CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) : I move, That the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill be now read a third time. This week is the second anniversary of the murder of Jhia Te Tua. In the 18 months to May 2007 around 180 gang-related incidents were attended by Wanganui police, most of which resulted in the arrest and charging of gang members. Obviously, the charges were brought forward under existing legislation. The incidents were minor on some occasions, and they were major on others. Police were shot at during some incidents, as were gang members, whilst members of the public were in the vicinity, and, predictably, an innocent child died. This behaviour is replicated around the country in the biggest cities and the smallest rural towns.

Then, as a result of collaboration between the Wanganui District Council, Wanganui police, and the community, the initiative was taken to draft a local bill to ban gang patches from certain public locations around Wanganui. The Local Government Act 2002 provides a mechanism for communities to make laws to deal with local issues. It does not prevent the inauguration of criminal law on a local basis, and one would think that if the previous Labour Government, on introducing the Local Government Act, had wanted to achieve that, surely it would have specifically excluded it. The local council, police, and community drafted this bill, and consulted on the proposal through public meetings, submissions, and a referendum, even before the public consultation as part of the local bill process. Those who took the time to engage in the process overwhelmingly supported the bill.

Opponents of this bill now have to tell the people of Wanganui why, in this free and democratic society, they can validly seek to withhold from them the right to access the provisions of the Local Government Act. Many opponents make the rather blunt statement that the provisions of the bill will not work. It has to be said quite forcefully that opponents who are parroting such statements need to state what they believe this bill is targeted at. It is targeted at the intimidatory nature of wearing and displaying gang insignia. It is not an attempt to outlaw gangs, stop gang offending, or bring about world peace; it is a narrowly focused instrument to stop intimidation by virtue of the display of gang insignia—that is it.

Passing this bill will prevent gang members from wearing gang insignia in certain places around Wanganui, and that is important on a number of levels. Scruffy-looking individuals may well intimidate people by means of their mere presence or their behaviour. It may be a result of their dress or their tattoos, or it could be a result of their unkempt condition, language, company, or whatever else it may be. But when a Black Power or Mongrel Mob patch is put on those individuals, they become to the observer the manifestation of all the publicity in respect of criminal offending by that gang. Just by wearing that patch they become, in the eyes of the onlooker, rapists, murderers, assailants, or random killers who are likely to break into spontaneous violence at any stage. That is the history of the Mongrel Mob, Black Power, and Hell’s Angels. Those gangs exploit that record. They exploit that history, they publicise it, and they honour and applaud it, and that is intimidating. The intimidation is directly tied to the recognition of the insignia and all that it represents. The display and wearing of the gang patch creates that intimidation, and it is precisely this activity that the bill addresses.

The implementation of this legislation will remove the imperative to defend a gang member’s patch or attack the patch of another. It creates neutral turf, which is a concept that the gangs understand very, very well. It does not make opposing gang members blind to the presence of a rival gang, but it removes the “in your face”, obnoxious presence of rival gangs. The removal of gang patches takes the heat out of the presence of rival gangs, and that is why gang patches are prohibited in courts, pubs, police stations, schools, concert venues, and shows, and in a myriad of other premises and places around the country. Opponents of this bill need to explain the inconsistency in their argument if they differentiate between the prohibitions on gang insignia that exist currently and the proposed prohibitions contained in this bill.

It is also important to note that as part of research to canvass youth attitudes, needs, and wants in Wanganui across a range of issues, which was carried out before the proposal of this bill, 49 percent of Wanganui youth spontaneously responded that intimidation by gangs and gang associates was the single-biggest threat to their feeling safe in their own community. Opponents of this bill need to explain why Parliament should not take this small step to allow young people to feel safer in their own communities.

Just in recent times we had an attack, gang on gang, in the main street of Wanganui, outside the Work and Income New Zealand office. It occurred at 11 o’clock one weekday morning in the main street of Wanganui. It is captured on video surveillance. There is a group of young patched members standing outside the Work and Income office. A car pulls up, there is an exchange between patched-up rival members from that vehicle and the group, and then there is a severe beating that goes on right in the middle of the central business district and right in the middle of the morning in Wanganui. Although it is true to say that people in Wanganui can go from one year to the next without seeing a gang member in their community or up the main street, there are people who live in suburbs in Wanganui and live within the gang community who are confronted by them every day.

What is the feedback from the gangs? We heard from the police last week that they have had feedback from the gangs that the gangs recognise the position that this legislation puts them in. Gang members recognise that the loss of a gang patch by them is the single-biggest insult that they can give to their own gang. So what we are expecting, and what the police are expecting, is that the gang members within Wanganui will, on the vast majority of occasions, respect the prohibition that is laid out within the parallel legislation of the by-law in Wanganui, just as they do now when they go to court, the police station, a show, or their kids’ sports day.

I have known gang members for decades. I have been attacked by them, and I have responded in kind on occasions. At the same time I know some individual gang members very well. I know their kids, I know their behaviours, I know their flaws, and they know mine. As individuals I can respect some of their virtues and values, but collectively and when operating as a gang, there is nothing to respect. When it comes to patched-up gang members intimidating law-abiding members of the public there is nothing to respect, and I will do whatever I can to remove the ability of these groups to continue with that intimidation. I challenge the opponents of this bill to have the courage and the integrity to explain to this House and the people of Wanganui why they will not allow us to take this small step. I ask who the hell the opponents think they are to try to withhold from the people of Wanganui their right to address this narrow issue in this precise way.

I state very firmly that I am enormously proud to represent a community that has the courage and the will to take this stand, knowing as it does that to move in this way will highlight a nationwide problem that most towns seek to ignore—or, at best, minimise and mitigate—and knowing that the legislation will bring with it negative press and publicity, and will cause confusion as the media grab the low-hanging fruit of gang activity in order to sell newspapers and air time. The media never give a tenth of that publicity to the many, many positive aspects of life in Wanganui and the huge successes that our people realise every day. So I challenge the media to act responsibly, and to show the balance that they continually wax lyrical about in their reporting of incidents in Wanganui.

Finally, I restate that Wanganui as a community, and especially Mayor Laws and Inspector Duncan MacLeod, have used precisely the provisions of the Local Government Act to address a criminal behaviour that the city has the guts to admit exists in our community. I demand to know of the opponents of the bill why they think they have the right to deny Wanganui the opportunity to act in this way.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) : I join with the previous speaker, Chester Borrows, in showing my respect for the Wanganui District Council. I met with Mayor Michael Laws a couple of weeks ago, and he put his case very passionately, along with Mr Borrows today and throughout this process, in respect of supporting the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill.

Labour members have been asked by Mr Borrows and others why we are not supporting the bill. The first test, I think, of any legislation is whether it will work. I do not mean that in any disrespectful way to the people of Wanganui. Mayor Michael Laws said to me, and Mr Burrows has said—

David Garrett: Borrows! Get his name right! He’s been here much longer; you should know his name.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE:—there is a chirping from the back row—that they passionately support the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill and asked why Wanganui should not be allowed to trial it. Mayor Michael Laws and I had quite a robust debate over a couple of hours and a couple of sandwiches. I put it to him that, in essence, although the bill is well intentioned, it deals with an issue—not to be trivial—of apparel. Whatever the genius from ACT said concerning Mr Borrows or Burrows, ACT is a party that has flip-flopped. ACT said the bill was repugnant, and now it is voting for it. I will be interested in Mr Hide’s rationale around that, but we will not destroy the debate by getting into the “h” word. I put it to Mr Laws that the problem is that the bill deals with apparel. I note the issue of the link, as he and others have put it, between intimidation and apparel. I put it to the mayor that we can take their patches off, and I am for that, but then what are they replaced with? They are replaced with a bandanna, or a bracelet, or a belt, or whatever. The bill does not achieve its goal.

The other point about this bill, as I understand it, is that—quite rightly—it does not quarantine the whole of Wanganui. It does not ban this apparel from the whole of the Wanganui District; it quarantines certain parts of the area. It is a bit like the bill that I sponsored some years ago, which was the anti - boy racer bill that attempted a nationwide solution. My own council in Christchurch wanted to add to that and it set about quarantining off areas of the metropolitan city. So the boy racers moved from one area to another. I am not comparing boy-racing activity with the grotesque activity of gangs—I just use it as an analogy. They are on two different planes, and I accept that. But I think we will find that gangs, if they wish, will move. They will move to the other side of the street. They will wear their patches over on the other side of Wanganui that is not quarantined off. So the issue for us in Labour is whether this bill works.

The other issue is why a local authority should be held responsible when nationwide solutions developed by Governments should actually be responsible for dealing with these issues. I ask the Government, quite interestingly, why, for instance, it kept postponing the criminal proceeds legislation, which of course would get very tough on gangs and deal to gangs. My view—and I would be interested in colleagues’ opinions—from what I have heard from the police and others, is that the way to get to gangs is to follow the money. The Police Association made comments to that effect to us in select committee this morning—one must follow the money.

Chester Borrows: They support the bill.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I accept that. One deals to the money. The issue of apparel, although visible, is secondary. One will not get rid of gangs by taking patches off them, but, again, I pay respect to Wanganui. Its people have looked at a solution for the local community. They have put forward some ideas and they want to have a go at putting them into action. Mayor Michael Laws did say to me that Wanganui may pursue these measures, regardless of what this Parliament does, through its own by-laws and regulations; that may or may not be possible. But I do have respect for any local authority that looks for local solutions.

We accept that gangs are intimidatory. They are grotesque. They cause huge angst to people’s lives, even to those who are not touched by the violence of gangs. They feel it when they go to the local park, and see those folks who behave like thugs. They do not want to have to take their kids out on a picnic and be sitting beside the Mongrel Mob or Black Power. This is not a situation they want. I accept that. But the question from a logical point of view is whether this legislation will work. Will it meet its objectives and actually stop those who wish to intimidate? Will it take their patches off, but will they then put on some other sort of intimidatory apparel? And intimidatory apparel is what we are interested in. Perhaps it will be a tattoo with “Mongrel Mob” on the forehead—a bit difficult to get rid of that, I would have thought. Will it stop them from actually engaging in the grotesque and intimidatory activity they do engage in? I think not. But, as I say, I pay respects to the local authority.

I want, for a moment, given that Mr Garrett has been so vocal on this, to touch on the ACT position because I think that is an interesting position. I think Chester Borrows, Michael Laws, and others have had the best intentions with this bill. They have acted with a high degree of integrity. I respect them for it. But then I look at a quote from that venerable leader, that bastion of honour, Rodney Hide, who on April 2008 said the following: “I am so pleased that Mr Chester Borrows has relieved me of the obligation of voting for this shocking Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. I said that the ACT party would vote for the bill to go to a select committee. We could never vote for its third reading, but I thought the debate would be useful.” I would just be interested to see the vote tonight by the bastion of honour and integrity that Mr Hide paints himself to be every day. I would invite Mr Hide to tell the House why his position has changed.

Although we in Labour respect the proposition, and we respect the integrity of what Wanganui and the local member is trying to do, our position has been consistent right through. The test for us is whether this will actually have the effect that those people in Wanganui want it to have. I look over at the ACT Party—just look at them all there, Mr Boscawen, Mr Garrett, and Mr Hide, and there will be a few of the other riff-raff around here somewhere, I am sure—and I ask them what has changed. Is it the tantalising what I think Mr Peters called the “baubles of office”. Maybe it is. I am a Catholic; maybe it is “a few pieces of silver” to quote the Biblical phrase. But what has changed?

David Garrett: Maybe we listened to the House?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Mr Garrett said maybe he listened. So I suppose that means that Mr Hide’s position of April 2008 is wrong when he called this bill a shocker and said that he would not vote for it is wrong. They cannot be both right. But I would be interested to know what sort of great moral virtue has moved them from their position of being stunned, shocked, and despairing that this bill might go through to now lining up in the lobbies like sheep to vote for it. I suspect there is a reason. It has been highlighted by my colleagues, and it is to do with commitments, or otherwise, that they have sought from the Government. But there is a word for that, it begins with “h” and I will not use it out of respect for the Assistant Speaker in this House. They will live with that. It appears that the old values in the ACT Party are for sale at whatever cost—at whatever cost. It is a free market, is it not? Put the old principle up for sale, get the highest bidder, and they are in—sold. Well, people judge that action for what it is. I am sure that Mayor Michael Laws will disagree with my position and my party’s position on this. But I think that even he would concede that we have been consistent and we have been honourable—and that we have a position on this bill.

I conclude by again paying tribute to the local member. He is a member with experience in law enforcement. I also pay tribute to the mayor and those people who have put their heads round the table to try to look for a local solution to a pretty awful problem. From my party’s point of view we are looking at what is happening, for instance, across the ditch in South Australia. What Mike Rann, the Labor Premier of South Australia, and Michael Atkinson, the Attorney-General, are doing is pretty robust. I have got to say I think gang legislation there still needs to be tested in terms of its effectiveness and validity. I think they are about to declare their first gang. It will be, I suspect, 12 months before we see whether the legislation is effective, but we are watching closely and learning from what is happening over there. I think that is cutting-edge legislation, but as to whether it is effective, the jury is out. But I say again to the Government that the criminal proceeds legislation is something that it has sort of dilly-dallied around with. It could actually bang it through and, of course, that would have huge effect in terms of dealing with gangs. If we follow the money, follow the structure, and follow the organisation, we deal to that. Again, that is what the South Australians appear to be doing with their legislation. But if we simply deal with an issue of apparel, well-intentioned though it is, I do not believe we will come back to this House, say, in a year’s time or 2 years’ time and say that this is the nut that we cracked to solve the problem.

But I think we have a consistent position, I think we can respect local authorities, and it should not deter local authorities in other places from looking for innovative solutions and going to their local members and saying: “Hey, we want to put some ideas up.” and then for us to properly examine them in the House. At least they will say about the Labour side of the House, and in respect, I think, of most parties—I see that National’s Sandra Goudie, chair of the Law and Order Committee, is here—that we have been consistent, unlike our small friends from ACT who loiter in the corridors over there. I commend the comments to the House.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I am very pleased to rise and speak to the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. I will speak slowly for the benefit of the signers who are representing the Deaf community through the Chamber and signing on its behalf. I think that everybody needs to recognise and remember that they are here, and speak a little more slowly to assist them in what is quite a difficult task.

I am very proud to follow my most excellent colleague, Chester Borrows, who has done a magnificent job in presenting this bill to the House and in his representation in the House. Wanganui, like many other metro and provincial centres, has experienced gang activity and confrontations in recent times, culminating in a number of public attacks and the enhanced recruitment abilities of the gangs. We only have to look at some of the headlines in the late months of 2008 to see such activity. For example, in October 2008: “Wanganui: a city driven by gang rivalry”; in November 2008: “Man may have been killed over clothing colour”; and in December 2008: “Toddler’s death exposes ‘true evil’ ”. Those are just three headlines from one part of the country; I am sure there are many more throughout the country.

I applaud Michael Laws, as Mayor of the Wanganui District Council, for all his efforts to do something about the intimidation and fear that gangs engender in Wanganui. I do not know whether many members have had an opportunity to either read or hear the letter from Michael Laws, but I will read from it today. Before I do that, I make a particular point. The previous speaker, Clayton Cosgrove, said that the New Zealand Police Association said that this bill will make no difference. In actual fact, the Police Association, the Police National Headquarters, and local police all support this bill. It is very important that members, when speaking to this bill, do not confuse it with other bills going through the House. I think that is what happened in the case of the previous speaker, because it is very, very clear that the Police Association, the Police National Headquarters, and local police all support this bill.

I will read a bit of the letter from Michael Laws, which gives us some understanding of why there is such support: “There is clear evidence from police statistics that offences involving gang confrontations with a public safety element have been on the increase in Wanganui. The murder of a 2-year-old child was a direct consequence of these kinds of confrontations, and that is confrontations between rival groups or rival gangs.” The local community wishes to feel safe from confrontation and gang intimidation. That is what my most learned colleague Chester Borrows earlier explained quite clearly to the House. The whole aspect of this bill is around intimidation, and that is why it is based around the prohibition of gang insignia. There was a Supplementary Order Paper defining “gang insignia” a bit further so that it did not include tattoos. I thought that was a very sensible and important modification to the bill. But that is what it is about. I have recently come to learn that parliamentary security prevents within parliamentary precincts the wearing of clothing that bears strong gang insignia. The courts do likewise, and I am sure there are other places that do the same.

It was said that this bill was going to be for Wanganui only. That reminded me very much of the liquor laws, where councils have by-laws banning liquor in public places in certain areas of their districts. Many councils throughout New Zealand have taken up the opportunity to have liquor bans. Those bans have made a huge difference to their communities. It has made people and families within those communities feel so much safer at New Year’s Eve and times like that.

Sue Moroney: But liquor doesn’t have legs.

SANDRA GOUDIE: The relevancy—as I am explaining to that member if she would like to take a moment to listen— is that other councils that see this bill enacted will also want the same opportunities that Mayor Michael Laws is promoting for Wanganui. There is not a schedule attached to the bill, so they can just add their council’s name to the bill. I believe that other councils are watching to see what happens as a result of this bill. I believe that it will be successful, it will make a difference, and other councils will want to do the same. In time to come we might very well see other local bills being instigated, or a modification of this legislation to allow a schedule to be added so that other councils can take the same opportunity.

I will read further from Michael Laws’ letter: “The council, members of the public, and gangs alike are increasingly aware of public buildings in Wanganui and New Zealand generally where the wearing or display of gang insignia is already prohibited and that is the courthouse and the police stations included.” There are also such provisions in other countries around the world; I will name two. The US has gang injunction orders, which designate a geographical area in a town or city and enjoin specified gangs, named gang members, or both from engaging in otherwise lawful conduct within that designated area. Also, England and Wales have two pieces of legislation, one enacted in 1998 and one in 2003, that work in parallel to control antisocial behaviour and unacceptable behaviour. So this provision is not something new; it has been undertaken by the mayor and the council of Wanganui as an initiative that they want to try. They want to bring about some provision for a safer community for their people to live in so that they do not feel intimidated by the wearing of gang insignia and the behaviour of the gangs living within their communities.

