Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Labour) : I move, That the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I will move that the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for consideration, that the committee report the bill by 22 July 2008, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day when there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week when there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 192 and 195(1)(b) and (c). I have been given an assurance that the members of the select committee have been supportive of that approach.

The Labour-led Government seeks to boost protections for vulnerable workers and breastfeeding mothers by legislating for minimum meal and rest breaks, and the protection of employees who wish to breastfeed their babies at work. The bill amends the Employment Relations Act 2000 to require employers to provide facilities and breaks for employees who wish to breastfeed or express breast milk either at work or during work time. The bill also amends the Act to provide employees with rest and meal breaks.

These amendments will create minimum standards for a modern workforce in respect of the protection and promotion of infant feeding and, I might say, in respect of what many of us had thought had been the case for 100 years, as far as the provision of rest and meal breaks is concerned. The amendments also support Government policy concerning the choices of employees, particularly when it comes to work-life balance and parenting responsibilities.

I acknowledge the hard work of Sue Moroney, whose member’s bill formed the basis for the rest and meal break provisions that are contained in this bill, and also Steve Chadwick, whose member’s bill on breastfeeding was the basis for the infant feeding provisions of the bill.

I think it would surprise many people that no statutory requirement for meal and rest breaks exists, but minimum entitlements to rest breaks and meal breaks during a working day are already in the vast majority of collective agreements. However, anecdotal evidence has suggested that some sectors—service and manufacturing sectors, in particular, and sectors where there are vulnerable workers—may be providing less than the breaks specified in this bill. Most New Zealanders would have thought, like me, that these sorts of minimum entitlements are already part of the law, and although many workers do enjoy these protections, the Government is making sure that there is absolutely no doubt that these basic entitlements must be provided for.

Breastfeeding is critical to providing the best start for New Zealand infants and it is important in both infant and maternal health. It also helps employers in their staff recruitment and retention by helping mothers return to paid work at a time of their choosing. Employees’ current access to breastfeeding breaks and facilities in the workplace is, however, mixed. This bill amends the Employment Relations Act to require that all employers provide appropriate facilities and breaks for employees who wish to breastfeed or express breast milk either at work or during work time, where it is reasonable and practicable. In deciding what is reasonable and practicable, employers will be able to take into account their operational environment and resources, and clearly the size of the workplace will be a factor. The breaks are unpaid unless the employee and the employer agree otherwise, and they are to be provided in addition to the rest and meal breaks. The rest and meal breaks can be used as breastfeeding breaks, however, where an employer and employee agree.

There will be a code of employment practice approved as soon as possible after the enactment of the legislation. This code will provide employers with guidance on how to uphold their obligations for the provision of breastfeeding breaks and facilities, and employers may be liable to penalties imposed by the Employment Relations Authority if they do not comply with these requirements. The authority will also have the power to order employers to comply with their obligations.

The bill also amends the Employment Relations Act to require employers to provide employees with paid rest breaks and unpaid meal breaks. Employees will be entitled to one 10-minute rest break if they have worked 4 hours or less, to one 10-minute rest break and one 30-minute break if they have worked between 4 and 6 hours, and to two 10-minute rest breaks and one 30-minute meal break if they have worked between 6 and 8 hours. These requirements will begin over again if an employee works more than 8 hours.

The rest and meal breaks must be provided in the middle of the work period, where reasonable and practicable. However, employees and employers may agree to vary the timing of the breaks. Employers and employees will also be able to enhance or to have additional entitlements to rest and meal breaks. These entitlements will not apply to employees who are already provided with them by other legislative or regulatory provisions, or by their employment agreements, where those other enactments are enhanced or additional to the entitlements in the bill. Again, employers may be liable to a penalty under the Employment Relations Act if they do not comply, and there will be an ability for the authority to have the power to order compliance on employers.

This bill reflects the Government’s commitment to the protection of our country’s more vulnerable workers, it reflects this Government’s commitment to the children of New Zealand, and it recognises that breastfeeding is critical to providing the best start in life for babies. I commend the bill to the House.

KATE WILKINSON (National) : As the Minister in charge of the bill, the Hon Trevor Mallard, has just outlined, this Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill has two main parts to it. Firstly, it requires employers to provide facilities and breaks for employees who wish to breastfeed, and the second part relates to rest breaks and meal breaks.

In the media releases following the announcement of this bill—which, incidentally, was on Easter Sunday—we note comments such as: “ ‘This is a very uncontroversial matter—in thousands of workplaces across the country employers and employees make sensible agreements in their mutual interests without having written rules’, … Inflexible rules advantaged unions, not employees or workplaces, … The Government should do research to see if a problem existed, … [We have] not seen any evidence that required a new law.” I was also interested to read the press release from the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, which stated: “The old Factories and Commercial Premises Act used to provide for breaks during the working day, but that went in 1992 … and there was nothing put in its place. The proposed new law marks another win by union members for every working New Zealander.” I would like to know why, if it is such an issue of fundamental fairness and healthy work practices, as the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union states, it has taken 9 years for such legislation to be introduced into the House. There have been ample opportunities, with all the various amendments to the Employment Relations Act under the watch of this Labour and union - led Government, yet there has not been one mention of meal breaks and breastfeeding facilities. How much effort have unions really made to get meal breaks and breastfeeding facilities enshrined in law, or is this perhaps more opportunistic election-year posturing?

The Minister has said categorically that new laws are needed, and “We wouldn’t be doing it if there wasn’t an issue”, and I would have to say that we are very interested in getting some evidence that there is an issue and that new laws are needed. Even the union acknowledges that nearly all unionised workers already have paid breaks and lunch hours written into their agreements. In fact, the explanatory note itself acknowledges that little is known about whether break provisions are included in the individual employment agreements that cover a majority of the workforce. One would have thought that some research would be done before the Government introduced this bill to the House to corroborate any need for the bill in the first place. This bill seems to have been drafted in the anticipation that there may be an issue, but there may not be an issue. Is there a problem, or is this merely a solution looking for a problem? National will be looking forward to seeing some objective research on this matter to ascertain whether there is a problem.

National will cautiously support this bill going to a select committee for scrutiny. By and large it codifies what is already happening in most workplaces. We need to be satisfied that there is a problem and that new laws are needed. We also need to be very careful that the bill does not impose additional costs on employers, and another set of processes and procedures to navigate through, that it does not restrict the freedom of employees without giving them appreciable benefits, and that it does not have unintended consequences, such as putting up a barrier to employing women. The bill uses the phrase “reasonable and practicable”—employers must ensure that “so far as reasonable and practicable in the circumstances” appropriate facilities are provided in the workplace for breastfeeding and appropriate breaks—and we will want to examine what that phrase actually and practically means for both the employer and the employee. I would ask what would be considered to be an appropriate breastfeeding break and what reasonable and practicable facilities are—for example, what breastfeeding facilities would be required for a breastfeeding travelling saleswoman? We support efforts to encourage New Zealand women to breastfeed. We appreciate that sensible workplaces should be making all reasonable attempts to attract and retain valuable female employees, but we also want to ensure that we are not creating a culture where breastfeeding mothers feel under pressure to return to work too quickly.

National will be looking at these newly announced provisions very carefully and very cautiously. Employers can work out the issues they address for themselves without having another set of prescriptive and inflexible processes and procedures to navigate through. If there is a problem, then we should be looking for a solution, but if there is a solution, should we be looking for the problem? We need to be prudent as to unintended consequences—as to what burden is being imposed on both employers and employees when perhaps common sense should prevail. We support choice, but we must be mindful that legislation attempting to support choice may, indeed, hinder that choice. National will be expecting the select committee officials and the ministry to show us why this law is needed, what the problem is, and the extent of the problem that this legislation is attempting to address.

Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Minister of Women’s Affairs) : I rise to speak in support of the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. I wish to thank the Minister of Labour for his unconditional support when approached by me and Sue Moroney to seek his support for the logic of the need for statutory protection for rests and meal breaks in the workplace. This Labour-led Government is committed to ensuring that mothers are given a real choice to return to work when they and their family are ready to do so. That choice must, therefore, be achievable in practice. We are also committed to seeing that children get the best possible start in life, and this bill supports our ongoing efforts in that regard. I like the reserved position of the Opposition, and I think the women of the country will notice that with some pleasure, really.

As an Associate Minister of Health and the Minister of Women’s Affairs, I believe thatthis bill marks an incredibly important step in the ongoing effort to protect and promote infant feeding choices for New Zealand families. This is not a cynical election-year bribe; this work goes back to the year 2000, when the United Nations special agency the International Labour Organization updated its Maternity Protection Convention. Article 10 included the right for working mothers to be given time to breastfeed their children—a United Nations convention. We took note of that and began our work.

Our work was also strengthened by the courage of Elizabeth Weatherly, who between 2002 and 2003, before the Opposition spokesperson’s time in the House, presented a petition to Parliament with 9,000 signatures from women calling for greater protection of breastfeeding women and their children. It was seen as a fundamental human rights issue for children to be fed when they required nutrition. The petition was considered by the Health Committee, which I chaired at that time. In 2005 the committee reported back to Parliament with a raft of recommendations on that petition. Those included support for a Department of Labour code of practice designed to help employers to accommodate breastfeeding in the workplace.

So we began that work not this year, as the Opposition has said, but in 2005. We began to develop the code of practice, and we hoped to see employers take it up as a natural work provision to provide family-friendly work environments. Then in 2007 I developed a member’s bill that required a code of practice to be developed under the Employment Relations Act of 2000 to provide guidelines on what was needed to facilitate breastfeeding in the workplace. We did not define in the guidelines how that should be done; we left that up to workplaces. That bill languished in the ballot, as is the fate of many fine members’ bills.

Today this bill builds on that work. It requires all employers to provide appropriate facilities and breaks for workers who wish to breastfeed or express milk and for it to be stored safely in the workplace—probably not in the staff lunch fridge with all the rest of the clobber that sits in those fridges, but in a little fridge so it is kept nice and clean, which is reasonably practical. We are taking an entirely practical approach.

As a midwife and a mother I have been a long-time advocate of the importance of breastfeeding for mothers and their children; as the saying goes, “Breast is best”. We know that breastfeeding is really important for babies’ growth, development, and health. It provides optimum nutrition and assists physical development and emotional attachment. We are worried about family violence, so we have to do everything we can, as members of this House, to make sure we support mothers to be able to feed their babies for as long as possible. Breastfeeding also protects against infectious disease, and it can reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as obesity—a very practical, not nanny State approach to addressing obesity. Breastfeeding is also incredibly important for mothers’ health.

This bill builds on a range of initiatives that we have led as a Government that support breastfeeding: the Healthy Eating - Healthy Action plan, which supports breastfeeding for at least 6 months and puts those supports beside women and their families in order to achieve that; and the baby-friendly hospital initiative, which aims to increase awareness and understanding of the benefits of breastfeeding amongst health workers in hospitals. Forty primary hospitals, 18 secondary hospitals, and four tertiary units in the country have now achieved baby-friendly accreditation. We have introduced paid parental leave, which reduces the pressure on women to have to return to work immediately after giving birth; and we have introduced a plan of action for breastfeeding that aims to improve breastfeeding rates at a really well-coordinated local, community, and national level, with a well-trained and an effective workforce.

A mother’s ability to continue to breastfeed her child will add to her ability to remain at work and contribute to productivity if that is her choice. Some critics will say this bill is unnecessary, but it does protect vulnerable workers and, indirectly, their children. This bill will make a huge difference for many women. The Human Rights Commission has previously investigated many claims of discrimination against breastfeeding mothers under the Human Rights Act, as we learnt from considering the petition of Elizabeth Weatherly. In one instance the commission heard of a working mother—a registered nurse in a public hospital—who had great difficulty in being able to express her milk while on the job. She ended up feeling exhausted after her long shifts, because other than having to stop and express milk three to four times daily she could not take any time for any other breaks. She had to express milk while sitting on a toilet seat lid because there was no other suitable place provided for her in that hospital.

This House of Parliament, actually, was no different from that hospital. When we investigated the situation here, we found many parliamentary staff had to go into a toilet cubicle to express milk, and had to just save it in a staff refrigerator. That was appalling, and the Labour women of our caucus set up a breastfeeding space where women could attend to their needs while they were at work if they wanted to continue breastfeeding their babies.

The passage of this bill means that such indignities will become a thing of the past. I commend it to the House.

PAULA BENNETT (National) : It is great to be here and have the opportunity to talk about the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. I take the opportunity to particularly speak about women, their maternity issues, breastfeeding, and what that certainly means for them.

Breastfeeding and that time after having a baby is, without a doubt, often a traumatic time for women. It can also be the best time of their lives, and they certainly deserve every bit of support that we can give them. So many issues impact on one’s ability to breastfeed that I suppose I take some caution when I hear people extolling the virtues of breastfeeding, which we certainly do not disagree with, because I have sympathy for those women who, for whatever reason, cannot breastfeed. I know that as well as suffering from everything else that happens after having a new baby, feeling that guilt of actually not being able to breastfeed can have an effect on women. I just wanted to comment slightly on that; I know it is a little off the subject, but it is important for those women.

If one asked women who have had their babies and are looking for some sort of assistance what they actually want, they would say that post-maternity care is what is absolutely important to them. They would talk about the opportunity to stay more than just one night in hospital to have that ongoing care. They would talk about having more regular visits from their initial primary carers—usually their midwives—who, in every case that I know of, do the best job they possibly can but are often stretched to such an extent that they cannot visit mothers and new babies in homes to help them with breastfeeding as much as they would like. Those women would talk about their visits from Plunket, how often they happen, and the effects that has on them raising their babies, particularly in the first 3 months. In those early times those women certainly do not raise work issues, although we can understand that once they return to work and wish to continue breastfeeding there needs to be some acknowledgment for that.

If this Labour Government was truly serious about helping those very women who find themselves with new babies, it would be addressing some of those issues that are so important. Through mothers repeatedly coming to us in our offices, and through speaking daily with people, we know what is most important.

At this stage I take my hat off to the malls. I do not know whether many people in this House have had new babies in the last couple of years, but—being a woman who likes to shop, myself—I can tell members that the malls have stepped up and are providing some pretty impressive facilities for mothers with newborn babies. Not only workplaces but other areas that women often frequent are catching up. At least they have come up with private spaces—and I heard the member talking previously about women sitting on toilet seats and trying to express milk or breastfeed their babies. I think that society is catching up. That is where I would like to press it and say that since society and workplaces are catching up, do we need to legislate? Should we not be saying educate, do not legislate?

It seems that if it moves, this Government needs to legislate for it. I reckon that Heather Simpson was sitting in her office with Helen Clark and said: “Oh my goodness! The polls are bad, we’re not making it, and we’re losing the women’s vote to National. What we’d better do is look back at some of the legislation that we looked at 8 years ago, which we dismissed because we thought it would be a waste of Parliament’s time. We had better start thinking of something that we can announce in an election year, because we’re looking tired and like we have no new ideas. We had better come up with something.” So Labour members ruffled around in those dusty old boxes—because goodness knows it has been nearly 9 long, long years—and in there somewhere they found a piece of paper on which someone had written that he or she had met a couple of people who did not get their tea breaks, and those members thought that maybe they could do something about breastfeeding women, as well, because that’s always good and cuddly and no one can disagree with it.

Then they wondered how they would get this legislation out there. Goodness knows it is not that important, but it will cost a lot of money to put through a select committee with officials, reports, and all that sort of stuff. Labour decided to do it on Easter Sunday when everyone is desperate for some sort of news, and its members announced it like it was the biggest announcement of the year. Labour thought it needed to bring in babies, women, and the most vulnerable workers, and it thought that this is perfect legislation for that. Those members thought: “If those nasty Nats start speaking against this, we’ve got them! We’ll be able to stand up and say that they don’t care about women and babies and that they don’t support this legislation. We’ve got the nasty Nats by the shorts.” I tell members that that is ridiculous. We should educate, not legislate. Labour is clutching in desperation to find some legislation to bring out this year. Goodness knows select committees have not got enough work. The Education and Science Committee did not even sit today because there is not enough legislation going through.

Yet again, we say that of course we support infant feeding. It is without a doubt that we support women breastfeeding. My colleagues spoke earlier of our societal concerns and about a culture of women going back to work and at times feeling that pressure to go back too early. We talk to women these days who are embarrassed of being stay-at-home mums. They should raise their heads proudly, because there is no job that could be more worthwhile for anyone. In support of women, I say “Good on you.” To Labour, I say “Desperate times, desperate decisions, and I suppose you had to give it a go.”

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : I was interested in that speech made by Paula Bennett. I thought she started off quite well, but then she said we should educate not legislate. If that is the official stance of the National Party, then I ask those members why they are supporting the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. Why do they not stand by their own convictions and say “Let’s educate and not legislate. We will support the bill because what it states makes sense to us.”?

Maybe the member should read the bill. Under the subheading “Infant feeding” of the explanatory note it states “This Bill amends the Employment Relations Act to require employers to provide appropriate facilities and breaks for employees who wish to breastfeed (including expressing breast milk), as far as is reasonable and practicable.” What is wrong with that? It is quite fair-minded.

The bill tells us why it is necessary to give this consideration. Later in the bill, under the subheading “Infant feeding”, it states “Breastfeeding is key to providing the best start for New Zealand infants, and important for both infant and maternal health. This was most recently reiterated in the Government Response to the Inquiry into Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes.” It goes on to state “Breastfeeding is a key indicator for Health Target 8 of the Health Targets 2007/08 to improve nutrition, increase physical activity, and reduce obesity. A number of government initiatives are underway to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding.”

