Hon TARIANA TURIA (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) on behalf of the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: I move, That the Ngāti Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Māori Affairs Committee, that the committee finally report to the House on or before 17 March 2010, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during the 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 187 and 190(1)(b) and (c).

Tātou o Ngā Wairiki o Mangaw’ero, o W’angaehu, o Turakina. Tātou o Ngāti Apa, tēnā koutou i roto i tēnei rangi w’akahirahira mō ngā hapū. Kua roa nei te wā kia tae tātou ki tēnei rangi. e tokomaha o ngā tūpuna i matemate ai i te pakanga mō ngā whenua me ngā taonga katoa. Kāore e kore kei te mātakitaki rātou i ngā w’akaritenga i tū nei ki mua i te aroaro o te hunga. Nō reira, rātou ki a rātou, tātou ki a tātou, tēnā koutou katoa.

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

[Greetings to us, of Ngā Wairiki, Mangaw’ero, W’angaehu, Turakina, and indeed us of Ngāti Apa on this great day for the subtribes. It has taken us such a long time to arrive at this day. Many ancestors have passed on in the battle for the lands and all the resources. Without a doubt they are looking down at the settlements before the assembled. And so let them rest there as we celebrate here. Greetings to you all.]

One hundred and ten years ago, in November 1899, over 200 members of Ngā Wairiki / Ngāti Apa met with the Premier, Richard Seddon, at Tini Waitara Marae. At that time, at that meeting the people shared their concerns, fearing that our fishing rights would cease if our fisheries were drained by the settlers.

They asked for the remaining lakes and swamps to be reserved, noting the impacts of the Europeans who were felling their forests. They described their lands as fertile, as valuable, and as yielding considerable taxes and profits to the Government. They spoke directly to the Premier, impressing on him the urgency of passing law to restrict any more lands from being sold, mortgaged, partitioned, fragmented, or seized for debt. But the kōrero drifted into the wind, ignored, left to linger.

This bill takes us back in time to the Crown’s purchase in 1849 of the 260,000 acres of the Rangitīkei-Turakina Block. It refers also to the subsequent failure to adequately protect approximately 35,000 acres of reserve set aside from this transaction. This bill is a direct response to the operation and impact of the native land laws. These laws contributed to the erosion of traditional tribal structures and resulted in the gradual alienation of nearly all our remaining lands. Ngā Wairiki / Ngāti Apa became virtually landless, owning less than 1 percent of our traditional rohe—our lands alienated, our people disenfranchised.

Today is a chance to right the wrong, to find our way forward. Despite the fragility of relationships between tangata whenua and the Crown, and tangata whenua and others, what settlements do is to refocus the tribe on its future. Knowing our history is crucial to our future. We must face our past front-on, not putting it aside, nor denying it, but seeing it as a pathway into the future.

We should never be afraid to speak of our past, for our foundations as whānau, hapū, and iwi are the very essence of who we are. Our stories provide a context for the lives our people live today. It helps us to understand the full value of the battles our tupuna fought to help shape our journey onwards. The long road to justice was walked by my uncles, Tokouru and Matiu Rātana before me, and by my aunt Iriaka Rātana, all of whom have served as members of Parliament. Like me, they came here because they sought a greater future for the generations to come.

As a child I heard the stories of my dad about the occupation of our lands. I knew the pain associated with the loss of names of our hapū, the sadness as our marae fell into disrepair and we lacked resources to restore them. Such was our loss that almost all of our generation today no longer can speak te reo.

In the 1970s the people rose up, making a personal commitment to restore our marae to be a place to gather again as Ngā Wairiki / Ngāti Apa. But the impacts of the loss our people suffered were really deeply felt. The journey in making progress towards settling our claims has been arduous, but from the sorrow has emerged the strength of will and the firm resolve that we can fulfil the aspirations of all those who have passed before us.

I think, then, of all those who have gone before us. I know that my Dad, my tūpuna, my aunties are watching over us with a strong sense of pride that it has been our young people who have advanced the settlement with dignity, with integrity, and with purpose. To all those who have worked tirelessly to get us here today, I thank you.

I want to mihi to the leadership of our more recent generations, including the members of the negotiation team. Their dedication and determination on behalf of Ngā Wairiki / Ngāti Apa has been vital in the path towards achieving settlement. This has been a unique aspect of settlement: the leadership of our young people. I acknowledge them today for investing in a better future for their generation and for those to come.

The settlement represents their commitment to a constructive relationship with the Crown, to restore some of the balance of what was lost. It comprises an agreed historical account, Crown acknowledgments, and an apology. It includes commercial and financial redress totalling $16 million, and a right to purchase approximately 6,500 hectares of Crown forest licensed land and other Crown-owned properties and assets.

One of the most exciting aspects is the cultural redress package designed around the aspirations of Ngā Wairiki / Ngāti Apa. This settlement focuses on cultural revitalisation and cultural reconnection, including the gifting of five papakāinga properties, and provision of resources to implement a strategy for the revitalisation of our tikanga. There is funding also to compile a comprehensive historical record and cultural reconnection in respect of the transfer of 12 sites of significance. This bill represents the hope, the opportunity to build social and cultural capital, placing it in equal importance with economic growth and development. It crystallises the ambition of Te Runanga o Ngāti Apa to reach out to other Ministers and departments, to extend right across the sectors for our long-term restoration.

A novel feature of the agreement is the opportunity to develop protocols with the Minister of Conservation, the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, the Minister of Fisheries, and the Minister for the Environment. I acknowledge the leadership of the Ministers who have been involved in this settlement: the Hon Chris Finlayson, and before him the Hon Parekura Horomia, the Hon Mita Ririnui, and the Hon Mark Burton.

