Christ’s College. No doubt there will be a very strong connection with families to ensure that the provisions of this particular bill will not be abused.

When one thinks about the time that Christ’s College has been in existence, one might think that some 100,000 pupils had gone through that college, but in fact about 13,000 pupils have gone through. Today there are some 660 students at that college: 220 boarders who live there, and no doubt travel from all over the country to get there, and 440 day boys, as they are described. As a college it certainly measures up well with regard to any other schools throughout the country. The school is a product of the Anglican settlement of Canterbury in the 1850s, and in fact when we look around the Parliament building that we have here today, we see that the college dates from the very beginning of our democracy. So there is great history in Christ’s College, and it is one that we are particularly proud of.

When we look at the structure of the philanthropy that has been displayed towards Christ’s College, we understand that the solution we are dealing with here will be sensible and pragmatic. There are 28 trusts. If we consider the Charitable Trusts Act 1957, we find a provision there to seek a variation from the original trust deed, but that would require trustees to go to the High Court for that approval, not just once for all the 28 trusts but for each variation to each trust deed. One would be required, effectively, to seek 28 High Court decisions to get the changes that are necessary. It is with great pleasure that I see Dr Hutchison arriving, and on that basis I have great passion and enthusiasm for the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill to proceed. Thank you very much.

• Bill read a second time.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) : I move, That the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I firstly pay tribute to my colleague Colin King for making an excellent speech in his last contribution. He certainly saved my skin. I note that the Local Government and Environment Committee has advised against passing this bill, due to the restructure of the councils in the Auckland region. It is not often that a bill such as this is enthusiastically and unanimously supported in Parliament in its first reading, but, due to a twist of circumstances, is likely to be voted down today.

Grant Robertson: No reflection on the member.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: There is no reflection, whatsoever. The purpose of the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill is to amend the Auckland War Memorial Museum Act 1996 and the Museum of Transport and Technology Act 2000 to ensure that the levies for the museums are calculated only on the basis of the population of the Franklin District that is contained within the boundaries of the Auckland region, and not that contained within the boundaries of the Waikato region.

Undoubtedly, this bill was initiated to right a wrong, whereby people living in that area were inappropriately being given a double levy—firstly, from the Auckland museums, and, secondly, from Environment Waikato. In other words, it was a double whammy. Those people are very fine people; they come from a wonderful part of New Zealand: Glen Murray, Port Waikato, Limestone Downs, Onewhero, and the Waikāretu Valley. They are all magnificent parts of our fine country, and it is indeed right and proper that this anomaly is righted.

It is also interesting to note that the Franklin District Council by land mass is two-thirds in the Waikato area, but by population two-thirds live across the river in the Auckland area.

The main provision of the bill amends both Acts by inserting a new definition of “district”. Clauses 5 and 7 insert into both Acts the following definition of “district”: “district, in relation to the Franklin District Council, excludes any part of the district of the Council that is not within the boundaries of the region of the Auckland Regional Council.”

In terms of background, as I said before, this bill was to right an anomaly. I must emphasise that both of those two museums—the Museum of Transport and Technology and the Auckland War Memorial Museum—are iconic institutions and deserve support, but those living in the Waikato part of the Franklin District were perhaps being unfairly treated. The computation of the levies is based on the population living in the Auckland region.

In terms of the Auckland governance reforms, the Local Government and Environment Committee considered that because they were going to happen anyway, the bill would be put aside until it could be sorted out. In some ways it is a bit of a shame that the bill did not go straight through, because, as I said, it was enthusiastically and unanimously embraced by this House. I think there were certainly a lot of unknowns about how long it would take to put the royal commission’s recommendations into law, and, as we all know, the new Auckland Council will come into being on 1 November of this year.

I remind the Opposition that it was really interesting when Phil Twyford and a team from Labour came to Pukekohe and pointed out that they supported splitting Franklin at the river, as was recommended by the royal commission.

The provisions in the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act 2010 make the intent of this bill redundant, because the Act repeals the definition of contributing authorities and replaces it with a definition of Auckland Council. This means that from 1 November the boards of the two museums may levy the Auckland Council only for 2011 and subsequent years. Those levies will be subject to maximum values calculated on the basis of capital value and population within the territory of the new Auckland Council. Local authorities and ratepayers outside the boundaries of account of the Auckland region cannot be liable for those levies.

It is important to point out that the Franklin District Council acknowledges that the intent of the bill is met by the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act. However, it had interpreted that the relevant provisions would come into effect on 1 July rather than 1 November. Therefore, the Franklin District Council had not raised the necessary levies from properties within the Environment Waikato part of its district from 1 July this year. The council told the committee that, as a result, there will be a deficit of approximately $280,000—about $198,000 for the Auckland War Memorial Museum and $82,000 for the Museum of Transport and Technology—once its assets are transferred to the new Auckland Council. In a convoluted sort of way, that seems a little bit equitable, because at least this year people in the Waikato part were not rated. However, the rates have been taken out of a reserve fund that the Franklin District Council has, and that will mean that its contribution at the wash-up of the new Auckland Council will be less than it would be otherwise.

As I mentioned, the Franklin District Council requested that the committee recommend that the bill be enacted with a retrospective commencement date and then repealed when the provision in the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act came into effect. The committee was advised that the Acts pertaining to the two museums required their boards to fix the amount to be levied against each of the contributing councils for the 2010-11 financial year by 30 April. So enacting the bill with a commencement date of 1 July would, therefore, not resolve the matter. The committee said furthermore that it was greatly concerned that this problem has arisen and that the ratepayers and the museums could be affected, but that it did not believe it was Parliament’s role to resolve the issue. It also said that retrospective legislation of this kind in a local bill could set an undesirable precedent, so, therefore, it recommended that the bill not be passed.

This afternoon I spoke to Sally Davis, the chief executive of the Franklin District Council, and she expressed her concern that the residents of Franklin have not been treated well. I think a message for the new mayor and the council of the Auckland City is that they should ensure that the rural parts of the new Auckland super-city are promoted and not forgotten. I hope that message will be supported throughout this House, because the rural parts of the new Auckland region, mainly composing Franklin and Rodney, are about 75 percent of the land mass of the new city but will have only two representatives on the new council of 21. So it is vital that the new council supports both Franklin and Rodney and the rural sector in terms of its action over the years ahead. So thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this bill. It is appropriate that it be discharged.

Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) : I am sure that the good member for Hunua, Dr Paul Hutchison, has represented his electorate very ably in the issue of the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill, but this issue has simply been superseded. It has been superseded by the decisions made by Rodney Hide, which were really about fast tracking Auckland governance. He left the great fight that the member Paul Hutchison was fighting for the good people of Hunua in the slipstream.

Moana Mackey: Collateral damage.

Hon STEVE CHADWICK: A bit of collateral damage; he fought the good fight well.

When we began the process of looking at Auckland governance, we began it very moderately. It began in 2006 and everybody agreed with a memorandum of the mayors of Auckland that it was a very good idea to start looking at regionalisation and the prospect of a super-city. Labour actually initiated that process. It moved along at a moderate pace with the royal commission report, until the findings of the royal commission report when this Government came into office and gave the whole power to organise and reorganise the Auckland super-city to a Minister in another party. What a shambles has ensued from that time!

I pick up on a couple of points that the member for Hunua raised. The good people of Hamilton, Rodney, and Franklin all enjoy the amenities of the Museum of Transport and Technology and the Auckland War Memorial Museum. When we are looking at regionalisation of iconic institutions like the Auckland War Memorial Museum, we do not want to be quite so parochial about who contributes to the long-term future of the Auckland Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology.

It was Labour, again, that brought in the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill, which we all supported; I was on the Local Government and Environment Committee. National supported the legislation only in the dying hours of the election campaign. Only then did it say that it was a great idea and it would be a vote loser if National did not support it, so National decided that it was all in favour of it. It certainly was not in support of it right through the select committee process, until the end. National decided that the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill was great, and that it would keep afloat iconic institutions like the Auckland Art Gallery, the Museum of Transport and Technology, Coastguard Northern Region, and some of the wonderful institutions of Auckland. What a great initiative that was, too. For pure popular demand National decided that it would hop on board and support it.

We are trying to encourage all regions of New Zealand to support these icons. There is a big anniversary coming up for the Auckland War Memorial Museum that I am sure all of New Zealand will enjoy. The 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Great War is not far away; the planning is all under way.

The principle of this bill was about apportioning the amount of rates from Franklin that would have to be involved in the Auckland regional amenities legislation. It has simply been superseded, and for that reason alone, we are not passing this bill.

It is interesting that I hear in the mayoralty campaigns in Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast saying that Wellington needs a regional amenities funding bill, so we can work much more closely with all the outlying district councils. Those districts enjoy the benefits of some of the wonderful icons of Wellington like the International Festival of the Arts, the opera, and the Vector Wellington Orchestra, which is under a great threat at the moment from Creative New Zealand’s reorganisation of funding lines. As a regional orchestra, it is saying that it has no long-term certainty for funding, at all. That is a Wellington issue.

It is the same sort of issue that we heard in Auckland about the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra; I am sure the good member opposite has gone to enjoy the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. I am sure he does not see that it belongs only to the good people of Auckland; in fact, people from the Bay of Plenty, Rotorua, Hamilton, and Rodney all come into Auckland to enjoy these amenities and their benefits. A proportion of rates had to be fairly apportioned to the councils that came under that Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill.

I think the process under the super-city restructure for the arts and for iconic institutions like the Auckland Museum has been really poorly managed by Rodney Hide in the Auckland super-city legislation. I have been to meet the staff of the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Auckland Art Gallery, and they are saying that they are not really sure where they fit. They feel like third-tier organisations in the Auckland super-city and that they will actually come under an Auckland events centre. They are really worried about that generic management of great institutions like the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Rodney Hide certainly has not got right the Auckland super-city restructuring in terms of arts and valued institutions. There will be problems. In fact, there may need to be legislation when the Auckland super-city restructuring all shakes down. What impact will it really have on the Auckland Museum and on the Museum of Transport and Technology? There may need to be legislative changes that people have not even anticipated. It is definitely a shambles up in Auckland at the moment for the arts community. That is simply because of the speed with which this Government was determined, with Rodney Hide in charge, to get a tick in the book and get this all implemented, tickety-boo, by this election.

We would have taken a much longer and more measured approach to looking at what would be the effect of this change, instead of this rapid and rather hasty implementation without people having a say. I have met people in Auckland who do not even understand what district they are in in the super-city. They do not even know which ward to vote for, because they have not participated or been made aware, until the billboards went up, which part of Auckland they belong to. The consultation with the good people of Auckland has been simply shabby.

Labour will be opposing this bill because we agree with the Local Government and Environment Committee that it has been superseded. All the efforts in the past that caused such stress to the people of Waikato, Franklin, and Hunua about whether they were in or out have been superseded. They had to sit and wait, then get on the streets and have a petition signed by 10 percent of the electors of each of the regions—140,000 from Auckland, 40,000 from Waikato, and 6,000 from Franklin were unsure about the boundaries. These are good voters. These constituents were totally confused about the boundaries in the super-city. Now those people do not need to worry any longer, apparently, because this bill is not going to happen. Those people will not have to contribute to the Auckland regional amenities fund.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) : I commend the member for Hunua, Dr Paul Hutchison, for the logic, reason, and structure that he took in his introductory speech on the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill. I contrast that with the irrelevance of the speech from the Labour list member, Steve Chadwick.

I wonder whether I can continue with the theme of my speech about Christ’s College and devote the next 5 minutes to the governance of Ruapehu College. Maybe in 5 minutes time I will have achieved my objective for the day in getting the name of my old school mentioned in Hansard more often than that fine school in Canterbury.

I seem to recall that I spoke in the first reading of this bill in favour of it being referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee. I now find myself speaking in support of the select committee’s recommendation that this bill not be passed, because of the restructuring of governance in the wider Auckland area.

The need for this bill came about in the first place because of two pieces of legislation, the Auckland War Memorial Museum Act 1996 and the Museum of Transport and Technology Act 2000. They required the Franklin district to make a contribution on the basis of population to the running costs of both of those institutions.

The select committee came to the view, as I have said, that this bill is no longer required. I note with interest and empathy Dr Hutchison’s very strong support for the area and his sense of representing his community in this House in the very best possible way. He has done that, and all credit to him for it, but it really is a simple matter: since this bill was introduced, there has been a major restructuring of the governance of the Auckland region.

I think the elections for the new council have started. I seem to recall that my ballot papers arrived on Monday. I will no doubt exercise my democratic right, cast my vote, and ensure that as many candidates as possible who identify with the left of politics in New Zealand do not get elected. I guess that was one of the great things about going to Ruapehu College—that the school was always represented in an electorate that returned a National member year after year after year.

In conclusion, I say that this bill will not be passed. There is no longer any necessity for it to be passed, and I think it can now be dispatched reasonably quickly. Thank you.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) : I want to pay tribute to the member for Hunua, Dr Paul Hutchison, who is coming to the end of a fine political career. He was highly regarded by the people in the Hunua district. The member for Hunua stood up—briefly—and articulated the fears and concerns of his constituents. He did it once, then he was steamrollered by the National Party. Since then he has been very, very quiet about how the people of Hunua feel about the super-city. This bill we are debating tonight, the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill, reflects the concerns and the fears that the people in that member’s electorate have about the way the National-ACT Government has shafted democracy in Auckland.

If there is one man whom Dr Paul Hutchison has to blame for the impending finale of his political career, it is Rodney Hide. Rodney Hide was set up by this Government to do its dirty work. It gave him the job of restructuring Auckland governance because it thought that he would be able to do this very dangerous, high-risk job, and he would attract all the political flack, then when things got out of hand the Prime Minister would be able to shrug and say: “That’s just Rodney Hide, not us.” But Rodney Hide’s credibility as the Minister of Local Government, who is the Minister responsible for creating the Auckland super-city, is so utterly tarnished and damaged not only because of what he has done to Auckland democracy but also because of a list of things as long as your arm that have destroyed the credibility of the Minister of Local Government. I am not going to detail that full list, because I think the House and New Zealanders who are listening will know that he is the most damaged man in New Zealand politics.

The consequence of the damage to Rodney Hide’s credibility has been that the Auckland reforms are completely tarnished in the eyes of Aucklanders, and Rodney Hide’s political carcass is hanging around the neck of this Government. The people of Franklin—the people who asked for this bill to be brought to the House—regret it. They regret that they were dragged, kicking and screaming, by Rodney Hide into the Auckland super-city, and the belated and rather modest attempts that Dr Paul Hutchison made to express their concerns did not make the slightest bit of difference.