The bill then lists six areas of concern. I will read the following paragraph because I think it is important: “The main barriers to maintaining breastfeeding for New Zealand women are lack of community support and acceptance of breastfeeding in public, and women returning to work.” That is why we are getting this legislation. That is why New Zealand First is supporting it. We do not believe that we can educate and guarantee to solve the problem.

Kate Wilkinson: You don’t believe in education?

Paula Bennett: You don’t believe in educating?

PETER BROWN: I tell those two ladies over there to be strong in their own convictions. If they want to oppose this bill then they should do the decent thing and say that they oppose it and that it is not necessary. They should not give all the waffle and say that they will support it but really they do not believe in it, just so they do not look like “nasty Nats”, as Paula Bennett referred to.

The second part of the bill—and I am not going to take too long—deals with meal breaks and what I call, and probably what most of us call, smoko breaks. We are talking about the same thing, are we not? [Interruption] Oh, are we not allowed to call them smoko breaks? I am politically incorrect again.

To be honest, I did not know that those breaks were not in the law. I always thought that people were entitled to a 10-minute break. I suggest that in many contracts the breaks are longer than 10 minutes. This is sensible legislation. I know that some small employers are concerned about the 10-minute breaks, which are paid for. It is true that they have been in contact with at least some of my colleagues. We think that the bill is quite reasonable, because there is a lot of flexibility on when breaks can and cannot be taken. The bill states “Employees and employers, however, may agree to vary the timing of the breaks.”

This bill is simply the vehicle to providing a law so that people will get 10-minute breaks in a 4-hour work period, plus a 30-minute non-paid meal break. That is eminently sensible and fair. New Zealand First will support the bill going to select committee. We would like to hear what New Zealanders have to say about this matter, and we will make up our minds on whether we support the bill’s proceeding after that. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : I do not think it will come as a surprise to anyone here that the Green Party is delighted to be supporting this latest amendment to the Employment Relations Act. I was present at the Blackball Workingmen’s Club a couple of weeks ago, along with some other MPs, when the Hon Maryan Street announced these changes. It was very appropriately the occasion of the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the 1908 miners’ strike, which was in part about achieving the right to a half-hour rather than 15 minutes crib-time or lunch break. It is quite ironic that 100 years later, in what one would usually imagine is the much more enlightened year of 2008, the Government feels obliged to put forward a law that aims to achieve exactly the same thing.

This bill before us today amends the Employment Relations Act to make sure that all employees who work 4 hours or less get a 10-minute rest break, employees who work between 4 and 6 hours get a 10-minute rest break and a half-hour meal break, and if they are on the job for between 6 and 8 hours they are entitled to two 10-minute rest breaks and one 30-minute meal break. After 8 hours on the job, it appears that the whole process starts again.

I know that there are some people around this country who will question why on earth this law change is needed. There is a reasonably common perception out there that this is just common sense and that all employers are of course allowing their staff to take at least this minimum level of rest and meal breaks. However, sadly, this is not the case. Although 93 percent of collective agreements allow for such breaks, there is actually nothing in law that makes it mandatory for them to be provided. A large percentage of the New Zealand workforce, sadly, remains non-unionised, particularly in the private sector. Of course a lot of these non-unionised workers are not covered by collective agreements. Although I am sure the majority of employers, including those whose workers have only individual contracts, do in fact let their staff take at least these minimum break times, some do not, which is why this law is unfortunately necessary.

The Green Party believes that when it comes to industrial relations matters, it is the role of Government to prioritise, above all, the needs of those who are most vulnerable. We want to see minimum conditions applied to all workers, including those who face the biggest disadvantages on the job—people like migrant, part-time, casual, low-skilled, and low-educated workers, who are least able to bargain for themselves or perhaps to have ready access to union coverage. We are therefore pleased that this bill will provide these minimum breaks by law, and see this as a long-overdue measure whose time has finally come.

As Andrew Little from the New Zealand Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union pointed out when the bill was first announced, at the moment around 350,000 workers are covered by collective agreements, and about 1.7 million workers are not. It is those among the 1.7 million who are missing out on a fair go in the workplace who will benefit from the protection that this new law will provide—and it is about time too.

The second major purpose of this bill is the requirement that employers provide appropriate facilities and breaks for staff who wish to breastfeed or express breast milk, as far as is reasonable and practicable in the particular circumstances pertaining to that workplace. I am really pleased to hear parties like National and New Zealand First supporting this provision—or at least tentatively supporting, in National’s case. Again, the Green Party welcomes this proposal as part of its overall commitment to furthering breastfeeding as a key component of best health outcomes both for babies and for their mothers. With so many mothers now part of our regular workforce it is critical that we do everything we can to support their ability to keep breastfeeding once they are back at work after having a baby or babies. I say “babies” because there are a lot of mothers these days who have twins. As a mother of twins myself I can say that trying to breastfeed twins and go back to work is even more difficult than going back to work after having one baby.

The World Health Organization advocates support for breastfeeding, including encouraging Governments to put in place laws that safeguard the rights of working mothers to breastfeed. This is backed by ILO Convention 183 on maternity protection, which states that women should have the right not only to take one or more breaks during the working day to feed their infant but also that these breaks should count as time worked. Although the bill allows for paid breastfeeding breaks if employer and employee agree, the bill itself does not provide a right to this. I imagine that submissions in favour of the latter will be heard during the select committee process. The Green Party will certainly support any amendment or improvement that can be achieved in this area.

The other part of the bill that relates to breastfeeding in effect requires employers, where they reasonably can, to make sure that appropriate facilities are available for breastfeeding mothers. This may sound ridiculously onerous to some, but in fact the evaluation of parental leave carried out in 2005-06 found that space for breastfeeding was actually offered by 69 percent of small employers—remarkably—and 41 percent of large employers. Given that there is already such substantial practical implementation and support for this and that our larger employers are in fact those surely most able to afford to supply even a small space for affected employees, I cannot see that there should be too much opposition to this provision, even from the most traditionally hard-hearted of employer organisations.

There has been some comment in the media that at a time when the economy is slowing and we begin to face up to the possibility of a recession at some point in the nearish future, the Government should not be further regulating the workplace in regard to things like the requirement for minimum breaks and access to breastfeeding facilities where practicable. This is the old argument that in hard times we need greater labour market flexibility and fewer universal protections. Well, in fact, the Green Party argues the reverse. This time of comparative prosperity in which we are also all, I think, recognising the possibility of a looming downturn is exactly the time when we should be maximising protections like those before us today.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. I know that the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill is not just about breastfeeding as such, but having five children myself I think I am quite a good authority on some of these issues, at least at an observer level.

I have always held the quiet belief that tangata whenua are at the cutting edge of some of the most innovative and enterprising initiatives in our world. I think that this bill provides a pretty good opportunity for us to recognise that. Almost a century ago, as a 1909 publication put forward by Dr Māui Pōmare reveals, Māori were suggesting that the longer a baby could be breastfed the better. Ngā Kohungahunga Me Ngā Kai Ma Ratou was written by Dr Māui Pōmare when he was a native health officer, and was initially published by Te Aute Society. The booklet recommended that babies ought to be breastfed, as it was both beneficial to the child and health-giving to the mother. Māui Pōmare explained: “Ko te ū o te whaea te mea tika, ā, ko te Atua hoki tēnā i hōmai ai hei ngote mā ngā pēpi.” The mother’s breast, which was given by God for babies to suck on, is so right.

So here we are, a century later, finally requiring facilities and breaks to be provided for employees who wish to breastfeed in the workplace or during work periods, as well as requiring employees to be provided with rest breaks and meal breaks. Dr Pōmare may well have wondered why it took so long, particularly when we consider that around three-quarters of mothers with children under 1 year of age are now in paid employment. I think it is all to do with attitude. I recall the late Irihāpeti Ramsden presented research that revealed that while Sir Māui was writing his guidelines there was evidence of social attitudes that actually frowned on breastfeeding in public. That attitude seemingly is still prevalent, as reported in the 2006 study Infant Feeding and Work developed by Dr Debbie Payne, a director of the Auckland University of Technology Centre for Midwifery and Women’s Health Research. The study—New Zealand’s first qualitative study of breastfeeding mothers at work—identified that many women were put off breastfeeding in the workplace after observing the treatment of other employees trying to feed their babies. Some of the women had to feed in a shower cubicle. Some of the members tonight have referred to some of these particular issues. Other women received feedback from their peers that implied mothers feeding were simply slacking off at work.

This bill today attempts to directly impact on those concerns. It responds to the problems reported in the study that women who breastfeed in the workplace are often discouraged by a lack of facilities and the attitude of their employers and colleagues. One of the issues that wāhine Māori have commented on in the past, from what I have heard, is the acute discomfort they have experienced in being led to spaces to breastfeed that may be linked to a toilet. We all understand breast milk is kai, and the question that inevitably arises is whether anyone in the House would be happy to have their lunch in the toilet—hopefully not. As such, we hope the bill will ensure that appropriate facilities are to be provided for breastfeeding and expressing breast milk, as well as for storage of expressed breast milk.

Breastfeeding has often been a stumbling point for mothers with babies returning to work; they are faced with the choice of stopping breastfeeding or not being in paid work. We hope that through the leadership demonstrated by this bill that difficulty can be somewhat alleviated. The issue of breastfeeding and paid work also raises the question of whether we should consider extending paid parental leave to a period of 12 months. Although this bill seeks to provide for some very significant rights and health benefits, the reality is that many women will just not be able to arrange for their babies to be brought into the workplace or for milk to be collected at times when the baby really needs it. The ability of women to have a real choice about whether to stay at home with their babies while breastfeeding is hugely dependent on the kind of financial support that paid parental leave can offer. The current choice, along with the negative attitudes to breastfeeding in public, are significant barriers, and, as such, act directly against the Government’s intention to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding as a key health target.

We in the Māori Party have also thought that the strategy to promote and protect breastfeeding through the creation of minimum standards should, at the very least, consider some ways of communicating the message that employers and workplaces are being required to become more family-friendly and that the wellness of children and mothers is an employment priority. A recent study of Māori women’s decision-making around breastfeeding by Marewa Glover, Harangai Manaena-Biddle, and John Waldon revealed that whānau are central and that whānau should be mobilised to support healthy choices. The women’s partners, mothers, sisters, and aunties were cited most often as having a role in the decision to breastfeed and in supporting breastfeeding. For workers, then, we see the developments in this bill as a real gain for whānau well-being.

The other key amendments in this bill require employers to provide employees with paid rest breaks and unpaid meal breaks. As a result of this legislation, rest and meal breaks are required to be provided at 2-hourly intervals where reasonable and practical. As the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has pointed out, I believe, these changes are long overdue. People have taken it for granted that rest and meal breaks are already provided for in law. We have taken it for granted because before the Employment Contracts Act 1991, breaks had been provided for. Yet some 17 years later we are now informed that the question of breaks is a frequently raised issue in the collective bargaining in newly unionised workplaces, even though, more rightly, they should be guaranteed by law. Rest and meal breaks are not included in the minimum codes in the present legislation, which provide for minimum wages, paid parental leave, holidays, and health and safety. Yet one would surely assume that having breaks is critical for health and safety and well-being.

Although it seems bizarre for these times and conditions, it is apparent that there is no explicit legal requirement for employees to have rest and meal breaks. Although almost 93 percent of active collective agreements provide for them, there are some sectors where the provision of breaks is inadequate, and it is hoped that this bill will do much to bring in the changes necessary to enhance the overall workplace environment. The Service and Food Workers Union, for example, reported that the largest number of calls and queries they field are from employees asking about their rest and meal break entitlements. Most of these employees are in small workplaces across the hospitality sector, which are not covered by collective agreements. These rights are human rights. They are health and safety rights. They are basic employment provisions, and the Māori Party is happy to support them, as is consistent with our position that workplace environments be worker-friendly.

We believe also that this bill is entirely consistent with Māori Party policies on health, and with the well-being of tamariki and whānau. We are therefore very pleased to be able to support this bill, and we look forward to the subsequent stages of the bill and to hearing the voices and views of all the parties involved.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I am delighted that the Green member Sue Bradford mentioned the Blackball Workingmen’s Club, because on Easter Sunday I was there with Mr Auchinvole for the seminar that was held as part of the weekend commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Blackball strike. What happened was that Mr Auchinvole asked me whether I would like to attend, and being open-minded, liberal in spirit, and a student of history I accepted with alacrity. It helps that Blackball is one of my favourite towns and the coast is my favourite part of New Zealand.

I am sure Ms Bradford would confirm that it was a most enjoyable day. Indeed, Mr Auchinvole and I were made very welcome by the good people of Blackball, by the trade unionists, and by most of the other attendees, including, I am pleased to say, Sue Bradford, who is always pleasant, and the Hon Lianne Dalziel. However, a couple of Labour MPs were typically rude and unfriendly!

Just before lunch we were told that the Hon Maryan Street would make an announcement. I have to say she was very pleasant, too. She acknowledged her colleagues and Sue Bradford by their parties. She mentioned Mr Auchinvole and me, but she could not bring herself to say the dreaded word “National”. Anyway, she made an announcement about breaks and breastfeeding, and she announced the introduction of the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. As Ms Wilkinson said, we will support the bill’s referral to the select committee so the committee can have a good look at it. It is interesting that this legislation was announced at Blackball, where Chris Trotter said the Labour Party did not belong because it was formed about 13 years after the Blackball incident.

I became very interested in the issue of meal breaks, given the lecture that had been given before lunch by an excellent Dunedin historian and by Chief Judge Graeme Colgan of the Employment Court. I think it is worth recounting what happened and what gave rise to the Blackball strike, which, of course, has culminated in this legislation today.

Chris Auchinvole: What did happen?

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Well, there was a fellow called Pat Hickey. As the name suggests he was a good Irishman. He was born, I think, on the outskirts of Nelson in the Waimea Plains, and he went overseas and joined the Wobblies. I am sure that the member for Christchurch Central would not know what a Wobbly was, but those of us who are interested in industrial history do know these things—it was an American union. Pat came back to New Zealand and he had been radicalised.

After spending some time in Denniston, he decided—I think everyone in Denniston decided, as well—that it would be in the interests of all concerned if he went off to Blackball. That is what he did, and he was employed in one of the mines in Blackball. It seems that the manager of one of the mines was a Mr Leach, and I have to say that he did not sound to me to be a particularly pleasant man. One day he stood over Mr Hickey and demanded that Mr Hickey get back to work. Pat said he wanted to finish his pie, and the said Mr Leach stood over him—it could have been with a stopwatch or a watch—and ordered him back to work, saying that his 15-minute crib-time was over. That gave rise to the strike, because Pat thought he was entitled to proper crib-time. So it was a very antagonistic setting. I think I said to Mr Auchinvole on that day that if I had been Pat Hickey and had been spoken to like that by Mr Leach, Mr Leach would have received my pie in a certain part of his face.

It seems, however, that an important fact had been overlooked. The unions had had 30 minutes’ crib-time made available to them as a result of negotiations with the company but had voluntarily given up that crib-time and reduced it to 15 minutes because they wanted to get out of the mines 15 minutes earlier—and who can blame them? So it seems that notwithstanding my immediate sympathy for Pat Hickey, the unionists got the wrong end of the stick. The strike occurred because poor old Pat Hickey got his facts wrong, and it seems to me that that often happens with trade unionists. So those were the facts—

Sue Moroney: No, no.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —and if the member had been there—[Interruption] Oh, was the member there? Then she should have been listening. Judge Colgan was asked what he would have done if he had been the judge dealing with those matters on the basis of the facts as were shown to be the case, and he said he would have applied the law accordingly.

So they are important facts, and it is worth saying that this matter, which so excited the Labour MPs and Mr Auchinvole and me that we went to Blackball on Easter Sunday, concerns a strike that proceeded on the basis of an error of fact. It is important to recount this interesting history for the benefit of the House. I certainly found it interesting.

I was interested in the Minister’s announcement, and I hope the select committee has a good look at the legislation, because it raises some important issues. I am particularly interested in the purpose clause, which talks about time being provided to employees for rest breaks and meal breaks. It seems to me that it is very much a classic case of Labour saying one thing and doing another. Last Thursday in Auckland, for example, members of the Justice and Electoral Committee were suffering under the chairmanship of Lynne Pillay, who, perhaps, is Labour’s answer to Mr Leach. We went for 8 hours without a break, notwithstanding my numerous requests for crib-time. Pat Hickey got 15 minutes of crib-time, but how much time did we get? We got nothing. Lynne Pillay is a tough customer. I just hope that the Justice and Electoral Committee will take a good look at crib-time for members of Parliament when Lynne Pillay is chair of that select committee. Jokes aside, this legislation raises important issues. I was delighted to be at Blackball to hear the announcement, and I will be delighted to see the progress of the bill in the coming weeks.

SUE MORONEY (Labour) : It is my very great pleasure to rise and speak to the first reading of the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill, which seeks to amend the Employment Relations Act. It sure beats depending on the ballot for a member’s bill to be drawn. I say that because one part of this legislation was the subject of a member’s bill that I put into the ballot towards the end of last year.

I am very pleased to have gained the support of my colleagues, and I thank my colleagues, and the Minister of Labour in particular, for taking up the issue in a Government bill, which has come into the House today for its first reading. I also congratulate Steve Chadwick on the infant feeding part of this bill, because that was the subject of a member’s bill that she lodged, and we all know that this particular issue is dear to her heart. I also thank my colleague Charles Chauvel who, when this was a lowly ranked member’s bill, actually helped me with its drafting to ensure that it did come within the legal context—so my thank you to Charles.