This bill is an important marker in the restoration of our lands stretching from Motū Karaka south to Omarupako and inland to the upper Rangitīkei. It provides us with the means to re-establish papakāinga throughout our rohe; to prepare a cultural redevelopment plan; and to restore to ourselves our knowledge of our rivers, lakes, forests, and wetlands, our wāhi tapu, and our cultural and intellectual property. Most of all, it provides us with a vehicle to grow our capital assets while at the same time re-establishing our iwi for the new millennium. I therefore consider that the bill should proceed without delay to the Māori Affairs Committee. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MITA RIRINUI (Labour) : Otirā, kei te Kaihautū he wāhi tuatahi māku, he tuku whakamoemiti, whakawhetai ki te wāhi ngaro mō āna manaakitanga i a tātou i ngā rā ki muri tae noa mai ki te hāora o tēnei ahiahi. I runga anō i te tūmanako, ka tū tonu āna manaakitanga i runga i a tātou i te roa atu o tēnei rā me ngā rā katoa kei mua i a tātou. Tuku atu ēnei ki te wāhi ngāro i te ingoa kaha o te Matua, o te Tama, o te Wairua Tapu, āna karere ngā Ānahera Pono, te Kāhui Ariki Wāirua, a Ārepa, Ōmeka, Piri Wiri Tua me Hāmuera. Māna anō hoki e tautoko mai ai ēnei, e āwhina, āe?

Otirā, Ngāti Apa, ka roa koutou e hīkoi ana i te huarahi mai rā i ngā marae katoa o te hau kāinga, huri rauna i te motu, ā, tae ā-tinana mai ki te Whare o ngā Raiona. Hai aha? He kawe mai i te aroha me ngā moemoeā o rātou kua ngaro ā-tinana atu. Nā runga i tēnei, ka mihi kau atu nei ki a koutou mō te māia, mō te kaha, ā, mō te māramatanga kei waenganui i a koutou. Me te mihi anō rā ki tā koutou pononga e noho nei i roto i tēnei Whare, tā koutou mema, tā koutou Minita. E tika ana māna e pānuihia tēnei kaupapa ki te Whare, otirā, ki te motu katoa, kia mārama ai, ko te whāea rangatira kua tū mai i roto i te Whare nei, nō roto rā i a koutou. Nō reira, nā runga i tēnā, Ngāti Apa, koutou ngā kuia, koroua tatū iho nei ki ō koutou māngai kōrero, te hunga rangatahi, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Indeed, the first thing for me, Mr Assistant Speaker, is to give praise and thanks to the place of the hidden, and for His care over us in days gone by, right up to the hour this afternoon. The hope is that He continues to protect us for the remainder of the day, and in the days ahead of us. These praises and thanks are given in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, His Faithful Angels, and Ārepa, Ōmeka, Piri Wiri Tua, and Hāmuera. He, Jehovah, will indeed support and assist these, yes?

Ngāti Apa, you have been on the road a long time. You have come all the way from your marae at home, from around the country, and at last, here you are in person in the lions’ den, the House of Parliament. Why? To bring the love and dreams of those ones who have since passed away. It is because of this that I acknowledge you for valour, fortitude, and the understanding within you. I also acknowledge your member and Minister who represents you in this House. How fitting it is that she should move the reading of this for the first time in the House, and to the country as a whole, to make it clear that the honourable member is truly one of your own. And on that, Ngāti Apa, I acknowledge you, the elderly women and menfolk, right down to your spokespersons, the younger generation, greetings to you, greetings to you, and greetings to you all .]

I do not normally begin speeches in this House in the manner that I have, but this is indeed a huge occasion for Ngāti Apa, given the journey they have been on for a very, very long time. Rightly so, the Hon Tariana Turia, the local member for Te Tai Hauāuru, who is a wahine of Ngāti Apa descent and also a Minister in this House, has taken the responsibility of speaking in the first reading of the Ngāti Apa settlement bill this afternoon. That is very appropriate. Although it was a very emotional time for her, I have to say that from the perspective of members on this side of the House, and for me and my colleague the Hon Parekura Horomia, listening to that speech was also a very emotional time. But the Minister left a lot out, and rightly so. She left out a lot, because others should be speaking about what happened to Ngāti Apa during those early years.

Ministers usually categorise the nature of a settlement package. The Minister did not go into much detail today; the reason was, I think, that she would have found it even more difficult to touch on many of the aspects of the negotiations, and of the particular components included in the settlement package. Like the Minister, I also acknowledge the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Hon Christopher Finlayson. I acknowledge that he did a very, very noble thing in handing that responsibility over to Minister Tariana Turia.

I also acknowledge Minister Finlayson’s predecessors, the Hon Dr Michael Cullen and the Hon Mark Burton, and I acknowledge the Hon Parekura Horomia and the many others who took part in the negotiations and the process leading up to the signing of the deed of settlement, on the Ngāti Apa Marae up the Whangaehu River, in 2008. That was also a very emotional time, not only for the Ngāti Apa people, the kaumātua and kuia, but also for those Crown representatives who were there that day.

I have to acknowledge at this point in time that this settlement was not carried out like many other settlements. This settlement was conducted by young people—very young people. Those of us who had been involved in the Treaty settlements process for a number of years, even before coming to Parliament, have had to acknowledge that this was different, this was new. Unlike many of the settlements that we had been involved with in the past, this settlement seemed to be much easier. The reason is that those young people came with a new attitude. They came with the understanding that the Treaty of Waitangi is not about grievances and it is not about breaches. For them, this particular process of the Treaty of Waitangi promotion and development has been about settling the grievances of the past, putting the grievance behind them, settling the issues, and allowing Ngāti Apa and all its whānau to move on. Certainly, they spoke about that right throughout the negotiations process.