The people of Franklin, like the people of Rodney and like the people right across the Auckland isthmus, are disillusioned and disenchanted, and there are plenty of reasons why. It is not just because they were roped into paying a certain amount every year through their rates for institutions like the Museum of Transport and Technology or the Auckland War Memorial Museum, which is what this bill initially attempted to deal with; it is because they have lost their democratic voice in local government. Through the setting up of council-controlled organisations by the National-ACT Government, 75 percent of local government has been corporatised. [Interruption] The member Steven Joyce was responsible for insisting at Cabinet, against the advice of Treasury and two other Government departments, on corporatising transport, and that is the very thing that the people of Franklin resent, because it has been imposed on them. He insisted on having an undemocratic corporate model for the Transport Agency, which is going to spend more than half the rates of the people of Franklin. What democratic say will they have over his corporate jack-up of a super-city? They will have very little say, and that is why the people of Franklin are concerned.

The other reason they are concerned is that they are worried they will lose their voice and that they will lose the identity of the region of Franklin in this super-city. They have good reason to be afraid, because this ACT-National Government has taken away the powers of local communities. It has set up these toothless local boards, which have no ability to make by-laws. Steven Joyce’s Transport Agency has the ability to make by-laws, and it is run by a bunch of hand-picked corporate directors. For the people of Franklin, their local board under this super-city will not even have the ability to make a by-law. They will have to get on their knees and beg the Auckland Council to make a by-law for the region of Franklin. Well, how democratic is that? It is no wonder they are ticked off.

What else are the people of Franklin concerned about? They, like the majority of Aucklanders who have said this in recent opinion polls, believe that their rates will go up because of the Rodney Hide - John Key super-city, and we imagine that they would have good grounds for their concern about that. Rodney Hide has been going around town saying that the user charges will go down, under his super-city. The cost of having one’s dog registered under the new Auckland Council will be $70. Well, the people of Franklin currently pay $60 to have their dog registered. Rodney Hide is going around boasting that building inspectors will cost $110 an hour in the new Auckland super-city. Well, I have news for members. In Franklin, I say to Dr Hutchison, people pay no more than $112, but it is often as low as $73 for a building inspector.

Dr Paul Hutchison: It’s a great area.

PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the member will have to go a long way to convince the people of Franklin that they are getting a good deal under the super-city.

The other thing that the people of Franklin are concerned about is their water rates. Rodney Hide has gone around for the last couple of weeks saying that—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: We are a long way away from museums.

PHIL TWYFORD: The people of Franklin are concerned about the costs that they will have to pay under the super-city, which is what this bill originally set out to address. It was intended to address the costs that they would pay through their rates for being part of wider Auckland. We know that it is the policy of this Government and of Citizens and Ratepayers, the National Party proxy in Auckland, to roll out user-pays charges for waste water. That is what people are concerned about. They are worried that their waste-water charges will go through the roof, and the people in Franklin are extremely concerned about that.

We know that recent polls tell us that a solid 50 percent of Aucklanders do not want the super-city. They do not like it; they do not trust it. Well, the last poll that was done in Franklin showed that 90 percent of people, I say to Dr Hutchison, do not want the super-city—90 percent. That is almost twice as much as the number of people in Auckland who do not want it. I think that the member for Hunua will have a very hard job explaining to his electors how he went into bat for them and represented their democratic interests, when the next election comes around.

The other issue that really grates on people in Franklin is not only the fact that the people on the Waikato side of the old boundary had to pay a share of the contribution to the museums, but also those people care about their publicly owned assets, like the Ports of Auckland, and they care about vital infrastructure. This Government is obviously setting up those assets to be privatised, and we saw that when the third super-city bill removed the democratic right that Aucklanders have to approve it in a referendum before the Ports of Auckland can be sold off. Well, this Government legislated that right away, because it does not care about people having the right to make a decision about whether their assets are privatised. That is why in the local body elections that are currently going on, the people of Franklin are expressing their concern. They want to vote for candidates who will save the assets from privatisation and will not flog them off to overseas owners.

We have recently seen the kind of shonky, behind-the-scenes decision-making that Aucklanders and the people of Franklin have come to fear with this super-city. We have seen this Government putting in a new computer system for the Auckland super-city, which is costing $62 million, and which the Government did not put out to tender. This is exactly the kind of concern that the people of Franklin have about the way their rates are being spent. It is what motivated them to ask for this bill to be brought to the House, and what do we see? We see shonky, mates’ rates behaviour from the hand-picked mates of National who have been put in place to run the new Auckland Council. What did they do? They let a contract for computers for $62 million without putting it out for tender. I predict that this is the kind of behaviour we will see more of. It is exactly what the people of Franklin feared. All the way along, it is not only the fact that the people of Franklin have been forced to pay for these museum levies but also the people of Franklin, like the people of wider Auckland, were never given a say on the super-city. They were never given any choice, they were not listened to, and they were treated with contempt by this Government.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) : It is a pleasure to join Dr Paul Hutchison in speaking to the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill. We have a situation where the bill has effectively been overtaken by events that have been led by this Government in combining a number of rather fractured and dysfunctional aspects of our major city, Auckland. This bill was originally introduced on 13 August 2008. As we know, in November 2008 New Zealand had an election. The people of New Zealand voted in a John Key - led National Government, supported by the ACT Party, and National also appreciates the support we get from the Māori Party.

However, I draw members’ attention to the fractious nature of libraries and museums. Even down at the Hurunui District Council, we have problems with distance and the ratings of libraries and museums. At the last local body elections down there, the people of Cheviot were particularly concerned about not having access to the library in Amberley. When we stop and think of those distances, we realise they are rather short, but that is the nature of funding. I think one can see that originally there was a lot of merit in bringing forward this bill.

Dr Paul Hutchison, a very good member, took this bill up to ensure that those historical wrongs were put right. However, with the speed and the agenda of this Government in working towards having the greater Auckland City go to the local body elections to choose one mayor and one council—

Dr Paul Hutchison: One plan.

COLIN KING: —to have one agenda, one plan, is very important. I believe that the structure that will now affect the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology will be a better one.

It is appropriate that the Franklin District Council wrote to the Local Government and Environment Committee and acknowledged that the bill was redundant, in the sense that the events in Auckland had overtaken it. From my point of view, the select committee’s recommendation is appropriate. National will vote that this bill does not proceed. On that basis, I will say that the bill should not progress, and I will sit down.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) : It is an honour to follow Colin King, who had such an authoritative ending to his speech. Both sides of the House agree that the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill should not proceed. Obviously, as the Local Government and Environment Committee noted, the bill should not proceed because the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act has superseded it. It is important to reflect on the process by which that Act came into being while reflecting on this bill, because we have to set the context.

I think it is worth noting, firstly, the excellent work that the select committee did on the bill. Would it not have been good if all of the legislation regarding the change to Auckland governance had found its way to a select committee? Perhaps if that had happened, the people of Auckland might have had a true opportunity to be listened to. What we have seen, with the change in Auckland governance, is the activities of one Minister, Rodney Hide—the tail wagging the dog of the National Government. Now, perhaps, National members might be looking across at Rodney Hide, who is the Minister responsible for the legislation that superseded this bill, and asking whether they want to be associated with that man. Do they really want the public of New Zealand to think that Rodney Hide is leading the strategy for the National Government for our biggest city and for the biggest change in local government in New Zealand’s history, certainly since the 1989 reforms? Do they really want the National Government to be led by Rodney Hide? He is a man whose credibility has been destroyed, a man who has covered up the most despicable of acts, and as a Minister he now has no credibility to be leading a process that this bill has now been superseded by. National members have to ask themselves that question. Rodney Hide has clearly got it wrong in Auckland, and my colleague Phil Twyford has talked about that.

Of course there was a need for change in Auckland governance. Of course there was a need to bring together the people of the Greater Auckland region in a way that would benefit transport and those issues that cut across different parts of the city. But the way that the National Government has put forward the reforms for Auckland governance has been unacceptable. It has overridden democracy. It has put in place people who will enforce the agenda of Rodney Hide and others in vitally important organisations.

When I look at this bill, which refers in particular to the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology, I wonder whether part of the $62 million computer system that the Auckland super-city is putting in place might one day find itself at the Museum of Transport and Technology. When people visit the museum and look at it, they will say: “Gosh, $62 million. That was a lot of money to spend on a computer system. It’s unbelievable that it didn’t go out to tender.” It is absolutely incredible that a project as important as that, as important for Auckland and its future, did not go out to tender. Once again, that is an example of the way in which the process of the Auckland governance reforms, which superseded this bill, have been railroaded through, have not been subject to due process, and, in fact, are a black mark on this Government. The Government needs to reconsider whether it is appropriate that those reforms continue in this way.

One of the interesting aspects of this bill is that it cuts to the question of regional amenities. Obviously the people of Auckland and the people of Franklin have had some difficulty ironing out exactly where the boundaries lie, and that is the reason why this bill came forward. I speak here as a member representing the Wellington region to say that this issue is vexing many of the councils in this area. The Wellington City Council, which oversees a number of excellent facilities in the region, has been looking to other councils to ask if it can sustain these facilities without the support of people in the region. As we know, the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology are visited by people from the Franklin area, and they are visited by people from a number of other regions nearby. The question automatically arises: what should be done about that?

The Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Act was passed, and it enables the Auckland region to look at things on a regional basis. As a Wellington member of Parliament, I am certainly well disposed to the idea of something similar to that happening in Wellington. Obviously in Wellington we have a great deal of important artistic and cultural institutions, such as Te Papa, the International Festival of the Arts, the National Opera, the Royal New Zealand Ballet, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the New Zealand School of Dance, and the New Zealand School of Music. These are all vitally important parts of our cultural infrastructure here in the Wellington region. We need them to be sustainable, because, quite frankly, people in Wellington will look and say that now we have this very powerful entity in Auckland, will we be able to continue to hold on to these regional amenities in the Wellington region? I think the answer is that obviously we want to hold on to them, and we need to make sure that the whole region can look towards cooperating on that. I look forward to the end of the local body elections, when we will find out who will be representing those Wellington councils. Certainly as a Wellington MP I will want to work with them on that.

This bill has, indeed, been superseded by the process that has occurred in Auckland. From Labour’s point of view, that process has not been acceptable. It has not been democratic. It has shown up the Government in a very poor light. The connection with ACT leader Rodney Hide in this regard is something that the people of Franklin I am sure will remember, and the people of Auckland generally will remember. Although this bill will be discharged tonight after its second reading, it is fair to say that it reminds us of the stain on this Parliament of the way in which the National - ACT Government has forced on the people of Auckland a structure and a process that they have not had a proper say in. The Government lost a great opportunity to put in place a truly democratic Auckland governance structure, which could have gotten over some of the problems that have bedevilled Auckland for many years, but still kept a democratic process in place. That is something that Parliament needs to reflect on very seriously as this bill is discharged.

LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) : I rise to speak on the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill, which was brought before the House by the very hard-working National member of Parliament for Hunua, Dr Paul Hutchison. I believe that he has represented his constituents very well in bringing forward this issue, which is concerned with a rating anomaly. Members on the other side have gone into a variety of rants about changes to the Auckland super-city that are not relevant to this legislation. This bill arose because of a rating anomaly associated with two Acts of Parliament that allowed for levies to be raised for the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology on the basis of the population of the Franklin District.

We have had quite a wide-ranging discussion on the super-city. It was interesting to hear Labour members criticise the Government for the decisions that were made about Franklin. I can understand that Franklin has had a period of uncertainty and now a period of change with the super-city, but I want to put on record that Labour did not support Franklin’s decision to have a unitary council, which was its preference. Labour is suggesting that it would have been fully behind Franklin, but it was not fully behind that proposal and did not support it. In effect, Pukekohe and the rest of Franklin would have been divided by the Waikato River boundary. Anyway, we are not talking about the super-city; we are here to talk about the challenge the Franklin District has with funding. The hard-working Local Government and Environment Committee came to the conclusion that this problem could not be solved by Parliament. When the bill was introduced in 2008, clearly a problem existed. However, times have moved on.

This Government is very effective in getting things done in partnership with the ACT Party and the Māori Party. We are firm believers in delivering for New Zealanders and the changes in Auckland are but one example of that. In effect, those changes mean we are not in a position to support this bill. There has clearly been a major restructuring of local government since its introduction. We do not believe that it is Parliament’s role to resolve the issue of the levies in this particular instance. I recognise the local member’s support, encouragement, and representation of his constituents.

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

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Mr Assistant Speaker, kia ora tātau. Kei te kōrero tātau mō tētahi pire e pā ana ki a Waikato, nō reira, nā runga i tērā whakaaro me huri ki te titiro ki te āhuatanga ki a Te Pō Nui, a Jim Nicholls e takoto mai rā i roto o Hauraki, i waenganui i tōna iwi i tēnei pō. Āpōpō, ka tukuna atu ki te kōpū o Papatūānuku. E aroha atu ana ki a ia, ko au tērā i mahi nei i tana taha. Kei te takoto a ia i runga i tōna marae i Mātaiwhetū i roto o Thames, o Hauraki. Ko ōna iwi ko Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngāti Hako, me kī, ko Pare Hauraki, a Tainui waka, ērā e tangi ana.

Nā, ko Jim te Tiamana o te Kaunihera Kaumātua o Hauraki, tō rātou māngai hoki i runga i te Poari Kaitiaki Māori o Hauraki, tērā Poari o tōna iwi, ka mutu, ko ia te tiamana tuarua a te Kaunihera Māori o Aotearoa. Nō reira, e tika ana i tēnei wā kia tīmata ake waku kōrero hei wāwāhi ake i taku kōrero, ā, me te poroporoaki i a ia. Kai te pēnei tonu au nā runga i te mea, ko tēnei pire e hāngai tonu ki a Waikato. Nā reira, whakaaro ake ki a rātou kua ngaro atu ki te tirohanga kanohi. Ko ia tērā, anā tae atu ki a Te Atawhai Taiaroa, tērā o ngā pou o roto o Aotearoa. Nō reira, ā kāti, waiho rātou ki a rātou kia moe, anei tātau e kōrero nei mō te take nei.