It was appropriate that the announcement was made by the Minister Maryan Street during the Easter weekend centenary commemoration of the 1908 crib-time dispute at Blackball. As some members have alluded to, the miners took industrial action to ensure they could get adequate time for rest and sustenance before undertaking their jobs. We all know how dangerous the job of mining is, how physically demanding it is, and the importance of those miners undertaking collective action to bring the matter to the attention of their employers—which leads us to be addressing this issue in law a century later. Many members have asked how come it is not in the law already. I have a potted history here to inform the members of the House and any listeners as to how that occurred.

In 1908 and thereabouts the right for meal breaks was put into law for various sectors of the workforce. Of course, in those days the legislation was done industry by industry, and that remained so for quite a period of time. However, in 1981, under a National Government, all these various industrial parts of the law were collapsed into one piece of legislation called the Factories and Commercial Premises Act. In 1981 the parts of those various pieces of legislation that were dropped out by that amalgamated Act of Parliament were the legal entitlements to meal breaks and rest periods. In 1981 that did not trouble anyone too much, because all working people in New Zealand were covered by national awards, which prescribed the meal breaks and the rest periods. So when the Factories and Commercial Premises Act was brought in and it did not include those breaks and rest periods, it did not have an impact on anyone because everyone was covered by a national award.

However, in 1991, when the Employment Contracts Act was enacted—again by a National Government—a lot of workers were exposed to no longer having their legal entitlement to meal breaks and rest breaks, because that legislation demolished the national award system. That meant that a whole range of workers did not have an automatic legal entitlement to meal breaks and rest periods. So that is the history; that is how we got to the point where we are now addressing this issue and bringing it back into the law so that it is the entitlement of all working people in New Zealand—and so it should be.

Last year when I submitted my member’s bill on this subject into the member’s ballot I had a launch of the subject at the University of Waikato. I thank the Centre for Labour and Trade Union Studies at the University of Waikato for participating in the launch of the bill at the time. They were very interested in it from the perspective of an issue that they called “donated time”. Many people in that department are concerned about what they call the ongoing creep of time that belongs to employees actually being taken over by employers with no further compensation. However, I come to this legislation from a slightly different perspective. I come at it from the perspective that it is a basic human right for people to have regular and proper breaks at work, from a health and safety perspective, and from the perspective that this is good for work-life balance. It is about how we are able to operate at work, how refreshed we are when we get home, and how we are able to interact with our families.

I want to refer just briefly to the health and safety aspects of this bill so that people are very clear about how meal breaks and rest periods at work fit into the health and safety category. In 2007 the Department of Labour did some research into the causative factors associated with summertime workplace fatalities. I was very pleased to work with the then Minister of Labour, Ruth Dyson, on the terms of reference for the research to be undertaken. It was carried out primarily to look at the blip that we seem to have every year in this country in relation to summertime holiday fatalities in the workplace.

However, the research inadvertently discovered that there are two peak times when work-related fatal incidents are most likely to occur. One is late morning, between 10.30 a.m. and 12.30 p.m., and the other is mid-afternoon, between 2.30 p.m. and 3.30 p.m., which is roughly about the time when people ought to be taking breaks. So although some further research needs to be undertaken, the researchers suspect that when they delve further into this they may well find that these accidents and fatalities occurred because people had not had proper breaks throughout the day, they were fatigued, and they may have become dehydrated and not been able to focus on their jobs as well as they may have if they had had proper sustenance and rest breaks. So perhaps that is a major contributing cause to many of these fatalities.

During the course of this debate some questions were raised as to whether legislation is necessary or whether there is just a need for a little bit of education. One of the reasons I saw fit to prepare a member’s bill on this issue was the examples I had brought to me about workers who were not getting access to meal breaks and rest periods in their workplace. I want to share a few of those examples with the House.

Probably the example that shocked me the most was one that occurred last year in Hamilton to a young 17-year-old woman in her first job. She was working for a very large retail company in Hamilton. She was new to the workplace and did not know the rules very well, but she decided to go and have morning tea at about the same time as her colleagues did. She was rather surprised when she was called into the office, disciplined, and given an employment warning for daring to take a morning-tea break. When she asked how it was that other people in the workplace were taking their meal breaks and were not getting disciplined for it, her employer said to her: “That’s because it’s in their collective employment agreement. It is not in your individual employment agreement.” Sure enough, when she looked at the individual employment agreement she had signed, it was silent on the issue of rest periods and meal breaks. The moral to this story is that she very quickly joined the union and became party to the collective employment agreement.

That story, from just last year, demonstrates that, sadly, this issue is alive and kicking in our workplaces, and it is not just in small workplaces or in places where, perhaps, under Paula Bennett’s analogy, employers might not know about health and safety. Such employers may not have access to health and human resources, but this company was a large employer that ought to have known better, yet that is what was occurring. I have also had examples from people working in the petrol service station industry who have come to me saying that they cannot get meal breaks. I have had bus drivers coming to me to say that they are trying to negotiate into their collective employment agreements—literally as we speak—decent rest breaks at work, and they are getting a solid no from their employers. So this issue is very much alive this year.

This is an issue that people right across the political spectrum respond to. People think it is unfair that all workers do not have the rights to these breaks. I know that because in the 3 weeks leading up to the announcement I collected a petition in support of getting these breaks put into law, and people readily signed that petition. They were quite shocked to discover that that right was not in the law, and they readily agreed that it ought to be.

I conclude by saying I wish the select committee luck in listening to the submissions on this bill. I hope to come to the committee and listen to some of those submissions myself. I feel I am grieving a little bit for not being on that select committee at the moment. I commend the bill to the House.

I seek leave to table the petition of the people who support the meal breaks and rest periods going into law.

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

HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) : I rise to speak on behalf of ACT New Zealand to the first reading of the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. The bill is about two things. It is about making legislative provision, first of all, for the promotion and protection of infant feeding through breastfeeding and, second of all, for rest and meal breaks. ACT will be opposing this bill, and I will come to the reasons for that shortly.

As a mother who breastfed each and every one of her five children, I think I have some authority on this subject. [Interruption] Actually, there are three of us sitting in very close proximity who have five children.

Peter Brown: Is that all?

HEATHER ROY: This is a great thing, because it is important that we have proper representation of parents in this House. I am not sure how many children Mr Brown has. I do not think he has five children, but maybe he has fifteen—I do not know.

Large parts of the background information provided in the explanatory note of this bill make a good deal of sense. I am looking, as I say that, at page 6 where there is a section about infant feeding. It makes a good deal of sense and I agree with all of the statements there. It states: “Breastfeeding is key to providing the best start for New Zealand infants, and important for both infant and maternal health.” Certainly, there is no argument there. Page 6 also refers to the recent select committee inquiry into obesity and type 2 diabetes and the advantages for both mothers and children of breastfeeding. Certainly, as the bill says, “Breastfeeding is a key indicator for Health Target 8 of the Health Targets 2007/08 to improve nutrition, increase physical activity, and reduce obesity.” I wholeheartedly support that.

ACT is also supporting Sue Bradford’s member’s bill to allow mothers in prison to have their children with them for longer, primarily because breastfeeding is very important and the bonds that are established in those first weeks and months of life are very important. We will continue to support Sue’s bill; I commend her for putting it forward. However, I do not think that this bill will actually change anything, and that is the reason ACT is opposing it.

As I say, there are two parts to the bill: the breastfeeding provisions and the provisions for rest and meal breaks. I think the Government has put this bill forward very quickly. I will come to the quite clear reason why that happened. I suggest—and this is just an indication—that as we are in election year, yet again this Labour Government, worried about where its votes will come from, has had to put forward its sop to the unions, and this is it. The suggestion that this bill is necessary to provide all these extra provisions is based on the premise that employers are selfish and extraordinarily evil. It is sad that all the former trade unionists sitting on the other side of the House have had such terrible experiences. Despite undertaking a large number of different roles in the workforce, both in the private and public sector, what I have experienced is very different from that. Here we have yet another bill to tackle the evil employer, because employers and employees, of course, are totally incapable of getting together and sorting out provisions for themselves. The best solutions occur when employers and employees are left to determine optimal circumstances that suit both parties. Given that most people are reasonable, when people go with reasonable requests and expectations to their employers very often better outcomes are reached because they are able to put forward their own case rather than having to rely on cases that are put forward just in general.

Here we have another bill forcing extra compliance on employers. I suggest that this bill probably not only will achieve nothing but will be counter-productive. The history that we heard from the Labour member Sue Moroney was all very well and interesting, but in fact things have moved on. We are in 2008 and things are very different from those days that she was describing. Thank goodness things are very different. They are very different, and we cannot be making legislation based on what might or might not have happened a very long time ago.

The breastfeeding provisions in this bill are particularly interesting. I suggest that these provisions have been written perhaps by a man—who is obviously not able to breastfeed—or a woman who has not breastfed, because they allow two lots of 10 minutes. If we are talking about expressing milk, those who actually know something about this and have some practical experience will know that 10 minutes is neither here nor there and in that time one is likely to achieve very little in the way of what is meant to be achieved. But that is by the way, and given that this bill will go through to select committee, I suppose there will be submissions in this regard. We will have all sorts of people coming forward saying that to express milk effectively—and I suggest they would be right—probably something like 30 minutes is a more adequate time. Are we going to extend the provision to 30 minutes? What obligations and red tape will then be forced on employers in that regard? It is much better to leave the negotiating between an employee and an employer for the short period of time that we are talking about here.

I want to raise a very different issue, but one that should be taken very seriously in respect of this bill. I refer to page 5 of the explanatory note around the regulatory impact statement and the adequacy statement. I read from the adequacy statement: “A regulatory impact statement (RIS) was not submitted at the time approval for the policy relating to the Bill was sought from Cabinet, due to the time frame allowed for the preparation of that paper. The Regulatory Impact Analysis Unit has therefore not reviewed the regulatory impact analysis (RIA) or RIS for adequacy as required for proposals that meet the economically significant criteria, as decisions have already been made.” I come back to the fact that here we have guidelines for legislation that the Hon Lianne Dalziel stands up and defends rigidly in this Parliament—and I agree with her; she should—saying that these are important so that we know that the financial considerations have been taken into account, as have all the other considerations that rightly should be.

This bill has been introduced very quickly because it is election year. It has come before the House without having the adequate background work done. We have no idea what the cost of this bill will be, either to employers or to other groups, yet we are forcing it through Parliament before the background work can be done. This is just wrong, quite honestly, and should not be happening. If this is such important legislation, a few more weeks should have been taken before it was introduced into the House. The background work should have been done thoroughly so that the select committee, when it is looking at this bill, is able to make proper decisions with the proper background information.

Not everybody in this House is in favour of legislation being rushed through. ACT is not. In that very vein we have before the Commerce Committee at the moment the Regulatory Responsibility Bill in the name of Rodney Hide. It talks explicitly—

Hon Mark Gosche: Where is he?

HEATHER ROY: Oh, did Mr Gosche miss the member’s very important question at question time? Perhaps he was asleep. The Regulatory Responsibility Bill is currently before the Commerce Committee and it looks at all sorts of very important questions. It would take a very dim view of this situation. Most of the members on that committee, including the Labour members—although Mr Gosche is not one of them, so he probably would not have any knowledge of this—know that it is extraordinarily important that the right questions are asked before legislation comes before Parliament. They could be questions about what this bill will do, what it will achieve, what might the side effects be, and what the unintended consequences are. This House has often rushed legislation through, only to see unintended consequences emerge, as had been predicted. Before we know it, we have an amendment bill back in the House and we are going over the issue yet again.

Are there any alternatives? What makes this bill the best option? When I look further into the explanatory note at page 9, I see under the heading “Alternative options” a pretty bold statement: “No alternative options were considered.” They were not considered, because this Labour Government knows best and trade unionists know best. They think they know what is best for the public and the private sector in all of these things and that nothing else needs to be looked at. In medicine, the area I come from, there is a thing called “differential diagnosis”. We look at all the options, so that we can get to the right diagnosis and then formulate the best treatment. The option of an alternative is being run over roughshod in this bill. I ask whether the regulation follows the principles of responsible regulatory management. That is one of the questions that would have to be asked of all legislation in terms of the Regulatory Responsibility Bill. That is the basis on which our lawmaking should be founded on. When will the regulation next be reviewed? There is no mention of that in this bill.

ACT will oppose this bill, for those reasons. The bill will go to a select committee and we will follow its progress with interest, but I suggest that this bill will achieve nothing. It ignores the principles that good lawmaking is founded upon.

Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) : It is interesting to follow Heather Roy’s speech. I suggest that the ACT party will vote one for, one against the bill, because the so-called leader of that party has been on a rest break for most of the last year or two, and hardly ever attends Parliament. I think he is confused. He thinks we work for 30 minutes and have the rest of the day off. That is not what the bill proposes, but I suppose the previous speaker at least appears in the House and in select committee from time to time, so she would have to vote against the bill in due conscience.

The bill is interesting because it follows on from some important moves by this Government last week—the increase in the minimum adult wage to $12 an hour, and the change in the youth rates so that we now have a new entrant rate whereby, after 200 hours, young people will move on to the minimum adult wage of $12. The bill comes also the week after the contribution to KiwiSaver for employees by their employer. It comes about a year after people received the extra week’s leave.

Also, the bill follows other important changes to industrial law, like the vulnerable workers legislation that we put through as an amendment to the Employment Relations Act, which, fortunately, is there at a time when some of those people out there—not imaginary people as the ACT party would have it, but real employers—are doing terrible things to workers in our hospitals. Spotless Healthcare Services is the company I am talking about on this occasion. It cannot honour a deal to pay workers $14.25 an hour to work in our hospitals to clean, cook, and do orderlies’ duties. Although that ACT member down the back of the Chamber speaks with some honesty in saying she is against unions and workers having rights, that is the sort of thing that is happening out there, and it is not imaginary. Those workers were locked out by their employer for 9 days last year. They are due a pay increase that has been funded by the Government, but their employer is still to pay up. Their employer is still refusing to give those workers what they are due, and the ACT party wonders why we have to have legislation that would give minimum rights to workers to have a break during their working day for a meal, and a break in-between to have a cup of tea or a rest. It is just common sense. It is just sensible to have minimum codes within employment to make sure that those bad employers—and, sadly, there are some, of which Spotless would be one of the worst out there—actually know there is a law and if they break it, there will be some penalties for breaking it.

My colleague Sue Moroney talked of such matters, and I congratulate her and the Hon Steve Chadwick on the work they put in to make sure that this type of legislation comes into place. There are examples out there, every day of the week, coming to the attention of MPs and unions, which represent a percentage of the workforce, but certainly not the majority of it, where employers either knowingly or unknowingly refuse to allow people to take a break. Those breaks are necessary for health and safety purposes. Also, as we have a shortage of labour in this country, it is necessary that employers offer proper working conditions to members of the workforce if they want to retain them.

We are very familiar with the arguments that some industries have about workers having a break of this sort. The bus industry, as an example, has argued long and hard not only against this type of legislation but against driving hours legislation, which was put into place in transport legislation to ensure the safety of the person who is driving and the other people on the road. It is not an imagined problem. It is not something that occurs just because it is election year, as members opposite have said it does. This bill has been thought about and put together over a very long period of time. It actually became a Government bill because it had not made it through the ballot process of members’ bills. It is also a manifesto promise made by the Labour Party, and we deliver on them. We do not break those promises. We do not ignore them; we take them seriously.

In terms of the bill providing facilities and breaks for employees who wish to breastfeed or express milk, I recall, before I came into Parliament if my memory serves me right, in Samoa in the mid-1990s the Samoan Government had a very large overseas company coming in to set up manufacturing and it saw fit to say that one of the conditions the company would have to comply with was the ability for employees to have proper facilities and time for breastfeeding. A country like Samoa, which, in terms of development, is a long way down the track before it catches up to New Zealand, saw fit to do that. It was not that there was a shortage of labour and therefore it had to do this to make sure that people would work; far from it. Its health Minister at the time told me he saw this as a hugely important aspect for the health of babies in Samoa. So if it is good enough for Samoans, certainly it is good enough for New Zealand workers, for New Zealand babies, and for New Zealand families.

Again, this bill is about this Government looking to the future for our families. We are now very much a country that relies on both parents working. Once upon a time, in my days of growing up in New Zealand, one could almost guarantee that dad was out at work, mum was at home, and the question of breastfeeding babies was irrelevant in that respect. Nowadays in the community that I represent there is a huge number of women who have their babies and very shortly afterwards go back to work—for all sorts of reasons. For many of them in low-paid work, it is economic reality, economic necessity. If we want to have those women’s children and families brought up properly with the best possible outcomes in terms of health, it just makes sense that these types of minimum requirements are placed in the law.

I am looking forward to the ACT party putting forward an amendment that says that 10 minutes is not long enough. We will see whether ACT actually is serious with its words, because it has the opportunity to do that; if not on the select committee, it could get one of its mates to make a submission along those lines. If its members cannot even be bothered doing that, then when the bill is reported back and also in the Committee of the whole House they can get up and make an impassioned speech to say that 10 minutes is not long enough and that it should be 30 minutes, because that is what I heard the ACT member say.