The history is interesting, as alluded to—though “alluded” is probably not the right word—by the Minister who spoke before me, when she spoke about Ngāti Apa’s intentions when they entered into negotiations during the late 1800s. Ngāti Apa entered into a process, which basically began with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, for a simple purpose: they encouraged settlement but at the same time they wanted to be recipients. They wanted to be in the position where they could benefit from much of the technology brought here by the settlers. So they entered into many discussions with Crown agents, many of whom are mentioned in the preamble to this bill. Certainly they are mentioned in the historical account.

But that did not happen. In fact, Ngāti Apa went through a process of being subjected to land confiscation and land acquisition to the point, as the Minister mentioned in her speech, where they were left with simply 1 percent of their original land holding. For them, that had a tremendous impact, as the Minister said. It led to the undermining of their culture, the loss of their language, and the fragmentation of whānau, hapū, and iwi to the extent that they did not participate in the development of the Rangitīkei area. In fact, they were what we might call onlookers. The development of that area was undertaken at their expense, and they at no time were able to participate in it. We can understand why the Minister gets very emotional when she speaks about the impact on her people. That is not new just to Ngāti Apa and to the Rangitīkei area; it is also something that many iwi experienced through the 1800s, particularly when it came to issues around the dispossession of land and assets.

So it is incredible that the young people of Ngāti Apa could bring this settlement to the House without too many problems, and I can say that what problems they did have were handled very well. They spoke to their neighbouring iwi, and there were iwi who had shared interests with regard to much of the areas that are identified in the settlement package. That is very important, because we have not always done that to an adequate level. I come from an area where that happened; it has happened a few times. I congratulate those young people. I could go through their names and mention them in the House, one by one, but instead I will acknowledge the chief negotiator, Andre Rurawhe, who was inspired by his mum, I would say, and who was left a very proud legacy from his tūpuna. He was referred to by the Minister in her speech. The role of those young people was to get the deal done, and they have done a very good job of that.

From here on, it is basically about where Ngāti Apa wish to go in the future. We have now entered the final stages of the settlement of their historical grievance, and we could say that from here on, Ngāti Apa will develop in many, many ways in terms of providing services to their local communities, whether those services be in health, education, housing, or social services—you name it. But they are already there, and they have been there for a very long time. This settlement will allow them to move forward on all those initiatives they have undertaken over a number of years without the baggage of grievance. This taniwha called the baggage of grievance is a very, very difficult thing to describe because, although it is invisible and has no being, it has a huge impact on the people who are affected by it. I am sure that many members in this House will understand what I am referring to without my having to go into too much detail. Ngāti Apa have a plan. They have had it in place for some time, and it will mean that this settlement will allow them to proceed forward without the baggage that has been hanging around for quite some time, and the grievance that they can well do without.

I acknowledge their tupuna, the founder of the Rātana Church and movement, who went on a world tour in 1922 in the hope of having a meeting with the king. As we were told, there were influences here in this House who prevented that from happening. So he never got his hearing, but that did not prevent him from travelling the world, and certainly the length and breadth of this country, to talk about a way forward. That way forward is something that we have seen here today. Ngāti Apa can be very proud that they are part of that incredible legacy, which has taken not only them but also all of us as Māori into the future. I have to be honest; I am in this House only because of that mirimiri, otherwise I would probably be somewhere else—probably fishing.

I have no more to say except that I congratulate the Minister, and I congratulate the Hon Tariana Turia. I acknowledge the presence in the House today of her iwi, her hapū, and her whānau, and I wish them all the best in the future. Kia ora.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) : Ngāti Apa rohe, Ngāti Apa tangata, ngā kanohi o te maunga tūpuna i a Pārae Kāratu, ngā uri o ngā hapū o ngā wai rongonui, mai i Rangitīkei ki Ngā Wairiki, rau rangatira mā, tēnei te mihi atu ki a koutou i tēnei rā nui, rā tino whakahirahira. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

I tēnei wā, e whakaaro anō mō te hunga kua mene atu ki te pō. E ngā mate, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rā.

[To the region and people of Ngāti Apa, to the representatives of the ancestral mountain Pārae Kāratu, descendants of the subtribes of the renowned waters, from Rangitīkei to Ngā Wairiki, and indeed to the many chiefs, I acknowledge you on this great day of real significance. Greetings to you, greetings to you, and greetings to you all.

My thoughts at this moment are with those who have passed away. Rest, sleep, and slumber on. ]

I welcome Ngāti Apa representatives who have joined us today for this historic occasion. Just in case some of them were wondering why I had sloped off out of the House instead of listening to the speech of my parliamentary friend and colleague Tariana Turia, I say that I did so because an odd rule of this place requires that the Minister in charge of the bill cannot be present in the House in those circumstances. That is why I had to listen to her speech in the lobby—but I was certainly listening.

The grievances of Ngāti Apa in the North Island are significant and longstanding. The Ngāti Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill recognises and addresses those grievances. The bill settles all of the historic Treaty of Waitangi claims of North Island Ngāti Apa. The iwi’s area of interest extends from the north of Foxton up to the south of Wanganui, and runs east from the coast, up past Hunterville. The historical grievances of the iwi relate primarily to the Crown’s purchase in 1849 of the 260,000-acre Rangitīkei-Turakina block, including the subsequent failure to adequately protect approximately 35,000 acres of reserve land set aside from this transaction. Their claims also relate to the operation and impact of native land laws, which contributed to the erosion of traditional tribal structures and resulted in the gradual alienation of nearly all remaining North Island Ngāti Apa land.

Ngāti Apa have travelled a long road to have their claims addressed by the Crown. The Crown recognised the mandate of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Apa in November 2004, and negotiations on the settlement package began with the signing of the terms of negotiation in July 2005. An agreement in principle was signed on 12 July 2007, followed by an initial deed of settlement in September 2008. During September and October last year, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Apa undertook a ratification process for the deed of settlement and proposed a post-governance entity. Thirty-five percent of the registered adult members of North Island Ngāti Apa voted on the deed of settlement and proposed governance arrangements. Of those, 97 percent voted in favour of accepting both the deed of settlement and the proposed governance arrangements. The Crown and North Island Ngāti Apa subsequently signed a deed of settlement on 8 October 2008. I want to acknowledge the efforts of previous Ministers, including the previous speaker, Mita Ririnui, in getting to that very happy state.