I a au e whakaaro ake nei, kei te rere tonu ngā whakaaro mō te hunga utu rēti, me kī, o roto o Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Paoa, Ngāti Tamaterā, Ngāi Tai me ētahi atu wāhi o roto o Waikato. Ko tēnei pire, tētahi o ngā take kua roa, me kī, e wānangatia ana i roto i ngā Kāwanatanga i ngā tau kua hipa. E ai ki tāku e mōhio nei, ko te Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill i tae mai, i tīmata mai ai i te 13 o Here-turi-kōkā, arā, o Ākuhata i te tau 2008, ā, ka mutu, ka tukuna ki te komiti whāiti, arā, ki te select committee i te 4 o Poutū-te-rangi, Māehe i te tau 2009. E ai ki tāku e mōhio nei, e rua ngā wāhanga o te pire nei, me kī, ko tērā e pā ana ki te Auckland War Memorial Museum Acti te tau 1996, me te Whare Taonga the Museum of Transport and Technology Act i te tau2000. Ko te tikanga o tēnei, me kī, rāwekeweke i tēnei pire, me kī, ko te āta whakatau i te utu mō ngā whare taonga, me kī, kia kautehia nā runga i te tokomaha o te tangata e noho mai rā i roto o Franklin, otirā, te hunga kai roto i te rohe o Tāmaki-makau-rau, kaua ko rātou kei roto o Waikato.

Ēngari, i a au e kōrero ana ki aku hoa ki a Hone Harawira, ki a Pita Sharples, i puta te māramatanga ka mutu, ko tēnei take e hāngai tonu ana ki a Waikato, me kī, kua whakaara ake a Waikato i tēnei take ētahi o ngā iwi, ngā tāngata o Waikato i tēnei take o roto i tēnei pire. Nō reira, he pai tēnei kia tae mai ēnei momo pire, me ngā tono ā tēnā, ā tēnā, ā tēnā, ā tēna. Ka mōhio tonu te Pāremata, āe, he take nui tērā kai roto i te hapori. Nō reira, anei anō tētahi huarahi hei whakaara ake i te iwi i ō rātou whakaaro. Me kī, he māmā noa iho te tikanga o tēnei pire, he mea hai whakatau i ngā moni ka utua ki te Franklin District Council,ki te Auckland War Memorial Museum,me te Museum of Transport and Technology. Kai reira tonu tētahi wāhanga o te Rohe o Franklin. He uaua te whakamārama ake tēnei take i roto i te reo Māori nō reira, tērā pea me huri ki te reo Pākehā mō te wā poto.

[Greetings to us, Mr Assistant Speaker. We are addressing this bill that relates to Waikato, and because of that I turn to look at the situation concerning Te Pō Nui, Jim Nicholls lying in state tonight in Hauraki among his people. He will be buried in the womb of mother Earth tomorrow. I sympathise as I have worked with him. He lies upon his marae at Mātaiwhetū in Thames and Hauraki. His tribes are Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngāti Hako of the Hauraki Gulf and of the Tainui canoe. They are grieving there.

Jim was the chairman of the Council of Elders of Hauraki, their representative on the Hauraki Māori Trust Board, his people’s board, and deputy chair of the New Zealand Māori Council. So it is fitting at this time that I preface my address by bidding him farewell. I have done this because this bill relates directly to Waikato. My thoughts are therefore with those who are no longer to be seen, including Te Atawhai Taiaroa, one of the pillars in New Zealand. So enough, leave them to rest there as we debate this matter.

As I ponder here, my thoughts immediately go to the ratepayers of Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Paoa, Ngāti Tamaterā, Ngāi Tai, and of other places in Waikato. This is one of those bills that have been the subject of prolonged discussions within Governments over past years. According to what I know, the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill arrived on 13 August 2008 and was referred to a select committee on 4 March 2009. I understand there are two parts to this bill. One refers to the Auckland War Memorial Museum Act 1996 and the other to the Museum of Transport and Technology Act 2000. It was to amend this legislation so that specific contributions could be made for the museums based on the population of people residing in Franklin, particularly those in the Auckland region but excluding the ones in Waikato.

But it was while I was discussing this with fellow colleagues Hone Harawira and the Hon Dr Pita Sharples that I realised that this matter did indeed relate to Waikato, because some of them raised this issue in this bill. So it is good that these kinds of bills come here with submissions from different individuals. Parliament will then know that, yes, that is an important issue in the community. So here is another way for people to express their views. This bill is simply the instrument whereby contributions are determined from the Franklin District Council to the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology. One part of the Franklin District is still there, but it is difficult to explain in Māori, so I will turn to English for a short time. ]

As others have said—and it is a bit difficult to explain clearly in Māori—the bill seeks to ensure that in calculating the levies payable by the Franklin District Council to the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology, any part of the district of the Franklyn District Council that is not within the boundaries of the Auckland Regional Council is excluded.

My colleagues have told me of the frustration that many Franklin citizens shared with them as to why their hard-earned rates should go into Auckland facilities that do not have any direct relationship to their community. We noted the view of the North Shore City Council that this issue should be dealt with as a part of the Government’s comprehensive governance reform process for Auckland. At this stage of the reform process, it sees no reason to have interim or separate measures enacted. That might be all very well on paper, but the Māori Party has no confidence that the special interests of those within the boundaries of Franklin district will be addressed simply by leaving it to chance.

Kei te tino tautoko ake i tēnei pire nā runga i tana aronga ki tēnei momo uauatanga i roto i te pire i tēnei wā. We are pleased to support this bill as it addresses an apparent anomaly in the current legislation that covers the method of calculating the levies relating to the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology. We note too that Federated Farmers view the present arrangements as inequitable on farmers and other rural landowners in the southern part of the Franklin district.

We believe it is vital that that local government authority has acknowledged mana whenua. Our policy preference is that local government will enhance the development of local and regional business; commercial partnerships between local and regional authorities; industries and business; and local whānau, iwi, and hapū. In order to do that, councils must know who is in their specific territorial region and who sits outside. For all those factors, and most particularly because of the wishes of the people, the Māori Party is happy to support the bill at its second reading.

• Motion not agreed to.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) : I move, That the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Education and Science Committee.

Colin King: A very good committee.

GRANT ROBERTSON: It is an excellent committee; I agree with the member. The Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill is a private bill, which is promoted by the Royal Society of New Zealand. The society is a body corporate that has operated in New Zealand since 1867 and is currently based in the great electorate of Wellington Central. The object, functions, and structure of the society are set out in the Royal Society of New Zealand Act 1997.

The current object of the society is the advancement and promotion of science and technology in New Zealand. That, in turn, leads to the functions of the society. The first current function is to foster in the New Zealand community a culture that supports science and technology, including—without limitation—the promotion of public awareness, knowledge, and understanding of science and technology, and the advancement of science and technology education. The second function is to encourage, promote, and recognise excellence in science and technology. The third function is to provide an infrastructure and other support for the professional needs and development of scientists and technologists. The fourth function is to establish and administer a code of professional standards and ethics in science and technology for members. The fifth function is to provide expert advice on important public issues to the Government and the community. The final current function is to do all other lawful things that the society considers are conducive to the advancement and promotion of science and technology in New Zealand.

This bill seeks to amend the Royal Society of New Zealand Act to incorporate the humanities into the object and functions of the society. It will also make several other minor changes that I will outline shortly. The society has approached me to be the member in charge of this bill as I am the member of Parliament for the electorate in which the society’s head office is located. As I have said, the main purpose of the bill is to amend the Royal Society of New Zealand Act to incorporate the humanities into its objects and functions. This means, for example, that the functions of the society will be expanded to include the functions of fostering in the New Zealand community a culture that supports the humanities and of encouraging, promoting, and recognising excellence in the humanities. The definition in clause 5(2) of the bill says that the humanities include: “English and other languages, history, religion, philosophy, law, classics, linguistics, literature, cultural studies, media studies, art history, film, drama, and American studies”.

Specifically, the bill adds to those functions that I read out earlier: “to foster in the New Zealand community a culture that supports the humanities: to encourage, promote, and recognise excellence in the humanities: to establish and administer for members a code of professional standards and ethics in the humanities: and to do all other lawful things which the Council of the Society considers conducive to the advancement and promotion of the humanities in New Zealand:”. The incorporation of the humanities into the objects and functions of the society will mean that many people involved in the humanities may be admitted as members of the society, and that people who have achieved distinction in research for the advancement of the humanities will be able to be elected as fellows of the Royal Society. The society will obviously also be required to establish and administer a code of professional standards and ethics in the humanities, as it currently does in relation to science and technology.

The society’s decision to expand the objects and functions of the society to include the humanities was based on three main factors: a desire to integrate the structure and function of research in New Zealand; a recognition of the need to build on and integrate the complementary knowledge provided by different disciplines; and the fact that academies of scholars in other countries such as Canada and Scotland have academies that also range across the disciplines. It is fair to say that in recent times there has been a growing awareness among the pure scientific community—I defer to my colleague Moana Mackey, who comes from that community—to work more closely with the social science community. Many members of the House will be familiar with the work of Professor Sir Paul Callaghan and Bill Manhire at Victoria University, who have worked very hard to try to draw together what they call the “parallel universes of writers and scientists”. It is a little bit like that. For those of us from a social science background, it is fair to say that the pure scientists sometimes have some difficulty in understanding where we are coming from—and, no doubt, vice versa as well.

Shane Ardern: Venus and Mars.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Scientists are from Venus and social scientists are from Mars; I thank Mr Ardern for that. It is true that the work that Bill Manhire and Paul Callaghan have done has been excellent and is mirrored in many other parts of our research sector.

Before I came into this House, I worked very closely with an organisation called the Centre for Sustainable Cities, which is based at Otago University’s medical school. It brings together people from the pure sciences—such as physics and energy research—right through to people in the social sciences, particularly those in the public health area and those who do research into housing. It is a very good way of being able to draw together and create an inter-disciplinary approach within our broad research communities.

I think it is very timely that the Royal Society has chosen to come to the House to amend its functions to reflect the fact that the humanities are having an increased role and increased importance in the research community. It is only right, too, that it does this following on from consultation with the Council for the Humanities. A memorandum of understanding was signed by the society and the Council for the Humanities on 9 February 2010 to incorporate the humanities into the society. As is the nature of a body such as the Royal Society, which is governed by statute, this bill has come to the House now to get our endorsement for that process.

As I mentioned at the start, there are a couple of other elements to this bill that I would like to note. The first is that another purpose of the bill is to rename the academy council of the society the academy executive committee. This will be a matter of great interest to members in the House. The reason for this change is to avoid confusion between the academy council, which was established to contribute to the achievement of the objects of the society by recognising and encouraging excellence and outstanding achievement in science and technology and contributing to the intellectual leadership role of the society, and the overall council of the society, which has a governing role. This means that the academy council of the Royal Society will, after this bill has passed, be called the academy executive committee, and any potentially confused social or pure scientists will know the difference.

The bill also amends the standard for the election of companions of the society to put greater focus on leadership and also to include the humanities now that they are part of the society’s wider functions. The final purpose of the bill relates to changes that were made to the council’s structure in 2008 by way of a wash-up provision to make sure that all of the constitutional changes that have been made are now reflected in the law. In particular, the bill amends the election process for councillors of the society so that the process is consistent with a new council structure, and it clarifies processes for councillors appointed by regional constituent organisations.

To achieve the purposes of this bill, we need to amend the Royal Society of New Zealand Act. This is a bill that should not generate too much controversy. I hope that pure scientists in the Chamber will be able to accept the arrival of the social scientists and see that they will now all be able to work together in harmony and ensure that we can support those research endeavours that are taking place right around New Zealand in many universities and other research institutions. I think this bill will make for a stronger Royal Society, and I commend it to the House.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) : I am pleased to be able to join my colleague the member for Wellington Central in supporting the first reading of the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill and supporting its referral to the Education and Science Committee, which I have the honour of chairing and to which the member for Wellington Central is an occasional, but very, very positive, contributor.

I will not cover the ground that he has covered; he gave an excellent outline of the purpose of the bill in its various provisions. But I want to make a few comments about the Royal Society of New Zealand. It is a long-established body; it was established in 1867 and known until 1933 as the New Zealand Institute.

Hon Ruth Dyson:How old were you then, Allan?

ALLAN PEACHEY: I had not quite started school.

Grant Robertson: Ruapehu College.

ALLAN PEACHEY: It was Ruapheu College—I thank the member. I am getting closer to my objectives tonight, and there will be a couple more opportunities before we have finished.

The Royal Society was set up as a mechanism to bring together a number of research and science organisations around the country that did not have the resources to publish the papers that were being delivered them, to keep records of their meetings and their activities, and that sort of thing. The Royal Society of New Zealand Act, which was passed in 1997, currently legislates for the provision of the Royal Society. The society’s primary purpose has been to foster in the New Zealand community a culture that supports science and technology, including the promotion of public awareness, knowledge and understanding of science and technology, and the advancement of science and technology education. So the Royal Society is responsible for the distribution of public funding, for scientific research and public education, for the publication of a number of journals, for holding meetings and seminars, for awarding medals like the Rutherford Medal and the Pickering Medal, and for science education.

It is on that note that I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the role that the Royal Society plays in this Parliament each year. In conjunction with Science New Zealand, the Royal Society sponsors a series of lectures known as the Speaker’s Science Forum, which as chair of the Education and Science Committee I get the honour to chair. This year we have had maybe a dozen lectures on a Tuesday night, over the dinner break, from some very eminent New Zealand scientists. Some of us, like me, do not have a scientific background. It was my misfortune to attend Ruapehu College and to be in the fifth form in 1965 and sitting School Certificate, when the teaching of science was particularly weak. In actual fact, that year it was a disgrace. I do not blame Ruapehu College for that, but I do blame a particular teacher whose name is well known in this House, but I had better not mention it. Ruapehu College was a great school for me, by the way.

I have the privilege of hosting the Speaker’s Science Forum, and as one of the members of the Royal Society said to me one evening after a particularly successful and enjoyable occasion, where else in the world, in any Parliament, would we have one-quarter of the members of Parliament in one room during their dinner break listening to a lecture about science? I commend these lectures to those members of the House who have not yet attended any of them. Members have missed the last one for this year, as it was held a week or so ago, but I commend them to members next year. Not only do we get to hear from an outstanding New Zealand scientist and learn about an aspect of science or technology that is current in New Zealand, but we also get to enjoy the fellowship of members of the Royal Society, of Science New Zealand, and of our own colleagues. For goodness’ sake, I have even been known to share a dinner table, after the lecture, with members of the Labour Party! I humbly apologise to my colleagues on this side of the House for that dreadful breach of protocol, but I believe those members benefit from that sort of company from time to time.

The purpose of the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill is to enable the Royal Society to incorporate the humanities into its work, and I welcome that. I think that is a great step forward. If the Royal Society can—and I sure it will—bring to the humanities what it has brought to science and technology, it will be great for this country, and particularly for those who have studied the humanities and take a leading role in their fields.