This bill is about making sure that the gaps in the law that were created by the previous National Government, back in those days in 1981 and 1991 when it ripped out the legislation that put these things in place, are being restored. There has been ample time for employers to say they would take a voluntarist approach to this issue. Nobody has stopped them putting it into their individual contracts, which the vast majority of New Zealand workers are employed under. Who said they could not? Why have they not done that? Education and voluntarism are things that I know we will hear a lot about on the select committee from employer organisations, and, no doubt, from Opposition members. My question is this. If in 1991 the law was changed and people have been able to have these things in their collective or employment agreements ever since then, why have they not done that? If it is good common sense, why have they not done it?

I have seen far too many young people come to me and show me their contracts of employment. I have looked through those contracts, and there is no mention of rest breaks or meal breaks. Employers have been given 8, 9, or, in this case, many more years than that, because it is 2008 and it is a long time since 1991 or 1981 when the laws were changed, the award system was taken away, and the Factories and Commercial Premises Act, which previously allowed for breaks, was taken away. It is a very long time for the voluntarist approach to have worked. It has not worked in many, many cases so we have put into law a minimum code that will give workers a condition that most New Zealanders would say is proper and very few people would be against. I see no harm at all in having those provisions in a law as this bill proposes.

KATRINA SHANKS (National) : It is my pleasure to speak to the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill today. It is interesting that we have two mothers of five children in this House. Being the competitive person I am, I thought I was up there, but I myself have breastfed only three children. We have the winners at one end—those with five children—and I am not quite as experienced with three children. But maybe I make up for it in that I am the second-most-recent person in Parliament to have breastfed, I believe—in the not too distant past. I looked at this legislation with a lot of interest, because it is quite relevant to where I have been and where I could be again, come to think about it—not that I am! [Interruption] No fear, I say to the whip.

The first thing that came to mind when I looked at this legislation was to ask what current evidence there is that the existing provision is not working in the workplace. What evidence is there that employers are not allowing women to breastfeed in the workplace? As an MP, I have not had one woman come to me to say that she had an issue with it. As a woman with many friends still breastfeeding and working, I can say that none of them have an issue with breastfeeding or expressing milk in the workplace. On looking into this bill a bit more, I think the select committee has a lot of work to do in proving that we need it.

Not only that; it also has a lot of work to do on the detail of the legislation. As a mother who has breastfed three children, I can tell members right now that a period of 10 minutes does not cut the mustard, at all, and neither does the proposed number of breaks. A mother’s milk does not come in in a break; it can come in at any time, depending on how much the mother has had to drink, how tired she is, how stressed she is, and when she last fed her baby. Babies change routines all the time, so just because a mother breastfeeds at 9 one morning does not mean she will breastfeed at 9 the next morning. A mother is not on a strict timetable. Her employer cannot tell her that her breastfeeding break is at 10.30, because she may not have enough milk then, or she may have way too much milk at 9 o’clock.

If women will have to wait until 10.30 to breastfeed, many of them will ask whether their employers are going to supply them with cabbage leaves. We were talking about this before, and wondering whether employers would be asked to provide ordinary cabbage leaves or frozen cabbage leaves for women who have to wait for their break.

Heather Roy: You need frozen.

KATRINA SHANKS: The mother of five children agrees that the cabbage leaves should be frozen. Employers would need to provide frozen cabbage leaves, in case a mother’s milk supply comes in too early or too late. How do we actually legislate for something as personal to a woman as breastfeeding, and get it to work, and have conformity across the workplace? I think the select committee has a lot of work to do on how it will actually—

Darien Fenton: Chester is supporting it.

KATRINA SHANKS: I am sorry but I am actually talking to the bill here, and I have a really important issue. This provision is all about babies and mothers and milk; that is what it is about. I tell members that if we do not get it right before mothers get back to the workplace, if we do not ensure that women are breastfeeding properly when they leave hospital and go home, there will not be an issue. If women are being pushed out of hospital within 6 hours of the birth, as the Capital and Coast District Health Board does, how are they going to learn to breastfeed? They will be going back to work not having breastfed their children. They need support at the beginning, in hospital and when they get home, but they are not getting it.

We need lactation consultants. We need midwives who can give mothers the full visits that, under section 88, they deserve but are not getting now. In some district health boards, midwives are handing over mothers to Well Child 2 weeks after the birth. If they are doing that, how can the mothers get support from the midwives to ensure that they are breastfeeding properly? In fact, if we do not get it right at the very beginning, when women are coming out of hospital with new babies, this legislation is irrelevant; they will not be breastfeeding their babies in the workplace, because they will not be breastfeeding their babies.

We need to fix the matter up front, and this current Government has absolutely no answers for that. There is a crisis in midwifery, there is a crisis in maternity services right now, and women need support at the front end, but this Government has not been able to deliver it to them. If members ask any women out there what is most likely to keep them in hospital, the answer will be the ability to breastfeed. That is what keeps them there; they want to learn to breastfeed. But they are not getting the support they need. This legislation may be totally irrelevant, because we already know that 6 weeks after the birth there is a huge drop-off in the number of women who are breastfeeding. Women who are at home for the first 3 months are not breastfeeding when they go back into the workforce.

We have major issues to address. I am taking just a short call today, and will end on the note that I think the select committee has a huge amount of work to do, particularly on how practical this legislation is. When legislation like this is being rushed through, especially in election year, I think we have to consider how valid it is.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Customs) on behalf of the Minister of Labour: I move, That the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for consideration, that the committee report the bill by 22 July, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 192 and 195(1)(b) and (c).

• Motion agreed to.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) : Mr Chairperson—

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

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: This bill has an interesting title: the Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill, but one has to wonder whether the bill is true to its label. If we reflect back on the introduction we had from the Minister David Parker on the bill, I think he said himself that it would not be expected to achieve a great deal and that it is principally regulation. It is hardly a surprise to members on this side of the Chamber that the Minister is introducing more regulations; the Government seemingly has a fixation with them. Someone was telling me the other day, down on the West Coast, that when he was in the army they had a saying: “If it moves, salute it; if it doesn’t, paint it.” The present Government has a different solution, which seems to be to regulate it.

This is a time of unprecedented wealth, none of which is Government-created. This Government over the last 8 years has overseen a complete cycle of wealth that was generated by the Nats’ policies of the 1990s—

Hon Members: Oh!

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Oh, yes, it was the Nats’ policies; that is where the money came from. The money was seized by the ever-grasping hands of Labour, which spent it in establishing big Government. Labour largely distributed the money without regard for infrastructure, productivity, or future wealth development.

Now, the cycle is back into increased mortgages, increased fuel costs, increased food costs, and hugely increased electricity costs. I have some figures here. Residential power prices have risen 48 percent in the last 5 years—48 percent compared with 25 percent for industrial and commercial users.

Phil Heatley: How much?

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: It is 48 percent for residential users and 25 percent for industrial and commercial users. The big problem in New Zealand with regard to electricity prices is that we have a scarcity of supply—and we will be speaking about that in other parts of the debate on this bill—which has driven up power prices. Power stations just have not been built fast enough in the last few years to cope with the growing population and growing economy, and the subsequent increase in demand.

Peter Brown: What’s that got to do with this bill?

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Well, we are talking about the title of the bill, and we are talking about electricity disconnection and low fixed charges, so charges are in there, I tell Mr Brown. Charges are in there.

This winter will be particularly interesting. At the moment lake levels and inflows are approaching 1992 levels. The Taranaki Combined Cycle Power Station at Stratford is still out of action. The system is at its limits at the moment; demand always goes up in winter.

We will be speaking, as I say, on other parts of this bill, but I would just like to remember the tragic and untimely death of Mrs Muliaga last May. This death occurred in a situation that should have been avoided; it should not have come about. I mention it as a reminder to all of us of the genesis of this particular piece of legislation. We all went into shock, because the circumstances were needless and it should not have occurred in New Zealand. Much was made of the communication disconnect that occurred. The really hard-hitting bit, though, was that Mrs Muliaga’s death lifted the lid on an aspect of New Zealand life that most people would not want to know about—an aspect of an unfeeling, cold, corporate countenance. That this matter was addressed promptly was as much a tribute to public dismay as it was to media attention. The corporates addressed the situation and, although I am not a betting man, I would be prepared to wager that most of the energy companies have protocols in place to cover the distressing circumstances of last May to prevent them from ever occurring again. If that is the case, why do we have this legislation, and why is it coming so long after the event? Thank you.

• Clause 1 agreed to.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) : Mr Chairman—[Interruption] I do not stand up and rush the Committee, and yell and carry on. I take a sensible call, and I take my time and explain to the Committee my position.

The commencement clause, which states: “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.”, is something that we in the National Party do support. Members will recall that we had some reservations initially when the bill was brought to the House. But we were thoughtful, we had done our homework, and we were confident that the bill should go to the Commerce Committee and that we would make the improvements necessary to be able to support the bill at this stage—and, of course, we do. So we will be supporting the commencement date, which is “on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” We originally had some—

Peter Brown: Sure? Say it with some conviction.

PHIL HEATLEY: The New Zealand First immigrant from, I think, Britain is chipping. He is the last guy off the boat. The last guy off the boat is chipping.

National members do support the commencement date. We did have some reservations when the bill was introduced, because members will recall that Mrs Muliaga went through that quite stressful time when she was disconnected, and that drove this whole legislation. Helen Clark said that the answer to the problem was to regulate. That is what the Labour Government does. Essentially, if there is a problem, it regulates, and if there is a bigger problem, it taxes. If there is an even bigger problem, it does a U-turn and changes its mind.

In this case the Government did not tax and it did not do a U-turn. It decided to regulate, and we had some reservations at that time. But we were happy to support the bill’s referral to the Commerce Committee, and I know that Labour members have been quietly thanking us in the corridors and lobbies for the changes we instigated at the select committee.

So National members are in a position where we will support this bill, and we will support the commencement date, which we are talking about now. We will round in beside the Minister of Energy, David Parker, because the Labour members are not. They are all quietly turning away, I guess, from supporting Mr Parker. But National members will support him.

Chris Auchinvole: We’ll be there.

PHIL HEATLEY: We will be there, and we will support the commencement date. I wanted to make sure that the Committee was aware of that.

Hon LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Minister of Pacific Island Affairs) : Kia ora, talofa lava, and warm Pacific greetings. It is my pleasure to speak in support of the Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill.

The bill has two unrelated purposes. Clause 4 amends the definition of “low-use consumer” in the Electricity Act 1992, so that regulations can be made to enable an increased number of low-use electricity consumers to benefit from the low fixed-charge tariff option for domestic consumers. There is also the matter of the commencement date. So we are very, very thrilled with this issue.

I thank all my colleagues for doing the good work on this bill, and I especially thank the Minister of Energy, the Hon David Parker. I thank him for his vision and for bringing leadership on this bill to the House.

• Clause 2 agreed to.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) : I will take just a very brief call on this one—the low fixed charges and the tariff option for domestic consumers. Let us look at the eligibility threshold for the low fixed charge. Coming from the West Coast of the South Island, I have to say that the telephones have been running hot in my little blue office with questions about why the coast has not been included in this particular strategy. Having looked at it, and having put the ruler across it, I guess that the West Coast should be delighted that it has not been included, because the strategy will not work at the present rate. Indeed, I think the Minister is on record as saying he would speak to power companies and others to explain how it should work.

There is rather a nice aspect to this in terms of the way in which economists think and express themselves. It would appear from the spin of the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, that the scheme will address inequality, but let us remember that it does not talk about discounts or amounts; it talks about margins. Yet although lower-use consumers who have not yet signed up to the low fixed-charge scheme might get a slightly lower power bill—perhaps by $20 a year—everyone else, including people who are already on the scheme, will probably pay more as the power companies simply raise tariffs across the board to make up the lost revenue. I understand that economists call this the waterbed effect, which is rather a nice economic expression, and is one that, even without being an economist, I can understand—if we push down in one part of the bed, something else lifts up to compensate.

Meanwhile, residential power prices are up compared with industrial ones. I gave those figures a little earlier.

Phil Heatley: What were they?

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: I shudder to read them out again. But, seriously, in the last 5 years residential power prices have risen by 48 percent compared with a 25 percent price rise for industrial and commercial users, so people should be entitled to wonder what the hang is going on. Increasing the threshold for the lower South Island may not be needed. Given this Government’s inaction over climate change, its mismanagement of deforestation, and the amount of carbon dioxide currently being pumped out, I ask whether there will be enough power.

When I travel throughout the West Coast - Tasman electorate I normally at some stage pass through Reefton if I am going from north to south. Reefton was the first town in New Zealand to have electricity. Its residents are proud of that, and they have signs up, saying it. Its residents generated it themselves. They have done a lot of work re-establishing their historic streetlights, and that sort of thing. I think it is sad that Reefton could well be one of the first towns in the southern hemisphere not to have regular power, unless it gets one of the handy-dandy generators that, I understand, the Minister is bringing in in groups of 100 to supplement power when our current power supply is not capable of keeping up in the way that it should. Thank you, Mr Chairperson.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Energy) : Mr Auchinvole has said two things recently that I think need to be corrected. The first is the suggestion that we are not building enough additional generation capacity. New Zealand’s need for additional generation capacity increases by around 150 to 170 megawatts per annum. Last year a capacity of more than 500 megawatts was built, which is substantially more than 1 year’s growth in capacity.

Phil Heatley: How much wind was that?

Hon DAVID PARKER: There was not much wind power in that, and the effect of wind load factors is taken into account in that 150 to 175 megawatt range. This year we are building over 300 megawatts of capacity.

Chris Auchinvole: Was this to catch up from previous years?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Some of it was to catch up on previous years; that is correct. Of course, the member’s party, I believe, is supportive of the market in the electricity sector—and if he wants to take a call to say that National is no longer in support of an electricity market, he may. The effect of the market is that one lets the market determine when it is necessary to build more capacity rather than building it before it is necessary. But maybe the National Party is changing its policy on that, like it has on so many other things recently.

The second point I would make is that it is true that electricity prices have gone up. The main reason they have gone up is that gas prices have gone up. Gas prices have not gone up as much as petrol and diesel prices, but they have gone up substantially, and they have gone up substantially as a consequence of the Māui gasfields running out and of our other gasfields being more expensive, essentially. That has been the main determinant of the increases in gas prices.

In terms of some of the things that have been said in respect of this bill by National members, one would think that they were going to oppose this bill, and my understanding from their votes earlier is that they have voted for it. They have indicated they are likely to vote for this legislation because they think it is necessary.

Clause 4 deals with low fixed-charge tariffs for domestic consumers. I have never oversold the benefits that the low fixed-charge tariff gives to low-use consumers. It gives them a benefit, but it is not an enormous benefit for most of the people who qualify. None the less, the benefit that does arise ought to be fair throughout the country, and at the moment it is not, because the entitlement relies upon a threshold that is currently the same for Auckland as it is for Invercargill. Plainly, if people live in Auckland, which is a warmer city than Invercargill, then they do not have to use as much electricity to heat their houses. Accordingly, a lower quantity of electricity, on average, is used in Auckland, and more people qualify for the low fixed-charge option in Auckland proportionately than do in Invercargill, notwithstanding the fact that, if anything, the need is greater in Invercargill. That is why we are fixing this—it is plainly unfair.

The low fixed-charge option eligibility should be based upon regional use patterns rather than on one New Zealand - wide average. This change to the Act changes the regulation-making power under the Act to enable that anomaly to be fixed.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) : I rise to take a call on clause 4, “Low fixed charge tariff option for domestic consumers”, and to pick up where the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, left off with regard to the prices of Māui gas and their impact on that low fixed charge. I would like the Minister to listen to two points that I have heard in my constituency around low fixed charges. I had a meeting, funnily enough, on Friday with a constituent, Mr Ralph McKenzie, who wanted me to go to the Unison lines company with him to question Ken Sutherland from Unison about the low fixed-charge rate. His concern was about the way that pricing is disclosed in the low fixed-charge tariff. The Minister will appreciate that both a fixed and a daily charge appear on everyone’s bill. Well, my constituent’s concern was that in the 2006-07 year his entire power bill went up by 7 percent, which was quite a bit above the rate of inflation. But when he started to get down to brass tacks and tried to uncover whether the rise was due to the fixed portion or the daily charge portion, he contacted Unison because he figured that the fixed portion of the low fixed-price charge was to do with lines companies and the distribution of power.

In fact, he found that the fixed portion had gone up. Overall, it had gone up by 24 percent, but Unison claimed that its daily rate had gone up only a couple of percentage points from that, and that overall the increase of the fixed charge was due to Contact Energy and to the increase in prices for gas from the Māui field. I am not sure how the average consumer is supposed to get to the bottom of that, because it is not disclosed very clearly. When my constituent got in touch with Contact Energy, the company wrote him a letter stating that the price rise was due to the Māui gas field running out, and the explanation the company gave him was that the costs were increasingly becoming a fixed cost and not a daily use charge. So I would like the Minister to explain that to me, because I am still not sure how that was not part of the daily rate but became part of the fixed cost. So that is something for the Minister to answer, and I would be interested in knowing that.

The second thing around the daily use charge, which impacts low-use users, is something that happens particularly with a lot of my constituents in Hawke’s Bay. Although Hawke’s Bay presents a go-ahead sort of image, we have an underbelly of people who are struggling. I have constituents in Maraenui. I was at a meeting with members of the Māori Women’s Welfare League the other day, and their biggest concern about this low fixed-charge tariff industry, with regard to Housing New Zealand Corporation properties, is the double energy use they have. People have a gas line plus an electricity line into the house and they have fixed daily charges on both those units. The problem is that all the appliances in Housing New Zealand Corporation homes are geared to both gas and electricity. It is a situation where people who are not making a lot of money, who are on benefits or low wages, are having to pay a double fixed-use charge. Right now the Housing New Zealand Corporation is not looking to do anything to mitigate that situation, but it is another issue that I would appreciate the Minister’s comments on. It presents issues, under clause 4, to do with the low fixed-charge tariffs.