At present the council has no ability to control when gang insignia may be worn or displayed, and that is what this bill is all about. There is discernable evidence of antisocial activity whenever gang members wear their patches. Chester Borrows talked in his presentation about the percentage of young people who felt that having gangs present in their community was very intimidating. The statistical figures he gave were very high. This bill provides a new tool for the council: it enables the council to prohibit the wearing or display of gang insignia in specified places. That is exactly the way in which liquor bans operate. The bill will also reduce the likelihood of confrontation between gangs.

I think that Chester Borrows has done an extraordinary job in presenting this bill to the House, and I commend him and the Law and Order Committee for all their efforts. I am incredibly disappointed that Labour has, yet again, fumbled with the ball and failed to support such a worthy initiative.

Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. During the course of this speech I will speak in both English and Māori. Firstly, I acknowledge Chester Borrows. As I have said on earlier occasions, he is bringing forward something that has attracted a considerable level of support from his own community. I am not entirely sure what percentage of the Māori community is behind this initiative. Despite obvious differences with Mayor Michael Laws, Mr Borrows has been voted into that position in “Whanganui”—and Mr Laws may not like the “h” letter, but he is entitled to appeal to his local member of Parliament to have the House consider, dismiss, or pass—even by the narrowest of margins—such an initiative. I acknowledge those two people.

Engari, me huri au ki te kaupapa ake o tēnei pire mō tō tātou iwi, te iwi Māori. Aroha ki ā tātou mokopuna me ā tātou tamariki, ka pēhia ki raro nā roto i tēnei ture tā te mea, ina whakawhiua te tangata ki tēnei ture, ko te mātotoru o te hunga ka whakawhiua, he mokopuna nā te iwi Māori.

[But let me turn to the real effect that this bill will have on our Māori people. I sympathise with our grandchildren and children who will suffer under this law, because when a person is punished by it, the vast number of those who will be affected will be grandchildren of the Māori people.]

I am the first to agree that there is a disproportionate problem amongst many Māori families. Too many of their sons and, unfortunately, their daughters are now living in a gang culture. One has only to read about the efforts of the Housing New Zealand Corporation, clumsy as they are, in dealing with people in State houses. But that small episode shows us that by using this type of legislation and trying to effect a change in that social behaviour based on insignia or apparel, we will create, I dare say, a set of unintended consequences. We will set up a situation, in my view, where there will be a new, fresh range of penalties, or reasons for further marginalisation and alienation of the women and the children who are affiliated with these men.

I have no truck whatsoever, I say to Mr Borrows, with the men in these gangs, and I rather suspect that the problems the member’s colleague has with the Ngāwhā prison are more than likely to be related to their ongoing conduct—criminal, violent, foul, and menacing—even in jail. But the key point is whether the passage of this legislation will effect a change in lifestyle, value systems, and general approach to other people, society, property, and those things we consider to be general rights.

I know where the ACT Party has finally rested upon the matter. It parachuted in a notable member of the anti-crime constituency high on its list. He has come here, and, in a very short period of time, has endeavoured to make a name not only for himself but also for the people who sent him. This is the people’s House at the end of the day, and he is more than entitled to do that.

Members on this side on the House are not keen to indulge or encourage gangs, but we do not believe that passing this law and giving yesterday’s dog registration inspectors, rabbit board inspectors, and drainage inspectors a new range of powers to run around penalising and chasing gang members will change anything. The reality is that the burden will fall on local government officials to make sure that this legislation is meaningful. They will have to identify those areas where gang insignia is tolerated or not tolerated, and I have felt for a while that this will feed a new raft of legal activism, and that is not something I am keen to see. Tāku e āwangawanga nei, ka whāngaitia ngā rōia ki te hari i ngā take pēnei ki te kooti mō te koretake noa iho nei. Me kaua tātou e hanga i ngā ture ka mutu, hoinā nō te hunga ka whiwhi, ko ngā rōia. Engari, me waihanga e tātou he ture e awhiatia ana e te whānau, ia whāea, ia matua, e tautokotia ana e te mārea whānui.

[My concern is that lawyers will benefit by taking a matter like this—of no consequence at all—to court. We should not make laws where lawyers are the only ones in the end that make a gain. But we should be creating a law that is embraced by the family—each mother and each father—and is supported by the public at large.]

As I have just said in Māori, the legal fraternity will gear up to this measure. Undoubtedly, it will have a divisive effect, in my view, in terms of societal relations in Wanganui. It will provide a slogan, I guess, for some of the people of Wanganui to hammer the gang members in their area. Let us be honest. The majority of those members are the tangata whenua there. Until the ongoing reasons that drive children and grandchildren to be compelled, dedicated, and coerced into this lifestyle are addressed, I do not think that by policing fashion, by policing apparel, and by policing insignia we will see much change other than window dressing. Now, it could be that those gang members will move into Simon Power’s area. I hope that not too many of them go to Marton, because my kōtiro goes to school there.

Members on the other side of the House may find that it would have been a better approach to exploit the legislation that we brought to the House’s attention—in particular, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill. If we want to snuff out the life-force of gangs, then we must address what is feeding them. It is not just bravado; it is wealth, lucre from ill-gotten gains. It is the ability to celebrate and enjoy a culture of violence and mayhem fed by drugs, alcohol, and whatever stunt they can get away with in front of a District Court judge, or it is the ability to avoid detection by the police. At the end of the day, just as the Inland Revenue Department is constantly gouging and looking for rampant illegal behaviour in the commercial world—and I hope it is busy with the dregs of the finance lending companies, as well—it is that level of attention that this problem deserves.

We have heard from the member from the Hauraki-Coromandel area, Sandra Goudie, but if she believed half of what she was saying, this bill would be a Government bill. It is not a Government bill, so it is disingenuous of Sandra Goudie to stand up and endeavour to elevate this bill as if it is National policy. This bill is evidence that National members have been compelled as a consequence of that very unfortunate experiment with Rodney Hide, which will cost those members dearly. But I will speak more about that on another day.

The other matter we need to acknowledge is that Michael Laws has railed incessantly over this issue. He is in a privileged position. He enjoys access to the airwaves and is the civic leader of that area. But have his efforts changed the behaviour of the Māori pocket of that population who are wound up with gangs? No, they have not. His position provides an opportunity for sloganeering, and he has a mandate to do that. I always thought of Wanganui as quite a temperate kind of place, occupied by people who had a judicious and sensible approach to life. Of course, I have reviewed that situation and that view given that those people consistently vote for Mayor Michael Laws from that particular area—although Mr Laws was taught by his colleagues, the members sitting opposite.

So, in peroration, I say that this bill is not a bad attempt, but it is not one that Labour members will back. If one wants to kill gang culture, then one must cut off the life supply of ill-gotten gains from dope, drugs, and the other illegal activities that sustain gangs’ existence. In relation to whether changing and policing insignia will bring about that change, I say that, no, it will not.

Will we come up with an alternative? Well, my colleague Clayton Cosgrove here is toiling away as we speak, having regular communication with senior Australian political leaders. He is investigating how their model works. That model was generated after a very serious incident in the airport in Sydney. He is looking at that model’s portability and its applicability here. This bill, though, is starting with one little dot—admittedly, it is a brown dot with a poorly conceived tattoo called, largely, the Māori gang members of Wanganui—and is trying to somehow cause that to be spread around the country as though it were some kind of creeping plant.

I say to the Government that if it was serious about dealing with this problem, it would bring in its own bill, with the imprimatur of the Government. It would have it funded and budgeted for, and it would also enjoin broad support for it from the tail of the fish, to Te Wai Pounamu, to Invercargill. And, yes, I know that there are Pākehā members in gangs, and Asian people and Pacific Islanders, but the last time I checked, gangs were predominantly Māori, and the bill will not work. Kia ora tātou.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : The Green Party is strongly opposed to the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. Of course, we are also strongly opposed to street gangs and criminal gangs, and we are not keen on gangs going around wearing gang insignia, but we do not see this bill as being a solution to the problems posed by gangs. Serious civil liberties problems are thrown into the mix, as well.

If we look at the bill we see that it gives unprecedented powers, I would say, to local body councils. Under clause 5 of the bill, the Wanganui District Council may from time to time identify an organisation as a gang. The definition of “gang” is somewhat loose. According to clause 5(3)(b), apart from having a symbol or sign, gangs or their supporters or associates have to collectively “promote, encourage, or engage in a pattern of criminal activity.” Under the bill, then, gangs do not have to engage in any criminal activity, or to have ever engaged in any criminal activity; if they are seen to encourage criminal activity, then that is sufficient for them to be defined as a gang by a council—not by the Government but by a council. That is a very bad precedent.

The Government lists certain gangs in the bill. I know of some of those gangs, such as Black Power and Hell’s Angels, but there are some I do not know of, such as one that is called Mothers, which I have never heard of. I know there are groups of mothers with children who often meet in the central city—

Hon Maryan Street: That will be the League of Mothers.

KEITH LOCKE: That is the League of Mothers, is it? Oh, I am sorry. That is an illustration of the confusion the average citizen could come across. He or she might see a group of mothers—a “League of Mothers”—who have little symbols on their clothes, then get horribly confused and call the police. That is just an example.

According to clause 5(4) of the bill, the provisions will “reduce the potential for confrontation by or between gangs.” I have a little bit of experience with gangs from knowing some people when I was working in industrial jobs in Lower Hutt. I used to pick up and take to work a member of the Mongrel Mob when I was working for the Lower Hutt City Council labourers. I know the great efforts he went to to try to work out whether any members of Black Power were in the vicinity. He would look out the window for Black Power members, and he would not go into a pub without surveying it first to check that a member of the opponent Black Power gang, etc., was not in there. The Black Power and Mongrel Mob members sort of know each other in a place like Wanganui. I am sure they more or less know who each other is. We could argue a strong case that if they are wearing their symbols, they can, at least, be seen from afar, and individual members of opponent gangs can take steps to avoid a confrontation. Usually, they do avoid confrontations; at other times, they do not, of course. To me, the fact that they are not wearing a patch in no way reduces the potential for confrontation.

The bill is also supposed to “prevent or reduce the likelihood of intimidation or harassment of members of the public …” It was said by Chester Borrows that somehow the patch creates intimidation. I have never been intimidated by a patch. I have been intimidated by people with a violent demeanour who raise their fists and things like that, but I have never been intimidated by a patch. I cannot really see how that works. In fact, banning the wearing of gang insignia could lead to people in the central city, or wherever the ban takes place, feeling less safe. Chester Borrows talked about the fact that it is not that people are scruffy that creates the intimidation, but you could argue—I am not arguing for insignia; I am just dealing with this particular idea that somehow we feel safer when gang members are not patched—that when you come across a big, scruffy individual in the central city where wearing gang insignia is banned, and you do not really know whether that person is a member of a gang, you feel a bit hesitant towards that person. You feel a little bit, perhaps, intimidated.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has at least twice mentioned in the last sentence the word “you”. That refers to me. Please do not bring the Speaker into the debate.

KEITH LOCKE: Oh, I see. Thank you very much. All I am saying is that banning the wearing of gang insignia does not necessarily lead to less intimidation of members of the public in the central city area, for example.

There is also the question of policing. One could argue that the police will find it a bit easier to do policing if members of a certain element of the criminal community—namely, members of criminal gangs—are identified. It might actually be better for policing if other criminals were to identify themselves with signs on their chests, such as “bank robber”, “car stealer”, or whatever. I do not think that banning the wearing of insignia actually makes policing more effective. In this case I am not arguing for insignia; I am just indicating the contradictions and absurdities of this bill.

It is good, at least, that, during the Committee stage, tattoos were taken out of the scope of the bill, because including them was very discriminatory. There is a certain element of racism in the bill, because the gangs that are potentially identified under the bill tend to be non-white gangs. They are not White Power or skinhead gangs. Those sorts of gangs do not tend to have signs and insignia, but they are just as dangerous, and they beat up people, too.

If we do not allow the wearing of insignia, then the gangs will fall back on other forms of identification, as we see in Auckland with the colour yellow representing the Killer Bees through different forms of yellow on clothing. We have had the sad case of Jordan Herewini, who was killed because he was wearing a yellow shirt and was mistaken for a member of the Killer Bees. We might have more and more of those sorts of cases if we force the gangs back to using other forms of identification.

As I said, we are not keen on insignia or gangs, but this bill will not necessarily lead to better policing or to fewer deaths. It will not lead to fewer people being beaten up; less gang confrontation, intimidation or harassment; or anything else. The precedents it could set in terms of our personal freedom and civil liberties are very bad. Once we start banning certain forms of expression—in this case insignia, and possibly moving on, if that does not work, to colours, etc.—it is very bad. It is particularly bad when we give those very general powers that I have described to local bodies and councillors, who are not trained for doing that sort of policing. In Parliament we are supposedly brought in here as trained and experienced people, part of party groups, to be able to deal with such matters as we are dealing with today. Now we are passing down that law implementation and even, in a sense, law-making function to those of the level of councillors. That is not good enough. The Green Party will vote against this oppressive legislation.

DAVID GARRETT (ACT) : This is the third time I have spoken on the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill, and I openly confess, without any embarrassment or shame, that I have found it very difficult to make a decision on it. Earlier, Mr Cosgrove referred to that as flip-flopping. I wish I could remember exactly the quote from John Kenneth Galbraith, who said something like: “I call a man who changes his mind as a result of new evidence very sensible. What kind do you call him?”. I listened very carefully to all of the speeches. I say at the outset that I was impressed by Mr Jones’ speech. He referred to me as a piece of “rock snot” when I first entered the House, but even he made a sensible and thoughtful contribution to the debate, as have many members on all sides of the House, and there have been few—if any—exceptions to that.

It is an open secret that there has been a considerable amount of passionate discussion within the ACT Party on this bill, both in the electorate and in our caucus. It is also fair to say that, as a result, all members of our caucus have carefully studied all of the speeches from all of the members who have contributed to the debate on this bill. I am very happy to acknowledge that a great deal has been said on all sides of the House, and that all contributions, perhaps with one or two minor exceptions, have made a great deal of sense. That has contributed to my difficulty in forming a firm and implacable view. I sit next to members of the Māori Party, and, unless I am much mistaken, my neighbours, both as individuals and as a party, have a very good and respectful relationship with each other. I have listened carefully to the points made by the Māori Party, and I will listen again to the points made by my colleague Rahui Katene. I say kia ora to Ms Katene, but I think I will continue to respectfully disagree with her.

In that state of confusion, I found myself asking, both when at caucus meetings and when by myself, what to do. The answer was to go up to Wanganui. I went up to Wanganui on Monday. I went there for one reason but to do several things: to gather evidence, talk to people, listen to people, and look at some of the benighted areas that Mr Borrows was kind enough to take me around. I do not know how many people have seen the house where little Jhia Te Tua was shot, but I tell members that it was sobering. It was sobering, as were the smashed out, graffitied, glassless shopping areas where decent businessmen—small-business owners—had been driven out by these kinds of people.

From the time I landed in Wanganui on Monday morning—rather too early for my liking—I listened to what people said. I asked local people what they thought. I can tell those who are interested that, excluding Mayor Laws and the police, the score was one taxi driver in favour of the bill, one taxi driver against, two hotel receptionists—when they got over their giggling—in favour, and one waiter in favour.

I then went to meet with the area commander of the Wanganui Police District, Inspector Duncan MacLeod, and five of his heads of department. The reason for that meeting was quite simple: on behalf of my party, both in the electorate and in caucus, I wanted to put to him the questions that members of our party had raised—very vehemently, in some cases—and that the members of this House had raised. I will not touch on them in detail; I will mention only one, the very good question that Mr Jones, Mr Cosgrove, and Mr Locke touched on, which is the question of whether wearing or displaying gang insignia per se should be a crime. A significant faction of our party in the electorate says that it should not be, that it is an interference in free speech, and that we should wait until gang members actually do some crime. That is a pretty sound theoretical answer, especially if one is sitting in a university.

I put that question to Inspector MacLeod and his men. Inspector MacLeod told me that under the ludicrous code of honour—for want of a better phrase—that governs gang behaviour, simply displaying a patch, whether out of a window, on the back, or waving it above the head like the clowns do, virtually guarantees violence in itself. This is because rival gang members, under their stupid, childish, macho code, feel duty bound to try to “skin” the other member. Skinning is taking the patch. This occurs when only one member is wearing a patch, the policemen said.

Before I forget, one thing struck me in that meeting in Wanganui—the 2-hour meeting I had with those policemen. There was one guy there who was pretty much the stereotypical hardened cop. He was about 45 and strongly built. He said to me, pretty much as Mr Borrows said a moment ago, that, individually, without their patches, he could speak to a number of gang members he knew, and on one level he could find a connection. That policeman looked me straight in the eye. I cannot repeat the word he used in respect of gang members who are patched up, because I am in Parliament, but it was to the effect that he is very frightened. I thought that was a very brave thing for that policeman to say, and I was very surprised.

Mr Borrows gave an example that I was going to touch on, which is about the Work and Income New Zealand incident, but it is one of several that was discussed at that meeting. This incident was classic. The patched member turned up at Work and Income New Zealand, another member was there but not patched up, and one idiot was obliged to try to skin the other. A horrible scene of violence ensued at 11 o’clock in the morning, with ordinary people watching. Why should people see this?

One of the greatest concerns of our party and of Mr Cosgrove and many others in this House is whether this bill will work. I think that was my first question to Inspector MacLeod. I said “Quite frankly, Commander, we are going to look damn silly if we support this bill and it doesn’t work or, worse still, if you don’t enforce it. And in a year’s time we will be laughed at by the other side.” He said “I commit to you that we will enforce this bill. We will enforce it. Sometimes we may get them on closed-circuit television when the cops are not actually there at the time, so they will have to go round and get them later if they can identify them.” He committed to enforcing the bill.