The Royal Society resolved in November 2008 that there was a need to expand its activities. Something else happened in November 2008.

Louise Upston: What was that?

ALLAN PEACHEY: What was it? Something else very significant for this country happened in November 2008. Oh, that is right; the Labour Government got thrown out of office. So two great things happened in New Zealand in November 2008. But enough of that. In the spirit of the bipartisanship in which the Education and Science Committee operates, I am sure that the committee will enjoy holding what I assume will be a limited number of hearings on the bill. That committee has had a very heavy workload this year, and it continues to have a very heavy workload. It has had to deal with some pretty challenging issues. I think members will find dealing with this bill a particular pleasure. I commend the bill to the House.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) : I think it is a testament to the transformative power of science that it has facilitated the breaking of bread between Allan Peachey and the evil socialists on this side of the House. I am happy to stand in this House as a member of the Labour Party and a member of the Royal Society of New Zealand to speak on the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill. I thank my caucus colleagues and my whips, who apparently think I am some kind of science snob and thought it would be amusing to put me on the speaking list on a bill that introduces the humanities into the Royal Society. They thought it would be character-building. They will be very disappointed, because I wholeheartedly support the introduction of humanities into the Royal Society.

Hon Judith Collins: Really?

MOANA MACKEY: I do; it is called personal growth. Look how far I have come.

I was genuinely hurt that my good friend and colleague Grant Robertson would insinuate that I would think that his qualification is any less than mine, although I do note, with absolutely no judgment, that his particular qualification is not on the list. But that is all right; I am sure that is something that can be amended at the Education and Science Committee. I am sure it is a mere oversight.

Hon Judith Collins: What is it, Moana?

MOANA MACKEY: His politics degree. It is not on the list. But this is something that will be debated at the select committee.

In all seriousness, this bill is very important. One of the goals of the previous Labour Government was to facilitate more multidisciplinary approaches to research. We did this through the centres of research excellence, of which there are a number around the country now, which bring together a number of disciplines under the banner of particular areas of research. They have had enormous success in bringing the private sector, the universities, and the Crown research institutes to work together so that we are not doing overlapping research but are, in fact, coordinating that research.

The multidisciplinary approach has often been the Holy Grail. Sometimes it is difficult, and we make jokes about the hierarchy of the scientific community, but it is actually very true—there is a hierarchy, a pecking order, and sometimes it is difficult to get around that. But when we can, the outcomes are outstanding. I recently visited the centre for the study of agriculture, food and environment at Otago University, which is not a centre of research excellence but a multidisciplinary group. It brings together economists, sociologists, geographers, physicists, marine biologists, and statisticians. All these groups work on areas of public policy.

I think it is a shame that more MPs do not know about this group, because some of the areas it works on are absolutely key to what we do here. The group looks at the gap between what the Governments try to do and what the public want and how they feel about it. It uses the example of renewable energy, which New Zealanders overwhelmingly support. Then it looks at what happens whenever we try to build a wind farm or to develop tidal energy. So much expense is added because of the public backlash. The group says that sometimes politicians do not do that work, and there are things it is working on now that can be put in place to make sure that when these projects come up, we can save time and money and all the angst that often goes with them. This group is a very important unit. It looks at the areas of fisheries, agriculture, and right across the board. I recommend that members of Parliament visit this group.

One of the problems is that its funding is now uncertain. With this new approach to funding research in New Zealand, which is that everything has to be business-based, this is a group that will save us money and will have public benefit for the country, but because it cannot absolutely quantify exactly how much money that will be, its funding is now uncertain.

Hon Steve Chadwick: Crazy.

MOANA MACKEY: It is. I think all members of the House would think it is crazy. So I think this is a very timely bill from the Royal Society. It promotes the multidisciplinary approach, which should make all members of this House think very carefully about the expectations we put on the scientific community and on the research community. Sometimes there is truth to that adage about the cost of everything and the value of nothing. I think that sometimes the scientists and the researchers in our universities and our Crown research institutes find it frustrating that politicians and parliamentarians really do not understand exactly their needs and the value they can contribute to our society. I hope that this will be part of the debate on this bill.

Labour supports an evidence-based approach to policy. Clearly, the social sciences and the humanities have a big role to play in that. I think all parliamentarians should adopt an evidence-based approach and when we are spending taxpayers’ money we should be able to point to the research that says it will work, and if it will not work we should justify, for example, why we are spending so much money on boot camps when every single bit of research says they will not work.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) : It is a pleasure to speak on the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill. I take on board all the glowing comments made by previous speakers about the value of the humanities, the social sciences, and such like. When we look at the functionality of this bill, we see that it is structured in a way that will advance collectively not only the fundamental sciences but also the humanities. I have to confess that although science may not have been a great subject at Ruapehu College when the chairman of the Education and Science Committee was there, I had to do a bit of research to find out what humanities were. I would say that a lot of people in New Zealand would need to go to Google or something like that and inquire as to what humanities are. It is quite interesting that humanities are described as academic disciplines that study the human condition using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, and speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences. So I learnt something there.

When we sit down at the Education and Science Committee and go through this bill, I am sure that there will be a fair amount of collegiality on it. I am certainly looking forward to that. I certainly can attest, too, to what the chairman was saying before about the Royal Society of New Zealand’s sponsored lectures in Parliament, the Speaker’s lectures. They were a great series and they certainly covered an enormous range. It surprised me just how broad the Royal Society of New Zealand was in its context, so it will be very interesting to see what comes out of the humanities’ involvement with the society and their incorporation into it. We look forward to this bill coming to the select committee. I am sure that it will not take too long for us to go through the process and take advice on board. On that basis, I support the bill and look forward to receiving it at the select committee.

DAVID CLENDON (Green) : Kia ora koutou. The introduction of the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill brings us a step closer to fulfilling a commitment made by the Royal Society of New Zealand in February this year, when its memorandum with Te Whāinga Aronui, the Council for the Humanities, agreed to bring the two organisations closer. The Green Party is very happy to support this bill, as seems to be the mood tonight. As a person who did an arts degree at undergraduate level and then went on to do a postgraduate science degree, I will feel somewhat less divided in my membership of the Royal Society of New Zealand given that it is—

Hon Steve Chadwick: You’re an expert on this.

DAVID CLENDON: Yes, it is a very interesting place to be when one is moving between these two fundamentally different disciplines or approaches.

Shane Ardern: Dangerous ground, I’d say.

DAVID CLENDON: Quite right. To an extent this returns the Royal Society of New Zealand to its roots, back to the Royal Society in the UK. That society came together in the 1640s as a college of natural philosophers, who were delving into this then new model of observation and experimentation that in time became the empirically based science that we understand now. Clearly, this reintegration with the humanities is, as I say, coming back to the roots of that organisation.

Natural philosophy was a branch of philosophy, a theoretical branch coming from an ethical base endeavouring to understand nature as it was then comprehended—dare I say it, what we would now refer to as the environment. Clearly, there is a long history to the evolution of natural philosophy through to the scientific method, objective observation and the like. The downside, I guess, of the scientific method, which is clearly incredibly powerful and has been a very productive approach, was the degree of hubris or pride and the disallowance of indigenous forms of knowledge, investigation, understanding, and interpretation of the natural world. In the Western context, the reaction to the success of the reliance on the scientific method were the more extreme forms of postmodernism. We are finding that pendulum swinging back closer to a centre point, to acknowledge the value of both the scientific method and of a humanities or an arts-based approach to advancing knowledge and research.

In the modern age, if you like, back in the late 1950s, CP Snow, in his lecture The Two Cultures and then his book The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, described the predicament very well when he observed that academics in schools of the arts were not only unwilling to talk to the scientists and vice versa but effectively unable to. They were almost unable to communicate with one another. Clearly in the 20th and the 21st centuries that degree of division within our academic and our research bases would be simply unacceptable and would not advance us, at all. In my own discipline of resource management it was clear that it was critical that resource management decisions are best made when they are not only based on good scientific understanding, geology, ecology, earth science, and all the other scientific disciplines, but also within the cultural context established by law, history, and economics. It is only with people who are trained and who understand the powers, weaknesses, limitations, and strengths of all of those sub-disciplines that we arrive at very good management decisions, like how to deal with our natural world, how to manage in the interests of our communities, and how to get good economic outcomes.

In short, we believe this is a good bill. It is timely. We are very pleased to see the society and the council coming together in the firm belief that the new organisation will, over time, become much stronger than the sum of its parts. Kia ora koutou.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora anō tātou. Ā, ko te tikanga o tēnei pire e ai ki tāku e kite nei he āhua mārama ana. He whakawhānui i te whāinga, me ngā mahi o te society nei, kia tāpirihia atu ki te mahi rangahau ā-tangata, arā, ko te humanities. E tika ana ki te āta rangahau i te society nei, i te mea mai i tōna tīmatanga i te tau 1867, kāore anō tētahi kia tō mai me kī, i te rōpū nei ki te ao hōu. Ko te mate kē, koinei anake te mea e whakaarohia nei e te RoyalSociety ki te tō mai i te hunga nei ki te ao hōu, arā ko te humanitiestērā. Ehara i te mea he huarahi māmā tēnei. Kua puta te pire nei i muri mai i ngā mahi a ngā pūkenga o Kōtimana, me Kānata, me tētahi kirimana i waenganui i te society nei, me Te Whāinga Aronui mō ngā humanities.

Kua kaha whakapau te RoyalSociety ki te kupu kotahi. Arā, ki tā te Pāti Māori, me huri kē ki ngā kupu e whā: Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Nā, ko te whāinga nui o te pire nei, he hiahia nō rātou ki te āki, ki te whakanui, ki te whakarangatira i tēnei mea ko te humanities. He mea pai tērā. Nā reira, me pātai i te pātai pēnei ā ētahi atu: he aha tēnei mea ko te humanities? Arā anō ngā momo reo, ngā momo tuhinga, ngā momo ture, ngā hītori, ngā momo kaupapa here, ngā momo tikanga ā-hāhi, tae atu ki ngā mahi ā-rēhia. Me kī, technology, anthropology anō hoki culturalstudies, te mea, te mea. Arā anō he kōrero mō te āhuatanga o te tangata. Ko te mate kē, kaua ko te tangata Māori, kaua ko te tangata whenua rānei. Karekau he paku kōrero i roto i te ture, arā te Royal Society of New Zealand Act 1997, ki te Tiriti o Waitangi. Ki a mātou, me whai wāhi te tiriti i roto i tēnei momo ako. Me whai wāhi anō hoki tēnei mea te cultural competency.

I te mea ā kō ake nei ka puta te pūrongo o te Wai 262, me titiro whānui tātou. Ko te tirohanga whānui e kōrerohia ana ko tērā, me kī i roto i te reo Pākehā, me kī ko tētahi kōrero kua kōrerohia nei. Anei te kōrero tino rangatiratanga and kaitiaki by the claimants over indigenous flora and fauna and other taonga, and also over mātauranga Māori, Māori traditional knowledge. Ana ko tērā kōrero kua roa e kōrerohia ana i roto i te Wai 262. Nō reira koinei te tikanga o taku kī atu, me titiro whānui tātou ki ēnei āhuatanga katoa, kaua ko te humanities me tana titiro whāiti nei, me whakawhānui tonu te titiro. Ka mutu, kei te titiro anō hoki pēnei i tāku e kōrero nei, kei te titiro mātou ki te āhuatanga o te piringa o te Tiriti o Waitangi, ki tēnei pire. Nā runga i te aha? Nā runga i te mea ko te Tiriti o Waitangi i tōna whānuitanga, he titiro anō rā ki ngā rawa o Tangaroa, ki te whenua e takoto nei, ki te taiao, me kī ngā momo rangahau, ēnei āhuatanga katoa. Nō reira ko tā mātou ko te kī atu, me titiro anō hoki ki a ngāi Māori, me te āhuatanga o te noho o te tangata me tana mōhio ki te Ao Māori, me ngā mea o iwi kē. Koinei te āhuatanga o tēnei mea. Te tūmanako ia ka tautoko tēnei rōpū i te whakaputanga o Mātaatua, tae atu ki te whakaputanga o te ao, arā i te reo Pākehā, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Nō reira he paku whakaaro noa ake ēnei, kua puta i a mātou i te pō nei mō tēnei pire. Kei te tautoko ake te Pāti Māori i tēnei pire i tōna pānuitanga tuatahi, me te tūmanako ia ka kōrerohia whānuitia ēnei take i te komiti whāiti.

[Greetings to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and to all of us once again. The purpose of this bill appears fairly simple: to expand the objective and functions of the Royal Society to include the humanities. One would think it both logical and necessary that a society that has been operating since 1867 actually becomes updated. Believe it or not, all that the Royal Society thinks is necessary to meet the contemporary need of our communities is to add one word: humanities. It is not as easy as one might think. This bill has come about only after the analysis of scholars from Scotland and Canada, and as a consequence of this society signing up to a memorandum of understanding with Te Whāinga Aronui / the Council for the Humanities.

But if the energies of the Royal Society have gone into just one word— humanities—the Māori Party wants to encourage a wider focus on just four words: Te Tiriti o Waitangi. What exactly do we mean by humanities? Examples of the disciplines of the humanities are ancient and modern languages, literature, law, history, philosophy, religion, and the visual and performing arts. Other disciplines include technology, anthropology, and cultural studies. They are about the human condition, but not about Māori humans, or tangata whenua. There is no reference in the Royal Society of New Zealand Act 1997 to the Treaty of Waitangi. It is our view that the Treaty should be included in these areas. The development of these areas should occur within an environment of cultural competency.

As the report on the Wai 262 claim draws near, we should be aware of the broader vision of that claim. Basically, that vision is one that promotes tino rangatiratanga and kaitiaki by the claimants over indigenous flora and fauna and other taonga, and also over mātauranga Māori, Māori traditional knowledge. That stance has been long discussed around the Wai 262 claim. And that is why I said we should take a broad view in terms of these matters, as opposed to the narrow view of the humanities. In subsequent phases of this bill we will be looking for the connection between the Treaty of Waitangi, natural resources, the environment, the economy, the arts and culture, and research, science, and technology. We would also like to see a greater understanding between Māori and non-Māori cultures, and support for indigenous declarations such as the Mātaatua declaration and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

These are our views expressed tonight about this bill. The Māori Party will support this bill at its first reading, and looks forward to further debate on these matters in the select committee .]

LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) : I am pleased to stand in support of the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill in the name of Grant Robertson. He was so disappointed I did not continue my speech on the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill that I wanted to rise and make sure that he was able to hear some more of what I have to contribute to the House.

I acknowledge the clarity with which the member for Wellington Central explained the purpose of this bill, so I will not go into a lot of the detail, other than to say that it is tidy-up legislation at the request of the Royal Society of New Zealand. I think one of the interesting things is that in effect this bill brings the humanities, or the social sciences, into the world of the Royal Society of New Zealand. We have heard about the potential that could occur with such a blend. I think one of the members of the House referred to it as the difference between coming from Venus and coming from Mars. It might also be seen as blending oil and water, depending on one’s perspective. But I do not think anyone will disagree with me that this is an important step forward for the development of the Royal Society, with the inclusion of the humanities and social sciences, in its strive to foster another wing of science in New Zealand. I believe that it will enhance the work that the society already does in terms of excellence in research and science.

I also agree with Allan Peachey, the chair of the Education and Science Committee and former student of Ruapehu College, that we will have a good discussion when the bill gets to the select committee. I shall look forward to seeing whether there are any additions that Mr Robertson might want to put forward in terms of aspects of the humanities that might be extended to be included. This is a bill that I believe we will all support. It is important to note that $500,000 from Vote Research, Science and Technology goes to the society each year to support its objectives and functions. This is a Government that supports science and technology, and I am proud to support this bill.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) : This is just a brief call in reply to thank members for their support of the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill in its first reading. It has been fascinating to hear of the qualifications and scientific expertise of members across the House.

I did not attend Ruapehu College; I went to a high school in Dunedin. I did not take science classes for very long, and it is much to my regret that I did not because it is a subject that I greatly enjoy. I am a graduate in the humanities, and I look to my fellow graduate in the humanities across the House, the Hon Judith Collins, for support. I have an honours degree in political science.

Political science is not on the current list of humanities subjects in the bill. Obviously when the bill finds its way to the select committee we may need to discuss that matter, although I do note that the bill states “includes” those subjects. Perhaps it is simply taken as read that political science is one of the leading humanities subjects.

In all seriousness, I take on board the comments made by Te Ururoa Flavell. I am sure that the Royal Society of New Zealand will be listening to this debate and they may well contact Mr Flavell to discuss his suggestions. I am sure that the committee will be interested to talk about them. I thank colleagues for their support for the bill and I look forward to its quick progress through the House.

• Bill read a first time.

• Bill referred to the Education and Science Committee.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Labour—Manurewa) : I move, That the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. First, I acknowledge most people in this House for the way in which this bill got to the House in the first place. I must acknowledge people like Judith Collins who helped me get the bill in without having to go through a ballot. I also acknowledge Pita Sharples, the leadership of the Green Party at the time, and, especially, my own Labour colleagues. This bill has been completely successful and even if it falls tonight it will have done the job it set out to do. I acknowledge that this bill went to the Social Services Committee on 2 July 2008—in the last Parliament. The report back from the select committee states: “We note recent announcements by the Government that it will introduce legislation that will address the issues covered by this bill.” I think that when one has a member’s bill accepted by the Government through the select committee process, one has to be pleased. I have been kept up to date by the chairwoman of the committee, Katrina Shanks, and I thank her. I also thank Simon Power, with whom I have talked about the bill.

This bill is about something we looked at even before the time when Mr Singh, who owned a liquor store in Randwick Park, was shot. But that highlighted the issue. I had been working with a young Manukau city councillor, Daniel Newman, over the issue of the explosion in the number of liquor outlets in South Auckland. But this bill is not just about South Auckland. It is about the number of liquor stores exploding all over the place and into neighbourhoods, and we see the results of that. Young people can get a dozen cans of ready-to-drink liquor for less than $20. It is a real problem; it is a huge problem. When I have people like Daniel Newman working with me to get a bill before the House, it is really worthwhile. When the bill came into the House it passed its first reading by 113 to 2. The two members against the bill at the time were Rodney Hide and Heather Roy. They were like mountaineers roped together and they did not want the bill because, I think, they thought it dealt just with South Auckland, which it does not.

We see booze outlets on every street corner. Dairies sell more alcohol than milk. We have seen the explosion in the availability of liquor in supermarkets. Of course, we have also seen the explosion that runs parallel with the increasing availability of liquor—the increase in domestic violence. Domestic violence, alcohol, and crime are all partners that are a scourge on our communities. I think that the cooperation across the House is Parliament at its best. It is very good that people support this measure. There will be a vote at the end of this debate, and, whether or not the bill goes any further, it has done its job and that is what is important.

The Law Commission has come out with a huge book—a report. Some people might use the report for a doorstop, but I suggest to them that they read it very carefully. I have changed my mind quite a bit over liquor. I used to be one of those people who thought that there should not be an age limit for the purchase of liquor, and I voted for 18 as the age limit. I have changed my mind; I think it should be 20. I am not going to go for the 18-20 split, 18 for licensed premises and 20 for off-licence premises, but so be it. But this bill has given people an opportunity to think about what is going on. My only disappointment is that because of the Law Commission’s report, it is going to take some time before a bill gets into the House. I see that as being necessary; I am not seeing that as a criticism. But it is unlikely that we will have new liquor laws in the term of this Parliament. We may do; maybe there will be cooperation where people want to see liquor laws changed dramatically.

Let us look at what has been happening. The key features of my bill really give local communities far more say. If people apply for a liquor licence, they will have to do a social impact report, and I think that is hugely important. The public will have more time to put in objections. At the moment, it is 10 working days. I think that should be lengthened, but however long the Government decides it should be, so be it. But we also want to have organisations like schools, churches, and kindergartens being able to say what the impact will be on them; at the moment they cannot. I think that when people start thinking about this, they will realise that communities are trying to take hold of the issue themselves. Yes, we have had people who have been hand-wringers, and who think this bill is likely to fall at this hurdle. Well, that is not a problem. We have people from the Labour Party, my very good colleagues from the National Party, the Māori Party, and the Greens all very sincere in their belief of what should happen. No one in New Zealand actually thinks that the law does not need to be changed.

Why did this bill cover only a small area? Well, I have been here a long while—some people say too long.

Cam Calder: No, never!

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: Thanks. The member from the North Shore is yelling out that he wants me to stay longer. When we see things changing in a society and the law tries to catch up with that later, I think feelings are fairly intense. When we can look around at many off-licences and see a dozen ready-to-drink beverages for $20—and they taste so sickly sweet that young people think they can swallow them down like nobody’s business—of course there are consequences to that. Alcohol makes a huge difference to the work of the police. Any moves that we can make to help the police combat liquor with better laws will be to our advantage.

Later on I will move that there be a personal vote on this bill, but I invite people to have a close think about the bill. I realise that many people will think this bill has done its job completely, and will vote for it to be ended. There will be others who think that getting the bill into the House may keep the Government a little more honest. I conclude by thanking all those people who have helped with what is a very serious proposition. Thank you.

KATRINA SHANKS (National) : It is my pleasure to take a call tonight on the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill. First of all, I congratulate the member George Hawkins on bringing this member’s bill to the House in 2008. This member has a huge heart. He saw an issue in his patch and wanted to make a difference. He saw the destruction that liquor was causing where he is, in South Auckland, so he brought a bill to the House to try to address that. The bill is quite narrow; it is in relation to licences and the number of outlets there can be in an area. The number of outlets that have appeared, popping up all over the place like mushrooms, is a concern for all New Zealand. George is absolutely right when he says that one can walk down the road, especially in the area where he comes from, and on every corner one can see liquor outlets that are selling liquor, in one form or another, and selling it very cheaply.

The Social Services Committee, which I chair, looked at this bill and we decided that we would not support it or recommend that it be passed by the House, for the simple reason that times have moved on a little bit. Liquor reform has come into place, and we have had the package that the Government has put out. It adopted 126 of the 153 recommendations from the Law Commission, and these recommendations cover the bill that George brought in. The select committee voted down this bill before its return to the House, for the reason that there will be legislation later on that New Zealand will debate that will cover these issues, and many other issues as well.

We all know that liquor and alcohol issues are not isolated just to liquor outlets. There is a much bigger discussion, which this country has already had, and we have had some clear signs from the people in this country that they are not happy with what we do with our liquor and alcohol, or with the way in which we drink in New Zealand. In fact, I have been out and about in Ōhāriu on that issue. I held a public meeting at which a cross-section of people in the community talked to me about what they saw were the issues with alcohol in their patch of Ōhāriu. It was interesting that one of them was a bar owner in the city—he owns a number of bars—but he was one of the biggest advocates for tightening up the opening hours. He said that he was happy for bars to be closed at 2 a.m., because after that time bars in the city make no money. He was happy to say that we should raise the drinking age to 20, because he did not want 18-year-olds in his bars and clubs.

It was really interesting. Where we thought we would have opposition, there was none. It was the sector itself that was sending clear messages back to me, in Ōhāriu, that people are happy for the provisions to be much tighter. There was a real cross-section of people at that meeting. We had a great discussion about demand and supply, and I feel that a lot of this legislation is hitting the supply side of the issue: restriction of the number of licences, restriction of the hours for drinking, liquor bans, and a restriction on the purchase age—the whole area to do with liquor and supply.

But if we want to talk about our drinking issues, we can see that it is not just a matter of supply but demand. It is the way we are drinking, the culture of drinking, and the way we accept binge drinking as acceptable. A couple of months ago I went out with the police in Wellington. They picked me up at midnight and dropped me off at 4.30 in the morning—it was a bit like a date. They showed me exactly what is happening in the city, in Wellington, in the early hours of the morning. It was pretty appalling, and we have to see it to believe it. At 3 o’clock in the morning people are still queuing to get into clubs; their night is still going, and they have another club to go to after the current one.

I saw the way in which girls, particularly, were drinking on the streets: falling over, feeling hilarious that they were all so drunk, and throwing up into rubbish bins—it was a great blast. Well, it is not a great blast. Actually, when we are doing that and we think it is really funny, then something is going wrong. And something is going wrong out there, with the way our youth in particular think it is great to drink like that. But it is not just a youth issue: it is a generational issue. I know that within my own age group, we still see people going out and getting wasted. But what signal is that sending to the youth of New Zealand? Not a very good signal, at all.

After having been out with the police and holding a public meeting, I am now on a crusade around my schools. I am going into social studies classes at my secondary schools and talking to students about drinking. I ask them what their views are on drinking, and I find they are really interesting. They are 14 and 15-year-olds, and some of them are already going out drinking, which is really interesting but a bit distressing. But the consensus coming out of those classes is that we have to do something about the way we are drinking. The students in the classes at the schools that I visited were OK with the drinking age being raised.

It is interesting to see that there is a lot of support for change in the way we are drinking and support for the alcohol and liquor reforms. Therefore, I am looking forward to seeing legislation come to the House in relation to the liquor reforms. I thank George Hawkins for the work he did in bringing this issue to the fore, back in 2008, when he was really concerned about what was happening in his communities. That is a sign of a very good local MP. So I say congratulations to him, and I thank the House for allowing me to speak tonight.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) : Te mea tuatahi māku hei tīmata kōrero, he tuku atu i ngā whakaaro ki wērā ngā tōtara o te Ao Māori kua hinga atu, arā, ko Tā Archie Taiaroa rāua ko Jim Nicholls. Nā reira e kourua, haere, haere, haere atu rā. Ka oti.

[To begin with, the first thing for me to do is to convey condolences to those tōtara of Māoridom who have passed away: Sir Archie Taiaroa and Jim Nicholls. So to you two, depart, farewell, journey on. It is done.]

About 2 months ago my brother was sworn in as a District Court judge at our marae, and his first week on the job was down in Wellington at the court around the corner from Parliament. On the Wednesday evening after 3 days on the job we had dinner at Parliament. Of course, I asked him about his impressions of his first 3 days on the job. He said to me that it was very sad, but if it were not for alcohol, he would be redundant. He said that 80 to 90 percent of the cases that he had seen in those 3 days were the result of alcohol-related incidents. I think we really need to reflect on the fact that a District Court judge is basically saying that he would be redundant if it were not for alcohol.

I am on the horns of a dilemma, because I am also Labour’s spokesperson on tourism, and the tourism industry and the alcohol industry are comfortable bedfellows. We have to realise that tourists come here and enjoy a drink—they enjoy the wine, the bars, and that whole scene—and it is an important part of tourism. We do not want to be killjoys. I was talking to a person in the tourism industry who said to me on the whole alcohol issue that I had to remember exactly who I am the spokesperson for. I am the spokesperson on tourism. I said to him that was right, but he had to remember that long before I was the spokesperson on tourism, long before I was a member of Parliament, and, in fact, for all of my life, I have been Māori. I have to balance up the effect and the impact of alcohol on Māori.

I will quote a few things from the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand’s Māori action plan 2009-12. It said that 66 percent of Māori youth aged between 12 and 17 years identified themselves as drinkers. These people are not even legally allowed to drink, yet 66 percent of Māori in that age group already identify themselves as drinkers. Thirty-six percent of Māori surveyed were binge-drinkers, with Māori adults reporting that they had consumed on average 8.9 standard drinks on the most recent occasion they drank alcohol—so 9 standard drinks. Some people would have had one or two, and others would have had 15, 16, 18, or 19 standard drinks on the most recent occasion. Thirty-one percent of Māori adult drinkers reported getting drunk on the most recent occasion, with 16 percent reporting that they had intended to get drunk on that occasion. Worse still, 45 percent of Māori youth aged 15 to 17 reported getting drunk the most recent time they drank alcohol, with 25 percent—a quarter—reporting that they had planned to get drunk. Sixty-six percent agreed that it is acceptable to get drunk at parties; we just heard the member Katrina Shanks talking about how people go to Courtenay Place and deliberately get drunk.

This vulnerability of our intoxicated youth worries and concerns me. Most Māori drinkers reported having experienced some form of harmful or regrettable experience from their drinking in the previous 12 months. Added to that, Te Rau Hinengaro: The New Zealand Mental Health Survey also identified that the most common lifetime disorders among Māori were anxiety disorders, at 31 percent, followed by substance use disorders, at 26 percent. I would say that the anxiety disorders were contributed to in no mean way by the substance use.

The facts that I have just read out from that report are supported by my experience up in Kaitāia as an educator. I recall having a conversation with a policeman who told me that on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights the police go around picking up and dragging up intoxicated school-age students—primary school age, intermediate school age, and college age—from the alleyways and the car parks of Kaitāia. He told me how they have to drag them into the police car and half the time the kids vomit in the back. The police get them home to the parents, knock on the door—the parents do not know where they have been—and basically give the children to the parents, telling them to make sure they do not choke on their vomit. That is the reality of the situation in Kaitāia.