Those are the two things I would appreciate the Minister’s comments on. How does a company like Contact Energy justify those price increases and make that a part of the fixed cost as opposed to the variable daily charge—I would be really interested in the Minister’s comments on that—and how do we enforce better disclosure of that information to consumers? Secondly, I would like him to comment on the charges that poor, underprivileged people are having to deal with in Housing New Zealand Corporation homes with regard to the two sources of energy going into those homes—the reason for which, for the life of me, I cannot understand. Thank you.

• Clause 4 agreed to.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) : This clause addresses the issue of governance regulations, where retailers are looking at a customer who cannot pay the bills. It looks at billing options or payment options over time—spreading the load through the year, rather than having big winter electricity charges and low summer electricity charges—and what happens when a retailer goes through the process of a disconnect because someone is not paying the bill. That is what this is all about.

The deal is quite simply this. What is happening in a typical New Zealand household? The first thing that is happening is that taxes are going up. Personal taxes are going up, petrol taxes are going up, accident compensation levies are going up—if one is out there working—

Chris Tremain: Working to clear the mortgage!

PHIL HEATLEY: Well, I am going to get on to interest rates, but I will just talk about taxes. The Government is introducing health taxes, and it nearly introduced the “fart tax”—so one told one’s wife to stop buying onions. All those taxes are going up. That is one side of the balance sheet—expenses are going up and taxes are going up.

Interest rates are also going up; they have been going up every year for the last 10 years—about half a percent each year—so they have risen from about 5.5 percent to about 10.5 percent. So taxes are going up and interest rates are going up. We jump into the car in the morning because the bike has a flat tyre, and we discover that petrol prices have gone up yet again. They have gone up every month for the last year or two. We are dealing with petrol prices, interest rates, and taxes. We are upset so we think about going home for lunch, because we cannot afford to go down to the local cafe. We pop into the local supermarket to buy some cheese, milk, eggs, and bread, and what do we find? A 25 percent increase. Cheese is 17 bucks a kilo, and we are paying $3 for 2 litres of milk.

Everything is going up. Food is going up, petrol is going up, interest rates are going up, taxes are going up, and what does one do? A father walks into the house and the family says: “Dad, you’ve got some mail.” He thinks: “Thank God, someone loves me.” What is it? It is an electricity bill. They say: “Dad, you’ve got some mail.” He thinks: “Somebody loves me.” The petrol station does not, the supermarket does not, the bank with its interest rates does not, and the Inland Revenue Department certainly does not, but someone loves him. The family hands over the mail, and it is the electricity bill. An average New Zealander—an average Kiwi—cannot afford to pay it.

What the Minister of Energy, David Parker, has done for people under this sort of pressure is pass regulations that will not help them with their interest rates, will not help them with their tax bills, and will not help them with their block of cheese or tank of gas. What they will help them do is pay their electricity bill over 12 months instead of having to pay it outright. The Minister is dead right that it does not help very much. He is right that it helps a little bit, but it does not actually help where it really matters, and that is what I say to the Minister tonight. On behalf of New Zealanders I say “Thanks for your help.” It is not much. It is not really what they need. They want the increases in interest rates, groceries, petrol, and taxes to be addressed. But they thank him for giving them the opportunity to pay their electricity bill over 12 months instead of paying it this month. They appreciate the small help that he has offered.

Perhaps if everybody in the Labour Party team contributed and did something little like this measure it might add up to something. That is what clause 5 is all about. It is all about being able to pay one’s big electricity bill over the course of the year. It has one extra bonus. The electricity companies say that if people cannot pay they will cut them off, but they are going to give them a few extra weeks’ notice before they do.

Bob Clarkson: Winston Peters’ card gives you 10 percent on your funeral.

PHIL HEATLEY: Oh, there we go. Winston Peters’ card gives 10 percent off the cost of a funeral.

So that is what clause 5 is about. The electricity companies are still going to bill people, but they will let them pay it over a period of a year, not a month. They are going to cut them off, but they will give 2 extra weeks’ notice. Thanks very much to Labour. We wish it could look after interest rates, petrol prices, grocery prices, and our tax bill, but thanks for not cutting off our electricity for an extra 2 weeks. That is what this clause is all about, and National will be supporting it because at least it is something.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Energy) : I suppose that there is one answer to a lot of the irrelevant statements made in the previous speech. It is, of course, that real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—have increased very substantially under this Government. In addition, there has been substantial tax relief for families with children—

Bob Clarkson: What about my tradesmen?

Hon DAVID PARKER: That member’s tradesmen have actually been doing very well over the last few years during the building boom. The ability of people to pay their bills has been enhanced under this Government.

Clause 5, which is in debate at the moment, does not say anything about giving people 6 months to pay their electricity bill. It is a response to the tragic circumstances last year when a lady’s electricity was cut off, despite the fact that she needed it for running the electrical equipment that her life depended upon. It was cut off by the electricity company’s contractor. I am sure the company deeply regrets that action, but the mistake happened, and it had tragic consequences.

When the Government looked at what its response was—because Governments have a responsibility to pass regulations to protect the public when that is appropriate; National members might scoff at all regulation, but some regulation is necessary—it found that the Electricity Act was deficient and that, notwithstanding that it was a terrible thing that should never have happened, we did not have the right to stop it happening again. In the meantime, we have developed voluntary guidelines, and it looks like those voluntary guidelines are being adhered to by the electricity companies. But, if that were not the case, then it is proper that the Government should have the means to protect consumers from this sort of thing happening again.

This bill creates a regulation-making power. It does not create regulations; it creates a regulation-making power. In the event of something like this happening again, the Government, in its role of protecting people from adverse consequences, has the ability to regulate and to make sure that electricity companies have to do by law what they should really be doing anyway.

DAVE HEREORA (Labour) : I stand in support of the bill, and thank the Minister for that clarification, because as we heard from the Opposition speaker previously, I did think that National was losing the plot on the intention of this bill. But clause 5, “Electricity governance regulations”, inserts section 172D(1)(22A), which states: “providing for the terms and conditions on which electricity retailers must provide domestic consumers with billing and payment options …”. Now I think that drives at the very heart—the very essence—of the intention of this bill. Because we have heard of what obviously very tragically happened with the Muliaga family, but I recently fielded a call from a constituent, a solo mother with three children, at 5 o’clock in the evening, who had her power cut off. Obviously during that time of the day when one has children, one has to cook, and the children have to be cleaned. There was no way she had the opportunity to continue with those services, because her power was cut off. What does one do? At the end of the day, one can imagine how that solo mother felt. She was literally left in the dark. That can be isolating.

The question I pose to the Opposition is who has that social responsibility to ensure that people are looked after. I believe that clause 5 represents the very essence of this bill. It also acknowledges the moral issues surrounding the reason why we are regulating in this case. I thought I would contribute that, and I thank the Minister for his clarification.

• Clause 5 agreed to.

• Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The debate on this part includes schedule 1.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : The fact that Parliament is even debating the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill speaks volumes about how weak the Government’s programme is. I ask the members opposite what the problem is. Parliament is sitting fewer days this year than in any year in recent history. An Order Paper that is so light on a programme shows a bereft Government that has run out of ideas. It will not be long before it joins the history books. In this bill we have a Government desperately trying to fix something that is not broken. I do not know how many of my colleagues have received desperate letters from their constituents saying: “Please reform the New Zealand Geographic Board.”

Chris Auchinvole: Not a one!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Not a one. I challenge members opposite: have they been inundated? I have certainly had letters from constituents concerned about their interest rates going through the roof, concerning the Government putting up taxes, and concerning the bureaucracy of the Building Act and the Resource Management Act. I have not had a single letter expressing concern about the New Zealand Geographic Board.

I note that the bill takes away the current right of the public to be notified when the Government proposes to change the name of a particular place or community. In clause 24 we see a sneaky wee provision to lock the public out. I want to know where the Government’s mandate is for that change. People get very attached to the names of the communities they live in, whether it is the Brightwaters, the Nelsons, the Wellingtons—

Chris Auchinvole: The St Arnauds.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: My colleague Chris Auchinvole will soon be the elected representative for the community of St Arnaud, where there has been a very vigorous debate about whether that place should be called Rotoiti or St Arnaud. This sneaky little provision in clause 24 changes the existing law so that a change can be made by the Geographic Board to the name of a community without any public process at all. We think that is wrong. What is even more bizarre is that when this process began, the Government said it would give a greater role to our local councils. That makes pretty good sense. They know their local communities. None of that is in the bill, and National asks why not. If we are going to have a reform bill for the New Zealand Geographic Board—

Darien Fenton: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Can I clarify what exactly we are doing? I thought we were debating Part 1, including schedule 1, not clause 24, which is in Part 2.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Thank you for raising that. I leave it to the Hon Dr Smith.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I draw the member’s attention to what is referred to in the purpose clause. It is all about the public having a role. How can those members say in Part 1 that they are going to give the public a role in decision making about names, then further down the track take it away? We are simply arguing that that is improper, and that is why National is saying that this is just another desperate bill from a Government that is in trouble, on the way out, and trying to do something that will make it look busy even though it has run out of ideas. It is time for a new Government.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Land Information) : The member who just took his seat might wish that was so, but I am afraid that the reality is more prosaic. The current legislation is over 60 years old. Legislation has to be updated periodically to take account of changes.

The big change—and I am very surprised that the members of the National Party have not yet become alert to this issue—is that New Zealand’s territorial waters have been extended to include the continental shelf. The area that is under the jurisdiction of New Zealand—that New Zealand has sovereign rights over—extends well beyond our land area, to include an area undersea that I think is about 24 times the area of our land area. At the moment, the Geographic Board has no power to name features in that area.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: My constituents are really worried about that!

Hon DAVID PARKER: There is an important issue here, I say to Dr Smith, even though he makes light of it. There is considerable potential wealth in our sea area, not only in terms of the fisheries but also in terms of the mineral wealth. I am sure that Mr Brown—as a person who has experience of our maritime area—understands this. Our maritime area is of considerable economic potential for us, not only in terms of petrocarbons but also in terms of minerals and fisheries. If we want other people to respect our rights to areas over which we want to exercise dominion, we have to do the things that Governments do in respect of areas that they assert rights to. We have to exercise our rights of governance and sovereignty. That is what this bill takes a small step towards.

Hon Tau Henare: What are you scared of?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I am not scared of anything. I am explaining the need for this legislation, which extends the rights of the Geographic Board to include naming features in that area. That is one of the things a country does to assert rights in respect of areas of the continental shelf. It is given effect in Part 1 of the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill, and it is an important advance.

The National Party may make light of the issue, but the reality is that it is important. For that reason, the Government is very pleased to support this bill. The other functions of the board are largely unchanged. This legislation will not cause undue costs to taxpayers, but it will help New Zealand assert its sovereign rights in respect of an area 24 times the size of our land area that lies underwater, on the continental shelf.

• The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 196 in the name of the Hon David Parker to Part 1 be agreed to.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) : Try as I might to find in Part 2 the socialist wrongdoing that we can normally uncover as the Queen’s honourable and loyal Opposition, it has been difficult to uncover. I thank the Minister for explaining the purpose of the Supplementary Order Paper. By and large, the Minister is correct in what he states: the bill does extend the jurisdiction in the New Zealand Geographic Board into the continental shelf and also the Ross Dependency. I guess that is a significant legislative change. But having said that, no one could uncover—and it was certainly not uncovered in the select committee process—what is the mischief that needs to be fixed. The naming in these areas has been going on now for 62 years under the current legislation, which was passed in 1946. There is no evidence—and certainly no evidence was presented to the select committee—that at any stage that has created a problem. The decision, in particular in regard to the continental shelf, is an international decision, a multiparty decision, whereby New Zealand has always had a major and significant role to play. To the best of my knowledge—and I chaired the select committee through the process—no one brought evidence to the contrary.

I say to the Minister that it sounds good to tidy up 1946 legislation, but we were unable to find a mischief. One has to wonder, as my colleague the Hon Nick Smith stated earlier, why this is the most urgent legislation to occupy the last dying hours of a desperate Government by having to do this tonight in Parliament. I ask the Minister when he takes his next call, which I am sure he will, or other colleagues of his on the Labour side of the Chamber, to describe to me what significant changes will come about as a result of this enormous piece of parliamentary work that we are engaged in here tonight, because we were unable to find them.

The additional concerns that were raised, and which are well stated in the select committee’s report by National members, were that there is a potential to layer a further bureaucratic obstacle in the way of those who may want to go about their legitimate business and use names that may now get caught up in clauses 32 and 33. There are also those that are tied up in clause 24, where there is a requirement to consult those amendments that the Minister speaks of that do not bring about the desirable changes that one would have thought might have been a positive outcome of this process.

So I ask the Minister to please take a call. I would be interested in the detail of that. I would certainly be interested in the genesis of the idea that this legislation needed reform. I guess there are three or four tidy-minded bureaucrats somewhere in the place who go through our dusty halls and find bits of legislation that are now 62 years old and say we should therefore have a look at them in the House. But nothing was presented to the National members of the select committee that would indicate that this was an urgent matter of importance. I would really like to hear from the Minister why this is such an important matter for us to be debating in the Committee tonight. It may well be that the Minister has nothing else to do, of course, but, that said, I am sure the Minister will address those questions.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : I will speak on Part 2, “Naming of geographic features and Crown protected areas”. In doing so I acknowledge the contribution this afternoon from the Māori Party member Te Ururoa Flavell on the importance of correct pronunciation. I apologise for my poor attempts at Māori. Unlike other members I have not been brought up bilingual, and I do my best.

I understand the importance of naming and having names pronounced correctly. Just for the information of the Committee I say that my name is pronounced “Dar-rien”, not “Darry-en”. If people could make the effort to get that right I would appreciate it. For years and years people have mispronounced my name. I understand exactly what the Māori Party is saying about that. It has got to a point where I hardly bother about it now, but I would appreciate it if a bit of respect were showed in this House. My name is pronounced “Dar-rien”.

I want to talk about the importance of naming rights and also about some of the rubbish that has been talked about them by the members on the opposite side of the Chamber. I also want to talk about the scare stories about what can happen under this bill. It is very interesting when one looks into this bill and sees how people have used the Geographic Board, the importance of proposals to the board, and who actually sees these things as important. I was interested to read about a certain Mr Holmes—

Sandra Goudie: Explain clause 24.

DARIEN FENTON: If Ms Goudie would just listen she might learn something once more.

Mr Holmes is known as “the detective”, and he has had 60 corrected place names accepted by the New Zealand Geographic Board since 1997, with more in the pipeline. The corrected place names include mountain ranges, mountains, glaciers, peaks, localities, small hills, bits of hills, a lot of streams and creeks, and a few coastal features on points and bays. He has presented these out of a passion for the large number of misspelt names, let alone mispronounced names. He has reminded the Geographic Board that one of its functions—and one of the reasons one would submit a proposal to the board under Part 2—is to examine cases of doubtful spelling of place names and also to determine the spelling to be adopted on official maps.

Mr Holmes put a couple of interesting submissions to the board. One of his longest submissions to date was a change of name from Rēwiti to Rēweti. I apologise for the pronunciation. That submission ran to 40 pages. Chief Rēweti Tamahiki was one of the chiefs who signed the Treaty of Waitangi. An area was named after him when he gifted the land that finished the railway line through to Helensville. [Interruption] I would have thought the member John Key would be interested in what is happening in Helensville but probably not—we do not see him in the Chamber very often these days.

These examples illustrate that the proposals that can be submitted to the board under the provisions in Part 2—I have many more examples, and I am happy to take many more calls on the proposals that can be submitted to the board—are very, very important. They are important to ordinary people in New Zealand. This side of the Chamber takes that extremely seriously, but members on that side of the Chamber have derided this bill. They have been disgusting in their derision of the board and disgusting in their comments about this bill, and, quite frankly, I am appalled.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Land Information) : I will respond to a comment that was made by Dr Nick Smith. He said—and I think Mr Ardern raised concerns about it too—that somehow clause 24 would do the public out of their right to be involved in processes that involve proposed changes to names. Members will note if they read clause 24(2), that that provision occurs in a very limited situation where the New Zealand Geographic Board finds it is being asked to approve a recorded name. So this would be in the case of something that has had a recorded name for some historical reason, and there are no alternative recorded names for that geographic feature. So, rather than adding to bureaucracy, which I thought was one of the concerns that the National Party had, this provision says that in such a case, if it is obviously not controversial, the board does not have to go through a fully public objection process, because that process would be a waste of time and money. The other exception to the normal rule of giving public notice is recorded in clause 24(2)(b), which states that the board does not have to give public notice to discontinue the use of an official geographic name for a geographic feature.

Both of these are very limited examples, and I do not think there is any serious concern. In fact, I do not know that this provision was an issue. I do not think it was raised by people as being of concern at the select committee—

Sandra Goudie: Absolutely, it was.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Sandra Goudie said it is an issue that was raised at the select committee. Well, it is a real shame that the select committee could not agree to a report back to Parliament to advise Parliament of that concern. I understand that that was because the National members were not cooperating in that regard. So they get what they deserve.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) : Mr Deputy Speaker—

Christopher Finlayson: How are the real estate agents at the moment?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I can report to Mr Finlayson that the real estate agents are in great heart. Despite the squawking from the bantam hens on the other side of the Chamber, I take a call to support the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill.