Settling the North Island Ngāti Apa claims is an important further step in this country’s progress towards settling all historical Treaty claims. The bill gives effect to the undertakings by the Crown on the deed of settlement, and includes an agreed historical account, Crown acknowledgments and apology, commercial and financial redress totalling $16 million, and a right to purchase approximately 6,500 hectares of Crown forest licensed land and certain other Crown-owned properties and assets. It also includes a cultural redress package designed around the aspirations of North Island Ngāti Apa, as articulated by Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Apa during negotiations. It focuses on cultural revitalisation and cultural reconnection.

Key components of the package are unique to the settlement and include cultural revitalisation in respect of the gifting of five papakāinga properties and the provision of funding to develop and implement a strategy for revitalising tikanga, funding to assist in compiling a comprehensive historical record, and cultural reconnection in respect of the transfer of 12 sites of significance, of which nine are public conservation land with public access and third-party rights protected for all but two sites. It also includes other cultural redress instruments over Crown-owned land and relationship agreements with certain agencies.

Although it is not possible to fully compensate Ngāti Apa nor any claimant group for the loss their people have suffered, the cultural redress in this bill seeks to recognise Ngāti Apa’s longstanding cultural and spiritual association in the region. I am confident that the bill will settle Ngāti Apa’s claims in a full and final manner, it having taken into account all of their grievances and the rights of all New Zealanders.

I want to acknowledge the Ngāti Apa people who suffered the breaches of the Treaty and who carried the grievances. I particularly want to acknowledge those who are no longer with us. Ngāti Apa is historically well known for visionary leadership, and today’s leadership has sought to restore iwi unity and prestige.

I wish to acknowledge Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Apa, including the members of the negotiating team. I agreed with the previous speaker who, in a very gracious and generous speech, described them as a young team, and indeed they are a young and dynamic team with great futures. Their dedication and determination on behalf of Ngāti Apa have been vital in the path towards achieving settlement.

I also want to thank other Ministers in departments involved in this settlement. A number of people from across the political spectrum have made important contributions to this settlement, over the years. The introduction of this bill begins the last stage of the settlement process, which seeks to recognise what is important to the people of Ngāti Apa and to provide redress for historical breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. It is one of the many settlements this Government is progressing towards its goal of settling historical Treaty claims justly and durably by 2014. I very much look forward to the bill returning from the select committee so that we can pass it as quickly as possible.

H V ROSS ROBERTSON (Labour—Manukau East) : Kia ora tātou. Nō reira, e te Whare, e ngā iwi, e ngā reo, e ngā hau e whā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Ko Ross Robertson taku ingoa. Ko Gaeloc te waka, ko Ngāti Pākehā te iwi nō Kotimana. Ko Tāmaki te awa, ko Hunua te maunga, ko Tāmaki-makau-rau te kāinga engari, kei te noho au ki Pōneke. He mema Pāremata ahau mō te rohe o Manukau, mō te Pāti Reipa. Tihei mauri ora. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Greetings to us, the House; the people; the languages; and the four winds. Greetings to you all. My name is Ross Robertson. Gaeloc is the ship, and Pākehā of Scottish extraction is the clan. Tāmaki is the river, Hunua is the mountain, and Auckland is the home, but I reside in Wellington. I am a Labour Party member of Parliament for Manukau East. Behold the breath of life. Greetings to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and to all of us.]

It is an honour and a privilege to stand in this House and to speak on the Ngāti Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill. I represent the electorate of Manukau East, which is the home of 164 different ethnic groups. I am sure that in that electorate there is a significant contribution from Māori people, and some of those people, of course, will be Ngāti Apa.

We support this bill, and we acknowledge the leadership of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Apa for their able advocacy for their people. We acknowledge their determination, their passion, their commitment, and their motivation for a better way of life, for their future, for their tomorrow, and for their mokopuna. Together we serve and together we prosper, both as a nation and as a people. I acknowledge the Minister in the House today, Chris Finlayson, and the Hon Tariana Turia, and I also acknowledge my colleagues who signed the deed of settlement, the Hon Parekura Horomia and the Hon Mita Ririnui. I thank them for the work they have done.

In 1840 three members of Ngāti Apa signed the Treaty of Waitangi near the mouth of the Rangitīkei River. That is about midway between the Whanganui and the Whangaehu rivers—

Hon Parekura Horomia: A lot of eels.

H V ROSS ROBERTSON: A lot of eels, says my colleague. They signed the Treaty there. In 1849 the Rangitīkei-Turakina purchase stated that lands between the Whangaehu and the Turakina rivers would be reserved for all Ngāti Apa to collect and settle on. But we know that later land native laws enabled those reserve lands to pass through the Native Land Court, which awarded land interest to individuals rather than to all of the tribe, excluding many Ngāti Apa from ownership of the tribal reserve lands. In the 1860s, more than 100,000 acres of land in which Ngāti Apa held interest were subject to native land laws, in addition to the reserves from the Rangitīkei-Turakina purchase.

The operation and impact of the native land laws, in particular the awarding of land to individual Ngāti Apa rather than to iwi or hapū, made the lands that Ngāti Apa were able to retain more susceptible to partition, fragmentation, and alienation. This contributed to the erosion of traditional tribal structures of Ngāti Apa, which were based on collective tribal and hapū custodianship of the land. The Crown failed to take the steps that were necessary to adequately protect those structures. That had a prejudicial effect on Ngāti Apa and was a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. Ngāti Apa have been raising grievances with the Crown for more than 100 years. On 8 October 2008, a deed of settlement was finally signed.