Mr Borrows has touched on something else that was said about whether the bill would work. The policeman I mentioned a moment ago who was intimidated when gang members were patched up said he had had casual, off-the-record conversations with gang members. In their stupid code, they do not want to lose the patch and they have said “No, bro; we won’t be wearing it—not in that place, because we don’t want to lose it.” So who really knows? The bill is a social experiment, is it not? We will find out whether the bill works, but speaking for myself and for my colleague John Boscawen, we will be voting in favour of it. Thank you.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) : While we have been gathered today in this Chamber, in Murupara they laid to rest Percy Marunui Murphy, Ngāti Manawa’s last remaining 28th Māori Battalion warrior and New Zealand’s first Māori mayor. I am told he was an honourable man, a man who enlisted in the Māori Battalion as a young 16-year-old and lived a long and distinguished life of service to the people of Ngāti Hui, Ngāti Manawa, Murupara, and the wider Waiariki region. My colleague Te Ururoa Flavell is there at the moment, paying his respects. As they held the final poroporoaki at Rangitahi Marae, Te Ururoa Flavell told me that he thought back to another tangi a few months ago. That tangi was for a young man, a 16-year-old who lost his life to war. But it was not a war on offshore lands; it was a war at home in which tomahawks, axes, and knives became the weapons of final destruction. It was a war in which Jordan Herewini was simply the innocent party in a rumble between two rival gangs. He was the tragic casualty of a turf war that escalated into a violent confrontation on Murupara streets.

Those two men must be on our minds as we look at the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill to lessen the threat of gangs in the specific location of Wanganui district. Their memory deserves to be honoured by a future that values peace, where children are free to walk without fear, and where justice prevails and whānau ora reigns.

One might think that the devastation created by the after-effects of gang violence in Murupara, Wanganui, or Invercargill might lead us, the Māori Party, to support any legislation that seeks to suppress gangs. We would not be out on a limb if we did so. The media have been salivating with calls for retribution, New Zealanders are calling for longer sentences of imprisonment, and the Mayor of Wanganui has launched into daily attack mode, describing gangs as evil and their lives as ones of petty terrorism, violence, and hatred.

We in the Māori Party, as with other members of this House, including Mr Garrett, do not support the growth of gang membership. We oppose any gang activity that results in criminal acts or disorderly behaviour and intimidation, but this is not an unusual position to take. The Māori Party opposes any activity that results in criminal acts or disorderly behaviour and intimidation, whether it be gang related, white-collar crime related, or from an individual on the street. But our ultimate aspiration is not to create a society in which revenge and retribution are the only tools of trade. Our ambition is to support a restorative justice system where agencies work with whānau on issues affecting them, and where the collective goal is to achieve community peace. We are willing and open towards choices that veer on the side of opportunity and inclusion—choices that promote tolerance, not intolerance; choices that speak about another kind of justice.

This bill does not meet a definition of justice that we see in treatment that is morally right and fair. The justice practised in this bill is punitive: blame and retribution become the norm, and warrants for arrest and punishment are put forward as the model. This bill puts in place the power for the Wanganui District Council to create its own territorial battleground. If the bill scrapes through tonight, Mayor Michael Laws will be able to get busy, scheming up by-laws to designate specified places where the prohibition will come into effect, and more by-laws on top of those to identify any organisation, association, or group as a gang. But that is only part of the package. Once the by-laws are through, any person who wears or displays gang insignia, including tattoos, in the designated space—

David Garrett: Tattoos are out.

RAHUI KATENE: Tattoos are out?

David Garrett: Tattoos are out.

RAHUI KATENE: —that is very clever—will be liable to a fine of up to $5,000. People will be committing an offence because of the clothes they wear. There is no place in this bill for a fresh start—for rehabilitation and restoration.

We do not support solutions that are predicated on exclusion and hate. We believe that community peace can be achieved, and that people can be held accountable and face the consequences of their crime, while also being supported towards making amends. I am told that shortly after the death of Jordan Herewini, Ngāti Manawa took the lead in encouraging debate about the kaupapa of utu—that is, the behaviour of revenge and reprisal. It was their belief that the mantle and tikanga of Ngāti Manawa had more meaningful behaviours that could be called on in a time of crisis. They spoke of tātau pounamu, the ancient tikanga of lasting peace. Adherence to tātau pounamu would result in a guarantee of safety for all people and their property. They spoke of whakawhanaungatanga, the call for positive relationships with whānau, hapū, and iwi—with one another. They honoured whakapapa, the blood ties that linked them all, and they considered other processes that could be called on when there was any threat to the tapu of the tātau pounamu.

I was really enthusiastic about the type of discussion that was taking place amongst Ngāti Manawa, but I hasten to suggest that they are not the only ones who are interested in a different kind of justice. In the wake of grief following the accidental shooting of Halatau Naitoko earlier this year, the principles of fakalelei came to the fore. Fakalelei is the process of reconciliation in Tongan culture. It may be seen in the family of the offender, relatives, and supporters visiting the family of the victim and his or her relatives and supporters, to engage in a process of reconciliation that leads to understanding and healing.

A wealth of ideas might come through talking with Kim Workman of Rethinking Crime and Punishment. In his resource, Looking Back—Looking Beyond—Gang Strategies in the Wider Context, Kim promotes community engagement with gangs as being essential. Within that, he believes a multi-stranded strategy is likely to be the most effective. It is his belief that one of the most effective ways of changing gang behaviour is to identify within the gangs those groups or individuals who want to change for the better, and to provide them with the opportunities and resources to do so.

I recognise that concepts such as forgiveness, restoration, healing, and peace are not nearly as likely to achieve the same attention as punchy headlines that talk tough about locking up gangs and sending thugs out to exile. But we have to move past the talk of harassment, vigilante action, and angry outbursts. We need to reconsider the fuller meaning of justice as being essentially in line with human rights, and to invest in policy and practice that treats all people with dignity and respect. There is no dispute that violent offending, stand-over tactics, criminal assaults, and intimidation have no place in our society. But what we do dispute is the appropriate way of responding to such behaviour.

This bill, in targeting a particular group of citizens, will do little to habilitate those who need help in order to help themselves. It does nothing to address youth gangs. It fails to provide tangible alternatives to gang life. It is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The sections on freedom of association and freedom of expression damage any credibility we might consider we in this country have on human rights issues. It is top-heavy, in enabling an inappropriate use of by-law powers. But, most of all, we have no confidence or reason to believe that prohibitions work. What does work is community debate and strategic action to address the issues of public safety, and to put in place strategies that will work in confronting family and community violence. We will not support this bill, and we are greatly saddened that such proposals, which emerge from a climate of distrust and anger, are now taking up the air time of this House.

Hon RODNEY HIDE (Minister of Local Government) : I rise to speak on this bill. As I understand it, whether this bill succeeds or fails today will swing on my vote. It is certainly something that we have been discussing at length.

First up, I should say to Mr Chester Borrows that he has done an outstanding job as an MP and certainly as a parliamentarian of answering my questions and our party’s questions on this bill. Certainly, Wanganui is very, very lucky to have the hard-working MP Mr Chester Borrows. There are not many MPs who can shuttle a bill through to its third reading on behalf of their electorate. I should also, as Minister of Local Government, congratulate Mayor Michael Laws. He has done everything by the book, in terms of a local government bill, and has gone further and run a referendum to sample the will of the people of Wanganui as to their view on this issue.

I stand here as a libertarian, which means I believe that the fundamental job of Parliament and of a Government is to protect our freedoms, and in particular to protect the freedoms of minority groups. It is not enough for a majority to oppose what a minority might think, what a minority might wear, and how a minority might behave. The actual minority’s interests and rights have to be protected; that is why we have the law. Accordingly, I said on the first reading of this bill that I could not support it. I said that I never would. I said that the law should be concerned not with what gangs wear, but with their behaviour—their bullying, their violence, and their intimidation.

We have engaged in a heck of a debate within our caucus and with the members of our party. I have listened carefully and I have gone through everyone’s contribution on the issue. I listened with particular care to what Mr Keith Locke had to say. Much of what he had to say resonated with me—that we do not want to be in a society that regulates what one can wear. I just wish Mr Locke had followed that principle through and voted against the Electoral Finance Bill, which has seen me come under police investigation because of my yellow jacket.

Hon Member: You’re the one who put the complaint forward.

Hon RODNEY HIDE: No, I never put a complaint through.

Hon Darren Hughes: Yes, you did.

Hon RODNEY HIDE: No I did not. The police have it under active engagement. A party—in fact, two parties—voted for a law to make it a crime for me to wear my yellow jacket. So I find it a bit rich when those members say that gangs have a right to wear whatever jackets they like, but Rodney Hide does not. I find that a bit rich.

But here is where it gets interesting—and this is why it is tough for us, for our caucus, and for our party. Clearly, in a free society people cannot just go up and bash other people in the face. Clearly we cannot do that—that is against the law. Likewise, one cannot go up to other people and threaten to bash them. Even though no one has engaged in the physical violence of the threat, that cannot be done, because that is intimidatory behaviour. The question we have to address here—and it is about a line to be drawn—is whether in fact the wearing of a gang patch is in itself intimidation—akin to threatening to hurt someone, and akin to saying “I am going to throw a punch.” That is the question we have to resolve. Clearly, we outlaw intimidation.

That is why we despatched Mr David Garrett to Wanganui to talk to people, and in particular to ask some very basic questions. Here is one question: why do we need to criminalise the wearing of gang patches? Clearly, we do not want to criminalise the wearing of a yellow jacket, as Labour and the Greens did. And the answer came back—

Hon Annette King: Oh, it’s all about Rodney.

Hon Darren Hughes: It’s all about Rodney!

Hon RODNEY HIDE: I find that a bit rich coming from Labour members. They jumped up and down wanting to hear my views, but when I try to give them they try to shout me down.

The answer came back that the wearing of gang patches in public, particularly by people in a group, frequently precipitates violence because the gang code makes it virtually obligatory upon other gang members to rumble when they come across patched gang members of a rival gang. So everyone in Wanganui knows that if a gang patch is on display, and another gang member comes along, there will be a fight. That is the code under which those gangs live. If rivals come across one another when not patched, they can abuse one another and shout at one another, but they do not automatically resort to physical violence, because their gang code does not require it. There have been problems, like the example outside the Work and Income office in the middle of the day, where the mere action of wearing a gang patch has seen a fight break out. The people of Wanganui know this, and that is why they want this particular bill.

The question was put to the police: “Will you enforce the law?”. That was a legitimate question that we asked, and that Labour asked: “Will it be enforced?”. We also asked whether it would make a difference. The area commander said “Yes, you have my word, it will be enforced.” He said that the police would be looking on closed circuit television and would be after patched gang members if they breached the bylaw that the city council could make. They had very interesting feedback. In the silly code of the gangs, a member does not want to lose his patch, because that is to lose all his status. Gang members themselves have said that if this law passes into effect, they will not wear their patches. Why? Because then they would run the risk of losing them.

Hon Darren Hughes: Oh, so the gangs are telling you want to do.

Hon RODNEY HIDE: Oh, poor Darren! I tell that member to listen. I gave Labour members the greatest respect in listening to them, and to Mr Keith Locke. Gang members themselves have said that they will not wear their patches if this bill becomes law.

That is about gang members fighting one another, which in a way they can do. But what is the effect on other people? Is there intimidation from the patch for people? The answer to that was clear, and it was explained in this example. In popular public parks, such as the well-known Disneyland-themed children’s playground, the mere arrival of one patched gang member will see families leave with their children, because they are intimidated. They know that the arrival of one patched gang member could precipitate another gang member into causing a fight, because that is the experience of those families. Interestingly, the arrival of a gang member without the patch will not cause that intimidation. It is not the look that causes the intimidation; it is the patch. I say that it is a tough line to draw, but, clearly, in this example, the wearing of a patch on a jacket is intimidation of law-abiding citizens.

I am prepared to give the good people of Wanganui the opportunity to make a law so that they can choose how they want to live, so that the police can enforce the law, and people live free of the intimidation and the fear that they have been suffering. They have my vote.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) : Before I start my speech I acknowledge the Deaf community, and also the interpreters, who are doing a great job in this House today. It is great to see them here. I will open my speech by acknowledging Chester Borrows, because I know that Chester, who is the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee I sit on, has the best of intentions in bringing this bill forward before this House—as, indeed, does the Wanganui District Council. I have no doubt that although we may not always agree with what the mayor from Wanganui says, certainly on this occasion I do not think that anyone in this House has any doubt that the council’s intentions are very honourable in bringing this bill before the House. However, in practice, Labour members are being very straight-up in saying that we cannot support the bill, for the very clear and simple reason that it just will not work. This bill is at odds with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and that in itself is a very, very sound reason, certainly, to have serious misgivings about it, if not to fail to support it. I acknowledge and congratulate the new members in ACT, because they seem to be very powerful members. They have managed to persuade—

Hon Annette King: Rolled your leader!

LYNNE PILLAY: They have managed to roll the leader, says my colleague. I can see them smiling very happily—

Hon Darren Hughes: They love it.

LYNNE PILLAY: —they are loving this. The member Rodney Hide is not looking—

Hon Rodney Hide: I’m as happy as a sandboy.

LYNNE PILLAY: He is as happy as a sandboy, too.

Hon Member: He’s a Minister now.

LYNNE PILLAY: He is a Minister; he has the baubles of office, and all he had to do was support this bit of legislation. I am actually going to read what Mr Hide did say in April 2008, which is a year ago. We all know that a week is a long time in politics, but in a year—the change in the member’s mind during that time has been extraordinary. Back in April 2008 he said “I am so pleased”—pleased—“that Mr Chester Borrows has relieved me of the obligation of voting for this shocking Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. I said that the ACT Party would vote for the bill to go to a select committee. We could never vote for its third reading, but I thought the debate could be useful.”

Hon Member: He can’t really have said that.

LYNNE PILLAY: He did say that—he did. That is what he said. From there, we can look at the history—

Hon Annette King: What’s the payback?

LYNNE PILLAY: Well, I think it is the baubles of office—

Hon Member: Three strikes.

LYNNE PILLAY: That is right—three strikes. We will see that bill go through, and it will be very interesting—

Hon Member: That’s going to a committee.

LYNNE PILLAY: It is going to a committee. We know the history of the bill. It was introduced in 22 November 2007, the first reading was on 16 April, and Labour supported it. We believed that the public had a right to have a say on the bill and that it should go to the scrutiny of a select committee. So it was supported by Labour, National, New Zealand First, Mr Copeland, and Mr Field. It was opposed by the Greens, the Māori Party, ACT, and Progressive. Following the select committee and the second reading, National, United Future—and who else came to the table to make it happen? It was the ACT Party. I have to say it was the blokes in the ACT Party. I would really like to see Heather Roy take a call on this, because she said some really—

David Garrett: She’s in Australia.

LYNNE PILLAY: They are gadabouts—the ACT Party—are they not?

Simon Bridges: Lynne Pillay hasn’t been on any taxpayer-funded trips, has she?

Hon Darren Hughes: Ethiopia—keep quiet!

LYNNE PILLAY: It beats dancing. I am going to quote Heather Roy because I know that if she were here—and what a trick to send Heather Roy, the only one with any logic in the ACT Party, off on a trip—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You cannot refer to someone who is not here.

LYNNE PILLAY: They did. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: And it has gone on for a while, sorry.

LYNNE PILLAY: I would be very, very pleased if Heather Roy took a call, but in the absence of her doing that I will quote from her speech: “The move to outlaw gangs, their patches and tattoos is nothing more than a ploy to give the appearance of action—a ploy that will yield no results or benefits to New Zealand society in the long-term struggle to deal with the country’s gang problem.” I think that is a very sound statement, and I commend Heather Roy. I would dearly love her to take a call on the bill. If we look at what could happen under this legislation, the best-case scenario would be—and it will happen—that gangs will not wear their insignia. But does that change their behaviour and where they go? Rodney Hide said that that in itself was intimidating. I ask this House whether that changes the behaviour of gangs. Does that stop the intimidation? Does that stop the violence? No, it does not. The next-case scenario is to ask how hard it will be for the police resources to enforce this action. How much police resource will there be?

I want to pay tribute to the police and to the work they do in terms of dealing with violence in our society. We are going to see good police resources go into running around saying to gangs “No, no, no, out of here. Move on. Not in our backyard, not in Wanganui, not in this part of the town.”, and moving the gangs on. That is just not going to do anything. The criminal proceeds legislation in this House, which was introduced under the Labour Government, addresses gang actions and does something tangible to stop the work that they do. But this bill does nothing about that; it addresses the problem of gang dress code—not violence, and not criminal gang activity. We all know that the more we push something underground, the more glamorous and sexy it becomes. Believe me, everybody in this House would empathise with any parent whose child—generally a son—gets involved in a gang because it is very glamorous, and the insignia attracts them. This bill is not going to do anything. Naming gangs, giving them that status is, if anything, going to create glamour around the occupation. This bill does not bring about real change; it is simply window dressing.

Hon Annette King: As Heather Roy said.

LYNNE PILLAY: As Heather Roy said. I talked about families who are affected, and I want to use the last part of my speech to acknowledge that. I do not think this legislation is frivolous. It was brought in with the best of intentions because people were hurting. I empathise with every family who has a member of their family who has been involved in gangs and who has been sucked into the gang world. I know that that would be one of the worst things that can happen. I empathise with every family who has in any way been part of or suffered violence from gangs—whether it be intimidation, or whether it be violence that has affected a family member. Our empathy is with all of those families. But we say: “Let us bring in legislation that tackles crime—

Hon Rodney Hide: Where is it?

LYNNE PILLAY: “Where is it?” asks Rodney Hide. The Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill, which we saw—at last—on the Order Paper under this Government, and which went through this House, is legislation that has teeth and tackles crime. But all this bill will do is move the problem. At best, if it succeeds in what it is intended to do, it will move the problem from one backyard into another, and that does nothing towards the safety and security of New Zealanders.

SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) : It is very good to take a call on the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. I have had the pleasure of speaking to it at every stage since I have been in Parliament. But how rich it is of Labour members to come along today and accuse the ACT Party and the Hon Rodney Hide of a flip-flop, when Labour voted for this bill at its first reading. What has changed in the intervening period between the time they voted for it and now when they are voting against it? I will tell members what has changed—it has become more New Zealand Bill of Rights Act - friendly, and that is about it. The bill became more New Zealand Bill of Rights Act - friendly; the substance did not change very much at all. But have Labour members explained their flip-flop, and why they changed—not at all. I do not think Lynne Pillay, the previous speaker, knows the answer.

I tell the Hon Rodney Hide that he gave a very thoughtful speech, which I was appreciative to hear. He explained very well his change of position, and if I have the time I will come back to mention some of the very thoughtful points he made in his speech.