The report of the Government Administration Committee in respect of Part 2 is interesting when it comes to the views of National members—which ones, we do not quite know. The C-team is here tonight, and they have all pumped themselves up. It must be audition time again in the National Party, because they have all pumped themselves up. The eminent barrister is here, the “orange roughy” from Coromandel, and Mr Ardern, whom I pay my respects to. He is an excellent chair. I have been on a number of select committees with Mr Ardern, and I think he is a fine chair.

National members have pumped themselves up to come down to the Chamber for a big audition to oppose, I am told, the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill. What an absolute ripper that is for the National Party, to get all that testosterone burnt off on a bill and come down to the Chamber to oppose it. How could National members oppose it? They have worked out a way to try to do that. Under the heading “Views of National members” the report states: “National members recognise the role of the New Zealand Geographic Board under the existing legislation. There appears nothing wrong with the way the current legislation is operating and accordingly National members see no need for change.” That is interesting.

Mr Key is on the record on this issue. The slippery Leader of the Opposition has had the axle grease out around this. First, he attacked clause 24 because he claimed it was too bureaucratic. Then “Old Slippery” got the axle grease out, and the grease gun pumped away, and he put it around the bill. Then he attacked it because it was not bureaucratic enough. The bill streamlines some of the decision-making processes and allows the board to get involved and accordingly take care of a number of the naming processes. I would have thought that that would actually cut down some of the bureaucracy, but, oh no, all the heavy hitters of the National Party are down here tonight, all steamed up and full of vim and vigour. The morale is high over there because they have all come to the Chamber to try to defeat, with all the energy and might they have, the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill.

This is Sandra Goudie’s moment in the sun in her political career. This is what she lived for, got elected for, and has been briefed for—judging by the amount of paper on her desk. She has led the charge of the Opposition and spent an inordinate amount of taxpayers’ money here tonight to defeat the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill. I am sure she will go back to her constituents and say she has spent a lot of time defeating this bill. She will say: “I do not know how much it costs the taxpayers to run Parliament per hour, but I’ve spent an inordinate amount of energy and time, and my wages, working for you, the people, with my National Party colleagues to defeat this major piece of legislation, the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill.”

As we debate Part 2 it will be interesting to see those wonderful—

Chris Tremain: Oh, that’s right. It’s Part 2 we’re on, isn’t it?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: That is right. For those who are asleep on the other side of the Chamber, I say that we are debating Part 2. It will be interesting to hear the wonderful and eloquent arguments as we debate Part 2. I do take my hat off to Mr Finlayson. I know he has led the charge of briefing his members—

Christopher Finlayson: Oh, no. I had nothing to do with it!

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: A wise man, is Mr Finlayson! As an eminent barrister he knows deep down that this is not a bad bill. This is something we should do. We should reform and change this. He is not leading the charge. He has probably provided the intellectual grunt behind the debating notes of many of his colleagues, but he knows we should not be spending a lot of time trying to pump this one up. The National Party members have come down here to attack the bill and defeat it. [Interruption] I can hear them over there. They are really excited about this bill.

This is a streamlining bill. It has been around for a long time. It is part of a series of reforms that allows us to cut through a lot of the bureaucracy. National members say there is too much bureaucracy in our public sector, but when we come to address a number of these issues, what do we see that they do? They attack the legislation, as “Mr Slippery Key” did, and say it is not bureaucratic enough.

Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Several times during that speech the member did not identify various members of the National caucus by their proper titles. In fact, some of the terms have been quite derogatory. I would like you to point out to him that that is not allowed.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Thank you for raising that. Yes, the member did go down that track, particularly in respect of the member for Coromandel. I do not think that is necessary. As far as the use of the word “slippery” is concerned, it is something the member should bring up with Madam Speaker. I think it has been allowed. I am quite comfortable with it, although the member had it round the wrong way.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I am indebted to you for your advice, Mr Chair, and I will endeavour to use the term “slippery” in its correct fashion when referring to the Leader of the Opposition—“Slippery John Key”. I am indebted to you for your fine ruling, and I would like to thank Mr Henare for his usual late-night intellectual contribution to the debate—it usually happens at about half-past 9 or 20 to 10.

Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Like the member for the Māori Party, Te Ururoa Flavell, and like the member in the Labour Party, Darien Fenton, I like my surname to be pronounced correctly. It is “Henare”, and not what that member tried to pronounce.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Thank you for raising that, Mr Henare.

Hon Darren Hughes: Mr Henare has a very valid point. I think it was drawn to our attention by Mr Flavell before question time today. Mr Henare’s point would carry more weight if he had not ridiculed Robert Reich’s name in the House during a previous incarnation of Parliament, and made references to that Jewish name that he refused to take advice on at that time.

Hon Tau Henare: Speaking to the point of order—

Hon Ruth Dyson: That was before he was a proper Tory.

Hon Tau Henare: The member is going to interrupt on a point of order, is she? That is all right. She might be able to get away with it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): It is not all right.

Hon Tau Henare: Again, Darren Hughes, like the member for somewhere in the South Island—I cannot remember where—

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: He can’t pronounce it!

Hon Tau Henare: Well, there we go again. And it is “Waimakariri”. I bet my bottom dollar that that member would not be able to pronounce the name of his own electorate, but that is neither here nor there. Mr Hughes does not pronounce my name properly, either. My name is “Henare”. That is what it is. So if those members are going to pinprick all night about this as Mr Hughes did, then we will too.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I think we all understand what is required, and we can only try our best.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I again thank Mr Henare for his great intellectual contribution at 9.30 p.m. The member normally picks his moment. It is a wonderful contribution. He did not make much of a contribution—

Hon Tau Henare: It’s only half-past 8, mate! Daylight saving finished last week.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Hang on, he is reverting to type now. He is reverting to type, which is this Porirua public bar, sort of boofhead-type sport box that we have over there. He would actually do well as a bouncer in the Porirua public—

Sandra Goudie: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I think it is about time that we stuck to the scope of the bill. It is getting just a bit wide of the mark.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I call the Hon Clayton Cosgrove to speak on Part 2.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: On Part 2, absolutely. I was talking about naming just at that point, but we will leave it there. Maybe the Geographic Board referred to in Part 2 will find an interesting historic or technical name for Mr Henare. I could think of a number, but it would not be appropriate to use those names in the Chamber.

Hon Tau Henare: I can think of one for you. It starts with “w” and ends with “r”.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I will yield to the member if he likes.

Hon Tau Henare: Away you go. Do you want to yield? He’s a big man now!

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I am not half as big as the member.

What this bill does is streamline bureaucratic process, and I conclude on the point that National members purport to be the sort of bureaucratic busters who want to rip the insides out of the Public Service, to get rid of what they term as bureaucracy, which is code for front-line services, yet they stand here—

Hon Tau Henare: Whatever, pussy!

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: The member is interjecting on me with the sort of vim and vigour and energy that we have not seen from that side or from that member for many moons—

Hon Darren Hughes: He’s a real policy man!

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Oh yes, that intellectual giant of the National Party has been in more parties than we have had hot dinners. I think he wrote to our party and asked whether he could join it. That member’s contribution—apart from the sort of silliness that we have seen in the last 5 minutes—has been to attack the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill.

I conclude by saying that I look forward to hearing other contributions from the C-team members over there, as it is the height of their careers to come down and do an audition for the front bench and oppose, attack, and try to defeat, which they will not, Part 2, Part 1, Part 3, and Part 4 of the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill. What a great moment. I pay credit to Mr Finlayson, because he is the only member opposite who has used his judgment tonight. He knows that it is good legislation, and he has decided to do some real work, get on with it, and do something productive rather than try to attack this very good bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I call the Hon “Dar-mien” O’Connor.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister of Tourism) : I am not as sensitive as some in this House over how people pronounce my name, Mr Chairperson. It was still very polite, and I think that if politicians worry about things like that, then they should move on to another career.

Hon Tariana Turia: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am really disappointed that people would make fun of the issue of mispronunciation of names, because it is not funny.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Thank you for raising that.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I am not making fun of that. It is the reality that not everyone has been to elocution lessons, not everyone has been to te reo lessons, and some of us struggle, particularly in the South Island, to pronounce Māori names. For that I apologise, but that is the reality of the challenge that each and every one of us faces. Mr Henare, for example—I am not sure whether I pronounced that name right or wrong. I apologise. I do my best. I think we have to move on to more important issues in this Chamber.

I am taking the opportunity to speak on this bill because I am absolutely astounded that National members would want to oppose this bill—for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we are replacing a 1946 Act. I would have thought that even National members would want us to make progress across the country. I guess that if there is one thing National members are stuck in, then it is a time warp. If they are prepared to be linked and locked into a 1946 Act, then God help the country if they were to ever get their hands on the levers of Treasury again. This Government is prepared to review such Acts and to get on and make the changes that might seem insignificant to members opposite, and that might seem unimportant, but none the less they are part of being a responsible Government.

The other thing that absolutely astounds me about the Tories and their opposition to this bill is that I have never known a true Tory who does not want to extend his or her power and authority. There is one thing about a good Tory—Tories know what the value of power is and how to abuse it. This bill extends the territorial power to name areas in the Ross Dependency. I would have thought that a good old-fashioned Tory would seize the opportunity to name such places and to have more authority, because that is what has happened in the past.

If we go back and look at the genesis of this legislation, it goes back to the Royal Geographic Society of London, which had the right to name places in this country. That is right—the Tories back in London made the decisions about place names in this land, Aotearoa. And that, in my view, was wrong back then. Then it moved on to a newer Act, the Designation of Districts Act 1894. Unfortunately, the country was run by a bunch of Tories then, too. They then named places in this country. What we are doing is moving on to rightful authority and the ability to name places in the Ross Dependency and the continental shelf, and we think that is progress. It is moving us on from 1946.

Mr Ardern agrees, so I presume he will be supporting this bill in its passage through this Parliament, as any sensible Tory would do. I know that he is a decent Tory, and there are a few.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: There’s no such thing!

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Some of my colleagues think that there is no such thing—that it is an oxymoron—but there are a few. Mr Ardern knows how to earn a decent day’s living out on the farm.

The passage of this bill is a sensible use of parliamentary time. The National Party should just get on with it, support the passage of the bill, and move on and change an Act that has governed place names and the authority to make them since 1946.

Shane Ardern: You used to be better at filibustering than this. What’s happened in the last 8 years?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I say to Mr Ardern that that is what we call progress. He will never know about it, because he will not get the opportunity to make the changes. Kia ora.

• The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 196 in the name of the Hon David Parker to Part 2 be agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Part 3 includes debate on schedule 2.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : In speaking to Part 3, I say it is pretty amazing that the impact of this bill will not be understood until it is passed in this House and becomes an Act. A large majority of New Zealanders—if not all of them—would not understand what this bill means in reality.

Clause 32 is headed “Official geographic names must be used”. I wonder whether the New Zealand public knows that this bill provides that any person can submit a name to be used as an official geographic name. One of the functions of the New Zealand Geographic Board is to collect original Māori place names to be used as official geographic names. In adopting those official geographic names, the board can be exempt, under clause 24, from going through a public consultation process. New Zealanders need to understand the implications of that. This Government has failed to explain them clearly to the public.

Entities in the private sector do not understand the implications of the bill. They do not understand the obligations in clause 32 regarding publications for tourism or travel purposes that use place names. Entities are required to use official geographic place names. If they do not, they have to have a statement in their brochure that says a name is not an official place name. So they either have to use the official place name or, if they use a local colloquial name, they have to have a little statement that it is not an official geographic name. I do not think there is a tourism venture or operation throughout this country that understands that. Has there been any direct consultation with tourism groups about the impacts of this legislation?

I am talking about clause 32 in Part 3. Can members imagine the cost to all of those tourist ventures and operations from having to change all of their brochures because one place name has changed and an official geographic name has been adopted for it by the board—possibly without public consultation, because under clause 24 the board is not required to necessarily undergo it? The board has the discretion not to go through a public consultation process. It is to have that discretion now, and this Government has failed to explain why it thinks that is a good idea.

We have never had a problem before with the New Zealand Geographic Board, but now the Government has decided it wants to change the playing field. The playing field was level, but the Government wants to tilt it. We have now a completely different playing field, where consultation is discretionary and where tourism ventures have no idea of the impacts on their bottom line from having to record official place names in their documentation. Of course, the board can take entities to the High Court if they fail to observe the requirements of the Act. Perhaps the Minister in the chair, David Parker, may like to take a call to explain clauses 24 and 32 and tell us exactly what will happen with regard to tourist ventures and operations.

I am very proud to be standing here as part of National, saying that we oppose this bill for very good reasons.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Land Information) : I am very happy to respond to that last contribution, which suggested that some new provision was being sneaked in, against the interests of New Zealanders, that required proper names to be used. Of course, this clause merely carries forward, on this occasion, a provision that has been in the law since 1946. It has been in the law since 1946 for a good reason. If, for example, someone was producing a map that tourists were to use, it would be quite unhelpful if people started to call Auckland “Dunedin” and Dunedin “Auckland”, because people might go to the wrong place. It is quite a sensible provision for those providing information for tourists, and if a place has an official name such as “Auckland”, it is quite sensible that that place is actually labelled as Auckland on a map.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) : This is a bill that on the face of it is relatively minor, but I think it needs a little more discussion from the Minister for Land Information, David Parker, and there are some questions I would like to ask him.

I particularly go to clause 35, “Validation of certain names”, and ask whether this bill is an appropriate vehicle for the validation of particular decisions that have been made. In particular, I ask whether the provision in relation to the geographical features of the Ross Dependency is appropriate for the bill. What does the Minister mean by “Crown protected area under an enactment”? Which particular type of Crown protected area is he referring to?

I also ask the Minister to go to schedule 2, which relates to consequential amendments, which come in through Part 3—and I am sure that Mr Connell, having been on the Government Administration Committee that wrote the commentary on the bill, is well aware of that. I ask whether the Minister is satisfied that the amendments to the Local Government Act 2002, particularly those amendments to section 260(1), are in fact appropriate for this bill. I ask about consultation on the repeal of section 270 of the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act. Has there been proper consultation with Ngāi Tahu on that question? Consultation is something that I think most Ministers have taken seriously, and I want to ensure that officials have had a discussion with Ngāi Tahu.

I do not want to be accused, as a Mallard, of any self-interest, but in respect of the insertion into the Ombudsmen Act 1975 of “New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa” after “The New Zealand Game Bird Habitat Trust Board”, I want to make sure, given my surname, that there are no implications as far as the Game Bird Habitat Trust Board is concerned. As a Mallard I would be concerned if there were any denigration or unfair reference around that particular question.

Hon Ruth Dyson: That’s a very valid concern. Don’t duck the issue.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: No, I think there is not much ducking of the issue as far as I am concerned, although possibly once or twice it could have been better if I did.

In respect of the consequential amendment to the National Parks Act, I want to check whether it is the Minister of Conservation who is referred to. It is a little unclear on the face of it whether it refers to the Minister for Land Information or the Minister of Conservation. I presume it is the Minister of Conservation, because it is a consequential amendment to the National Parks Act, but I think it is important that we have that clarified. Similarly, with the amendment to the Conservation Act 1987, I think it is almost certainly the Minister of Conservation who has to refer the proposed name to the board, but I ask what the role of the Minister for Land Information is in that particular case. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Land Information) : In responding to two of the issues that the Hon Trevor Mallard raised with great interest, I agree with the member that Ministers are concerned to protect the integrity of Treaty settlements. One of the provisions in the Treaty settlement with Ngāi Tahu was to give them an official involvement in the naming of geographic features in the South Island. The Minister is quite proper in checking that in updating this legislation we are not undermining the intent of that Treaty settlement. Official involvement in naming is an important part of the Treaty settlement with Ngāi Tahu. They would obviously be upset if we were undermining the integrity of their Treaty settlement by unwinding the benefit that was conferred upon them in respect of naming places in the South Island.

Mr Mallard raises a consequential amendment, listed in schedule 2 of the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill, which refers to the repeal of section 270 of the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998. I assure the member that that does not derogate from the rights of Ngāi Tahu to participate in the naming of South Island geographic features. I am advised by officials that the representative that Ngāi Tahu has on the New Zealand Geographic Board is Sir Tīpene O’Regan, who is obviously well versed in the detail of the Ngāi Tahu settlement because he was so involved in the negotiation of it. I am informed that he is comfortable with the repeal of this particular section, which does not derogate from Ngāi Tahu’s rights to be involved in the naming of these features in the South Island but rather repeals a provision in the old Act that has become out of date because of changes in circumstances since it was put in. I hope that explanation deals with the concern the Hon Trevor Mallard had.

In respect of the role of the Minister for Land Information in naming features, there are various parts of the Act providing that proposed decisions are proffered by the New Zealand Geographic Board to the Minister, having gone through various procedures before the board comes to making a recommendation. The Minister to whom it generally makes a recommendation in respect of most features is the Minister for Land Information, and then, in accordance with the terms of the Act, I—or whoever is the Minister for the time being—have rights to either approve or decline the name proposal that is proffered. I think that addresses the other concern the Hon Trevor Mallard raised.

• The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 196 in the name of the Hon David Parker to clause 35 be agreed to.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) : My contribution on this, I think, will be relatively brief. If at all possible, I want to ask the Minister, the Hon David Parker, about clause 2 first, and that is whether he thinks it is appropriate for this bill to come in on a particular date or whether this is the sort of bill that should come in on a date to be decided by the Governor-General as part of the Executive Council. It is a discussion that we have often. Often it is a question of whether—and this is a relatively minor bill and therefore having a fixed date is probably OK—

Shane Ardern: This is a critical point!