This policeman told me about one particular girl, who went to the school where I was principal, whom he had to pick up one night when she was totally comatose. I said that that girl’s family could not afford to buy alcohol and did not have the money for it. I asked how she got the money to buy the alcohol. He said to me that she does not buy the alcohol. She gives favours to the guy at a particular liquor store, and that is how she gets her alcohol. We have to be mindful. At the time this girl was 12 or 13 years of age, she was giving favours in return for alcohol.

The Law Commission report Alcohol In Our Lives: Curbing the Harm said: “There is little scope under the present Act for communities to have a say in licensing decisions.” The Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill, which George Hawkins has brought to the House, changes that. It gives communities the chance to have a say in alcohol licensing decisions. The report also says: “A common theme in the consultation was the disempowerment many people feel because the existing legal framework effectively discounts the views of the local community when making decisions about where and how alcohol is sold. Several people told us the category of people who can object to a licence application needs to be widened, but the real concern of many was that even though they lived in the neighbourhood there was no basis on which they could object to a licence application other than in relation to the suitability of the applicant.” This bill changes that.

The report says: “That the community had alcohol-related problems and locals did not want any more liquor outlets in the area was no basis for an objection. Community groups are increasingly expressing their concerns about alcohol and its impacts, as our consultation demonstrates. They want more say in decisions about where and how alcohol is sold, supplied and consumed in their neighbourhoods.” The bill that George Hawkins has brought to the House does exactly that. It gives the communities more say on where and how alcohol can be sold. Also, the bill “requires an applicant for an on-licence or an off-licence to carry out an evaluation of the social impacts on the community.” I ask how one carries out an evaluation of the social impact on a 12 or 13-year-old girl who has to give favours to somebody in exchange for alcohol. The social impact on her life and her family’s life into her future is immeasurable.

We as Māori have a bit to answer for ourselves. I was just talking to my colleague Stuart Nash about when our marae dining hall was opened in 1990 up north and we had 50 kegs of beer. We got through only 38 of them that night, which because of our attitude at the time we laughed about. That illustrates the attitude that we have towards glorifying alcohol. As I stand to speak now, I am embarrassed by that attitude from us as Māori, which allows alcohol to become such a big part of our lives. Hopefully this bill will go some way to changing that attitude, but it certainly gives communities the power to make decisions regarding alcohol within their communities. Thank you.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) : The Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill had its genesis in good, sound common sense. It is an attempt to overturn a jandal-slapping sort of sale of liquor bill from a previous decade. The fact is that the sale of liquor has been the subject of dog’s breakfasts of legislation for many, many decades, as people have sought to liberalise and somehow change New Zealand’s drinking culture and turn it into something it is not. Members who were involved in politics years ago will remember the votes that tried to turn the New Zealand drinking culture into something sort of cultural.

Paul Quinn: The French.

CHESTER BORROWS: Apparently we all needed to be drinking like the French. We know that the French drink all day at various times. They start at a young age and they carry on until they fall over. No one seemed to remember that they have a high rate of alcoholism in their country. But we sought to move the drinking culture within New Zealand away from something that was confined by hours, age, legislation, and occasion and turn it into something where anything goes. Our drinking culture certainly needed to be changed but, boy, some dumb stuff was done.

Now people are seeking to march the sale of liquor legislation back about 30 years, forgetting that 30 years ago one was not allowed to have liquor in the vicinity of a dance hall, for instance. That meant there would be about 50 guys standing around the boot of an old Vauxhall with a couple of crates in it, sharing 10 flagons. In those days it was a totally different world from the one we find ourselves in today, and now, thankfully, the member George Hawkins has, quite rightly, brought before the House a bill that says it is time we had a bit of balance.

Previous Parliaments wandered off down the track of liberalising everything. We took the age down to 18, and we took off any constraints on new products, like the ready-to-drinks that were spoken about. We tend to give some credence to people who make their money out of the liquor industry, and we listen to their lobbying.

We decided that a supermarket was something that sold alcohol, and we did not think that every corner dairy would also seek to sell alcohol. We thought that a supermarket that was acres and acres in size was better and more careful than any other vendor of alcohol. What quickly happened was that those big supermarket chains moved as fast as they could to sell as much alcohol as they could as cheaply as they could at any hour of the day that they could. They did a really good job of it, to the effect that today 70 percent of all alcohol consumed in this country is sold by supermarkets to people who may or may not enjoy too many drops.

The point is that as far as the retail side of it is concerned, supermarkets are probably the most compliant of any alcohol retail outlet. It is much harder to buy alcohol from the supermarket when one is drunk or underage than it is to buy it from anywhere else, but that does not mean we do not have a problem with supermarkets selling alcohol, and the new legislation that is coming before the House will restrict that.

The ready-to-drink concoctions that have become so popular with people, especially young people wanting to get into drinking alcohol, are being marketed to young people as alcohol that does not even taste like alcohol. They sell it by the pallet-load, and it has alcohol per volume of somewhere between 4 percent and 20 percent. The proposed legislation will reduce the alcohol per volume to no more than 5 percent, and that is a good thing.

Obviously, the House is looking quite strongly at the split-age option whereby people over the age of 18 can buy alcohol in hotels and on licensed premises but people must be 20 years of age to buy alcohol at an off-licence. The purpose of that, of course, is to raise the de facto drinking age, which at the moment is somewhere around the early to mid teens. We need very much to do something about that.

The thrust behind the Hon George Hawkins’ bill is about giving local people the ability to impact on local decisions as to who can sell alcohol within their communities. We have ridiculous situations where dairies opposite secondary schools are selling alcohol at $1 per can or $1 per ready-to-drink.

An 18-year-old student can wander across the road at lunchtime and legitimately buy alcohol in lots of one or two, because that is the way the vendor is prepared to sell it. Vendors are not allowed to sell cigarettes in ones and twos, but they can sell cans of alcohol in ones and twos and some of them are up to 20 percent proof. Students can drink that alcohol in the school grounds as part of lunch—or maybe it is lunch—and then head back to the classroom for a snooze before heading home after school and picking up a bit of alcohol to knock off when they get there. It is absolutely ridiculous.

The gap in the current legislation means that no good-minded citizen is able to object to a new consent being granted on the basis that there are already enough liquor outlets in the community, or on the basis of their proximity to schools or other venues around the community. That is fundamentally wrong. Mr Hawkins’ bill seeks to change that and allow local people to have some input.

We know that there will be a national alcohol plan, and that district councils will be encouraged to have district alcohol plans, and part of that planning process will be consultation with communities. Any application for consent—not just for new premises but also the reinstatement of an existing consent—will be up for members of the public to object to on a whole range of sensible bases, and good on them.

I thank the member for bringing the issue before the House. I believe that in many ways it has been a catalyst for the Law Commission and parties on both sides of the House to look at the issue and to give back to the communities the ability to object to local consents, which are the very mechanisms people are using to have a negative effect on our children and our communities. Thank you.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green) : We would like to congratulate George Hawkins on his Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill, which is tremendously worthwhile, and will give communities some say over where liquor licences should be granted. We will certainly be voting to support the bill.

I remember when I was a Wellington city councillor, back in the 1990s—

Hon Tony Ryall: Oh, the 1990s.

SUE KEDGLEY: —yes, it was a long time ago—somebody decided to set up a bar right next to a school in Strathmore. It was also right next to where a whole lot of people lived, along with the school, in a very densely populated residential area. The whole community was totally opposed to it. Nobody wanted the bar, which was going to have gambling machines in it, to be established at that particular location. So the entire community came together. It was probably the biggest meeting ever held in the history of Strathmore. The whole community rallied around the cause and passed a resolution that it did not want that liquor outlet in its community, right next to the school and the community church. In the end, despite the whole community being unanimously opposed to the liquor outlet, there was nothing the community could do. It realised after many months of trying to stop the liquor outlet, with the help of me and other councillors, that basically it was completely powerless. The Sale of Liquor Act 1989 had relaxed conditions for obtaining a liquor licence to such a point that someone could set up a liquor licence anywhere in New Zealand, and the community was completely powerless.

When this legislation was being considered at the Social Services Committee, a submitter said that it had got to the point in New Zealand where the only things that people needed in order to get a liquor licence were a car park and a urinal, and away they went; they could sell alcohol, and the local community had virtually no say and no input. I was horrified by that personal experience, and I wondered why this Parliament had allowed it to happen. I ask why this Parliament allowed liquor outlets to be established in just about any community in New Zealand, and the conditions to be relaxed to such a point that communities had absolutely no say in whether or not a bar or liquor outlet could be set up right next to a school or a church. What was Parliament thinking in 1989, when it passed the Sale of Liquor Act and allowed that to happen? The same legislation allowed liquor to be sold in any supermarket in New Zealand, and in our dairies, and now supermarkets sell 70 percent of all the alcohol sold in New Zealand. I guess that there are members of Parliament who were here and who voted for the Sale of Liquor Act, which liberalised the sale of liquor to such an extent that we have had this proliferation of liquor outlets all over New Zealand.

At the Health Committee a few years ago, the Public Health Association made an interesting submission. It presented a map of New Zealand that showed where the most liquor outlets were in New Zealand. The most liquor outlets were in low-income and poor areas, of Auckland in particular, but that was the case for all over New Zealand. In every low-income area, there was a vastly increased number of liquor outlets, liquor stores, fast-food outlets, and gambling outlets. It was completely predatory. We could see that the people setting up the liquor stores and gambling outlets were literally targeting the low-income areas of New Zealand, whereas areas like Remuera and so forth had very few outlets, at all. So it is completely predatory.

We congratulate George Hawkins on this bill, which will give communities a say in alcohol licensing decisions; it is very, very long overdue. It will mean that there will have to be an evaluation of the social impact on the community. For example, once this bill is through, the people of Strathmore, who helplessly tried to stop the liquor outlet from opening there all those years ago, will be able to have an evaluation of the impact. They will be able to say that they believe a liquor outlet will have a disastrous impact on their community and that they oppose it.

No doubt, the reason the Sale of Liquor Act went through, which so liberalised the sale of alcohol in New Zealand, was the influence of the liquor and hospitality industries. Their influence resulted in such an extraordinary liberalisation in New Zealand and the taking away of the rights of communities to have a say on where liquor outlets should be. We will see, and we are seeing now, the same influence of the liquor and hospitality industries on the debate on liquor legislation in New Zealand. We had the Law Commission report, which was a very far-reaching report, but immediately the Government decided that it would back away from the critical areas that Sir Geoffrey Palmer said need to be dealt with—namely, the issues of price, marketing sponsorship, and advertising. I ask why the Government is ducking for cover over those issues, and why it refuses to deal with those issues when it has been told that they are the most significant issues that have an impact on liquor in New Zealand. Everyone in this House knows that it is because of the power of vested interests—the power of the liquor industry, the hospitality industry, and the food industry. Those industries will have more say and more sway over this Parliament and what it agrees to than all of the submissions made by all of the people of New Zealand—and there is overwhelming support from the people of New Zealand.

People are clamouring and saying that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for this Parliament to get it right and clamp down on the proliferation of liquor outlets all over New Zealand and on the absolute saturation of marketing sponsorship and advertising of liquor. We have this opportunity, and that is what the people of New Zealand are clamouring for. Unfortunately, the ghastly reality is that the influence of lobbying from the liquor and hospitality industries will cause this Government to fail to take the action that is needed, because it does not want to get offside with those industries. That is why we have the problem we have today, and I fear that the influence of those industries will prevent us from taking up any comprehensive set of policies, as the Law Commission has recommended.

I do not know how many members saw Close Up last night, but there was a discussion about why the Government would not lower the blood-alcohol level. An expert from Australia was saying that it was an embarrassment. He said that, quite simply, the power of the liquor and hospitality industries was the reason it was not happening. Bruce Robertson, chief executive of the Hospitality Association, had said on his website that the reason it was not happening was due to lobbying by the hospitality industry and the liquor industry. So those industries admit it. They admit that their lobbying is preventing the Government from taking the action that is needed, and I think that is a tragedy.

I offer George Hawkins our congratulations. It is a fantastic bill. We will be supporting it, and we just wish that the Law Commission’s very comprehensive report was being implemented by this Parliament, and that we could finally start to undo the harm unleashed by the Sale of Liquor Act 1989. Thank you.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Mr Assistant Speaker, me mihi rā ki te mema ki a George Hawkins i tēnei pō. Kei te whakaae atu au ki tā te mema nei, ā, mō tana whakaaro nui ki te whakatakoto i tēnei pire ki mua i te aroaro o te Pāremata. Me mihi rā ki a ia, ko te tūmanako ia ka eke ki te taumata e wawatatia ana. Tata ki te kotahi rau tau kua hipa, i puta ēnei kōrero i tētahi o ngā rangatira o taua wā. Ko Tā Apirana Ngata tāku e kōrero nei. He kōrero e pā tonu ana ki tēnei o ngā pire. Anei tana kōrero:

[Mr Assistant Speaker, I congratulate the member George Hawkins tonight. I support the member and his great foresight in bringing this bill before Parliament, and hope that what he is seeking is fulfilled. Close to a century ago, one of our finest leaders of that period, Sir Apirana Ngata, gave a frank account relevant to this bill, and I quote: ]

“there can be no question as to the amount of damage liquor has done to the people of my race … Whether the Maori will in a generation or so become a hardened and seasoned drinker, like the incoming Europeans, I do not know … My position is clear-cut; and that is, so far as the supply of liquor to Maoris is concerned, from my youth until now I have and shall oppose it everywhere.”

Koinei tā Apirana Ngata. He nui taku pūaroha mō taua whakaaro. Ko ngā tatauranga e kī ana, tokotoru o ia whā tangata neke atu i te tekau mā waru tau te pakeke, kua tohungia he kaiinu waipiro, ā, hautoru o aua tāngata, kua tohungia he tino kino tā rātou inu waipiro. Nā ēnei tatauranga mātou e tino āwangawanga ana. E tino āwangawanga ana mātou mō ngā āhuatanga inu a ngā rangatahi, me te āhuatanga whakatairanga o tēnei ngāngara. E pūmau tonu ana mātou ki te whakapono, he nui ngā huarahi whakamāmā ake i ngā tūāhuatanga kino kua puta i tēnei mea te waipiro, e pāngia ana e Ngāi Māori. Ko tētahi huarahi kua kitea e mātou, ko te mahitahi ā-whānau nei.