One of the criticisms that Labour members have made—certainly in other readings, and I think today—is that if this bill is such a good idea, why is it a local bill; why is it not a general bill? In the Law and Order Committee this morning we had some very interesting submissions from Greg O’Connor, and others in the Police Association, in relation to different legislation—the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill. The general point that Mr O’Connor made was absolutely right; gangs have got more sophisticated. They are no longer always the gangs we think of—in their patches, with prominent gang pads, and with barbed wire fences. But he also made it very clear that in some provinces in this country, that is still the modus operandi of the gangs. It is still the way organised crime works; it is still about patched-up thugs with gang pads and barbed wire. So it is quite clear. He said—to paraphrase, and I agree with him—that, yes, gangs are changing. Organised crime in this country is changing. Some gangs have become more sophisticated, but others, in places like—can I say—Wanganui, have not changed. It is quite clear that in Wanganui, which this local bill is about, and from where this local bill draws its strength, we are still dealing with old-style gangs and thugs.

On a related point, it is right that this bill is a local bill. The bill is also a victory for local democracy; it is a victory for the people of Wanganui. I am aware of some of the concerns expressed in this House in relation to this bill, but I say that we should respect the will of the local people of Wanganui. Overwhelmingly, as the Hon Rodney Hide and David Garrett said, in their speeches in the House, the process followed with this bill was perfect. The mayor held a referendum, and the Wanganui community gave its full support for the introduction of this local bill to ban gang insignia. No one is saying that this bill will be some sort of silver bullet that will solve the scourge of gangs in this nation, or even in the city of Wanganui, but it is a tool in the tool box that will make a difference. I say that even if this bill were imperfect I would still support it, because it is the will of the people in the area that is affected by this problem.

Hon Members: Oh, come on!

SIMON BRIDGES: I say that this bill will work. Let us go through the list of people who support it—that is, the mayor; the district council; the local MP, who has done an outstanding job in marshalling this bill through its stages in the House; and the police area commander and the police, who have signed documents making it clear they think the bill will work and will be a tool in their tool box. I remind Labour members that having a referendum is called democracy. The people of Wanganui supported this bill. Even if the bill were imperfect I would support it, but I say again that although it is not a silver bullet, the banning of gang insignia in this area of Wanganui is a tool in the police’s tool box and will help them deal with the problem.

As I say, since Labour voted for and supported the introduction of the bill, it has actually become more New Zealand Bill of Rights Act - friendly. It has been amended in many respects. At the Law and Order Committee, Labour members wanted to keep the tattoos provision in the bill. That is how New Zealand Bill of Rights Act - friendly they are! They wanted to keep tattoos in, and it took a National Government to get rid of that clearly quite ridiculous provision whereby people with permanent marks would have been injuriously affected by the bill. We have changed that provision, because the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act does matter.

We have also changed the bill so that people will not be affected if they are simply wearing a patch. It is the “displaying” of the patch that matters; it is flaunting the patch in public. That is what this bill is attached to and concerned about. So this is a good bill; it meets the localised conditions.

Hon Annette King: Well, give it to the people of Tauranga, then.

SIMON BRIDGES: To answer Annette King, and to ask whether it would work in Tauranga, I say we should be very clear that this is a local bill for a reason. This bill is not about central Auckland. They do not have the issues of gang-patched people walking around. In Mount Maunganui we do not have patched gang members walking around every day of the week. So I am saying that this bill is a step in the right direction to deal with the local conditions of Wanganui, and it is a tool in the tool box.

I come back to something that the Hon Rodney Hide said, which I thought was a very perceptive comment in relation to this bill. He made it quite clear that at the start of this debate he was concerned about what gangs did, not what they wore. But he is absolutely right today when he says in this House that the wearing of a gang patch is an act—it is an intimidation. Gang members change when they put on a gang patch. They are no longer cuddly members of whānau, with children. They are no longer lovers, workers; they become patched gang members. They take on the intimidation, they take on the hatred, and they take on the thuggery of the gang they belong to; the patch signifies they are a part of that gang. This bill goes towards dealing with that significant problem in Wanganui. Without wanting to get emotive, I tell members that people have died because they were wearing the wrong colours and the wrong gang insignia. This bill is no silver bullet, but I am confident that it will make a good difference in the city of Wanganui.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) : Mr Deputy Speaker, me tīmata pēnei ahau. I te tuatahi mihi kau atu ki te mema mō Whanganui nāna nei i kōkiritia, i kawe mai tēnei pire ki te Whare. I was saying I would like to acknowledge the member for Whanganui, who has brought the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill to the House.

I want to make it clear that I resent gangs. I resent the way gang members look, talk, and behave. I resent the lifestyles they lead, which are based on crime, drugs, and intimidation. I resent their “I don’t give a damn about anyone or anything else.” attitude. There is little I can say that is positive about the gang lifestyle; in fact, there is nothing I can say that is positive about the gang lifestyle.

I guess that what I resent the most is that gangs predominantly rob Māori of their language and culture, and substitute their own warped version of what Māori culture is. That version is usually based on a misguided notion of Māori being warriors and hard men. Māori men need to shed ourselves of that misguided, ignorant image and show the world that we are intelligent, sensible, hard-working, and caring members of our society. The Once Were Warriors image of Māori men is, unfortunately, in many instances an accurate portrayal, and for the sake of future generations of Māori men we need to break free of that delusion.

Gang members have such low self-esteem and such a low opinion of themselves that the way they compensate for that is to try to make other people feel worse than them. They do that by resorting to violence and intimidation. As a former schoolteacher, I saw that behaviour manifest itself in children at the school I was teaching at.

When I was in form 2 I was going to school in Moerewa. In particular, I remember a day in August 1979 when 40 or 50 members of the Storm Troopers gang rioted in that town. They destroyed a fire engine, fought with police, set a police van alight, and attempted to throw an injured policeman into that burning vehicle. I remember the fear, the uncertainty, the loathing, the accusations, and the recriminations. The riot divided that town. It is one of the enduring images of my childhood, not least because I had uncles in the police force and I had cousins in the gangs. I have seen how gangs have robbed members of my extended whānau of aspiration, and I resent that.

I was principal of a school that had a fledging gang problem, with mini-gangsters setting themselves up under stupid names represented by three-letter acronyms such as WCB, for the West Coast Boys, or LRC, for the Lake Road Crew. I watched the behaviour of those kids, and as principal I banned it. Those kids were not allowed to wear their scarves or beanies, or to do their little hand signs, or to talk in three-letter acronyms, or even to walk around in groups of more than three. But do you think the gang problem stopped? No, it did not. It just became less overt in the presence of adults. The kids changed the signs, the acronyms, and the scarves. The kids found ways round the bans, and if they can do that, so can adult gang members in Whanganui.

The symbolic act of banning gang insignia in Whanganui will not, in my opinion, make an iota of difference to the gang problem. It will not change the lifestyle of gang members, their association with crime, drugs, and intimidation; nor will it change their “I don’t give a damn about anyone else.” attitude. If the Wanganui District Council, and New Zealanders generally for that matter, are serious about resolving the real issue—that is, the existence of gangs full stop—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for me to leave the chair for the dinner break.

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

KELVIN DAVIS: If the Wanganui District Council, and New Zealanders in general for that matter, are serious about resolving the real issue—the existence of gangs, full stop—then we need to be a lot more focused on addressing the conditions that cause gangs to flourish. These include academic underachievement and disengagement from school, which lead to disengagement from society, as well as domestic violence, unemployment, poverty, and the myriad other social issues that encourage people to form and join gangs.

The Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill is a well-intentioned and well-meaning bill, and I personally do not disagree with cracking down on gangs. But I believe that the bill is a classic example of bottom-of-the-cliff thinking, and it will not address the root cause of the problem. In fact, I doubt that it will address the issue that it is trying to address—that is, the prohibition of gang regalia in certain parts of Whanganui. Just like students at the school where I last worked, gang members will constantly work out ways to get round the ban, or, more than likely, they will disregard it totally. They will continue to wear their regalia and will challenge the authorities to do something about it. I think the signs that will be erected in the protected parts of town to say that no gang regalia are allowed will not last terribly long. I can see the legislation coming back to the House for us to amend parts of it to close the loopholes that gang members will have no doubt found.

If the ban on gang insignia actually does work and certain parts of Whanganui do become free of gang regalia, the reality is that it will simply be a case of out of sight, out of mind for the lucky people who live in those designated parts of town. Gangs and gang-related crime will still exist. This bill will not stop gang members from walking down the street decked out in some form of gang regalia, insignia, colours, or apparel. If a gang member were to walk down the street in a suit and tie but with the words “Mongrel Mob” or “Black Power” tattooed across his forehead, would that make him any less intimidating or his intentions any less noble? I doubt it. This bill may address the gang dress code, but does it address gang violence, gang drug activity, or any other criminal activity? We will see gang members take off their patches, if they have to and if they are asked to, and then their gang T-shirts, only to see that their patches are tattooed on their backs, which we can already see happening around the country. What will happen then? What is the difference between an insignia tattooed on someone’s back and an insignia on his clothing? John Key made a hard-hitting statement in May 2008: “Today, I’m sending a warning to every single P dealer, every P manufacturer, and every gang involved in the P trade: National will not put up with your criminal activity.” He said that National would crack down on gangs and would target and undermine criminal gangs. He did not say that this call to action was about making gang members undress themselves.

I want the people of Whanganui to be safe from the influences of gangs. I want the people of Whanganui to be able to walk their streets without fear. I want the kids to be able to sleep at night and to be able to play in the parks and mingle around shops. I want the Whanganui Māori to continue to connect with their language and culture, not the language and culture of gangs. I want them to continue to be proud, upstanding, successful, wealthy, healthy, contributing members of the Whanganui community. I want Whanganui to continue to be a proud city, a safe and peaceful city, where all citizens, Māori and Pākehā, live harmoniously together. I just do not see that this bill will achieve any of those aims. It is a sticking-plaster approach to an issue that is a festering hakihaki. This bill does not address the issue; it just applies new plasters.

The only way for Whanganui to truly be rid of gang activity and criminal activity, and for residents to feel safe on the streets of their town, is to address the underlying social problems. In fact, that is the solution for all towns and cities the length and breadth of the country, be they Kaitāia, Whangarei, Auckland, or Timaru. When I was a school principal, we found that when we addressed the underlying causes of poor academic achievement and disengagement from school, we started to make a difference to the whole tone and well-being of the school. This flowed on in a number of ways into the whole community. Those underlying causes were not addressed by punitive measures and sticking-plaster solutions; rather, the solutions were based on our understanding what the actual causes of the problem were and finding meaningful and durable remedies. That, I believe, is what the Wanganui District Council and this Parliament should be doing. That is why I do not believe that this bill will be successful, and why I therefore cannot support it. Kia ora.

AARON GILMORE (National) : I rise to support the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. This is an important bill, especially for the people of Wanganui. It is a local bill for the good folks of Wanganui, and it has been drafted for local conditions—so much so that the people of Wanganui want it and support it in significant numbers. A majority of people support it, in fact. As I understand it, the bill has the support of 65 percent of the good people of Wanganui. Few laws in this land pass with 65 percent support.

Such support in the community exists because the people of Wanganui experienced a horrific occurrence—the horrific homicide of Jhia Te Tua. The homicide moved the good people of Wanganui. A 2-year-old child was lost to the world as the result of a gang revenge attack. Six gang members were charged with this despicable crime, and it moved the good people of Wanganui so much that they came up with this bill. The bill will ban gang insignia in signposted areas as directed by council by-law. The definition of “gang insignia” covers signs, symbols, and representations—things like that—and items of clothing that have representations attached.

I will now talk a little about my own experiences with gang insignia. The streets I grew up in in Christchurch were frequented by gangs. When my family moved to a house in Parklands after spending many years in Aranui, I thought we had left the gangs behind—but, no, we had not. We lived at No. 18, which was about midway down the street. My parents still live there. We lived down a long driveway. At one end of my street was a gang house that was home to the notorious white supremacy gang the Harris Brothers. At the other end of my street lived Mangu Kaha, the local branch of the Black Power gang. When I went to pick up the milk money every morning and every night I used to pat myself to check that no one had stolen it. My parents told me that it was my job to protect the milk money from the local gangs.

Having two gangs in the street was despicable. The Harris Brothers gang was a bunch of bad people.

Hon Rodney Hide: I lived down the road from them. They were horrible.

AARON GILMORE: We will get to that. It is an interesting story.

Hon Rodney Hide: I lived in Hoon Hay Road, just around the corner.

AARON GILMORE: That is right. Boy, did we have some fun in our street because of those gangs! Every kid in our street was bullied into supporting one or other of those gangs. Many were forced into wearing colours. I can remember the gang raps of Ice-T, Public Enemy, and many others that became the poetry of our street. I recall one poem vividly: “My colors, my honour, my colors, my all, with my colors upon me, one soldier stands tall … I am a nightmare walking, psychopath talking, king of my jungle, just a gangster stalking.” Those are the words the gangs in my street used on a daily basis. I saw that attitude every day when I was growing up. It is that attitude towards gang insignia that the good people of Wanganui have stepped up to do something about. The locals have been heavily consulted on about this bill. They want to try to stop gangs and are prepared to do something to achieve that.

My own experience with gangs saw my street become a gangland war zone. Kids with the wrong colours got bashed when they were walking home from school, including members of my own family, who were bashed for wearing the wrong colours while walking down my street. Kids were too scared to go to school, or they travelled with large groups for safety. For 3 years running, my street was named the most dangerous place to live in Christchurch. I wish we had had a bill like this then. It would have stopped truancy, broken limbs, and tears. It would have given some hope to the kids going to school or to the local shops that if they were part of some legitimate club they were not going to be identified and bashed by one of those two gangs just because they were wearing blue CanTeen kids’ bandannas or local rugby club caps. The red and blue colours of the two gangs were such strong colours that the colour of our local league club, Parklands, was purple. As members will know, purple is a mix of red and blue. The local league club made its colours purple because it represents the mix of the red and blue coming together.

This bill might not solve the problem of gangs, but it might. It might solve this problem. In my community, where I returned to live a few years ago, we were saved from gangs because of changing economic circumstances, as the member for Epsom, Rodney Hide, was talking about before. One gang in my street won Lotto and left the area. They won $1 million. It was the Harris Brothers gang—the associates the member for Epsom talked about before. They left for the other side of town. They left my street and disappeared, and I was happy about that. My family was happy, the street was happy, and the neighbourhood was happy. There was no more fighting over turf, the other gang did not feel like wearing patches in our local neighbourhood, and the problems went away.

This bill might be the winning Lotto ticket for the good people of Wanganui. It might be able to keep some gangs away from violence. This bill will probably not stop gangs—it will not stop them outright—but it will ensure that gangs will not be able to promote themselves openly. They will not be able to strut around like peacocks in their colours. They will not be able to bash some poor kid simply because he or she was forced to wear a gang colour and found himself or herself in the wrong part of the city, street, or town. If this bill does that for even one kid, then it would make his or her family happy and that kid happy, and I think the good people of Wanganui would feel collectively that it is a better place.

Let us now talk about the concerns that were raised on some parts of this bill. There are concerns about minor issues of interpretation and implementation. The Opposition over there has criticised those areas of the bill and puts them forward as reasons why this bill should not go ahead. Well, this bill has been designed for and implemented by the good people of Wanganui. It is their bill, and they, by an overwhelming number, want it. This bill creates signposted areas to be put forward by local by-laws to create neutral turf for gangs, and areas where one is not a gang member but a citizen—a citizen of Wanganui and of New Zealand—and one of the good people of Wanganui.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Who wrote this rubbish? Who wrote this speech?

AARON GILMORE: I wrote it. The bill allows for plenty of latitude for local police to modify over time how the law will operate. This allows the community to feel safe and not be intimidated by the presence of a gang patch. If gang patches are removed, people can begin to respect each other for who they are, not for the patch they wear. That is a positive step in the right direction.

This bill, importantly, does not create fear; it reduces it. Removing the potential for people to be afraid of what they see represented by a gang patch will reduce fear in the good people of Wanganui, and I applaud that, having grown up in the climate of a community where gangs pranced around like peacocks and, as per my quote earlier, saw their colours as badges of pride. Their patches are the IDs of their army. The gangs see themselves as soldiers, not criminals. If we can reduce a little of that arrogance, then this entire House should support the bill.

The hard-working local member for Wanganui, Mr Chester Borrows, put forward this bill as a local bill. Not all gang members are criminals, and not all gang members wear patches—but many do. The good people of Wanganui believe that this bill may help fix the problem. It is part of a tool box of other things that will help fix the problems that exist in gangland Wanganui. I say to people that if the majority of people in Wanganui want the ability to have this tool to help fix their gang problems, then I applaud that. Who are we to deny them when an overwhelming number—65 percent—of the good people of Wanganui want this tool box in order to be able to control their own problems and to keep out the patches that exist in their neighbourhoods?

If this bill works in Wanganui, it may create a model that other communities may be interested in. Other communities may be worried about gangs, the patches they wear, and the culture of fear that is created by their wearing of the gang patches. If time and time again we see that this bill works, then I will look forward to the members on the other side of the House commenting that the bill is a good tool and that it does work. I believe that this bill will work. I believe it because of my own experience in a local environment. I saw what happened with two gangs in my community. When one left and the other stopped wearing gang patches, the violence stopped. That is the reason why I commend this bill to the House.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) : I am sure it will not be necessary to take the full 5 minutes to speak on this bill. This is a bill that Labour is supportive of. We think it is good to send it off to the Government Administration Committee. We would be happy for it to have a relatively short report-back time. I think we are setting down a 3-month period for it. From my perspective, if the select committee decided to have a shorter time—if it can handle it—then that is something I would be supportive of. I cannot imagine that there will be an enormous number of submissions.