The purpose of the bill is to record the acknowledgments and the apology offered by the Crown to Ngāti Apa. The settlement includes a historical account, the Crown acknowledgment of historical breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles, and a Crown apology to North Island Ngāti Apa. It also includes a cultural redress package, featuring the transfer of a number of sites of cultural significance to North Island Ngāti Apa, including two lake beds. It also includes a quantum of $16 million, including the opportunity to purchase four Crown properties in the Rangitīkei region.

The return of more than 6,500 hectares of land as part of this settlement will have a positive impact on sustainable development. Financial and commercial aspects of the redress package should be considered within the context of the opportunities that it will provide for the people of the area. The cultural revitalisation package will be complemented by the development and implementation of a cultural redevelopment plan.

This settlement is a historic moment in the relationship between the Crown and Ngāti Apa. It will allow us to move forward into the future. It is important, in doing so, that we recognise the contribution of those who have gone before us and who have raised these grievances for more than 100 years. They are to be commended for their tenacity, for their dedication, and for never ever giving up. We in this House can be proud of those who are involved in bringing about the finalisation of this bill so that we can work together and, in the true spirit of that word “community”, serve and prosper together, both as a nation and as a people. Tihei mauri ora! Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) : Tēnā koutou katoa. He mihi nui ki a Ngāti Apa. Finally, after more than 100 years of raising issues of unfairness and injustice, it is Ngāti Apa’s day. The Green Party may lack detailed knowledge of their whenua and taonga, but we do not lack respect for the struggle that they have survived. The acknowledgments in the Ngāti Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill recognise the consistency of their grievances and the failures of the Crown to address those grievances.

Those grievances relate to the effects of the Crown purchase of 400,000 hectares of Ngāti Apa lands, the aspirations and attempts of Ngāti Apa to strengthen relationships with the Crown through land sales and through expressing loyalty to that Crown, and they relate to the 1849 Rangitīkei-Turakina purchase, which included the reserving of 35,000 acres for all Ngāti Apa people. Those arrangements, as people know, were not given proper effect. Then, of course, came the highly effective colonising land laws of the 1860s, which alienated more than 100,000 acres of Ngāti Apa lands. The cumulative effect of these Crown failures is finally acknowledged. This bill finally offers an apology and some important cultural and commercial redress.

There is so much more behind this bill that the rest of us do not know and cannot ever know. There is so much history, pain, storytelling, creativity, and negotiation. All settlements are different, but it is very good to hear that Minister Turia has been in such a powerful position in leading this process, and that the young people who will take this forward have been so much a part of it in terms of participation.

That is refreshing, because sometimes settlements seem to be like a strange kind of negotiation that takes place in a car yard. When we try to get our heads around it, sometimes it seems as if everyone’s cars have been stolen and placed in a car yard, and, if we want to get them back, we are told we will have to prove ownership of the cars. The biggest groupings, the large natural groupings, will have their cars back first. Those who are ready will have their cars back first, but then they are told that, sorry, they cannot have the whole car, only the wheel, because the car is no longer available to be sold back to them. That is what some settlements have felt like. They have felt as if tangata whenua were being offered the wheel, or maybe only the hubcap, and some of that hubcap has to be purchased at market price.

It is really hopeful and positive to hear of a settlement where Ngāti Apa are getting some considerable redress. It still sounds to me like it is not enough. There will never be enough; we cannot turn back the hands of time to those days when so much was taken with so little respect. It is hopeful to hear this constructive direction that Ngāti Apa and its young people have developed with the Crown in this instance.

The Green Party does not want to say much more, but we want to acknowledge the good work undertaken through this House on this bill. I particularly want to tautoko the kōrero of the Hon Tariana Turia and her heartfelt expression of the meaning of the settlement to her people. I know that if all those in the gallery could speak, they would have equally powerful and important things to say to me, my party, and my country that we, as Pākehā, need to hear. Although this bill is about settlement, it is also about listening, and my greatest fear is that Pākehā do not know the story and do not understand what settlement really means. It means that we know Ngāti Apa’s story so that we can understand, in some way, what it has felt like to experience those losses and to be stepping out in a new direction. Our main role is to not get in the way, and to allow this to happen without any barriers from our lack of understanding.

I tautoko the Minister Chris Finlayson and the other members of the Māori Affairs Committee who have supported this process. I simply wish Ngāti Apa all the best for the progress of this bill, and the same to their tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake in their own rohe. Kia kaha; we will vote for this bill through all its stages, and we wish its people well. Tēnā koutou katoa.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) : I am honoured, along with others, to greet the Ngāti Apa representatives who have joined us today for this historic occasion of the first reading of the Ngāti Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill: tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. The grievances of North Island Ngāti Apa, are significant and longstanding. As with all settlements, our tears flow with each injustice incurred. We are connected to Ngāti Apa’s pain and we admire the courage of those people, and their commitment in walking forward. This is a day to give effect to the deed of settlement and to set in process a final settlement of Ngāti Apa’s historical claims, but it is never as easy as all that.

Some of us in this House may remember a 1960s classic:

To everything there is a season,

And a time for every purpose under Heaven.

A time to be born, a time to die,

A time to plant, a time to reap—

[Interruption] I am not going to sing it; no, I am not! In many respects, this bill, as with other settlement bills, gives life to those lyrics. We learn of the birth of this claim—learn that Ngāti Apa has been raising grievances with the Crown for over a hundred years. I also want to acknowledge the people of Ngāti Apa, the people who suffered the breaches of the Treaty and who carried the grievances. I particularly want to acknowledge those who are no longer with us, those who died with the hope of settlement still in their hearts.