Nō reira, ki te hoki ki tēnei pire, ko tā tātou ināianei, he rāhui i te tuku raihana hokohoko, i raro i te pire Sale of Liquor Act 1989. Me kī pēnei, e noho āhuareka ana mātou ki te whānuitanga o ngā whakaaro puaki kua whakatakotohia. I tērā wiki i mea atu te Kaunihera Waipiro, arā te Alcohol Advisory Committee, ki te Komiti mō ngā Take Māori, me pērā te tirohanga o te Kāwanatanga ki te kaupapa waipiro, ki tērā o te tupeka. E ai ki a Gilbert Taurua, kaiwhakahaere, strategic operations general manager, me whai tūranga teitei ake ngā take waipiro ki te taha hauora. E ai ki ngā tauira inu, nui tonu te waipiro ka unumia i roto i tētahi wā roa. He kōrero whai tikanga tēnei. Nā te iti o te utu, ngā āhuatanga whakatairanga, me te āhuatanga inu i roto i ngā hapori, kua noho kōhatu tēnei ngāngara me ōna kino katoa.

Nō reira i te putanga o te pūrongo e kīa nei, ko te Alcohol in Our Lives: Curbing the Harm, harikoa ana mātou i te mea i tohungia ngā huarahi āwhina ki te whakakore i te āhuatanga inu waipiro. Tautoko ana mātou i ngā momo huarahi pērā i te whakaheke taumata inu waipiro inā e taraiwa ana tētahi, te whakapiki i te tau inu, otirā te rāhui hoki i ngā whakatairanga, i ngā pānui hoki mō te waipiro. E whakapono hoki ana mātou, me werohia ngā kamupene waipiro, e pēhi kino ana i wā tātou hapori. I te ao tika, i te ao pono me kī, ka kore e kite i te waipiro i waenganui i ngā hapori. Engari, i tēnei ao kikokiko nei, me aro tātou ināianei ki te āwhina i wā tātou whānau, hapori hoki, ki te tiaki i a tātou anō, ā-hauora, ā, ki te whakamāmā i ngā kino o te waipiro.

Mōhio tonu ahau i te whakatau a te komiti mō tēnei rīpoata, inā ko tā rātou, kāore he take ki te tautoko i ngā mahi e kōrerohia ana i roto i tēnei rīpoata i te mea, e ahu pērā tonu ana te kāwanatanga. Hoi anō, kua whakatakētia te kaupapa a Minita Power i te mea, kāore ngā huarahi pērā i te tāke tāpiri e whakamahia ana ki te whakaiti i te inu waipiro. Ā, kua whakatakētia anō hoki te Kāwanatanga mō te kōrero noa iho mō tēnei mea te rāhui i ngā hāora mahi o ngā toa hokohoko waipiro. Nō reira, te āhua nei kāore ngā ture hōu mō te waipiro i te eke ki te taumata e tika ana, e ai ki te tā te tirohanga a ētahi.

Nō reira, ka tirohia anōtia e mātou te aronga o tēnei pire, arā ki te rāhui i te tuku raihana hokohoko i raro i te Sale of Liquor Act 1989. E rata ana mātou ki te tikanga, arā, kia tuku arotakenga ia kaitono, tuatahi mō te pānga o tā rātou tono ki ngā hapori, otirā te pānga ā-moni nei, a aha rānei ki te rohe e tohungia ana. Ka rua, ko ngā tāke mō te utu, me te pānga o te waipiro ki taua rohe. Ka noho ngā arotakenga nei hei mea kitenga mō te rahinga. Otirā, e tautoko ana mātou i tēnei āhuatanga i te mea, ka kitea ngā nekenekehanga o ngā hapori ki te whakatau, me ahu pēhea rātou.

Hai kōrero whakamutunga, nei au e noho whakahīhī nei, i te mea, i tae mai a Toi Te Ora, nō roto i tōku rohe o Te Waiariki, ki tētahi hui o te komiti whāiti. He rōpū hauora a Toi Te Ora. Ka āwhina tēnei rōpū i ngā tāngata toru rau mano, neke atu, i roto o Waiariki, me Waikato hoki, i Tauranga, i Whakatāne, i Ōpōtiki, i Kawerau, i Rotorua, tae atu ki Taupō. Ko tā Toi Te Ora ki te komiti, i tautoko rātou i te wāhanga hōu, 9A, mō ngā tono ā-raihana. E whakamārama ana i ngā painga me ngā utu, me whakamārama ngā raihana nei i ngā pēhitanga o te waipiro, ā-moni, ā-tāngata nei i te takiwā, ā, me tuku i ēnei kōrero ki te marea. Nō reira, nā runga i te āhuatanga o ēnei kōrero, otirā, ōku ake wheako hoki, me te hiahia o te Pāti Māori ki te rāhui i te waipiro, ki te manaaki i te oranga me te hauora o wā tātou whānau, e tautoko ana mātou i tēnei pire i tōna pānuitanga tuarua.

[That is what Apirana Ngata said. I have great sympathy for Sir Apirana Ngata’s view. According to statistics, approximately three in every four Māori over 18 years of age identify as drinkers, with about one-third of those identifying themselves as binge drinkers. These are statistics that concern us greatly. We are especially concerned about harmful drinking amongst youth, and heavy promotion of products designed to appeal to young people. We believe that much can be done to reduce alcohol-related harm experienced by Māori. We have found a method: it is a collective whānau approach.

So we come back to this bill. What we should do right now is to restrict the granting of on-licences and off-licences under the Sale of Liquor Act 1989. I have to say we are interested in the scope of the proposals. Last week the Alcohol Advisory Council told the Māori Affairs Committee that the Government should take a similar approach to alcohol as it does to tobacco. Strategic operations manager Gilbert Taurua said the harm caused by alcohol needs to be a higher priority in the health sector. He said Māori drinking patterns show that a large amount of alcohol is drunk over a long period of time. This was an important message. The prevalence of alcohol, its low cost, and relentless marketing have created a permissive environment in which excessive drinking has become normalised, bringing with it undue harm to our communities.

So the Māori Party welcomed the release of the report Alcohol in Our Lives: Curbing the Harm, which gave a very clear indication of the range of measures that could be initiated to address ways to help change the drinking culture. We support various measures, which include lowering drink-driving limits, lifting the purchasing age, and limiting liquor promotion and advertising. We also believe that an alcohol industry that has had an inappropriate influence on our communities needs to be challenged. In a perfect world, alcohol would not feature in our communities, but the reality is that it does, so we now must strive towards enabling our whānau and communities to take control of their health and limit the damage that alcohol can do in their community.

I know that the rationale of the select committee members in determining their report was to say that they thought this bill overlapped the Government’s work programme on alcohol reform, and as such they did not see it as needing to be supported. However, the package announced by Minister Power has been heavily criticised for failing to use devices such as excise tax to reduce alcohol consumption. There has also been criticism that the Government is merely tinkering around the edges with regard to restricting opening hours. Quite frankly, it appears to some that the alcohol reforms are a disappointment.

So we look anew at the aim of this bill to restrict the granting of on-licences and off-licences under the Sale of Liquor Act 1989. We are satisfied that every application for an on-licence must be accompanied by an evaluation carried out by the applicant—firstly, for the likely social impact relating to monetary and non-monetary costs on the area to which the application relates; and , secondly, taxing the costs and impact of liquor consumption in that area. These evaluations will be available for public inspection. Indeed, we support this because communities can determine with greater transparency what is in their best interests.

In conclusion, I am really proud that Toi Te Ora from my electorate of Te Waiariki came to a select committee hearing. Toi Te Ora is a health organisation that helps approximately 300,000 people in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato regions — Tauranga, Whakatāne, Ōpōtiki, Kawerau, and Rotorua, including Taupō. Toi Te Ora told the committee that it supports new section 9A for applications for on-licences to include an evaluation of benefits and costs. This evaluation should include the likely social impact of liquor consumption, and monetary and non-monetary costs to the area to which the application relates, and that these must be made available for public inspection. Based on this address, my personal experiences, and the desire of the Māori Party to be more vigilant in restricting alcohol use in order to take care of the well-being and health of our families, we support this bill at its second reading .]

Dr CAM CALDER (National) : It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak on the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill proposed by my honourable colleague George Hawkins,

MP for Manurewa. I am privileged to be the National MP based in the vibrant and diverse electorate of Manurewa, and I have to report that there is a strong, united voice asking for help in reducing the ravages of alcohol there.

I have listened to residents’ views at many public meetings and sporting clubs, when visiting the RSA, and at the Sunday markets. It is a common theme. Responses to my recent surveys are clear. The pendulum has swung too far towards the liberalisation of alcohol laws. The residents of Manurewa know the statistics all too well. Many of them have suffered, directly or indirectly, alcohol-related harm. Alcohol is estimated to contribute to up to 1,000 deaths a year, and is a major driver of crime. Police say that alcohol is implicated in 30 percent of all recorded offences, 34 percent of all recorded family violence incidents, and 50 percent of all homicides.

This National-led Government is committed to reducing the level of alcohol-related harm in all our communities. We are listening to public concerns. The Government’s package for alcohol law reform is the first stage in our response and adopts in full or in part 126 of the Law Commission’s 153 recommendations. Our package aims to achieve three things: less alcohol-related harm, including deaths, family violence, drunken disorder, and accident compensation claims; a reduction in our binge-drinking culture, especially among young people; and a reduction in the number of alcohol outlets and their trading hours.

A key feature that has proved very popular with the residents of Manurewa whom I have spoken to, and I am sure with my colleague the Hon George Hawkins, is that the proposed legislation will give the local Manurewa community the right to decide how many outlets there are, where they are, and how long they are open for. When a decision is made to grant a licence, the objective of our law must be considered as well as the provisions of the local alcohol policy, and, crucially, whether the amenity of an area would be lessened should the licence be granted. We are giving local communities the choice to determine the outcome in their area. We will be giving parents more tools to manage their children’s access to alcohol, and requiring more parental and individual responsibility for supply to minors.

As my colleague Chester Borrows pointed out earlier, those ready-to-drink alcohol mixes that we call RTDs will be restricted to 5 percent for its alcohol content. I am delighted at this initiative. They taste like soft drinks, but they pack a hell of a punch. Ready-to-drink products will be required to be sold in containers limited to holding no more than 1.5 standard drinks. We will investigate a minimum pricing regime by giving retailers a year to provide sales and price data. If they are not forthcoming, then the Government will consider regulatory options.

I applaud my colleague George Hawkins for bringing this bill to the House some years ago in an effort to get the then Labour Government to address this huge problem of alcohol-related harm. As I have outlined, the National-led Government’s package of reforms is comprehensive and, in the opinion of the Social Services Committee, the package of reforms has actually overtaken this bill. The select committee has recommended that this bill not be passed, as far more comprehensive legislation is imminent. It is for this reason I concur with the select committee that this bill should not be passed.

STUART NASH (Labour) : Before I start my speech, Mr Assistant Speaker, could you please indulge me when I say “Good evening, sir.” to Barry Goggin. On the 9 September Barry retired as one of the parliamentary gallery staff after 17 years’ service. He is a fine chap, a very good bloke, and I hope he is enjoying his retirement, because it is well deserved.

I stand in support of the second reading of the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill. The previous speaker, Cam Calder, who said he is based in Manurewa—even though he lives on the North Shore—has decided to vote against the bill. I am quite astounded by that, because he stood up and outlined the real problems faced by people in the electorate of Manurewa, and then proceeded to say he was speaking against the bill. That is not a good stance.

In my time tonight there are only two questions that I will pose, and then answer. First of all, I ask what sort of society we want to live in, and, secondly, I ask what sort of message we, as members of Parliament, want to send to our communities about alcohol. But before I discuss those questions, I compliment my colleague the Hon George Hawkins on bringing this member’s bill to the House. Mr Hawkins is an example of a Labour MP who understands his communities, who talks to his constituents, and who acts on the recommendations of those who come to visit him and offer their counsel. I congratulate George. He has undertaken wide and varied consultation on this bill. I congratulate him on seeking to amend the Sale of Liquor Act 1989. When George decides to leave this House—and I know he has a few more terms left in him yet—he will be sorely missed by his constituents, and he will leave huge shoes to fill.

But I remind the House that this bill does not relate just to Manurewa; it relates to the whole country. [Interruption] I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand that under the Standing Orders a member is not allowed to barrack in the way that Mr Quinn is doing, without sitting in his actual seat. If he really wants to interject in that manner, he should go to the back of the Chamber.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): I say to the member—and I presume he has heard me say this on a number of occasions—that, yes, the rules, according to Speaker’s rulings, are that members may not shift their seat for the purpose of interjecting. However, I note that the member has shifted because members do drift down to this end of the House, and there is interjection. It helps to make, shall I say, a more engaged place. The interjections were light and friendly, but were a little lacking in humour, I might say. I did not think they interfered with the member’s speech, and I just invite the member to continue with it.

STUART NASH: I will provide an answer to the first question I posed, about the sort of society that we want to live in. As politicians, we have a unique opportunity to help to define the types of communities that we live in and our children grow up in. We have opportunities to send messages about the sort of society we want to create for our families and friends, and for the country’s citizens. For me a number of messages are important in terms of creating safe and secure communities.

The first message is that it is not acceptable to have a liquor store or a store advertising and selling alcohol on every street corner. We have enough problems with alcohol in our communities, and more advertising in dairies, where children buy their sweets, is hardly the type of message we want to send to young children who are growing up. This bill deals with that problem. Alcohol causes more harm than almost any other drug in society, and we need to send the message that drinking to excess is not normal, healthy, or acceptable, and will not be tolerated by the wider community.

The second message is that in a fully functioning and democratic society we need to have laws that respect the views of all who participate in the health and wealth of our communities. Let us be honest: alcohol sales affect many more people than those involved in the actual transaction. Alcohol, for example, is often drunk near to, or at, the point of sale. So we should let those who may be impacted by the drinking of alcohol comment on where and when a retailer can be located. This bill deals with that problem. It does so by granting any person the right to object to the granting of either on-licence or off-licence applications, provided the objector can produce evidence that he or she would be adversely affected if the application were successful.

The third message is that this bill requires that a report on the social impact of granting a liquor licence must be provided by a person who applies for a licence. Again, that forces applicants to take responsibility for their proposed actions. This measure is a sea change. It is long overdue, and it is most welcome. If the evaluation shows there will be harm to the community, I have no doubt that under this legislation the application will be turned down. This bill is an example of democracy as it should be practised: with the input of all citizens, and the applicant showing responsibility. It is about time we had that, I say. It makes absolute sense, and I fully support the ability of those in the community to have a say on activities that have an adverse impact upon them.