It is not a great secret that this measure is not my personal, preferred solution for a sporting area in Auckland. But given that the stadium will be the premier stadium for the Auckland region for the next 30 to 50 years, I think it is very important that we get the governance right. The bill looks as though it is heading in the right direction. I want to watch it carefully, but I wish the promoter of the bill good speed with it so that we can make sure that these things are set up and simplified well before 2011. I think that if we can have the bill passed over the next 3 or 4 months, then Parliament would be doing Auckland and sport generally a good turn.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : I rise to support the Eden Park Trust Amendment Bill. I commend the speaker who has just resumed his seat for his bipartisan approach to dealing with this legislation with my colleagues Murray McCully, the promoter of the bill, and Gerry Brownlee. The reason I support this bill is that it is of significant national importance—and it is for this reason as well that we have cross-party support—to change the 1955 Eden Park Trust Act to provide new governance arrangements that will help facilitate the holding of the 2011 World Cup, and also, I hope, the 2015 World Cricket Cup. When the stadium is completed it will hold 60,000 people.

I would probably be one of the few people in this Chamber who in 1956 sat on the sideline in Eden Park with a bunch of schoolkids, having been conveyed to Auckland by my father in his elderly car. I still have a vivid memory of Ron Jarden screaming down the touchline with the ball under his arm—

Hon Trevor Mallard: Which side?

JOHN HAYES: The south side, I think. He got a try right in on the corner and he missed my fingers by about 3 inches. This is probably before that member was born. I am saying that events like that set up lifetime memories, and the 2011 Rugby World Cup will do that.

Of course, money is involved. This project will cost about $240 million, and $190 million of that is coming from the Government. The Eden Park Trust Board is putting in another $12 million, the New Zealand Rugby Union $10 million, the ASB Community Trust $6.5 million, and the regional council $10 million, leaving $12 million unfunded. It seems like a lot of money, but the economists are projecting that this will result in something like $475 million of direct cash spent beyond Auckland, through the cup, and another $262 million within Auckland. It will contribute about $1.5 billion to our GDP.

This project is vital to our economy. As a substantially Wellington-based MP, it is good to note that the stadium in Auckland will be twice the size of our “Cake Tin”, but that the trust arrangements in Auckland will be based on the arrangements we have here for the Wellington stadium.

It is essential that we make a favourable impression on the world community, through both visual and written media, and that we run a really good cup campaign. For those reasons, I absolutely support this bill and I think it will give us a very good framework from which to move this country forward on the world stage. With those remarks, I commend this bill to the House.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : The Green Party is supporting the Eden Park Trust Amendment Bill. We support the proper development of Eden Park as a good stadium, not only for the people of Auckland but also for the people of New Zealand. I was in Taipei at the beginning of last year, and one of the billboards advertising some products had “Eden Park” on it, and it referred to New Zealand. I thought it gave an idea of the impact of rugby around the world, our expertise at the sport, and the way in which some of our grounds are highly respected around the world.

In some ways, it is good that commercial naming rights have never been given to Eden Park, unlike some other stadiums. It is an authentic and traditional name, and it is very well known. The ground is in the middle of the very green electorate of Mt Albert, and we have all sorts of Green members scurrying around that electorate at the present time, knocking on doors.

When we heard these plans for the Rugby World Cup at Eden Park, we thought the transport provision was quite good. There is a lot of work to go in getting proper public transport in Auckland, but there is a whole scheme to get punters to the park for the Rugby World Cup by bringing in the trains from the west, south, and east, and after the game they will go back the other way. So it is quite an efficient way of bringing people in by train, and there are bus parking areas in the new development, which I hope will be pretty full. So, hopefully, most people who go to the matches will go by public transport.

The Greens support the revamping of the trustee system. I think that is relevant given the money the Government has put into the development of the park for the Rugby World Cup.

I bring to the attention of the House the Attorney-General’s audit of this bill in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It is somewhat critical, but it is not a reason for the Green Party to vote against the bill; I am sure this can be ironed during the select committee’s deliberations. The Attorney-General says that the bill offends against section 19 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, a provision that, among other things, relates to mental disability.

The Attorney-General says that people who have permanent assessments under the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992 are deemed not to be fully in control of their activities, including mental activities, and that it is fair enough to make that an approximation of their mental capacities to be a trust member and exclude them on those grounds. But in that Act there is a category of temporary orders, provisional orders, and they can come and go. They could be wrong in their assessment, and it would be wrong to remove a person from the trust under a temporary order under that Act. Hopefully, that will be tidied up at the select committee.

It is great to see the Attorney-General acting in a very proactive way. He has done a number of audits of bills in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which the Green Party, I think, takes more seriously than other parties in the House. We look forward to more of those orders—well we look forward to them in one respect, but we hope that the Government designs its bills so that these critical audits are not required.

The Green Party supports this bill. There are other problems with Eden Park and the Rugby World Cup. One of them is the Major Events Management Act, which was passed in the last Parliament. That Act prevents competitive advertising by people like McDonald’s, the sponsors of the Rugby World Cup, and the big multinationals. I think that the Assistant Speaker is indicating that my time is up, so I had better finish at this point.

NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki) : The Eden Park Trust Amendment Bill, which we are putting through the House this evening, is an important bill. I appreciate the Hon Trevor Mallard’s comments before, when he indicated that there is going to be wide-ranging support for this bill to go through the select committee process. I also acknowledge his indication that he would support an even shorter period for the select committee process.

In essence, this bill moves the Eden Park Trust Board from operating under the provisions the Act of 1955, through to where it needs to be in order to enable the redevelopment of the park for the Rugby World Cup to commence. When we look at that time line of 2011, we see just how close we are getting to it. So it is important that this bill gets through the House and into the select committee as quickly as possible. Judging by some of the speeches this evening, there is wide-ranging support for this bill.

When we think about the economic spin-offs that we will get from hosting the Rugby World Cup in 2011, we realise that it will be hugely significant. The figures that I have seen are that around $500 million of GDP will flow into our economy and several hundred million dollars of that will go into the Auckland economy, which is fantastic. I was fortunate enough to go to the Rugby World Cup final in South Africa in 1995, where we made the final, but, unfortunately for us, the All Blacks did not win. I recall the huge atmosphere in that ground, with over 100,000 people there. This bill will enable Eden Park to have a capacity of 60,000, which is fantastic. That will be important for us when we showcase our prowess on the rugby field and what we have to offer as a country.

This is an important bill, and I am sure that it will get through this evening. I commend this bill to the House.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker Roy, kia ora tātou katoa i tēnei pō. Me tuku au i tētahi paku poroporoaki ki te tangata nei, ki a Marunui Murphy i hinga i nā tata nei. Ko ia te mea Māori tuatahi nei o te motu nō reira, me mihi ki a ia, me tuku ngā poroporoaki ki a ia kua ngaro nei i te tirohanga kanohi.

[Greetings to you, Mr Assistant Speaker Roy, and to all of us this evening. I make a brief reference to this person Marunui Murphy, the first Māori mayor of the country, who passed away recently. And so I acknowledge and farewell him lost from view.]

Some unusual things have been apparently happening at Eden Park, without a rugby ball in sight. Last July, I am told, the Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei chairman, Grant Hawke, and trustee Cyril Talbot launched the $240 million Eden Park redevelopment project with mihi, karakia, and a hīmene. Last month, international singer Hinewehi Mohi sang the song “Beneath the Māori Moon” to a recording of her great uncle George Nēpia. A book was launched at Mount Eden bringing together a first XV of Māori greats to launch a history of Māori rugby since the 1860s. My relation—a short, stocky fulla with short hair but still very good looking—by the name of Hika Reid, from my home town, was one of them.

What has all that got to do with the Eden Park Trust Amendment Bill? I suppose it is about knowing about all these histories, which are quite important. It is about knowing about the peoples and the stories. As other speakers before me have said, the bill simply amends the Eden Park Trust Act 1955 to establish new governance arrangements for Eden Park. As Mr Nathan Guy said, these amendments have all been made in preparation for the Rugby World Cup in 2011. The new governance arrangements were agreed to by the Government, the Eden Park Trust Board, and the Eden Park Board of Control.

The trust board is being set up “To promote, operate and develop Eden Park as a high quality multi-purpose stadium” for sports and “recreational, musical, and cultural events for the benefit of the public of the Region;”. That all sounds pretty good. The goal of the trust is “To administer Eden Park and the Trust Assets on a prudent commercial basis so that Eden Park is a successful financially autonomous community asset.” This is where the challenge comes. We in the Māori Party say that when the trust receives public money, it should be accountable to the public as well. With public money involved, there should be greater opportunities for the public to be involved.

Despite the policy uncertainties around Auckland governance arrangements, Māori—the Treaty partner—are actually a significant part of the public. I think we can all learn from Tukoroirangi Morgan’s reaction to the Government’s decision to reject the proposal to formalise Māori representation in Auckland. Only a brave person could rationalise how no seats for Māori can be better than three. Tukoroirangi’s analysis was that the decision to marginalise Māori to the sidelines showed that the National-ACT partnership was not prepared to enable a Māori voice as a legitimate voice amongst other power brokers and decision makers. That is how he saw it. Those are challenging words, of course, which should be considered carefully in other settings, such as in relation to this bill. The iwi of Tāmaki-makau-rau will thus be watching this bill with a bitter sense of disillusionment that the Auckland decision has been left hanging.

I will put certain things in context. The area we are talking about is what we call wāhi whakahirahira. The Ngāti Whātua people whakapapa to the site as an old wetlands where they used to harvest kai. There are other sites of significance around Tāmaki-makau-rau for the people of Tāmaki. The Eden Park area has close associations with the volcano Maungawhau. One of the springs that provided fresh water for those living on Maungawhau is named Te Ipo Pākore. It has a particular history link to the Waikato warrior Kāwharu during the Ngāti Whātua taua of retribution in the late 1700s. The point I make is that these particular areas of Tāmaki-makau-rau are important and cannot be treated simply as towns, suburbs, or boundaries. They have deep significance to the people of Ngāti Whātua.

I will make one particular point as I close this discussion. The development of Eden Park is not just about respecting and protecting the significance of the land to mana whenua; it also cuts right to the heart of issues around Māori representation. I would like to make one key point on the back of this bill from the Māori Party point of view. The reconciliation between kāwanatanga in the hands of the Crown as provided by article 1 and article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi—the guarantee of tino rangatiratanga over taonga tuku iho of the Māori people—is one of the most urgent challenges facing this nation. Of course, tension is inevitable when both parties of the Treaty want to occupy the same space. The key issue here is how we address this tension, and we can learn from the Auckland City proposal to know how not to get it wrong. Kia ora tātou.

PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie): It was an honour to introduce the Eden Park Trust Amendment Bill on behalf of the Hon Murray McCully. I rise to speak to summarise the benefits of the bill. As the Hon Trevor Mallard has already indicated, it has multipartisan support across the House. The bill moves the governance and operations of the Eden Park Trust from a private sphere towards a more public governance arrangement.

In 2007 the previous Government made a commitment to renovate Eden Park, and the National Government has undertaken to continue that commitment. The purpose of the bill is to promote, operate, and develop Eden Park, not just for the purposes of rugby and cricket but also for other recreational and sporting purposes, as well as for musical and artistic purposes. The new arrangement that is proposed really is to the benefit not just of Aucklanders and not just of the people in Mount Albert, but of all New Zealanders, in terms of enjoying what is a very iconic piece of real estate in Auckland.

I must acknowledge the role of the Auckland City Council—Mayor Banks and his council—in also working with central government to provide for the facilities around the park as we move towards one of the biggest events to be held in this country, the Rugby World Cup. There is a lot of development in the Auckland City area. The development of this treasure of a stadium is really a gift that the new council, which will be instituted next year, will be presented with. The stadium should be completed by October 2010.

This bill is the culmination of a lot of work that has been done behind the scenes by the Auckland Cricket Association, the Auckland Rugby Football Union, and the Crown, as well as by the currently existing trust board. I also must acknowledge Ngāti Whātua, to whom the previous speaker, Te Ururoa Flavell, has just alluded, and their role in shaping the future of the park. It will be an iconic place in our rich sporting history. I suppose that the question now is about how to get a rugby team and a cricket team that deserve to play on it week by week.

But ancillary developments are occurring in the area. That will be very good for the Mt Albert electorate—of course, there is a by-election going on there—and those developments will be particularly beneficial to the Kingsland and Sandringham shopping precincts. They should also complement the rail system that runs through Mount Albert to Eden Park and the developments that will occur there.

This is a bill that all of the parties represented in this House support tonight. I am proud to speak in reply to the speakers who have contributed to the first reading of this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

• Bill read a first time.

PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) on behalf of Hon Murray McCully (National—East Coast Bays): I seek leave to incorporate a date by which the Government Administration Committee must report the Eden Park Trust Amendment Bill back to the House of Wednesday, 29 July 2009. This earlier report-back date was not mentioned when moving the bill’s first reading, and I seek leave to do so now.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is anyone opposed to that course of action? There appears to be none. Leave is granted.

PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA: I move, That the Eden Park Trust Amendment Bill be referred to the Government Administration Committee, and that the committee report the bill back to the House by Wednesday, 29 July 2009.

• Motion agreed to.

BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) : I move, That the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee. This is a member’s bill. It is a modest amending bill. It is my first member’s bill in this House, and it is my privilege to introduce it on behalf of the Methodist Church of New Zealand.

The Methodist Church, as every member of the House will well know, is a respected religious institution with a long and proud history in New Zealand dating back to the earliest days of European settlement. The Methodist Church has a vision of its purpose in the community, and an important part of that purpose is the sharing of resources with the poor and disadvantaged in New Zealand. Over the years, the Methodist Church has attracted a number of benevolent contributions. Some of these funds have been preserved in the form of trusts for charitable purposes. As a consequence of its long history, the Methodist Church holds some trusts with purposes that have become obsolete. Of particular note are the numerous trusts held for the benefit of Methodist orphanages and children’s homes. Time has moved on. The Methodist Church now no longer undertakes the care of children in this way, and today there are no Methodist orphanages or children’s homes operating.

The moneys held in these trusts are generally quite small amounts, and they cannot be used unless the purposes of those trusts are varied. It is possible to vary the purposes of a charitable trust on application to the High Court under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957. This option, however, is lengthy, expensive, and impractical, given the number of Methodist Church trusts that need to be varied.

The purpose of the legislation is twofold. Firstly, it will provide an alternative process to that provided under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957 to vary charitable trusts relating to the Methodist Church. Secondly, it will widen the purposes of children’s trusts to allow those trust funds to be used for the benefit of children across New Zealand. The alternative procedure for varying the purposes of certain trusts proposed by the bill is similar to the procedure under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957. The trustees of the trust must prepare a scheme for the application or disposal of the trust property. That scheme must be accompanied by a statement giving full information about the reasons for the proposed application or disposal of the trust property, together with a copy of the trust instrument.

An important difference provided by this bill is that the scheme may then be submitted to a legal adviser or committee appointed by the Methodist Church, instead of to the High Court. Following this, the legal adviser or committee must submit a report to the Conference of the Methodist Church. The conference is the annual gathering of the Methodist Church, where all decisions affecting the operation of the Methodist Church are made. The conference has the power to approve the scheme, subject to there being no objection by the Attorney-General. Importantly, all decision makers under this alternative regime must act in accordance with the rules of law that would apply on any application for variation to the High Court under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957. Furthermore, all schemes must be submitted to the Attorney-General. If the Attorney-General objects to the scheme, the Conference of the Methodist Church must not approve it. I have provided advice about this bill to the Attorney-General, the Hon Chris Finlayson. He has provided me with advice from his officials that the bill appears to be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

Further, the bill allows any trustee or other person who holds funds or has properties in trust for the purpose of Methodist orphanages or children’s homes to pay or transfer the whole or part of those funds to the trustees of the Methodist General Purposes Trust Board. That board will have responsibility for the proper application and administration of such funds in accordance with any founding instruments of those trusts. Importantly, where it is impossible, impractical, or inexpedient to give effect to the original purposes of those trusts, the Methodist General Purposes Trust Board will be able to apply those funds to any other purpose for the welfare of children in New Zealand. The alternative regime for varying and widening the purposes of charitable trusts, and the ability to transfer certain funds to the Methodist General Purposes Trust Board, will allow the Methodist Church to more efficiently use funds donated to it for its charitable purposes in the New Zealand community.

There are precedents to this bill. The Methodist Church is not the first religious institution in New Zealand to do this. The Anglican Church successfully promoted the Anglican Church Trusts Act in 1981, the Presbyterian Church successfully promoted the Presbyterian Church Property Amendment Act in 1966, and the Catholic Church successfully promoted the Roman Catholic Bishops Empowering Act of 1997. This is ecumenical legislation. Those Acts dealt with similar problems to those faced by the Methodist Church. The Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill does not go beyond the ambit of those existing private Acts of Parliament. It is not a controversial bill, but it will greatly assist the Methodist Church of New Zealand in its pastoral care. I commend this bill to the House.

CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) : It is a pleasure to follow the previous speaker and speak to the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill. This is a private bill, and it is the first private bill I have spoken to—so there is another thing I can tick off. Just before I start—

Hon Trevor Mallard: What’s the member been doing for 3 years?

CRAIG FOSS: I have been very, very busy, I say to Mr Mallard. [Interruption]

Hon Member: Winning in Tukituki, actually.

CRAIG FOSS: Yes, I have been keeping the Tukituki electorate, visiting the prison, and having chats with my friends in the service.

Chris Tremain: Winning your majority!

CRAIG FOSS: And rebuilding our majority. Those are just some of the things I have been up to. I have not heard, but I think this bill has cross-party support. I guess we will hear whether it has when other speakers rise to speak to it. It would surprise me if we did not have cross-party support.

Of course, it goes without saying that the National Government supports this bill. If it passes its first reading, it will go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee for further examination and review. I guess we will need to have discussions with the sponsor of the bill, Mr Brendon Burns, and I congratulate Mr Burns on sponsoring the bill and, hopefully, getting it through. I am sure we will be working with him. I will offer our cooperation to make sure it goes through the process, firstly, to keep the Methodist Church happy, and, secondly, because it is actually an eminently sensible bill. It is a good clean-up. It fixes a problem. There is an expensive route for the fixing of the problem, as was alluded to, using the Charitable Trusts Act 1957. Of course, it would have to go to the High Court, and with the number of trusts involved, as we all know, at the end of the day the lawyers would be the winners, and the assets the Methodist Church has would be diluted. I commend the House for its motives here. They are good solid motives across parties to help get this bill through.