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The member might, one day, learn something about it—

Hon Member: I doubt that.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I doubt it too, with Mr Ardern, whether he ever will. Questions of principle are involved in the type of clause that is used for the commencement date and I would be interested in the Minister’s views as to why this is a fixed-date bill as opposed to one that comes into force by way of Order in Council.

But the more substantive question- I would like to ask—and I would be particularly interested in the contribution from members of the Māori Party and even from my Māori colleagues from the National Party, as well as Louisa Wall—is about the style of the title. This bill in fact looks like it was styled on an approach taken by my former colleague the Hon Koro Wētere in, I think, about 1986 or 1987 when he made a decision on the naming of Taranaki. He said it could be Egmont - Taranaki, Taranaki - Egmont, or Egmont, or Taranaki, which provided a fair range of choice for people to adopt the name they thought appropriate for the mountain. I find it slightly interesting, in respect of the member for Taranaki - King Country, that people have taken a different approach in this. I think the vast majority of younger people from outside Taranaki call the mountain Taranaki, but it seems to be that the closer people get to the snow, and the closer they get to the mountain, the more likely it is to be called Egmont. The approach taken by New Zealanders just in that area is a fascinating thing.

However, putting that to one side, it is clear that the title of this bill, in the way it is shaped, is quite unusual in that it has picked up that style. It is called the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill and it may also be cited as either the New Zealand Geographic Board Bill or Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa Bill. I want to ask colleagues, the Minister, Georgina, Tau, Tariana, and Mr Flavell, who are in the Chamber today, as well as Louisa Wall, whether they think that this style of approach is one that could be more generally used for the titling of bills in New Zealand. This is an interesting approach; it has not only bracketed Māori but also uses Māori as an alternative in the title of the bill. It seems to me to be an interesting and useful approach. But one of the things I am wondering is whether it should be applied only when it is so close to naming things or whether it is a more general style that could be applied around other legislation, as well. It is an interesting question.

Shane Ardern: You used to be a good filibusterer, Trevor!

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I would be very tempted to say, if I were filibustering, that there is quite a nice guy who actually lives in Wellington but is running for Parliament in Hutt South—a guy called Paul Quinn. I was interested to hear John Key on the radio say that Paul Quinn could go in the top 20 on the National Party list. If I were Tau Henare or Georgina, or even Pita Sharples, and there was a discussion about who might be Minister of Māori Affairs in the long term—if the National Party ever got to Government—and I heard that Paul Quinn was going to be parachuted over the top, I would be a little bit annoyed. I am not sure, when we translate Paul Quinn, what we actually get, but it is—

Brian Connell: Madam Chair—

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: That is a case of the member being just too slow in seeking the call, which is not particularly surprising as far as the member is concerned. He is too slow, they all say he is too slow, and he is even too slow to run away from television reporters on occasions.

Getting back to the bill, I am actually trying to stimulate some interest on the part of the Māori Party in the titling of this bill and to get a reaction as to whether this is the sort of form that they think we should adopt more generally. To me it seems logical, but there is a choice. The choice is whether we include the Māori translation in the title or have it as an alternative citation—to have either the English title or the Māori title, or a combined title that has both. There is a real question about whether that is the right approach. It is one that I have not seen. I have been here for a number of years and I have not seen a title in quite this format before. I introduced a bill this afternoon and it was titled only in English. [Interruption] The member might say that is disgraceful; I do not think it is. It is the normal form when introducing a bill. We do not normally have this sort of approach when a bill is introduced.

I ask the Minister, David Parker, whether he consulted the Minister of Māori Affairs or any other person on this matter, whether parliamentary counsel are using this bill as an experiment, and whether it is an approach they are likely to take in the future in the drafting of legislation of a more general type that does not go into naming. I think this is an important bill, but as part of an important bill there are some principles involved around the style of the titling. My inclination is to say the style of titling could be more generally extended to other legislation if there was support around the Chamber for that sort of approach, but it would not be something that I would want to impose on members without broad discussion.

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) : Generally, when a bill is before a select committee we look at the title to get some indication of what the bill is about and what it is trying to capture. This title is so nebulous that I went to the purpose clause. I thought it might be interesting for members to understand what the purpose is. Clause 3 states that one of the purposes is to: “(a) provide for—(i) the continuation of the New Zealand Geographic Board as the same body as that established under the New Zealand Geographic Board Act 1946,”. Interestingly, its primary responsibility is “naming geographic features and Crown protected areas;”. So we have to ask what the purpose of changing the bill is—

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I am sorry to interrupt the member. I might have been mistaken, but I have just made about an 8-minute contribution on what I thought were clauses 1 and 2, rather than Part 1. The member has just started to talk on clause 3, which is in Part 1. If the member wanted, I am sure members will give him leave to go back to Part 1 if he thought it was important to debate clause 3 further. But I thought that we had passed it earlier in the evening.

BRIAN CONNELL: I prefaced my remarks by saying that I looked at the title and, in order to understand the title, I referred members to the purpose clause—so that we could better understand what was intended by the title of the bill. Now, had the Minister not spent 10 minutes boring members to death we might have all been awake and heard that. Obviously he did not hear the distinction, but I am sure, Madam Chair, that you did hear it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Yes, I did hear that distinction. Can I say to the Hon Trevor Mallard that any debate on clauses 1 and 2 is normally a fairly wide-ranging debate. It is not the old style of debate when members concentrated on just the title and on the date. So I ask the member to go ahead.

BRIAN CONNELL: Thank you, Madam Chair. My point was that nothing is changing very much at all with the exception, of course—as the Minister in the chair pointed out—that the Crown now wants the ability to rename the Ross Dependency. I noticed when he was taking a call that he could not find that name. If that is the principal purpose, then the bill could have been simply amended, and the name could have been the “Ross Dependency Amendment Bill” rather than members being taken through the charade we have been subjected to this evening.

I find it incredible that the “bantam from Waimak” came down to the Chamber, stood up—and he proved to us that he will not go much further in this House, judging by his stature—and said that National has the C team in the Chamber tonight. I did a count of the number of Ministers who had been on their feet taking calls. It was not one; the number comes after five and is before seven. We have had six Ministers in the Committee, filibustering. Do members know what is happening when they filibuster about the title of a bill? Do members know what they are doing? They are showing the status of this administration—the height of this administration—when they dust off their filibustering skills. They know that in a very short time that is what they will be doing day after day and night after night.

I have to say that if that is the best that Trevor Mallard can do around the title debate of a bill of this importance, then, oh boy, he is in for a very slow ride in this House. The Minister, when he was talking about the bill, also dismissed the concerns that my colleagues raised about clause 24 in particular, by saying that a change to a name without consultation would be very—

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) : I feel a compulsion to respond to that member. I am addressing his comments in respect of clause 1, “Title”, and clause 2, “Commencement”. That member berated members on this side of the Chamber for doing their job in speaking to a bill. In doing our job by debating the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill and going over it in great detail, as Mr Mallard did—I think Mr Mallard talked at length about the meaning and nature of clause 1, “Title”—we were berated by the “ghost that walks”. We were berated by a man who is not going to be here much longer; he has done so well in his career that he is heading out of the back door because his party has given him the bullet.

Coming back to the title, I challenge that member. That member challenged us for debating clauses, doing our job, working the bill over, and working the arguments through. Yet, as I said before, his party is spending all its time debating that and trying to convince Parliament that not only will it vote against the bill in toto, but also—I bet—it will vote against the title and against something very small called the commencement date. National members have all got up, all pumped up, and all full of enthusiasm. The greatest moment in the annals of this House for that member’s career as he exits this place will be his attempts to stymie, to attack, and to defeat clause 1 and clause 2 of this bill. I know that his constituents will look back on his eminent career—from Ashburton down the Waitaki and around there—and he will be known. They will put up statues, they will put up monuments, and they will put up silver plates on walls as they open Returned and Services Association premises and schools to remember that he spent his time attacking this bill.

Brian Connell: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I am sorry to interrupt the member while he is on his feet and demonstrating his ignorance around this, but since it is a discussion around names I thought I should correct the member. The constituency of Rakaia does not go as far as South Canterbury. The Minister in the chair, David Parker, will know that that is correct. So the member is misleading the House. I do not think it is intentional; I just think it is ignorance and a touch of arrogance. But maybe he could just put that right.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I think that that is really—

Hon Trevor Mallard: I think this is a classic case of a point of order that is not a point of order; it is a matter of debate. No Standing Order has been referred to. Members do occasionally get things wrong. The member may or may not—

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I did get it wrong.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Well, he probably did get it wrong. But the member—at the peak of his career or as he moves out—should understand that he takes a call to debate that rather than a point of order.

Brian Connell: Speaking to the point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): This is the last call I am taking on this, because I am going to judge it.

Brian Connell: Certainly. I know the member is used to fighting talk, but this is an issue of accuracy and we are talking about a bill that is dealing with naming places. I think it is germane to the argument to say that the member is incorrect, and he should be asked to get it right.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Thank you very much, Mr Connell. It may be germane to the argument, but it is not a point of order. It was a point of debate and a point of information.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I apologise to the member. I acknowledge that the name of his electorate is Rakaia and, as I was saying, I know that the people of Rakaia will remember him as they are riveted to the spot listening to him on their radios tonight. They know that his major contribution, probably his most significant contribution, in his political career was a last-ditch stand—sort of Custer’s last stand—to try to defeat clause 1, “Title”, and clause 2, “Commencement”, of this bill. As I said, and Madam Chair knows history better than I—and I am sure Gerry Brownlee would agree with me—they will put up monuments and statues to this learned member. This day will go down and be recorded in the annals of Rakaia’s history as the day Mr Connell—and I do hope I pronounced that name correctly—the member for Rakaia, attempted to defeat clauses 1 and 2 of a bill.

In essence, what is this bill about? It is about streamlining a very, very old piece of legislation, an exceptional piece—

Gerry Brownlee: Then why are you filling the Chamber with so much hot air?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: When it comes to hot air, that member is a human blunderbuss. The billows over there in the front row blow pretty regularly for that member to make a wonderful contribution.

It amazes me that the National Party, the anti-bureaucratic party, would spend all its energy—

Gerry Brownlee: Why is the member so upset? What is the member disappointed about?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Now it has brought the big hitter from Ilam, the member for Ilam, Gerry Brownlee—the big bazooka—who has come down here to put a bit of energy into the team because its members are flailing a bit and to have a crack at attacking clause 1.

What does clause 2 say? It simply says that this Act will come into force on 1 July 2008. How on earth could one disagree with that? How on earth could one disagree with a bill that seeks to reform and renew a very old Act, and that seeks to strip away some of the bureaucratic stuff that was around in respect of the naming of the continental shelf and other areas to assert our sovereignty over those areas? Who on earth could disagree with that? I am sure the punters, the real people, who sit outside this place listening tonight are scratching their heads asking, firstly, who is Brian Connell and, secondly, why is he wasting our time trying to attack and defeat what is a pretty logical bill. Normally, we have to say—and I am sure others may agree—that this is a sort of bipartisan bill. There is not a lot of politics in it. But maybe it is audition time—maybe they want the member for Ilam’s job. I do not know.

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I noticed that during the course of that commentary by Clayton Cosgrove he mentioned clause 1, clause 2, and some other such—I cannot remember—and loosely that would relate to any old bill whatsoever. But he made no substantive comments about the bill itself. That raises the prospect, as my colleague Brian Connell put so well before, of the Government either filibustering this bill or perhaps the Chair herself being distracted by some other antics in the Chamber, which means she has not been able to keep an eye on what these members have been saying.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I do not actually take kindly to that sort of comment.

GERRY BROWNLEE: I do apologise to you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Thank you. I was fully aware—

GERRY BROWNLEE: That is the end of the point of order. Madam Chairperson, I seek the call.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Thank you. I call Gerry Brownlee.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Speaking to the point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): No, I have ended the point of order, and I have called Gerry Brownlee.

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) : I move, That the question be now put.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. The member spoke before you interrupted. He cannot speak and then move the closure.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I accept that.

GERRY BROWNLEE: I took a point of order, and then you gave me the call, Madam Chairperson. Then I moved that the question be now put. It was perfectly in order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): OK. I do not accept the motion for closure. I am calling Rodney Hide.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : I seek that the vote now be taken.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): That is the wrong wording, I am sorry, Mr Hide.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Land Information) : Madam Chair—

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I apologise about getting the words wrong. But it is very difficult because, being in Opposition, we are not used to having a Government filibustering its own bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): That is a frivolous point of order.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I would like to respond to a number of the points that the Hon Trevor Mallard made.

Gerry Brownlee: Yeah; Cabinet doesn’t talk to itself.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Mr Mallard raised what is a serious issue and he raised it as is his right.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I know there has been a little bit of to-ing and fro-ing and a little bit of humour—some good, some bad—but I think the Minister is prepared to take a call and speak to the issue. I think the shouting and boorish behaviour we have on the other side of the Chamber has gone a wee bit too far. I think those members should taihoa.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I do accept that. I would ask members on the benches right around the Chamber to take a little bit of order in what they are doing. Calling for points of order and being disorderly in the calling for them does not make much sense, so if we could have less of the barrage, please, and let us hear the contribution from the Minister.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you, Madam Chairperson. The first point I will make is in respect of the commencement date. There is a Supplementary Order Paper that changes the commencement date from what it was in the bill that went to the select committee, which was 1 July 2008, to a date to be appointed by Order in Council.

Darien Fenton: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I am sorry, but I cannot hear the answers the Minister is giving, and I am really interested in them. Madam Chairperson, could you ask the members opposite to let us hear them, please?

Brian Connell: I think the difficulty here is that the Minister is not speaking into his microphone and that he is speaking to his own party, rather than addressing the Committee. Madam Chairperson, if you could direct the Minister to do that, then I think we would all hear what is being said. I am sure it is riveting.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I will ask the Minister to do that. Before he resumes, could I also remind the member immediately to my left, Sandra Goudie, that the interjections should be minimal, short, and brief, and not a barrage of noise. Thank you.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you, Madam Chair. The Supplementary Order Paper changes the commencement date so that the legislation, if passed, comes into force on a date appointed by Order in Council.

The other more substantial point was the issue raised by the Hon Trevor Mallard as to the way in which the legislation can be referred to either by its Māori name, Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa Act, or by its New Zealand equivalent, the New Zealand Geographic Board Act—with the year 2008 in both cases. One of the things that has changed since the previous legislation was passed back in 1946 is that we now have two official languages in New Zealand. We have Māori and English being used as alternatives, plus New Zealand Sign Language—

Hon Trevor Mallard: English is not an official language.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Oh, I am sorry. Well, we have Māori as well as English being languages that can be used for official purposes in New Zealand, and that is particularly important to both those who favour Māori and those who favour English in terms of geographic features. Indeed, the increasing importance of the Treaty of Waitangi—which is also recognised in this legislation; it was not in the previous Act—is also one of the changes that has taken place since the previous legislation was passed in 1946.

In terms of giving recognition to those two languages, in some legislation it is important that we go that extra step and give both the Māori and English alternatives to titles in Acts, and that we enable either to be used. I think this is respectful to the interests of those who are interested in Māori geographic place names that we give that recognition in this legislation. It reflects the earlier steps that were made by the previous National Government when bringing in the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act in order to acknowledge the importance of Māori place names to Ngāi Tahu. So it surprises me that National, having conceded in the 1990s the importance of that to Ngāi Tahu in respect of their claims settlement—and it was very important; it remains very important to them in respect of the naming of geographic names—is choosing tonight to oppose this legislation and the entrenchment of the principle of giving due regard to Māori place names in the naming of geographic features.

Hon Tau Henare: What’s a Māori place name?

Hon DAVID PARKER: A Māori place name can be different from the English word. If the member wants an example, then he is obviously not as well informed as I thought he was. Mount Egmont and Taranaki is one of the more common ones that seems to be known to most members, but there are lots of other examples, if the member wishes to learn about them.

As the Minister with responsibility for this legislation, I am certainly happy to have both the Māori and English translations of the name of the bill incorporated into the legislation. I think it is a step forward and that it goes towards improving relationships between Māori and non-Māori. It gives due recognition to the importance of both Māori and English. I hope that answers Mr Mallard’s question.

CHRIS TREMAIN (Junior Whip—National) : I move, That the question be now put.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. It does go to the precedents for calling in the House. We have had a party, I think, that has taken three or four calls on this clause, we have had a party that has taken none, and you have called again the party that has had a number of calls. My question is whether you did not hear the call from the Māori Party this time, or whether there was a particular reason for not calling its members on this clause.

CHRIS TREMAIN (Junior Whip—National) : The Opposition has had five calls on this part of the bill. We have requested two calls on this side and there has been no request made from members at the end of the Chamber for a call to be taken. As a result of that, I moved that the question be now put.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) : I think this is the second or third time the Māori Party member has attempted to get the call on this clause, and for Mr Tremain to say that there has been no request made from members at that end of the Chamber is just incorrect.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : I agree with Mr Mallard, actually, but having called Mr Chris Tremain, the Chairperson cannot un-call him. What the Chairperson can do, however, is realise that Mr Tremain’s moving that the vote be now taken will not be agreed to, and then the member from the Māori Party—Mr Flavell; I am almost too scared to say his name—but the Chairperson certainly cannot now drop off Mr Tremain, and I am sure Mr Mallard would agree with me.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I thank the member. I heard Mr Tremain, I am declining his call to end the debate, and I am now calling the member Te Ururoa Flavell—and I am practising my pronunciation.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Tēnā koe, Madam Chairperson. The pronunciation of that call was a very good effort indeed; thank you very much. Today, as members know, we put out a statement in the House, and I thank members this evening who listened to that discussion today. If there has been one benefit already, then it is that members have taken stock of their pronunciation in general, and they have taken a little bit more care. That is very much appreciated. So ka nui te mihi ki a koutou katoa.