Over the century the Crown has failed to deal with the longstanding grievances of Ngāti Apa in an appropriate way. From 1848 the Crown purchased over 400,000 acres of land in which Ngāti Apa held interests. The 1848 Rangitīkei-Turakina purchase stated that that block would be for all of Ngāti Apa to collect and settle on, yet native land legislation enabled those lands to pass through the Native Land Court, which awarded land interests to individuals rather than to all of the iwi. That essentially excluded many Ngāti Apa from ownership of iwi lands, which was a clear breach of the Treaty and its principles. The cumulative effects of the Crown’s actions have left Ngāti Apa without land—a landless people—leading to the situation in which today most of Ngāti Apa live outside their rohe.

Ngāti Apa have also lost control over many of their significant sites, including wāhi tapu, which has affected their physical and spiritual relationship with the land—“a time to be born, a time to die”. The bill is a clear recognition that grievances are long overdue for settlement. As I listened to my colleague the Hon Tariana Turia, and the speaker who followed her, the Hon Mita Ririnui, it was again brought home to me the gnawing pain that can destroy the spirit and turn a people to despair. But with the strength of their tūpuna behind them, the people have risen up and stood to share their history with the nation, while at the same time determining a pathway forward. That pathway lies in cultural redress and revitalisation—“a time to plant, a time to reap”—so in this bill we have specific and strategic initiatives for the collective of individuals who descend from one or more Ngāti Apa ancestors.

A distinctive part of the settlement is cultural reconnection in respect of the transfer of 12 sites of significance. Of those sites, nine are public conservation land with public access and third-party rights protected for all but two sites. In addition, there is a full range of other cultural redress instruments over Crown-owned land, and relationship agreements with certain agencies. It appears that Te Runanga o Ngati Apa, and those involved in the negotiations, have valued the experience and opportunity of having to be innovative and creative in relation to formulating the redress packages.

As part of that, the bill provides for the issue of protocols by the Ministers of Conservation, Fisheries, and Arts, Culture and Heritage on how they interact with Ngāti Apa on specified matters. It is a very significant development that specified departments and Ministers are invited to work closely with Ngāti Apa, to consider how their priorities align with issues emerging across tribal boundaries. Ngāti Apa’s areas of interest extend from the north of Foxton up to south of Whanganui, and run east from the coast along the Ōroua River, past Hunterville. It is a big area of land, so the relationship with Government agencies, along with the return of 100 acres of papakāinga sites, are vital steps to further enhance Ngāti Apa ahi kā roa and cultural development of the iwi. The protocols with relevant Government bodies will assist Ngāti Apa in being able to cooperate on freshwater fisheries, on the export and identification of taonga tūturu, on sustainable taonga fisher species and marine aquatic life, on cultural materials, on the protection and restoration of wetlands, and on cultural and intellectual property. This is a very specific and tailored approach, which demonstrates the willingness of Ngāti Apa to work with the Crown and its respective agencies for the long-term aspirations of the people.

But the relationships extend beyond the Crown to also encompass relationships with other iwi. There is a clear commitment to working towards ensuring overlapping interests from other tribal groups within the rohe. This is an important development, of which we in the Māori Party are fully supportive. Indeed, it is in the strength of our relationships that we can be assured of our ongoing strength as people. We have stood in the House in many settlement debates prior to this and have voiced our deep concern at the way in which the Treaty process has been used in many rohe to divide and rule. We have raised our belief that the framework within which Treaty settlements take place is seriously flawed. In effect, the process cannot be supported while recognising the significance of iwi rights and their needs to settle. We are well aware that an apology assumes a promise not to breach again, yet the Crown continues to do so by pitting iwi against iwi and hapū against hapū. Ngāti Apa has fought the practice of divide and rule, holding fast to its assurances that it would claim areas of interest as exclusively their own only as long as the available research was substantial and unopposed. This is an honourable position, a stance that may well be influential in other settlements to follow.

Another exciting innovation in this settlement is the cultural revitalisation package. The opportunity to re-establish papakāinga is of significant importance to Ngāti Apa, and it will be proudly supported by the development and implementation of its cultural redevelopment plan.

Finally, I acknowledge the history that my colleague Tariana Turia has talked of, which dates back to the Rangitīkei - Turakina transaction of 1849. Despite a history of some 160 years—or perhaps because of it—the framework from whoa to go has been solidly impressive. I mihi to the young leaders of Ngāti Apa who have given us all hope that our collective future lies in good hands. The bill seeks to recognise what is important to the people of Ngāti Apa, and to provide redress for historical breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. We in the Māori Party congratulate the people of Ngāti Apa on their distinctive and practical resolution of the historical claims, and we wish Ngāti Apa well for the promise of a much stronger future. Kia ora koutou.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : He mea tuatahi, taku mihi ki a koutou ngā mōrehu o ngā aituā, kai a koutou Ngāti Apa, tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou i tō haere mai i tēnei rā ki te whakarongo ki ngā kōrero mō tā koutou kerēme. Nō reira, ka mihi ki a koutou.

[Firstly, I acknowledge you, Ngāti Apa, survivors of misfortunes, greetings to you. Thank you for coming today to listen to the debates on your claim; I applaud you.]

I have been trying to figure out what I would say, because everyone has basically said the same thing about how sorry they are and about what an apology means—and absolutely they mean it. I thought I might take a different tack; those of us from Te Tai Tokerau are known for taking a different tack.

Paul Quinn: A tactful approach!

Hon TAU HENARE: A tactful approach! So, first of all, I want to pay due respect to Parekura Horomia, the previous Minister of Māori Affairs, who with his colleagues, including Mita Ririnui, signed off the deed. Secondly, I pay my respects to Chris Finlayson, who I think has done a pretty sterling job since he became Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations not more than 12 months ago. Thirdly, and to me personally this is most important, I pay respects to my colleague Tariana Turia, who, as we all know, has had a week from hell in the last 7 days—and no, I will not be apologising to her on behalf of my cousin.