When speaking this week I have to note, just as an aside, that I think today marks the 30th anniversary of Dame Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister in the UK. I do not know whether she was a Methodist.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I doubt very much whether she was a Methodist.

CRAIG FOSS: She may have been. I mean, other speakers may offer different religions that she may have had, the Iron Maiden. [Interruption] As a colleague of mine notes, she was the woman who put the “Great” back into “Great Britain”. I am pleased to have my name beside hers in Hansard, and it is interesting to note that my mentioning her has provoked a fair bit of comment around the House.

This bill is not contentious, and, as I said earlier, I look forward to working on it with my colleagues around the House who are on the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I commend the previous speaker for his speech earlier. I am sure a certain gentleman would have been very pleased at the way that speech was put together. It was very similar to the speech that I was going to make. I am being quite truthful here. I guess the way to look at this bill is in an economic sense, if you like. We are talking about stranded assets of the church. It is interesting, and it gets one thinking, that when one looks at the explanatory note of the bill, suddenly these words “orphanages” and “children’s homes” come up. I had not considered orphanages and children’s homes for quite some time. I agree with Mr Burns that it is a good thing that we do not have those places any more. Obviously, the need for them is still there, but society has found other ways to tend to that need and hopefully to provide better solutions to some of the unfortunate problems these trusts were originally set up to deal with. We have to acknowledge that the intent with which they were originally set up was mostly for the good of children whom, unfortunately, for whatever reason, circumstances led to be put into an orphanage. I presume that quite a few people in New Zealand working amongst us—possibly even in this House—have been through those orphanages. I thank the Methodist Church for its good work there. I am happy to be helping the church to get this bill through.

I mentioned stranded assets, which simply means that there is value and wealth but it cannot actually be used. This bill is a good way of basically bringing those together to allow the church to extract the value that is already theirs. The funds are on its balance sheet, but with the very many small amounts of funds and the various trustees around the place, they are actually stranded. The church cannot utilise its funds or assets. As we all know, in good times and bad, churches generally find it hard to fund their way through and to do the good work they all do—or intend to do—in our communities. I think we are all grateful for that work. I often wonder where our communities would be if was not for people from the various churches doing good work, or just good solid people overall doing good work.

The bill sets out some changes. I was quite impressed with the rules in and around the conference. The conference basically sets all the rules and can appoint the trustees or remove them from any of the associated trusts of the church. That is a very good part of the bill. It is quite refreshing. It allows grass-roots members and activists within the Methodist Church and who have an eye on the long-term well-being of the church to have some say in the betterment and use of the assets that were once intended for the good of children. As we see in the bill, many parts of it state that any funds should be used for the process they were originally intended for: for the good and welfare of children, but in a more modern context. As the previous speaker noted, the bill was based on existing legislation. We have seen that already. There have been similar issues in and around the amendments to the Presbyterian Church Property Act in 1996, the Anglican Church Trusts Act 1981, and the Roman Catholic Bishops Empowering Act 1997—all of which dealt with the same issues. I find them interesting, maybe because they are all private Acts. Maybe another member can answer the question of, given that the problems exist for those particular churches, whether they exist for other entities. If they do, I am sure that perhaps there could be a reason for further discussion and discovery of other entities with similar problems. Perhaps that is something this Parliament or one of its committees might seek to address. I think that would be a good point.

The process under the Charitable Trusts Act, which with this bill the church will not have to go through, requires an application to the High Court. As we all know, that process can be lengthy, expensive, and very uneconomic, and, given the number of trusts and the amounts involved, they all attract some fixed costs. At the end of the day, as I said earlier, lawyers would probably do quite well out of those applications to the High Court, which would be to the detriment of the children. I say well done to Mr Burns and his colleagues who have helped put this bill together. The bill also ensures that all the proposed changes are accompanied by a statement setting out the reasons for the proposed change. Again, that is good law, good transparency, and, of course, good accountability, and is a bow to the integrity of those who originally donated funds for good purpose in those times. This bill will allow that process to continue, and that there is always borax or sunlight on any decisions that are made.

The alternative process in the bill allows the funds in the trust to be utilised for their purpose—being the welfare of children of New Zealand—rather than sitting in limbo. Once again, it is another way of pulling out, or de-stranding, stranded assets. It allows the management of trust property to be passed on to one board, therefore ensuring more economic and cost-effective management. To me, particularly as a National Party member, and with my economic and finance add-on, that makes eminent sense. Perhaps there might be a purchase officer or something on that board to make sure that the rules are adhered to and that the members of the church get good value for their funds. Thank you.

Hon LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Labour—Mana) :Kia ora, talofa lava, and warm Pacific greetings. I am really honoured to stand in this House and speak in support of the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill. I particularly acknowledge the hard work put into this bill by the Methodist Church of New Zealand—I thank all the Methodists—and I thank my parliamentary colleague the MP for Christchurch Central, Brendon Burns, for sponsoring it.

I will reiterate how important this bill is. We know that precedents have already been set with the Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterians, but the main aims of the bill are to provide an appropriate mechanism for varying charitable trusts of the Methodist Church, where the original objects or purposes are now impossible, impractical, or inexpedient to carry out. By reason of the limited assets of those trusts or reasons of expense, it is desirable to provide an additional means of varying those trusts, other than the means provided by the Charitable Trusts Act 1957. The second—and the most important—aim is to expand “the objects or purposes of trust funds or trust property relating to Methodist orphanages or Methodist children’s homes.” due to changes in policy and law relating to the care of our children and young people.

I thought it was also important to reflect on the context in relation to Methodism in Aotearoa New Zealand. Methodism actually started back in 1822 when the Rev. Samuel Leigh, who was a pioneer for the Methodist Church, came to open the Wesleyan Methodist Mission. From 1973, Māori Methodists have become largely autonomous and, as tangata whenua, the Methodist Church has been very respectful in accommodating the Treaty of Waitangi. In addition to that there has also been the Pasifika part of the Methodist Church, where there is huge and dramatic growth in Samoan, Tongan, Fijian, and Rotuman congregations all round New Zealand. That context in relation to the Methodist Church is very, very important.

The latest census data shows that the fifth-largest Christian denomination in New Zealand is Methodist, and we have 53 Methodist churches all round Aotearoa New Zealand. What is really important is to acknowledge the role of churches and faith institutions. I am very proud to be the interfaith spokesperson for Labour and to honour over 3 million people who in the last census signed up to saying they belong to a faith or denomination. That spirituality is very important in people’s lives, as is the role of the churches and the enormous contribution they make in supporting families and children who are in most need. Churches are the glue that holds communities together. It would be a terrible shame to waste their much-needed resources for this important work on a legal technicality.

I encourage all of our people here to please support this bill. I know there is cross-party support for it. Just to end on Brendon Burns’ words: “The alternative regime for varying and widening the purposes of charitable trusts, and the ability to transfer certain funds to the Methodist General Purposes Trust Board, will allow the Methodist Church to more efficiently use funds donated to it for its charitable purposes in the New Zealand community.” Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) : I rise tonight to take a call on the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill, and to support Brendon Burns in taking his first bill to the House. I congratulate him on doing that. It is interesting to have a look at the Methodist Church’s trust bill and the Methodist Church. The church has had a long history in this country. It was one of the first churches to land in New Zealand, to form relationships with tangata whenua, to build strong relationships with New Zealand and with Māori, and, over time, to receive significant donations and put together a number of trusts that have been there to provide donations to the community. The principal purpose of a number of these trusts, about which Mr Burns has brought this bill to the House tonight, was to provide care for children through a number of orphanages. I will be interested, as we go through the Committee stage, to learn from Mr Burns how many trusts we are talking about in terms of this bill, how many orphanages are part of the Methodist Church as we go forward, and also how much money remains in these trusts going forward.

Clearly, as a society we have moved on in terms of having orphanages in our communities, as we have now a range of other things across our communities. No longer do we accept that an orphanage is a place for a young child to be held; we have tended to move into a situation where children are fostered into the community, or adopted. In that regard, and moving on from orphanages, we have a situation where the charitable trusts that were set up by the Methodist Church to provide those services are no longer relevant. So there comes a need to change the purpose of those trusts, so that the Methodist Church can direct those funds in a modern context. That will be a challenge, particularly if the purpose of the trust will again be directed to looking after children.

When looking at the likes of orphanages, mental health institutions, and borstals in this country, it is interesting to note how as a society we have moved on from those. Last Monday I had the opportunity to visit a number of homes in Hawke’s Bay that have now taken Kimberley Centre patients. We used to have institutions for our mentally ill or our intellectually disabled; we have now moved to a situation where those people are in our communities. It was amazing to go around those New Zealand care homes in Hastings, and in Riverbend Road in Napier, and to look at the way that these people are being looked after and cared for now, in our communities.

It is interesting to see how communities have moved on. I know that when a number of these homes were first put into the community, members of my own community were fearful of what might happen if people from the Kimberley Centre ended up living beside them as neighbours. But now, 3 or 4 years down the track, the community has embraced those homes and the people there have come on in leaps and bounds. To see the way that a number, particularly patients from the Kimberley Centre, are now involved in the community is absolutely amazing. I look at Rowan House in Napier as an example.

I wanted to spend a fair bit of time talking about charitable trusts, and the amazing thing that has happened in Parliament in the last number of months with the establishment of a charitable trust for parliamentary sporting teams. But that will have to wait for another day, because clearly I am going to run out of time. Charitable trusts are an important part of our community. There is no point having those trusts sitting in abeyance and the funds unable to be used. The Methodist Church has realised there are a number of ways in which it could achieve a change. Going to the High Court is one of the ways, but the church has recognised that through an Act of Parliament it can achieve a change to the purposes of the trust a lot quicker. So we are all here to support the bill and its proceeding through Parliament. Thank you.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green) : I begin by congratulating Brendon Burns on introducing the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill, and also by expressing my support for the remarks just made by Chris Tremain in respect of the Kimberley Centre. What a fantastic development that has been! The Green Party intends to support this bill at least as far as the select committee, but it does so with a sense of significant reluctance. Our reluctance stems not from any hesitation about the need for the Methodist Church to be able to modernise its purposes and other terms of its trusts, but rather because the mechanism being used, bringing legislation before Parliament, exemplifies using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

The church has played a very significant role in New Zealand. I particularly want to make positive comments about its progressive and courageous approach to many social issues, and the great contribution it has made through social services, including many of those provided by the trusts that we are considering today. Some of the biggest contributions made by non-governmental organisations and particularly charitable trusts in New Zealand have been made from longstanding organisations that have built up their public profile, reputation, and the ability to implement long-term interventions. But the very age of these organisations is likely to mean that their founding documents, such as trust deeds, are likely to reflect the different needs and anachronistic world view of an earlier time. It is essential that such organisations should be able to vary these deeds, so that the momentum of their positive work can be carried forward into our own time. It is also essential that there is some kind of objective scrutiny of any such change to ensure that the underlying integrity of the relationship between trusts and the public is not compromised.

What is at issue is the process for doing this. In the Green Party’s view, it is appalling that the process provided for in the Charitable Trusts Act 1957 is so expensive and unwieldy that the Methodist Church needed to resort to these lengths to be able to make sensible and obviously required alterations. The Presbyterian, Anglican, and Catholic Churches have already gone down this route of course, and it would now be churlish and unreasonable to require a different standard for the Methodist Church. That is why we support the bill.

We are also conscious that there are a great many other longstanding charitable trusts and non-governmental organisations that may well be faced with similar problems, but for whom this process—taking a bill to Parliament—would be beyond their means. It is not practical to continue to deal with the problem in this way. I urge the Government to add to its legislative agenda the modernisation and streamlining of the 1957 Act. This Act does require streamlining, as opposed to others that do not.

I finish by commenting that when I was investigating this bill I had cause to reflect on the changing nature of the relationship between the State and the community sector. Many community organisations had their origins in charities established to ease the lot of the “deserving poor”, in an age when the Government played no such role. Nowadays non-governmental organisations are more often agents for the delivery of services for which the Government accepts responsibility, or are themselves expressions of community organisation. My concern is that as the Government moves to retrench the role of the State, and implements policies that increase the wealth disparities between rich and poor New Zealanders, we will see reduced funding and support for the vital role played by non-governmental organisations. We will see a wind-back of progress towards full funding of many of the non-governmental organisations working on children’s health and welfare, for example. In general, I predict that we will see, in the words of the McGillicuddy Serious Party, “a great leap backwards”. It seems to me that Government policy is aimed at producing a New Zealand similar to Dickensian England; a poorhouse would go nicely alongside that boot camp—perhaps with a chain gang alongside it. Maybe the Methodist Church should think twice before doing away with the aims and objectives that were appropriate for the 19th century.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou. I start by saying that the Māori Party has a particular interest in the commitment demonstrated by Te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa towards what it describes as cooperative ventures with other churches, and, indeed, its stand on a couple of issues. In a landmark conference in 1983, I am told, the Methodist Church reaffirmed the priority to the nation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a covenant that established Aotearoa. It was written into its constitution that the Treaty provides the basis of a power-sharing partnership and is to guide the church in its mission in this land.

So it is that when I come to the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill, I think about that commitment to form a close association between mana whenua and the Methodist Church. It is a relationship of goodwill and faith, which we expect to see expressed in the redistribution of trust funds, and the processes are described in this bill.

This bill is very much a statement of the times. It is consistent with other legislative changes that place emphasis on simplicity and clarity, rather than having the overly complex layering of terms and provisions that was a feature of earlier bills. This bill tries to make it easier to amend Methodist trusts that have charitable purposes. This is a solid goal, and it is worth supporting in terms of the support it will be able to provide to communities in order to advance educational aspirations, eliminate poverty, and work towards whānau ora. Making the process easier has been an object of other legislation—private bills, which other members have talked about, that were put forward on behalf of the Presbyterian Church and the Anglican Church. So it would be only right that this bill passes through without too many hitches, as well.

About a year ago I was fortunate to travel up to a very large town called Ruatāhuna, somewhere in the middle of the Urewera Forest, where the Presbyterian Church was to return land to the Tūhoe nation. How that church really got there, in the middle of the Tūhoe nation, is an interesting history that was spoken about that day. Pākehā families, indeed, formed a close relationship with the people up there, who were mainly of the Ringatū faith. So it was a great day of celebration, which, I think, was very much along the lines of this bill, and it set the scene in terms of a different relationship between the hāhi and mana whenua.

The other important aspect of this legislation concerns the changes to charitable trust funds and to properties relating to Methodist orphanages or children’s homes. This bill will now make it easier to use that funding in a more appropriate way for the care of children and young people. Over the course of time, care is no longer routinely provided by orphanages or children’s homes, so this bill responds in ways that we hope will achieve the broader outcome of whānau ora.

These dual goals—the capacity to amend Methodist trusts, and the provisions relating to orphanages or children’s homes—allow the church to move with the times and adapt to new processes. We support that, of course, but there is one final rider that we would like to place on this bill. The amendments proposed mean that the trust property is disposed of to another similar organisation with a similar charitable purpose. This is what we will obviously be keeping a keen eye on, in respect of the developments of this bill.

As part of the commitment to Treaty justice, consultation was held with tangata whenua within the church—namely, through the Te Taha Māori arm, which supports the bill. We trust, therefore, that both the parties in the covenant relationship will look carefully at the case when trust funds become freed up for distribution. In particular, we would hope that where the land given was originally from Māori sources, and where it is proposed that this land be disposed of, then the tumuaki of Te Taha Māori will be actively involved in decisions around that land.

We look forward to the select committee debate around this bill, and for assurances around the protocols that will naturally fall out of the bill. To that end, we will support this bill going forward.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) : I rise to take a very brief call to commend the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill to the House, and to acknowledge the member introducing this private bill, Brendon Burns, on behalf of the Methodist Church of New Zealand. Others have spoken in more detail about the contents of the bill, and those contents will be reviewed by the select committee and at the stage of the Committee of the whole House.

At a general level, this bill serves to remind us of several important factors. Firstly, we need to commend the Methodist Church, and other churches that form part of the precedent for this bill, for the work they do in our community. The New Zealand Labour Party strongly supports the work of New Zealand’s churches, in helping the needy and the poor in New Zealand, and we stand alongside those who offer essential services to our community—services that have been supported in very substantive programmes like the Pathways to Partnership funding programme, introduced by the previous Government last year.

I want, also, to stress that there is a long history, a long antecedence, for a bill like this, between the New Zealand Labour Party and churches like the Methodist Church, alongside Presbyterians, Anglicans, Catholics, and others. That history goes to the heart and history of the labour movement and its partnership with Christian socialism and Christian social democracy. Both have the goal to build a more just and fairer society, and to deliver services to those most in need. As a son of a vicar, I guess that that resonates with me still, and is one of the reasons why I am here in this House.

To that extent, I want to mention an argument that was raised by my colleague Kevin Hague in his contribution. The argument was, in effect, to caution the House against providing excessive reliance upon the charitable sector as a pretext for a withdrawal of the reach of the State in supporting those who need support in our society. I would say that that is a fair thing for the House to bear in mind, but, indeed, it need not necessarily be so. It is possible for us to have an active conception of the role of the State in being able to play a positive and meaningful part in the lives of all New Zealanders who need it, but in partnership with community organisations, non-governmental organisations, and churches. It is to that effect that I expect that my colleagues will want to support this bill through its deliberations in the House.

The bill also, of course, offers the potential to save an expensive and time-consuming court process. This will ensure that more of the funds that have been given to the Methodist Church for the purpose of helping ordinary New Zealanders, and particularly those orphan children in New Zealand, will go to the purposes for which they were given, and that has to be a good thing. Thank you.

JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) : I rise to take a brief call on the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill—this private bill—in its first reading. I do so because at heart it seems that most members of the House are very keen to see that the Methodist Church of New Zealand is assisted in the way that this House is able to assist—in a way that can mean that the moneys that have been given benevolently to the church can be used for the purposes, or very close to the purposes, for which they were given.

The bill states that its purpose is to “provide an alternative process for the variation of certain trusts relating to the Methodist Church; and widen the objects or purposes of trust funds and trust properties relating to Methodist orphanages or Methodist children’s homes.” All members of the House, I suspect, will know of orphanages that have been part of their own background. I remember that there was an orphanage in Temuka, and each year we would go with the Jaycees to the annual fireworks display. The Jaycees would provide fireworks for the children at that orphanage. But that orphanage now has a changed purpose, and it is such changed purposes that have resulted in the Methodist Church seeking to use this particular process to change the way it deals with the trust funds and trust properties it has the ability to utilise.