[Much appreciation to you all.]

There was a lot of discussion around the issues the Hon Trevor Mallard raised. I thought that I would take a brief call—anxious as members are to pass this legislation, I suppose—just to set the record straight about a couple of things that some members may not know. They are raised in the light of clauses 1 and 2 and the issues that Trevor Mallard raised earlier. The first thing is the matter raised by the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, which is that Māori is an official language of New Zealand—of Aotearoa—and that New Zealand Sign Language is the other official language. I am told that even in terms of the statement we made today, English exists as a lingua franca. What is a lingua franca? It is a language used as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different.

Hon Member: Is that so?

TE URUROA FLAVELL: Yes; I learnt that today, which is pretty good.

Rodney Hide: Your Latin ear’s good.

TE URUROA FLAVELL: Ha, ha—I thank Mr Hide. The second thing, which is another important notion that I think is good to put in front of the Committee, is that New Zealand’s citizens can request to be addressed in Māori in a court of law and the court is expected to provide a translator. But, oddly enough, the proceedings are recorded only in English. So that might give us a lead as to where we are heading in terms of response to Mr Mallard’s comments.

The third thing I want to put in front of the Committee that might be of interest is that most public services are available only in English, and the fourth thing is that some Government departments will provide translations, or Māori-speaking public servants, on request. Key Government documents such as the census and other documents of concern to Māori are usually translated into Māori.

So what is the point of some of those key points of information? I suppose it is to come back to the matter that Mr Mallard raised. He talked about the fact that the title of this particular bill starts off in English “New Zealand Geographic Board” and then in brackets it has “Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa”. Clause 1 states: “and may also be cited as—(a) the New Zealand Geographic Board Act 2007; or (b) Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa Act 2007.” I cannot remember the term that Mr Mallard used in terms of how it is set out—

Hon Trevor Mallard: Style.

TE URUROA FLAVELL: Style! So I suppose we might throw back that challenge and say that if Māori is the official language of Aotearoa and not English, as Mr Mallard acknowledged a little bit earlier—and there is also New Zealand Sign Language—then perhaps the easy answer is to put the Māori title there as the official language and follow it up with the English title. In terms of, let us say, the official language notion, the proposition of putting the Māori version in front is, I hope, a response to Mr Mallard’s call around this particular issue. I suppose that in raising the issue we are put in a position to be able to open up that debate to a number of bills—in fact, if not to all bills in this Parliament—on the basis that Māori and New Zealand Sign Language are the official languages of this country. Therefore one might suggest that they go at the front of the title and not at the back, and certainly not in brackets. That might be able to help the Minister in terms of future developments, or in fact help the whole Government, or any Government, about how they might set out bills from here on in. It would certainly create an awesome precedent and, in particular, line up with some of the discussion that was placed in front of the Committee today. Kia ora.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) : I thank the member Te Ururoa Flavell for his contribution. He raised an issue that I had not got to, which is the relative positioning of the Māori and the English within the title of the bill. I think there is a question to be asked, because clearly English has been the dominate language of legislation. There is a natural inclination to start in English and then to translate, but I do not know whether there is a good reason for that, especially when there is a bill that is looking at alternatives. A better example could be by turning the title around and having the “Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa (New Zealand Geographic Board) Act 2007”.

I am not sure even on the question of the translation of “Act” because of the party. I have never seen a translation of its name—probably the type of party that ACT is means it is less likely to have a translated version available. But there is a question of whether the word “Act” could also be in Māori as well.

I think this has raised an important issue. Style has developed. I am absolutely certain that at the time of Koro Wētere’s decision to change “Mount Egmont” to “Mount Taranaki” he would have contemplated—[Interruption] I apologise to the member. I have climbed it but I probably cannot pronounce it. He is welcome to climb it. He can pronounce it but probably could not climb it. But going back to the time of the Hon Koro Wētere, he probably would have contemplated having something like this bill, but getting the widespread support of the Parliament at that time would have been unlikely.

I think we have made some progress to get to this point, but the question is raised as to whether the Minister has got it right with the first line of the title, the precedents, and what is in the brackets. I think, probably with deference to the Māori Party, Mr Henare, and others who have made a contribution on this bill, that we will probably have to put it through in the form it is in now, and accept that as progress as far as legislation is concerned. But we should look at two issues: at the question of the order of the English and Māori in the title, and also at whether, in fact, the style is something that is more generally applicable.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : Ka tono au, Kia takoto te pātai.

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

[I move, That the question be now put.]

• Motion agreed to.

• Clause 1 agreed to.
• The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 196 in the name of the Hon David Parker to clause 2 be agreed to.

• Amendment agreed to.

• Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

• Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

• House resumed.

• The Chairperson reported the Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill without amendment, and the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Bill with amendment.

• Report adopted.

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Internal Affairs) : As we were discussing last time the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill was being debated, I was getting to the end of my presentation and it had the Opposition riveted. Those members were very interested in the section that I was talking about, which related to both parents being required to sign the birth certificate. This is currently not a requirement, and it was quite surprising to me as to why the department recommended this. It is because often there were genuine debates over the naming of the child. The parents would ostensibly agree on what the name was and one parent would register the name, then some time later he or she would find out that the details were different. For example, instead of it being Mary Jane it could be Jane Mary or some other name could have been slipped in. We will now require both parents to sign their signature.

There are cases where both parents are not able to sign the form, and I have outlined most of those. The last one I got to before the interruption of the debate was in the case of only one parent at law—for example, where the child had been conceived as a result of an assistive reproductive procedure and born to a mother who does not have a partner. Only the mother’s details would then be registered. It is worthwhile noting that under the registration regime in the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act, which was passed by this House in 2004, children in those cases would be able to find out about their genetic heritage and other genetically related siblings who were born as a result of donations made by the same donor. That sorted that issue out.

The interesting thing about this bill is that is has generated quite an amount of debate. I think people have on occasion missed the purpose of the bill. For hundreds of years our records for births, deaths, and marriages have been paper-based; they have been in registries. When anybody wanted to know about that information he or she had to present themselves in person, and the registrar—often the court registrar—would know exactly who the individual was who fronted up and would know all the details about that person; there was knowledge of each other. We were an intimate society, but we have changed. Society has become less intimate. The information will be held in a digital form, and therefore people will be able to access these records from anywhere. For that purpose, it is more important to protect this information, because it is more liable to be used for bad purposes where people might want to steal an identity and do some other things with it.

The balance of this legislation is to protect the identity of the individuals whose information the State holds, whilst giving people open access to court records. The bill will enhance and modernise the functions of Birth, Deaths, and Marriages and it will ensure the registrar continues to be trusted with the stewardship of life events recorded in it. I commend the bill to the House.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) : I rise in opposition to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill, and I do so with a little bit more confidence than I did on the bill we previously debated. It is at times difficult in Opposition to find the socialist wrongdoing in every piece of legislation that comes before this House. In this particular case, thanks to the Minister, the Hon Rick Barker who just left the House, he has given us plenty of opportunity tonight—

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Madam Assistant Speaker. This afternoon one of your colleagues in the Chair took some exception to some discussions around the fact that I had indicated that the Leader of the Opposition was present for question time. I am sorry but I do not have the particular Speaker’s ruling in front of me, but it is convention that one does not draw attention to people leaving the House. This afternoon I was not; I was saying he was present. In this particular case, that member has just drawn attention to the fact that a member has left the House. My view on this is that seeing as it is a convention, it is a matter of good behaviour and not a matter for the member to be drawn up over and he should be allowed to continue. In the interests of consistency, it would be right for him to withdraw and apologise for that comment.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Yes, I would ask you to.

SHANE ARDERN: I withdraw and apologise. I am sure the Minister, Rick Barker, is listening to the proceedings in the House nearby tonight, and he has given us plenty of opportunity to debate this.

For a start, we have a Supplementary Order Paper that has been introduced in the late stages of this bill, which is almost as big as the bill itself. There are 20 pages in this Supplementary Order Paper. If that does not speak volumes about the convoluted process that the Government has gone through after having sent this bill to the select committee, then I do not know what does.

In regards to this legislation, we have to ask the question: what was the wrongdoing, the mischief that was trying to be fixed up? As we looked through the detail of it, we found that yes, on one side there was a feeble attempt—which I think may have been enhanced by the Supplementary Order Paper, when we get a chance to get a closer look at that—to modernise the way that we record our births, deaths, and marriages and bring into the equation some of the new family configurations that now exist and have legislative support for them, such as civil unions and the like. So I suspect that there may be some plus side to it there.

But when we look at the other side of the equation we see the fact that over the years people like genealogists and autobiographers have had an enormous interest in trawling through our Births, Deaths and Marriages register. The media also claimed that they needed access to it for accuracy in reporting. Then one has to ask what the wrong is that needs to be fixed. It is on that point that National could not agree with the process or proposal that is before us now. The select committee put a lot of time into this bill. A huge number of people were interested in it. There was multi-party participation in the debate in that select committee, and I thank the members of the select committee for giving their time and energy to this particular legislation.

The Births, Deaths and Marriages register is something that is important to people when they need it. I know that when I got married I had to sign the marriage certificate and it was registered. I know that if I go to the Births, Deaths and Marriages register it will have not only my own name and address, etc., but also my wife’s name, her maiden name, and her family name. To that end, it is something that has had a tradition that goes right back to the English beginnings of the Births, Deaths and Marriages register, which was recorded in those days by the churches. One can go back to England—certainly to Great Britain—and find a lot of the names that exist in this House. “Cosgrove” I am sure would be found, for example. One would have to go to Ireland for “Connell”, I imagine, but it would certainly be one of those names that one would find if one went and searched the old church registers and suchlike of the British Isles.

Registers have a long and proud history in that regard, but to come to Parliament with a proposal that actually restricts people’s access to them on a range of grounds where there is no evidence to prove that in fact any wrongdoing is taking place or any potential future wrongdoing may take place is just one step too far. On that note I say that the National Party cannot support this legislation.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the second reading of the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. As the deputy chair of the Government Administration Committee I am pleased that Labour was able to reach a suitable accommodation with other parties during the select committee process, although I regret to say that does not include the members of the National Party.

This bill was a genuine effort by Labour to place appropriate limits on public access to the statutory registers maintained by the registrar-general, because those registers contain personal information about almost every New Zealand citizen and some of the information is particularly sensitive. The purpose of the bill was also to update and enhance the previous law by taking into account the changing nature of relationships in New Zealand today.

Interestingly, despite the outcry we saw in some quarters in New Zealand about the bill restricting completely open access to the registers held by the Government, many other countries, including all of the Australian states and territories, 10 of the 13 Canadian provinces and territories, and the great majority of the states of the USA, have imposed restrictions on access to their births, deaths, and marriages registers. It is not true to say that access is currently unlimited in New Zealand. Some of the information held by the registrar-general has always been inaccessible to the public, and some has been accessible only in limited ways. For example, there is no open access to the original birth certificates of adoptees and sexual reassignees, or to information linked to protected identities and illegitimacy notations on birth entries. During the first reading stage I talked about my own experience of that last example.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): I am sorry to interrupt the speaker, but the barrage of noise from the people who are not speaking is actually quite rude to the person who is speaking. Can they just desist from that.

DARIEN FENTON: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. A large amount of personal information is also held outside the registers, particularly information contained in source documents, and those are not normally accessible to the public.

As the Minister has said, the births and deaths registers in New Zealand date back to 1848, and when they were created little thought was given to the privacy risks. But that is perhaps because the risks were low. One of the interesting things we learnt at the select committee is that when births were originally registered in churches in England, it was done around the collection of taxes. The issue was not so much about keeping a public record. As the Minister also said, the registers were usually in paper form, not easily available, and often held in one central location. Technological developments, of course, have altered that quite radically, and as the Privacy Commissioner said in her submission, which I listened to very carefully, personal information has become a valuable commodity to be bought, sold, combined, sorted, profiled, and mined, which means that the opportunities for the misuse of information held on public registers have multiplied.

Given the lack of scrutiny of what are essentially disclosures of personal information, and given the threat and reality of identity theft, the original bill was aimed at restricting the access of strangers to information about any person on the register that could then be used in a way that ultimately causes harm to that person. I believe that Parliament would be failing in its duty if it did not recognise the threat of identity fraud and neglected to recognise the potential for the widespread abuse of personal information. Overseas trends and, in some cases, trends in New Zealand have given sufficient cause for alarm for the Government to take action. It is true that personal information can be obtained from many sources for fraudulent use, but the intent of this bill was to make it more difficult for fraudsters to obtain information from the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and to use that information for illegal purposes.

The challenge was for this legislation to preserve the benefits of the public registers, including easy access for those who require it in the public interest, while minimising the risk to individuals. I believe that we have struck an appropriate balance with the amendments proposed by the Minister in his Supplementary Order Papers.

During the select committee process, genuine concerns emerged from submitters such as genealogists, historians, and journalists about the consequences of restricting access to registry information. We in Labour took those submissions seriously, and we worked with other parties, like the Greens, to find that important balance. I recall that during the first reading debate one of National’s objections to the bill, from those esteemed parliamentarians over there, was that the public would no longer have ready access to information on the Births, Deaths and Marriages register. I am here tonight to tell those members that I have very good news: the select committee process enabled genealogists, historians, and the media to put forward their views and be heard, along with other organisations that had concerns about further restricting access to those records. In true MMP style, and with the collaborative effort of parties other than National, we have dealt with the issue of access to information, which is in the Supplementary Order Paper, while at the same time ensuring that there is a degree of greater protection for people’s personal records.

But what did National do? The National members had the chance to be part of the process of finding a solution to the concerns they expressed in the first reading debate, but instead they chose to persist in their blind opposition to the bill, regardless of the changes proposed by the Minister and worked through by Labour, the Greens, United Future, and New Zealand First. That is their call, but no one should have any illusions about it. National’s opposition to this bill must be seen as pure political spite.

The process of working with other parties, particularly the Greens, was a very good experience for me of what is possible under MMP. I want to thank the member Keith Locke for his practical and collegial approach to finding solutions to what we all felt were genuine concerns. I also want to thank the Minister, Rick Barker, who was absolutely open and solutions-driven on the concerns we were presented with at the select committee. Unfortunately, because the committee could not reach agreement, the key changes to the bill will be presented by way of a Supplementary Order Paper, and we have already heard some whingeing about that from members on the other side of the House. However, the Supplementary Order Paper will address concerns raised in most public submissions that the proposed access provisions would unduly restrict the ability of genealogists, historians, and other researchers to access information about other people.

The Supplementary Order Paper retains the current ability of any member of the public to access any named person’s registered information, but applicants for certificates, printouts, copies of documents, and the inspection of records will be required to present reasonable identification. That adds a meaningful step and ensures that those who may seek to access registry information for fraudulent purposes will think twice before doing so. In addition, an access register will be created so that people can apply to find out who has accessed their records, if they so wish. This adds another layer of protection so that if a person is unfortunate enough to have his or her personal information acquired and then used fraudulently, that person can at least find out who accessed that information.

In some circumstances a person may request that his or her records not be disclosed to the public for a certain period of time. We had a lot of discussion in the select committee about examples of that. I am sure that we can all think of horrific situations where people may not want to have details made available to the public, and that proposition seemed to be fair enough. The grounds for non-disclosure directions will be prescribed by regulations, but a review of the operation of these new access provisions will take place 5 years after their commencement.

Those amendments are a very good balance between protecting personal information from those who wish to obtain and abuse that information, and maintaining freedom of information and the right of public access.

I am pleased to support this bill. I thank the members of the parties who are supporting the bill at the second reading. Again I thank them for their collaboration, and I look forward to the bill progressing to its next stage.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I am very proud to rise on behalf of National in opposition to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill, and for very good reason. Yet again members on the Government benches are misleading the New Zealand public about the reason for this bill, because the only reason they could give—and this was canvassed exhaustively with the officials—was the opportunity for fraud. No evidence was provided of where this was in actual fact happening, to any degree whatsoever. So the justification for this particular bill was spurious in the extreme. There was no correlation between fraud and access to information from the Births, Deaths and Marriages records.

I point out that the National Party tried to explain to the Government members what the real issue was. There is no problem with the information supplied to the public from the Births, Deaths and Marriages register. There is no problem with their having access to that information. The problem lies in the fact that any member of the public can go and get an authorised document. It is one of the few Government departments that provides an authorised document without any identification whatsoever, and the provisions in the Supplementary Order Papers that the Government will put through will not necessarily change that.

The Minister has said to me, in response to a parliamentary question about a fraud case, that there is nothing to stop any member of the public from getting a properly authorised document in relation to anybody else. That is absolutely wrong. All that needed to be changed is for people to be told that, sorry, they have to provide some form of identification in order to get an authorised document. I make it clear that it is a properly authorised document. Instead of just doing that, the Government is going to the extreme and saying that people cannot have information from the register, which is patently dumb. It is a situation of a sledgehammer being used to crack a nut, and Government members still do not get it. This is the very reason why National continues to oppose this Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill.

At no point did the Minister give any relevant evidence in relation to fraud and access to information from the Births, Deaths and Marriages register. For all of those genealogists’ groups, lawyers, and banks, there is more justification for having access to that information than for not having it.

• Debate interrupted.