There are people who come to the House carrying with them the hope that one day they will be able to stand in the House and talk about their own people in a way that tells a story that most, if not all, New Zealanders hardly know anything about. One of the parts of a treaty negotiation and settlement is the telling of a story. I have just finished reading a book, which I picked up for nine bucks in a second-hand store, called The West. The most interesting part of that book talked about how the First Nation people—Native American people, Indian people; call them what you will—went through a lot of treaty-signing processes, but said the thing that they never got right was to sort the issues out over a period of time. I think that we in this country, before anybody else in the world, have developed a way of having the story told, the tears flow, and people pass away during the process, and finally, there is a coming together of ideas on ways to start anew.

The words “Treaty settlement” are good; the process settles, I believe, breaches of a treaty that was signed in 1840. But the process also has more meaning to that—as I said, there is the telling of stories and the putting of them on paper, so that people in the generations to come will know the history of our nation. But, more important, the process talks about and offers the opportunity to remember the past, to not commit the same crimes as we did in the past, to apologise for those crimes in the past, and to step forth on a new path—not just for two people, five people, or 200 people but in this case for the whole “nation” of Ngāti Apa. Now it is their decision as to which path they take, and in this House we must be behind them 100 percent as they go about their business. In terms of business, whether it is in terms of health, education—you name it—it really is up to Ngāti Apa, with, of course, the help of the Government where necessary.

On looking at the notes in front of me, I see dates. One day someone in the future will do a chronology of when things happened, and the dates that I am about to read out will most probably, for Ngāti Apa and for other iwi around the country, stand out: 1840, 1844, 1849, 1866, 1867, 1887, and 1957. Just by reading out those dates, we can get some semblance of how long this has taken. I will not talk about the quantum of the settlement, because, as one of my colleagues has said, it is never enough, and how can we put a figure on all of the injustices of the past? The fact that we have arrived at this point in time is something we should be happy about. One of the things I have learnt, not only in the House but also in the past 40-odd years, is that we can remember what happened, we can sympathise with people, and we can feel aroha about what happened in the past, but the true test is what we do afterwards. The true test is where we go after we have signed the deed. The true test for a Government is to figure out what to do after making an apology. It is not good enough to say: “Sorry folks, we got it wrong.”, and then just file away the apology in a cabinet somewhere. We have an obligation and an opportunity to make the nation’s lot better from what we do.

As chairman of the Māori Affairs Committee I am not daunted by the fact that my colleague has given 17 March as the report-back date for the Ngāti Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill. Even though we are getting near the end of the year, I can assure Ngāti Apa that all of the members of the select committee will work their backsides off to get this bill back into the House as soon as possible. That does not mean that we will decline to hear from everybody; we want to hear from everybody, and we will take it upon ourselves not to meet here but in Ngāti Apa.

Hon Mita Ririnui: Before Christmas!

Hon TAU HENARE: Maybe. Let us just see how things pan out.

I will say one more thing, which might be outrageous to some people, but then again it might not be to other people: where is the “h”? I just thought I would throw that in for the benefit of my friend and former colleague Mr Michael Laws. Although we can laugh about it—and the great thing about our country is that we can enjoy a poke at our whānau now and then—that issue goes to the heart of this nation as well. If we cannot bring ourselves to spell somebody’s name right, then what are we doing when we apologise for all the other stuff that we did? That is a question I would like to leave for the House to consider. Maybe somebody, somewhere, sometime will sort that one out.

Nō reira e te whānau, e aku rangatira, e aku tēina me aku tuākana, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[So, greetings to the family, my chiefs, younger and older siblings, greetings to you all.]

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) : Etautokotia atu ngā mihimihi ki a koutou o te hau kāinga, Ngāti Apa, e tae kaha ake ki konei mō te tae tata o tō tira ki tēnei tino take, tēnā koutou. Ki a koutou ngā tūpakeke, ki a koutou te rangatahi pea e whai atu i tēnei take, e mihi kau ana. I rongo atu tātou ki ngā mamae katoa mai rā anō. I tīmata i reira, i oti atu i reira. Nō reira, ki a koutou mō ngā rere haere o ngā pakeke e kore i konei, e mate ana, e tangi hoki te ngākau. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[I endorse the sentiments expressed to you of home Ngāti Apa, who have arrived here in great numbers on this important matter. Well done. I commend the adults and the younger generation who might in time follow up this matter. Congratulations. We heard all about the historical grievances. They began and ended there. The heart grieves the loss of the older people who have passed on, so greetings to you and to us all.]

I recognise the two Ministers: my ex-colleague Minister Turia, and the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, Chris Finlayson. I also remember the effort put in by my other colleagues: Mark Burton, Mita Ririnui, and Michael Cullen. At times I agree with Mr Tau Henare; I certainly make a bold stand in supporting him as a member of the Māori Affairs Committee, but more so for the final points he made in his speech, which I will come back to. The first major engagement between Ngāti Apa and the Crown took place on 21 May 1840, and it goes on, as has been mentioned. We must not devalue the numbers in this settlement. It has been 161 years, not simply a bit over 100 years. That is a long, long time, and we need to remember that. I say that because I have marvelled at the way this settlement has been done, having sat, watched, listened, cried, and ducked for cover amongst a whole lot of people.

The performance of the negotiating team has been exemplary, if we cite succession planning and talk about rangatahi being there. I know Adrian, Pāhia, and the two wāhine whose names I have forgotten—typical bloke—are a bit past rangatahi, but they were there and I saw them and sat and talked with them. It is a great model and example of how we can move forward. I especially mention my and Minister Turia’s Auntie Poppy. That is the only connection I have to her: we have a common auntie. Auntie Poppy used to harass me all the time about this settlement. The beauty of this settlement was that the pakeke were behind it, not just to tautoko, but to mirimiri and keep the negotiations on the straight and narrow. That is why I say this is a wonderful example for other Treaty settlement groups to take cognisance of, and I do not say that lightly. At the end of the day, they did it. I know it is an honour and a privilege for Minister Turia to have her son play a key role.