I think it is most appropriate that the member opposite, Brendon Burns, has brought this bill to the House. My thoughts in that respect relate to the work of the Christchurch Methodist Mission—work I feel sure that he, along with his and my colleague Nicky Wagner, will be very aware of. That work is undertaken in the central South Island, in Nelson and Marlborough, and on the West Coast. The Christchurch Methodist Mission employs approximately 200 staff, and it is their good work that can be put to even better effect if—or when—this bill is passed, and when they can sort out their purposes and make them more appropriate to the work they undertake.

I will mention very briefly some of that work. The mission is a registered charitable trust, and, as are many similar trusts in the South Island, is associated with the Christchurch Council of Christian Social Services and New Zealand Christian Council of Social Services. The mission does analysis of social policy, which is important work, but in the community it provides such programmes as HomeLink, which is a home-based, goal-focused social work service that offers positive parenting skills in order to try to strengthen family relationships, behaviour management skills, and communications skills; works with families in partnership; and builds supportive networks. That is such important work, and we should not stand in the way of it continuing.

The mission also has a two-stage group programme called ParentWorks for parents of children aged 0 to 13 years, and another programme called Wise-Up (Walk Tall Tamariki), which is an 8-week life-skills group programme for children aged 6 to 12 years and teaches self-respect, self-control, self-confidence, and self-esteem. As members can tell from hearing of these programmes, it is absolutely imperative that we parliamentarians find any way in which we can assist the mission to carry out its work and that we acknowledge that work.

This main purpose of the bill is to provide an appropriate mechanism for varying charitable trusts of the Methodist Church “where the original objects or purposes are now”—and the following three words are important—“impossible, impracticable, or inexpedient to carry out and by reason of limited assets of those trusts, or reasons of expense, it is desirable to provide an additional means of varying those trusts other than the means provided by the Charitable Trusts Act 1957;”. The second aim of the bill is “to expand the purposes for which trustees hold trust funds or trust property for the purposes of Methodist orphanages or children’s homes due to changes in policy and law relating to the care of children and young persons.” This bill modernises the way the Methodist Church is able to do its work. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House and wholeheartedly support it.

BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) : I thank members for their expressions of support for the Methodist Church of New Zealand Trusts Bill 2009. I think it is an acknowledgment that we as parliamentarians can sometimes—indeed, often—agree on legislation. Although it is not a major bill it provides a very, very necessary mechanism for the Methodist Church. I thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee chair, Craig Foss, for his comments. I acknowledge his comments that perhaps there may, indeed, be a case for a wider review of trust deeds. I am sure other organisations, like the Methodist Church, have trusts and entities that were established a long time ago for needs that have now passed.

This bill recognises the fact that the days when a church like the Methodist Church provided for orphans and other children have largely passed. I note the comments from Green MP Kevin Hague that perhaps such days may return. Indeed, history is often a repeat of cycles. But we as a Parliament cannot deny the Methodist Church the chance to update a collection of trust deeds, some of which are decades old, and the purposes of which are no longer there. Mr Tremain raised a valid point about how many trust deeds there are and how much money is involved. These are important questions that can be considered at the select committee, and I undertake to provide that information to the committee.

I know that in the meantime there will be considerable relief at Methodist churches across New Zealand that this bill is now introduced. Like similar legislation it has been a long time in gestation; the original bill was in the name of my good friend and predecessor in Christchurch Central, Tim Barnett. The reason for its being in his name was more than, as Jo Goodhew mentioned, the fact that the Christchurch Methodist Mission does very good work in our city; in fact, the Methodist Church of New Zealand is headquartered in Christchurch Central.

The Methodist Church is a part of the New Zealand fabric. Since 1822 it has given care and support to those in need. This bill is a chance for Parliament to assist the Methodist Church to update its trust deeds without the expensive recourse that is required under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957. I commend this bill to the House.

• Bill read a first time.

• Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon Member: Remember you used to support this stuff.

Hon TAU HENARE: Not really, and I just want to—

Hon Member: You just did it for the money?

Hon TAU HENARE: Basically, it was a job. A job needed to be done and I pretty much did my job, as my colleague and workmate Willie Jackson will attest to. But that is beside the point. I say to my cousin the member in the chair, Darien Fenton, who is my relation on the European side of my ancestry—

Hon Member: Careful, the list is slipping.

Hon TAU HENARE: No, no—it is just to say congratulations.

I want to talk about the issue of the pamphlet deliveries, where the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill will have a pretty big effect on workers. I know of a number of people who deliver these pamphlets as an extra, on top of their weekly wage. They are on the minimum basic wage, they are people who are on “Struggle Street”, as my other cousin Shane Jones likes to call it, and this income is a bit of a filler. My concern is that if this bill proceeds and is passed, their employers most probably will find it unaffordable to continue the pamphlet deliveries. If we do not have those deliveries, then that will affect the hundreds and hundreds of workers on “Struggle Street” who use pamphlet delivery as a bit of a filler for their weekly wage.

It is lovely that someone can think of a really good idea and want to put it into practice, but when we sit down and think about the bill and look at the nuts and bolts of it, I am afraid we realise that the bill will not do what the member thinks it will do. All it will do is to just drive people away and drive people into a wee bit more despair. Those on “Struggle Street”, those who use pamphlet delivery as a filler for their weekly wage, will not have that income any more. I know it is only $20, $40, or $60 a week, depending on how many pamphlets one drops off around any given suburb. But I am afraid that if we go down that track, then how will my colleagues find out where the cheapest television is sold? We get flyers and pamphlets from places like the Warehouse and Dick Smith Electronics, and we see people every week, some of them around my home out on Te Atatū peninsula, out there with their little buggy and out there with their kids, dishing out the pamphlets. My fear is that you will drive away—not you, Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): I am not going to drive anybody away.

Hon TAU HENARE: No, you would not do that, because you drive a motorbike.

My fear is that the intent of the bill will drive people away from employing workers on a contract for service basis. It is really important that we think about the ramifications of what the member is trying to do. As far as I am concerned, the bill will drive people away and pamphlet delivery will become unaffordable. So even though the idea behind the bill is laudable, I just do not believe that this bill is the way to up the wages of pamphlet deliverers.

CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) : I stand to speak in support of Darien Fenton’s bill. It is an important bill that provides that all workers receive the socially acceptable minimum wage, and that the technical nature of their relationship—whether a contract for service rather than a contract of service—will not mean that people work for less than a level that we as a country agree is an absolute minimum. The bill is about fairness.

The bill would also put paid to an increasing practice, in named sectors of our economy, of reducing wages and undermining security and workplace rights. Those who worked on this bill worked hard to create a solution that was not onerous or hard to understand. The bill is limited to named services. The parties would agree on a reasonable time to provide the service, and the remuneration for such provision of service must equate to the minimum wage. Of course, records of hours and payments must be kept. The bill also provides for staged lifts in the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

The bill requires all parties in Parliament to indicate whether they support the minimum wage; I want to focus on this latter point. When I consider the comments to date that have been made by many members opposite, and also the anti-worker actions of this National Government, I believe that requiring political parties to state their commitment to the minimum wage, and to show the consultative processes they have undertaken if they seek to change it, are critically important. I do not believe that National is committed to the minimum wage. In debating this bill a few weeks ago—a bill that actually tries to provide for a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work—we heard comments from members opposite such as “It’s too difficult.”, “Wages would be decreased.”, “People will lose their jobs.”, “People should be able to compete on low wages because that’s the nature of competition.”, “It’s just increasing regulation for the sake of it.”, and “It takes away choice.” Spurious examples were used, saying that the bill would affect plumbers or real estate agents. If members do not believe me, then they should go back and check Hansard. Those services were given as examples, but they are not covered by this bill. Members opposite have either not read the bill or are really objecting to ensuring that vulnerable workers earn at least the minimum wage.

Labour, on the other hand, believes, first, that all workers, irrespective of the technical nature of their working relationship, must receive a socially acceptable minimum wage, and, second, that the current minimum wage is still too low—despite our best efforts after many years of no increase to the minimum wage under the former National Government. The minimum wage should be increased, in a staged manner, to $15 per hour. There is a reason for that: low wages are damaging to workers; damaging to their families, in terms of people who struggle to make ends meet; and damaging to our workplaces. Low wages—

Michael Woodhouse: Productivity might be—

CAROL BEAUMONT: —yes, indeed—in fact lead to low productivity. It is easier just to add more people on low wages than it is to invest in those people, to lift skill levels, and to invest in greater capital and technology in our workplaces. And that is a significant problem in this country.

Labour says that lifting wages has positive spin-offs, not only for individuals and their families but also for workplaces in our economy. Finally, I say that as a party Labour is clearly able to meet all of the provisions of the bill, and we would be able to clearly state our support for a minimum wage that applies to all workers in New Zealand.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) : Just following on from the previous speech, I think that the one point the speaker made about low wages is certainly something that everyone would empathise with, but in this current economic environment I think people have to realise there is a possibility of no wages. We have very high unemployment coming in the New Zealand economy, and many people out there now have lost their jobs. So at this point in time it does not make a lot of sense that we would want to change the relationship of employer-employee and independent contractor, when the economy and the labour market are at their most vulnerable. If the Labour Party wants to make changes like this, why did it not make them when it had 9 years in Government? But it did not take on this member’s bill as a Government bill, because it realised that the bill in its current form is not sustainable and not well written. Labour members realised that even their own party would not support this bill. But now those members are coming in front of this Committee at a point in time when they are not in Government, and they are expecting the Committee to support the bill. Why did the Labour Government not make it a Government bill when it had the chance, and actually pass it?

The reason is that this bill does not stack up. There is a huge history in the Inland Revenue Department and in the Employment Court that talks about the difference between an independent contractor and an employee-employer relationship. That difference is one of the fundamental differences we have in our tax law. It is also one of the fundamental differences we have in our employment law. The nature of that relationship is there for a very simple reason, in that there can be choice in the way one engages people and companies to do work. Employee-employer relationships are typically found in larger organisations, where there is a degree of control by the employer. The independent contractor relationship is typically found where there are services contracted to be performed. Those services can range from things at the very basic level, like pamphlet delivery, to more extensive services, like those of a plumber or a builder. In all those cases there needs to be a bit of flexibility. Often someone is contracted to provide a service, and the nature of that service is that the person or organisation providing the service has some flexibility.

It is unknown to the Labour Party that some people actually want flexibility in their workplace. They want the ability to determine the time they work, the speed at which they work, and the quality of their work. It can be more than just the matter of some arbitrary rules about timing and what the minimum wage should be. But this bill takes away people’s choice. It takes away their fundamental ability to deliver services under a contract. It puts everybody under the same rules, which is what Labour members like to do—they like to put everybody in the same box so they can control them. This bill takes away that personal choice—that independence and that freedom—that we need in an economy.

People want to have that choice. People make an active choice whether to go for an employment relationship or an independent contractor relationship. People in the market have that choice; they can negotiate it in many circumstances. In other circumstances they have a choice in how they want to be remunerated. That is something we should not take away from our economy. It leads to innovation, artistic creativity, and the basic ability to achieve things that provide the best possible service, not necessarily at the hourly rate determined by this Parliament. To take away that choice takes away the flexibility and innovation in our economy, making everything the same and fundamentally contracted on the basis that this Parliament knows how to determine what a service is worth. But that is not the nature of real relationships in the real world.

I encourage members to consider that fundamental policy when they consider this legislation. This bill is not necessarily about looking after workers who need help, in the sense that they are vulnerable workers; this legislation takes away the individual choice of those in a remuneration relationship.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) : I am quite enjoying this debate. We are hearing, in Tau Henare and David Bennett, Tories who are really getting back to their roots. They are saying that it is the right of employers to exploit anyone who is doing a job for them in any way they like—that that is the sort of choice that should be available to all employers. In fact, in listening to Tau Henare, I drifted back 100 years or so and thought of Dickensian times. He is the sort of person who liked it that little kids went to the mill, picked up cotton, and got crushed. It was their right to be injured and killed!

Well, I tell the member that times have changed. I make it clear to both members that this bill was introduced during the last Labour Government. It quite properly went through a caucus process. A busy and caring Government has so much stuff on its agenda—

Chris Hipkins: They wouldn’t know.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well, those members will never be caring. They might be busy one day, but there is no sign of it yet. It would require quite a lot of energy, and, looking at their front bench, I do not think they will get it.

Getting back to the point, we had a bit of trouble handling everything on our agenda, especially in the labour relations area of work. We were very, very lucky that we had a number of able backbench members who took the responsibility of working up bills and getting them into the House. I compliment the member Darien Fenton on her work not only on this bill but in a number of other areas, as well. She saw that such issues might not get through the House in Government time but it was important that Parliament debate them.

In this area, and in a number of others, there was support from a party that is not in Parliament at the moment, New Zealand First. It is fair to say that, as far as some legislation was concerned, the support of Peter Brown ensured we got the votes, but I am not sure whether it improved the quality of the legislation; that occurred in a number of areas.

But it is very, very good to have a member who understands the principles of the relationship between bosses and workers. We all know that some employers are not good employers. Some employers will not give fair remuneration to their workers. I know that most members of National do not support having a minimum wage, but they do not quite have the courage of their convictions to say so. Roger Douglas has the courage of his convictions; he does not believe in having a minimum wage, and he is prepared to stand up and say so.

But when it comes to minimum conditions for people who are doing some of the lowest-paid work in the country, the Tories are willing to kick them. They know that there is not a pamphlet deliverer in the country who votes National—other than a very few who have intellectual problems and deliver pamphlets on a voluntary basis for the National Party; they are the only group of pamphlet deliverers who are likely to be National Party supporters. National members see a disadvantaged group who do not support National, and they not only kick them when they are down but strangle them at the same time. The Tau Henare approach is to get them by the throat, give them a bit of a shake, and try to get them down. In the end these pamphlet deliverers, like all good people, will win. It might take a bit of time and it might take a bit of building up, because National votes against legislation like this every time. I regret the fact that National will vote against it.

Michael Woodhouse: No, you don’t. Not even you were going to vote for it. Now you’re in Opposition, it’s easy.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Sorry?

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) : I appreciate getting the call to speak on Part 1 of the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill.

Mr Chairperson, can I seek your guidance, based on your long experience in this House, and ask you whether use of the term “hypocrisy” is unparliamentary. It seems to me that hypocrisy is what we have had to listen to from the previous two Labour speakers, Trevor Mallard and Carol Beaumont.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I think you were asked a question inappropriately. You could have intervened at that point, but I take exception to the comment that followed. The approach is clearly proscribed.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): I make the point that the word itself is not prohibited. Members may use the words “hypocrite” and “hypocrisy”, but may not associate the words directly with members or parties. To accuse a member or a party of hypocrisy is out of order, but the use of the word itself, in certain contexts, is OK. The answer to the member’s question is that a member is out of order to accuse another party of hypocrisy. The member may continue.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am not happy about that comment being left on the record. If you are not going to ask the member to apologise, then I ask that the comment be withdrawn.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): The member will withdraw.

ALLAN PEACHEY: I withdraw, and I apologise for any offence I might have caused the other side.

The point needs to be made very, very strongly that this legislation was first introduced in, from memory, 2006, during those long, dark days of miserable socialism. We have almost forgotten those long, dark days, after 6 months of the positivity of a National Government. Let us not forget what it was really like.

Neither Mr Mallard nor Ms Beaumont addressed the critical issue, and I invite the member in the chair, Darien Fenton, to take a call and address it. If this issue was so important to Labour members during the previous Parliament—we have seen crocodile tears shed tonight—why did they not use their majority in this House to adopt it as Government policy and put a Government bill before this House? Why did they not do that? It is now too late for crocodile tears, and I invite the member in the chair to stand up and explain that.

But, of course, Mr Chairman—as I try to speak on Part 1—the Labour Party has a major problem. Within weeks of National taking office, the minimum wage was raised. The last time the minimum wage was raised in this country was by a National Government shortly after taking office. What was the previous Labour Government doing for 9 years? Let us not go back 9 years; let us go back to just 2006, when the New Zealand electorate finally woke up and realised what a dark, grim place this country was becoming. I invite the member in the chair to answer another question I have: why is the House still spending its time—somebody less kind might say it is wasting its time—on this legislation, which has been on the floor of the House for over 3 years, is it? The electorate has spoken. The electorate has acknowledged that it was a National Government that increased the minimum wage. Perhaps the member in the chair might like to explain to New Zealand why its workers had to wait for the election of a National Government to have the minimum wage raised. National has nothing to apologise for, and it has everything to be proud of.

Members opposite use words like “Tory exploiter” and all that sort of nonsense, but nobody is listening. New Zealand has stopped listening. New Zealand does not want, does not seek, this sort of legislation. It seeks a bit of honesty from its Government, and it gets that from National.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) : I felt a bit sorry for the previous speaker, Allan Peachey, when he talked about looking back to the past. If we go back over the last period of time a National Government was in office, we see that the first 6 or 7 months were very interesting. The minimum wage was $7.05. National took it up by 38c, and when National finished its term it rounded the increase off at 50c. The previous Labour Government increased it eight times.

Hon Member: Well, National increased it.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: National increased it, but Labour put it up eight times. It is pretty sad to sit here and listen to all those platitudes trying to deny those people who cannot earn even the minimum wage. If we balance it off and take the compounding interest of major businesses—

Hon Tau Henare: Oh, no! Stop.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: —and lift it up to the macro, I say to Mr Henare, we are talking about discounting businesses, or ensuring that they have a pathway through in the sense of finances being made available. It can all be laid on! Some employers are decent people, but at the end of the day, who cares about the working class?

The other thing that happened in National’s last term was that the unemployment rate raced up. There seems to be a photocopying session going on during the first 6 months of National’s current term, because the same things are starting to happen. We heard about superannuitants today. We know that a lot of people are losing their jobs. Do the Tories care? No. Do they care that those people cannot reach even the minimum wage? No. But every excuse—every reason and rationale—is pushed out, and discounting goes on to help National’s mates.