My second question asked about the sort of message that we want to send, as members of Parliament, to our communities about alcohol. This year the Law Commission, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, put out a huge volume entitled Alcohol in Our Lives: Curbing the Harm. The report was tabled in Parliament. I will read out a couple of points that make very disturbing reading. Members probably know about them, but they are some of the elephants in the room that we just do not like to mention. Well, the time has now come for us to be absolutely aware. The report states: “New Zealand has a pervasive culture of drinking to excess. National drinking surveys consistently show that around 25 percent of drinkers—the equivalent of 700,000 New Zealanders—typically drink large quantities when they drink. Despite the incontrovertible evidence linking intoxication to a range of serious harms, as a society, we have developed a dangerous tolerance for drunkenness. The latest drinking survey shows … Ten percent, or the equivalent of 224,000 adults, consumed enough to feel drunk at least weekly. … for a large sector of the population there is a dominant pattern of heavy, intermittent drinking episodes, the worst pattern for the drinker’s own health outcomes, and the worst for damage to those around them.” Is this the sort of society we want to create and leave for our children?

In the report a section entitled “What’s the problem?” states: “Alcohol is the backdrop to so many issues. Issues which New Zealand is not addressing very well, issues like obesity, suicide, sexual health, injuries and so on. … for a significant number of young people today, drinking is not merely an adjunct to their social lives but the focal point, drunkenness is not an occasional by-product of drinking, but an end in itself.” Is that the sort of society that we want to create?

The report further states: “Research suggests that a discernible relationship between a high concentration of outlet numbers (usually referred to as high outlet density or outlet ‘clustering’) and alcohol consumption at a neighbourhood level. … The Committee pointed in particular to an apparent relationship between outlet clustering and the extent of underage drinking.”

I say this is the sort of harm that the Hon George Hawkins has witnessed in the Manurewa electorate, this is the sort of harm and the sort of behaviour that the Hon George Hawkins does not want to see all around this country, and this is the reason for this bill. Earlier, I posed two questions. The first was about the sort of society that we want to live in. The answer to that is a society where all citizens have a say. George Hawkins’ bill allows for that. The second question I posed was about the sort of message that we, as members of Parliament, want to send to our communities about alcohol. The answer is a new message: responsible drinking is the only way forward. Drunkenness is simply not cool; in fact, it is downright stupid.

I congratulate the Hon George Hawkins. I think this is a wonderful bill. It does a hell of a lot to address the concerns that many people in New Zealand have about the state of drinking in our society and about the prevalence of alcohol outlets in our communities. I commend this bill to the House, and I hope that all 122 members will vote for it. Thank you very much.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) : I rise to speak on the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill, which is in the name of the Hon George Hawkins.

I understand that this bill was first introduced in 2008. There were 53 submissions and 34 submitters who wished to be heard. Ten of them were heard in the previous Parliament before the change to the most excellent National Government under John Key. Since that time the Social Services Committee has kept in close touch with the Hon George Hawkins. Its members were well aware that Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s Law Commission report was due to be presented, so they put the bill on hold pending that very comprehensive report.

I must agree with previous speakers that the pendulum has swung too far in New Zealand. Alcohol is now a $5 billion industry—a $5 billion industry. One of my concerns about alcohol is the effect it has on our children, and, in fact, on our unborn children—the effect of alcohol on children in utero and the number of children born with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The Law Commission report estimated that some thousands of children a year were affected by the disorder. This is an extremely worrying concern because those children will never have a chance to achieve their full potential. Often mothers and fathers have no idea of the implications of their drinking, which impacts on literally thousands of New Zealand children. So there is no doubt that the importance of this subject is enormous.

I congratulate the Hon George Hawkins on bringing in this member’s bill, which is generally focused on local communities having a say. There is no doubt that members of the South Auckland community have been particularly strong in their concerns about liquor outlets in their area. The Hon George Hawkins has listened to them. Their concerns were manifested in a march and rally at the Manukau City centre about 6 weeks ago. Representatives from all parties were there on that particular occasion, but I must admit that I do not think the Hon George Hawkins was there. [Interruption] He was there! I thought he was campaigning for the local board of Manurewa, but—

Hon Tony Ryall: Manurewa Action!

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Manurewa Action Team, yes, but conscientiously he was marching—he was there—and so was my excellent colleague Dr Cam Calder, who is doing a tremendous job down there in Manurewa. He is obviously the natural successor of George Hawkins, but, of course, that will be after George Hawkins has become a board member for that area.

But the point is that on that march the local community was very strong about the adverse effects of alcohol in South Auckland, the huge number of outlets in that area, the violence associated with it, and the sorts of examples we have heard from other speakers of alcohol outlets being close to schools. The message from that rally was absolutely crystal clear: they wanted to have a say as to how alcohol was sold and distributed in South Auckland. That message reflects the attitudes of the whole country.

The good news is that the National Government is responding in a very comprehensive way to Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s Law Commission report. It is responding in 126 ways to the 153 recommendations. The basis of that response with regard to local communities is that licences will be harder to get and easier to lose—harder to get and easier to lose. That is a very, very important message and one that George Hawkins certainly supports very strongly. Local communities will have the power to decide how many alcohol outlets are in their communities, where they are, and at what times they are open. That very much encapsulates what the Hon George Hawkins’ bill is all about.

It was very interesting to hear the rhetoric from Labour members. The Social Services Committee recommended to Parliament that, at this stage of events, the bill should not be passed, and instead the comprehensive package that is to be put into place by the National Government should come forward. The National Government, undoubtedly, has already made a great series of interventions in terms of policing and enforcement. There are 300 more police in areas like South Auckland and 600 throughout the country. But, more important, there will be tougher alcohol laws in this comprehensive package, and, in particular, and in response to this bill, local communities will have much great say on how alcohol will be dealt with in their communities.

It is right and proper that Parliament follows the guidance of the Social Services Committee recommendations that, at this stage, the bill is not passed and that the comprehensive recommendations of the National Government are accepted.

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) : I am delighted to endorse and echo the fine comments and conclusions of my colleague the member for Hunua and, as other members have done at the outset, to acknowledge the considerable work of the member for Manurewa, the Hon George Hawkins, on this issue. I would also like to acknowledge my predecessor as the MP for Hamilton West, Martin Gallagher, who also demonstrated a determination during his time in this House to confront the problems caused by alcohol abuse in our communities. As some members will know, Martin is currently a candidate in our local body elections and looks likely, I should say, to bolt in. He has been a Hamilton city councillor before and, in fact, was deputy mayor before he was first elected to Parliament. I welcome the prospect that he will be back on our council and I look forward to working with him in our respective roles.

Martin and I both welcome this Government’s decision to implement the vast majority of the Law Commission’s alcohol reform recommendations, and it is very good to have his endorsement of the Government’s lead in this area. We are both especially pleased at the powers that will be given to councils to implement local alcohol plans. That is a very important measure that my constituents, our civic leaders, the police, our health providers, social agencies, and many others warmly welcome.

In light of those comments, and as we have heard from one or two members tonight, there may be some people watching or listening to broadcasts of Parliament this evening who are puzzled that this bill will be voted down tonight. So I want to stress, as other members have, that it is neither a slight on the member for Manurewa nor a signal that members are taking these issues lightly. On the contrary, it is because the problems the bill addresses are about to be presented to the House in a much more comprehensive measure, and for that reason only, the Social Services Committee, with Mr Hawkins’ agreement—it was good that he came to a select committee meeting recently and talked to us—is recommending that this bill should not proceed at this point. I commend the member for Manurewa for concluding that events have overtaken this bill and that his work is done. It is a sensible and pragmatic decision in the circumstances.

I look forward to discussing the measures in this bill, and many other related issues, when the Government’s response to the Law Commission’s report is introduced to the House in a few weeks from now. I agree with my colleague Chester Borrows that there are some ridiculous arrangements governing the sale of liquor in our communities at the present time and that we have major problems as a consequence. Almost unfettered access to alcohol is certainly contributing to our binge-drinking culture. In turn, it is exacerbating a major health problem that is a special concern of mine—I did not know that my good colleague Dr Hutchison was about to mention it as well, but I am delighted he has done so—and that is our nation’s significant incidence of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. I try to raise awareness of that serious health concern in my electorate whenever I can, especially when I talk to school groups and younger audiences. It is a tragic fact that hundreds of babies are conceived each year to mothers who have consumed too much alcohol. In many cases, in fact, probably in most, the mother has no intention of becoming pregnant and drinks dangerously for some time before and after conception, in complete ignorance of the dangerous risk she is taking. It is a lethal error.

Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is a lifelong disability that can have severe physical and intellectual consequences. It is a tragedy that we hear so little about it and that so few young people in particular are aware of the serious risk they take in drinking regularly and heavily while being sexually active. I hope and expect that the more comprehensive bill we will start considering in the House later this year will provide an opportunity for members to promote much greater awareness of foetal alcohol syndrome and a raft of other alcohol-related concerns.

There is certainly a strong desire in Hamilton for vastly improved alcohol legislation, and that is why I say to members opposite, who have been interjecting regularly throughout the evening, that it is important that the Government has taken the considered approach that it has. We have given officials the time they needed to convert the huge array of legislative reforms into workable legislation that will come before the House. The idea that we should rush the measure is likely to be a recipe for the mistakes that Parliament has made in the past when alcohol reform legislation has been too ad hoc and has dealt in a piecemeal fashion with parts of the problem. It is right that we tackle this problem comprehensively. That is what the Government’s response will be all about when the legislation comes before this House, and I look forward to debating those measures when it does. I certainly am committed to ensuring that we get it right this time and that we take a major step in the right direction to tackle our alcohol-related problem in New Zealand.

I conclude—I think I am the last speaker before the member has a chance to sum up—by commending the member for Manurewa once again for his work on this issue, and for his pragmatic decision in relation to this bill at this time. I look forward to all members of this House participating in a very positive fashion towards the implementation of a really improved liquor control regime later on this year. Thank you.

Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) : I am really disappointed, particularly with those two doctors, Cam Calder and Paul Hutchison, on the other side of the House. They spoke so passionately about the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill because they know at heart the damage that alcohol does to adults, children, and unborn babies. Anyone who has anything to do with drinking knows the harm it does. I am really disappointed in Cam Calder particularly, who pretends that he lives in Manurewa. He does not live in Manurewa. He opened an office there recently, but only George Hawkins, who is the local MP, and I actually live there.

Hon Member: He doesn’t live there, either.

Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY: That is probably right; I am probably the only one who lives there. But George Hawkins is a good member for Manurewa and I am delighted that he has taken leadership in promoting this bill.

I am probably the only MP here who does not drink. I am not aware of anybody else who does not. I do not drink. In the past I have not taken a lot of interest in these sorts of bills, and because I do not drink people might think I oppose anything to do with alcohol. But tonight I am very keen to speak, because this bill was introduced by my very good friend George Hawkins, who is forever very conscious of the work he does in the community. In Parliament he reflects the aspirations of, and is conscious of problems in, that community. A couple of weeks ago he spoke in the House on his Manukau City Council (Regulation of Prostitution in Specified Places) Bill, a local bill.

Very clearly, my background is one in which any drug or substance that impacts on and impairs one’s faculties is banned. My people, for the last 1,500 years, have not drunk. Now that we know the harm this drug has done to our society, they were probably right in not drinking.

This bill should be called the “Empowering Communities Bill”, because that is really what it is all about. Basically, it is empowering local communities to make sure that any new liquor outlet is not opened without their consent and without consultation with them. One could also call it the “Harm Minimisation Bill”, because that is what it is supposed to do.

I have a couple of statistics. For example, in 1990 there were eight licences per 10,000 people in New Zealand. That included on-licences, off-licences, and club licences. By the year 2006 there were 35 licences per 10,000 people. That is almost more than a 400-fold increase in the number of outlets. In a place like Manurewa, South Auckland, that has done a lot of damage to the community, particularly in relation to crime. We know that a lot of those crimes are committed against minorities. I know a lot of Indian people, and one should never forget Navtej Singh, who was killed because some people wanted to steal alcohol from his dairy. Similarly, a number of other crimes have been committed because of alcohol. As we know from police reports, 90 percent of crimes happen after 11 o’clock at night and are often related to the consumption of alcohol.

This bill is important. Labour members and, in particular, the Māori Party have been promoting anti-smoking bills, and so has the Green Party. Alcohol is a substance that harms not only the person who consumes it but also the people around that person, because of the effect on driving and because of people going around drunk. Cigarettes often have bad effects on the consumer. Alcohol often impacts on family relationships, on unborn babies—as has been said before—and on the wider community. So, for the life of me, I personally cannot understand why we need more outlets and why we have loosened regulations. That is something that, for me at least, I cannot understand. It is something that causes so much harm in the community and it is being allowed so openly and so much.

Corner dairies have been mentioned. There are a couple of issues there. I personally do not believe that dairies should be allowed to sell alcohol, but, at the same time, I have to say that some of my Indian friends have said that there has to be a level playing field. We cannot target just the dairies. If outlets like dairies have to stop selling alcohol, why not the big supermarkets? If we are going to look at the hours of opening of these outlets, there has to be a universal rule. Whether it is a dairy, a small shop, an RSA, or a supermarket, the rules must be similar. I have been approached by a number of dairy owners who are very concerned about some of the issues discussed in the Law Commission report on alcohol by Geoffrey Palmer. They are concerned that they might be targeted. We have to make sure that small corner dairies’ interests are taken into account when we are considering this bill. But I personally do not believe that dairies should sell alcohol, because they are supposed to be selling food and other items that are useful for the community.

All in all, I support this bill. But I am really surprised tonight to hear members on the Government side of the House all telling nice stories about how bad alcohol is but still not supporting this bill. That is very disappointing.

Once again, I commend George Hawkins, my friend and colleague, who has brought this bill to the House, and the effort he has put in behind this bill. I know that on our side of the House most of us, if not all of us, will be supporting this bill. I am delighted that the Green Party and the Māori Party will be supporting this bill, as well. With those few words, I commend this bill to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): The question is that the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill be read a second time. Those who are of that opinion will say Aye—

Hon George Hawkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I request a personal vote be taken.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): You can do that once I have put the question. I want to get the sense of the House—that is the process. The question is that the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill be read a second time. Those who are of that opinion will say Aye, the contrary No. The Ayes have it. [Interruption] The Noes have it?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Labour—Manurewa) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I request a personal vote be taken.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): OK, let us have a personal vote.