So why should we help the working class? Because at the end of the day, when we run over the last 32 years in this country, we see that the working class has always paid taxes. Mr and Mrs Jones have always paid taxes. They have had no discounts whatever. There have been some great union organisers who stuck to their guns.

Hon Tau Henare: Name one.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: Half of them are behind me, here. But that member over there was always having a cup of tea at the urban authority. That is what he was doing; he was not even doing his job.

Let us bring some common sense to this debate. The last Labour Government ensured, by wrapping around certain issues like 14 weeks’ maternity leave and Working for Families, that the working class was looked after. Things were made easier, and we could see things lifting up. We could see that the workers were looked after. That lot over on the other side of the Chamber do not have the courage to support this measure. They are mean-spirited.

Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It is a well-known fact that members cannot question a member’s courage in this Chamber. I ask you to ask that member to withdraw that comment.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): The member makes a fair point. Members in this Chamber cannot have their courage questioned. The English language has tens of thousands of words, and the member could put a similar point less directly. To question a member’s courage directly is unacceptable, and the member will withdraw.

Hon Trevor Mallard: You can call him gutless, Parekura.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): That member is incorrect in the advice he has just tendered.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you for the lesson on the great English language. In Māoridom there are actually a couple of words for it, such as “mataku”—people who are scared.

Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It does not matter what language one uses in this Chamber—English; another official language, Māori; or sign language—one still cannot question a member’s courage.

Hon Trevor Mallard: There is a question about whether giving a loose translation of “scared” is, in fact, questioning someone’s courage or whether, in a particular circumstance, it is a statement of fact. I think it is interesting. Given the member who is raising the point of order, it is a real case of Once Were Warriors, is it not?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): That was unhelpful.

Hon Tau Henare: Step outside!

Hon Trevor Mallard: OK!

Hon Member: Send them both out into the lobby!

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): Members will settle and be serious. This is a robust debate. If someone is scared it does not necessarily mean that they lack courage. People can be scared but do something anyway. It is not a question of courage; it is about being nervous or apprehensive. I invite the member speaking to continue and to try to avoid pushing the rules.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: The great past Labour Government did a whole lot of things in relation to income-related rents, and so on.

Sandra Goudie: “Past” being the operative word.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: No—they are really important to the working class.

It is amazing that those mean spirits do not even want to care about them. You know, it has been pouring down around most of the country today—raining and hosing down. Poor pamphlet droppers will have got soaking wet and chilled to the bone, and do those members care about that? No. There is not one stroke of warmth in their hearts. Those members are mean-spirited, especially those from Christchurch. They should care, and they should vote for this bill.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) : Well, what a lot of waffle and testosterone is going on tonight; that is for sure. I am delighted to stand and speak to Part 1 of Darien Fenton’s Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. The purpose of the bill as introduced was to amend the Minimum Wage Act 1983 by extending its provisions to apply to payments under a contract for services that are currently remunerated at below the minimum wage. I was not on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee when this bill was before the last Parliament, and when I read the report it was quite chilling. Since the bill was presented, there have been many Supplementary Order Papers. There clearly was not consensus on the select committee at the time. That unfortunately says that the bill needed a complete and utter rewrite because it was completely and utterly flawed.

The select committee received a number of oral submissions, and the make-up of the committee was across all parties—all parties were represented on that committee. So there were a number of different views. When we read the select committee report, it is quite surprising to find that there was no consensus. There was absolutely no common ground, and that means the bill was flawed, it had holes in it, and it really was not workable. Quite frankly, that says volumes. The fact that four Supplementary Order Papers were lodged also says volumes. This bill is a rewrite, and it is flawed.

Even New Zealand First’s view in the select committee was telling. It said “the bill creates too many administrative grey areas which would have the potential to lead to confusion.”—end of story. Despite all the Supplementary Order Papers, it ain’t worth saving and this party will not be trying to support it at all. The last thing this Parliament should be doing is passing unnecessary and confusing legislation just for the sake of passing legislation. That is not what we are about, and members on all sides of the Chamber will agree with that.

National is concerned about this bill on a number of different levels, and we will talk further about that as we go through the Committee stage. Essentially, it takes away choice and flexibility. As my colleague David Bennett said, choice gives innovation, it brings entrepreneurship, and this bill cuts across that completely. We are concerned about a number of different avenues, and, quite frankly, the bill is not workable. A very good point was raised by one of my colleagues: if this bill was so crucial and so important, why did the previous Government not take it on as a Government bill? Again, that speaks volumes. It languished as a member’s bill, and it has languished from the previous Parliament to the current Parliament. Labour had the numbers 3 years ago to pass this bill into law, and it failed to do so. Labour did not support this member’s bill, yet it has carried on to this Parliament and again it will languish and fail. It will not get the support of the majority of members.

Members have talked about the minimum wage. Well, this National Government raised the minimum wage to $12.50 in this parliamentary session. In the first 100 days of office the Government has been very quick to act, in view of the global recession. We have done many things in our first 100 days. We have kept all the promises we said we would make. We have brought in the ReStart package to help those people who have been made redundant, and there are many companies looking at the 9-day working fortnight. I think that will be a way forward for many struggling companies that have 50 or more employees, and it is a good thing to do. We will reform the Resource Management Act. Quite frankly, New Zealand has been stifling and stagnating, and the whole economy has slowed down under the weight of that particular Act. It is too onerous. We need to change it, and that will be happening. We have given tax cuts, and they will help restart the economy. We will be going forward and we will keep going.

This bill is deeply flawed. There was no consensus or common ground at the select committee, and it cuts away choice. With all the rewrites, it is unworkable.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : I am very happy to hear from my colleagues on all sides of the Chamber on the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill, but I thought I had better respond to some of the quite ridiculous things we have heard both tonight and in the previous debate on Part 1. I need to put the record straight, because I am the person who sponsored this bill. I am one of the people on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I heard the submissions on the bill, and the majority of them were in favour of it. They said that the principle behind the bill is right, although the mechanism maybe needs some work.

Labour has supported the bill all the way through, as have the Greens and the Māori Party.

Michael Woodhouse: They haven’t. Read the report.

DARIEN FENTON: I tell that member to do the numbers. We had some other issues that we needed to progress, but I came into Parliament to advance issues for low-paid workers. If members look back to my maiden speech they will see that that is what I talked about. Low-paid workers are an issue that I have pursued for most of my adult working life. There is a real issue here.

Labour Ministers, in my time, have been enormously supportive of this bill, as have the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and, indeed, Business New Zealand, which got together with us to try to work out the bill. Unfortunately, one of the former New Zealand First members Peter Brown—bless him; he is not here any more—did not quite understand the bill and could not quite get his head around it. However, let me try to get through to some of the members on that side of the Chamber. When National members say that contractors should be free to set their price and terms of contracts, we do not disagree with them. We agree with that approach, provided that workers are not paid below the minimum wage. We are talking about $12.50 an hour. National members have gone on and on tonight about how National put up the minimum wage by 50c.

Listening to them, one might think that nothing had happened in the 9 years under Labour. What was the minimum wage when Labour became the Government? It was $7 an hour, or $4.20 an hour if the worker was under 20 years of age. It has moved a long way. I say to National members “Big deal!”. Good on them for putting up the minimum wage by 50c! We want to have a debate about the level of that wage, which is in Part 2 of the bill.

I also heard Aaron Gilmore and David Bennett—who was on the select committee—arguing that the bill affects freedom and choice. Those are really good National Party words: freedom and choice. Labour agrees that there should be freedom for the self-employed contractors to choose how and when they get paid, provided that they get a real choice about how and when they get paid. The problem is that many workers and many contractors do not have that choice. I am sure that many contractors would wish to be employees and have rights under various employment legislation, but the reality is that that is not the case.

I heard Mr Bakshi and some other members talking tonight about how one of the options is for workers to put forward a low price for their labour so they can get a job. I used to hear that argument in the 1990s from the then National Government, about how any job is better than no job. Let us have slave labour! That is called slavery. I have heard some strange interventions from National members about plumbers and painters. Those workers are not included under this bill, so let us get over that. Nor is this bill based on how fast or slow someone does a job, I say to my cousin Tau Henare. In respect of the leaflet deliverers, it is not about how fast or slow they are, or whether they are young and can run fast or whether they are old and do it slowly—it is not about that. If one reads the mechanisms that have been designed, which are in Supplementary Order Paper 4, one will see that there is a mechanism for agreeing on what is a reasonable time for doing the work, which should then be based on the minimum wage.

I heard Aaron Gilmore in the last session talking about how the self-employed are higher paid than employees. I have read that statistics report, too. It actually states that self-employed contractors are up to four times more likely to remain low earners, compared with wage and salary earners.

Let us go back to what was said by Mr Peachey and other people about the length of time this bill has taken, and to the various discussions on and insults about this bill. Members of Parliament have a right to put forward bills. It is a difficult process, but we all have a right to put forward bills. It is difficult to get bills drawn out of the ballot—we all know that; it can take a long time. A bill can take a long time in the select committee. This bill took a long time in the select committee. It took a long time to come back to the House at the various stages, and it is really unfortunate that it is back in a Parliament in which we have a National Government that does not care about workers who get paid below minimum wage.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) : I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. During this debate a few comments have been made with regard to support, or lack of it, for this bill in the past. I want to table a couple of documents to clarify what was actually going on with the support of this bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): That is not a matter of order; that is a matter for debate. It has nothing to do with the process of this debate.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) : I am sure that were the member David Bennett to table documents that showed the National Party’s history on supporting the minimum wage, they would show that it was woefully inadequate, because the National Party simply does not support those people on the lowest incomes and the most vulnerable people in our society. Listening to the National members talk about the minimum wage tonight is like going back 100 years or more. We could even be talking about the abolition of slavery, because we are hearing the same kinds of messages from the members of the National Government that were said by those in favour of slavery. The National members sit there in their position of privilege and talk about what is best for the people at the bottom of the heap. What would they know about that? We heard David Bennett—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I do not readily interrupt the debate, but the member may want to reflect on what happened to the poor people under 9 years of the previous Labour Government.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): That is not a point of order. That is a debating point, and it is designed to interrupt the flow of the member’s speech—

Hon Member: Pretty much.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): Quite right—pretty much. That is exactly right. I ask the member not to do it again, please.

CHRIS HIPKINS: I will tell that member what happened under the 9 years of the previous Labour Government. In the “dark days of socialism” that Allan Peachey referred to, people got jobs under Labour, and people knew that their rights at work were protected under Labour. Neither jobs nor the protection of workers’ rights are guaranteed under this National Government. Workers are not guaranteed those at all, because this National Government does not believe that people should get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. The National Government particularly does not believe that contractors should get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

David Bennett talked earlier about the fact that people are losing their jobs. He suggested that they should be grateful just to have a job at all. That is the position of this National Government: people on the lowest incomes should simply be grateful to get the breadcrumbs, and to have any kind of income at all. I think it is disgraceful to hear that coming from the National Government. I think that the people on the lowest pay should be entitled to at least the minimum wage, and we in the Labour Party think that the minimum wage should be going up.

I know that David Bennett talked about the important differences between being an independent contractor and choosing to be in an employee relationship. But the National Government, of course, is much more familiar with the independent contractors at the very, very high end of the wage market, such as the purchase advisers earning $1,500 or more a day who are contracted to provide National’s Ministers with information and advice on where to cut next. National members are interested in the people at that end of the contractor market; they are not interested in the people who deliver the newspaper, who do not get even the minimum wage. Those people are earning as low as about $2 an hour, which is absolutely disgraceful.

Part 1 of the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill talks about the bill’s purpose. It extends the minimum wage to those working under a contract for services. Who might be covered by that? It is people working in building and construction services who are doing labour-only jobs.

I invite National members to go to a building site and tell two workers, one of whom is working on contract and one of whom is working as an employee, why the contractor should be paid less than the employee. The Government’s opposition to this bill effectively says that that is OK. This bill extends the same provisions to people working in cleaning services. We know that a number of cleaning contractors are currently rorting the system and paying people below the minimum wage by putting them on contracts, instead of employing them as employees.

When confronted with that, National members talk about choice, but choice for whom? It is choice for the employers. The employers can tell workers that they can take a contract at below the minimum wage, or they can have no job at all. Those workers do not have a choice about whether they want to be contractors or employees. It is simply a choice of a job below the minimum wage or nothing at all.

Courier services are another profession that will be covered by this bill. The Leader of the House will be very pleased to know that food catering services will also be covered. The pizza delivery boy will be entitled to the minimum wage if this bill is passed, and I am sure the Government would support that. People working in newspaper and pamphlet delivery services, who are probably among the most likely to have been exploited under the current loophole in the law, will be covered by the minimum wage if this bill is passed.

Of course, the provisions will not extend to volunteer newspaper deliverers like the Exclusive Brethren volunteers who delivered National Party pamphlets, so Government members can rest assured that they will not have to worry about that.

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) : I am delighted to take a call in the Committee stage of this debate on the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. I was so keen to take a call that I actually turned down drinks to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the ascension of Margaret Thatcher to power in the United Kingdom. The forty-ninth Parliament has been a pretty civilised place. On the one hand, we have a Government with a strong mandate, and on the other, an Opposition that opposes, as a good Opposition should, while the Government gets on with passing legislation.

Chris Hipkins: Tell us more about Margaret Thatcher!

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I will get on to her in a minute. Most of the debate has been without too much controversy, has it not? The Opposition teases us for having bills on the Order Paper that are theirs. We tease them for those bills languishing for the last 9 years, but, pretty much, it has been a tame affair.

So it is fascinating that it has taken a member’s bill for the gloves to really come off. In the second reading, in particular, the gloves really did come off for colleagues on this side of the House, and, boy, the attack has been pretty full-on. But what is really interesting is that it has not been the members born with silver spoons whom members opposite attack, the ones from Remuera, Fendalton, or Maori Hill. It is not the so-called “hollow men”. The sharpest claws are actually out for the Tau Henares, the Aaron Gilmores, the Nikki Kayes, and even, perhaps, the Mike Woodhouses—that is whom they go for. They do not say it in so many words, but the hackles rise every time National caucus members rise to talk on this bill, and on why this bill is bad for low-income workers, young workers, employers, and an economy that is already labouring under the weight of low productivity.

I ask why members opposite are so affronted by these members, because these members are not the ones with silver spoons in their mouths. They are not the ones who have had the privilege or the head start that members opposite believe somehow disadvantages others. The members I name had to work damned hard to achieve the success that they have had academically, in business, in their communities, and, eventually, in this House. The Opposition might even see those members as traitors to their own upbringings. Some of them have even come from Labour backgrounds. Some of the Opposition members who have spoken in support of this bill—not all of them, but a few—really object to that sort of so-called “class hopping”.

I will now do something that few, if any, National members have done in this House. I will quote the left-wing commentator Chris Trotter to make a point.

Hon Tony Ryall: Oh, we all used to quote him.

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Oh, good; well, it is something members will be used to. I think Mr Trotter might have had something of an epiphany since the last election when he wrote an opinion piece on aspiration. This is what he said. I think members opposite should listen very carefully.

He said: “Are we socialists, in our drive for an absolute equality of outcomes, really willing to descend to the level of a certain species of crab which will, when collected in a bucket, seize and haul back into the doomed mass any individual that attempts to escape its fate by climbing out? … Is that why so many other New Zealanders raised in state houses voted against Helen Clark’s Labour-led government [in the last election]? Because, somehow, they had got it into their heads that she would be happier if they never left them? Never climbed out of the bucket? Or, God forbid, that Labour’s social-democratic state was actually about seizing them in its claws and dragging them back down into it?”.

That is really the essence of this bill, is it not? This is what the bill is all about. It is about keeping people down. I am very happy to support a Government that aspires for all its people, that passes policies and laws that will encourage people to aspire to do better, that provides a safety net—a generous minimum wage, which was recently introduced—and then gives them the tools to aspire to do better. That is what this Labour Opposition objects to. Like crabs in a bucket, it hauls them back to the doomed masses. I think if Labour members really, really believed in the bill, it would have been on the previous Labour Government’s agenda. It had 9 years to pass it, and now that Labour members know the bill will not get passed, they are all standing up and crying for it.

SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere) : I ask Mr Brownlee to please not allow that member to speak ever again. That speech was disappointing. I also say to Mr Bennett that it was disgraceful when he made the comments about flexibility of wages. How do we make that happen? How do we enable flexible wages to be paid? Do we pay workers $2 one day, then $10 another day? How do we do it? And what happens to the bills that the workers have to pay? Do they get flexibility in their bills?

National keeps on missing the point with regard to the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. The bill is about protecting vulnerable workers. It is not just about people who are delivering leaflets and pamphlets. If National members read Supplementary Order Paper 4 in the name of Darien Fenton and new schedule 2 in the substituted schedule on it, they will see that it outlines all the vulnerable workers that this bill aims to protect. I will list some of them for National members’ benefit: building and construction services, cleaning services, courier services, food catering services, fast-food delivery services, personal home-care support to an individual in the individual’s dwellinghouse, public entertainment services, the manufacture of clothing, footwear, or textiles, telemarketing services, market research services, licensed security guard services, services in the forestry industry, and truck-driving services. The workers in those sectors are the ones that this bill aims to protect. It is an important bill, but the members on the other side of the Chamber simply seem to miss that.

Leaflet and newspaper delivery and pizza delivery used to be performed predominantly by young people who were trying to earn a few extra bucks, but today families and older people are very often contracted to make those deliveries. In the difficult recessionary times we are now experiencing, more and more families will be forced to supplement their incomes by doing exactly this kind of work. Without the protection of the minimum wage, they are left with their own strength to negotiate whatever wage they can with their employers. Although working on a contractual arrangement works well for some workers, for many workers that is not the case. I refer specifically to Pacific workers, Māori workers, youth workers, migrant people, workers who have a disability—whether it be physical, emotional, or otherwise—and women who have contracts to ensure that they have flexibility of hours so they can have the time to take care of their young children. They will also be affected and will not have protection unless this bill is passed.

Those particular groups within our communities should be of concern to all of us. If we are concerned about their welfare, then we can see that the protection this bill offers to vulnerable workers is crucial for maintaining their human dignity.

• Progress reported.

• Report adopted.