There were a host of issues when the Crown attempted to complete the purchase of the Whanganui Block—I say to Tau that it says “Whanganui” in here, which is interesting. I thought it was important to remind people who have power in local authorities exactly what happened in those old days. The chiefs were not silly people. They saw an opportunity and they went after it. In 1848, during the negotiations over the Whanganui purchase, Ngāti Apa offered a large area of land in the Whangaehu and Turakina districts to the Crown. Ngāti Apa rangatira spoke of a desire to form close relationships with European settlers. That is what they did. In September 1848, Āperahama Tīpae wrote to Governor Grey asking that “there be many Pākeha for me, a multitude, so that my kainga be full.” If one listens to half the crap—please excuse my language—that has been coming out of the local council, one would wonder, because instead of being thankful, they have been abusive in the sense of thinking that these damn Māori were annoying them. Similarly, the prominent Ngāti Apa rangatira Kāwana Te Hakeke stated that his considerations in offering to sell land were the same as those of his elders before him—namely, to ensure the security and the nurturing of his people. These people had just come out of the ao kōhatu of the late 1700s and had never seen a Pākehā in their lives, and they thought “By crikey, this might be OK. By crikey, we should forge a relationship.” These people went out of their way, thinking they were doing a great deed, and, to put it bluntly, they were terribly and shamefully ripped off. We will not go back to that, but it happened.

Te Rūnanga o Ngati Apa has really done well, but I mention in particular how it has managed the settlement. Not many organisations can do that. We say as people who are pakeke, like Paul and others, that we will give the essence of the direction, but they have to go and do it. In the Ngāti Apa case, they actually did it. The 6,500 hectares and the redress are important, but I broach an additional suggestion with the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. The prices were based around what was fair. This settlement has happened through the negotiators’ belief in their ability to negotiate with senior Crown officials. That is what brought about the negotiations: their self-belief. In my mind, that quite clearly epitomises how rangatira and their tūpuna would have acted in those years long gone by. The reserves were cut up, moved around, and had their boundaries adjusted. Those are all relevant issues. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that in relation to return per hectare—dare I get commercial—a lot of that land had some of the highest returns in this country. Other people have benefited very, very much, while the Māori, Ngāti Apa, have stood on the side and watched. I commend Minister Turia for leading this settlement, and I commend the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations for encouraging it.

Ngā Rauru has a paepae between it and the Crown. My perception is that it has not worked well. It has been devalued. I suggest that the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations takes a clear role in facilitating the work of the Government agencies relevant to cultural revitalisation and reconnection. It is very, very important. That is why I agree with Tau Henare. It is easy to have a good feeling and to bring this historic moment forward to get to finality, but it is worse when some change is promised, yet the situation continues in these contemporary times. I strongly recommend that to the Minister, and if he needs advice I am more than happy to give it to him. Cultural reconnection needs to be seriously done, and if the young ones or middle-aged people who have brought this to finality are keen on it, then it needs to be resourced properly. It needs to be assisted and abetted. Cultural revitalisation is all of that. A lot of the nuances relevant to those two issues are not understood at times by people in the agencies, Pākehā people who mean well but do not know, or even Māori who mean well. But if the Minister is there steering the process and facilitating it, it brings grunt to the tiller. I recommend that to the Minister wholeheartedly, and congratulate him on continuing this process.

Most of all, I say “Well done.” to the Ngāti Apa team. Whether we played a small part, a great part, or whatever, it is great to be part of this historic achievement. Kia ora.

PAUL QUINN (National) :Tēnā koutou ngā manuhiri tūārangi, nau mai, haere mai. E kui mā, e koro mā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, te Whare. Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker.

[Greetings to you the visitors from afar, and the elderly women and menfolk. Welcome, welcome. Greetings to the House, and thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.]

I join with previous speakers in welcoming Ngāti Apa here today. In speaking to the first reading of the Ngāti Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill, I want to cover three points. Firstly, I reflect that Minister Turia took the lead in moving the first reading on behalf of the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. In my view that represents a trust, a spirit of bonding and a spirit of understanding, between the National Party and the Māori Party in acknowledging that we are a team coming together to join in celebrating the first reading of this bill. I look forward to continuing to work in a National-led Government that, with the Māori Party, will provide leadership to this country in a number of areas, but particularly in the area of Treaty settlements, which is dear to my heart.

That leads me to my second point. One of the principal reasons that I stand here today is that I desire to see Treaty settlements expedited through the House. For too long these settlements have stalled, and I believe that that has held back the development of iwi and hapū. If Māori put that behind them and act in a spirit of cooperation to reach agreements between the Crown and iwi and hapū, then we will be able to move forward as a race. So I am proud to stand and join with others in speaking to the first reading of the bill. In doing so, I offer my congratulations to the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, who, in my view, is doing an outstanding job in expediting Treaty settlements. In the spirit of camaraderie I also acknowledge the work done by his predecessors Michael Cullen and, in particular, my friend and colleague Parekura Horomia and my relation Mita Ririnui, which has enabled this Treaty settlement legislation to be brought before the House.

My third point is that in relation to Treaty settlements, it appears there are two principal activities on which the Treaty grievances are based. In the case of this Treaty settlement, the historical injustice has arisen through improper land purchase arrangements that occurred, as previous speakers have stated, many, many years ago. So this Treaty settlement rights that injustice. I join with my colleagues in congratulating those responsible on the leadership that they showed in the negotiations and, most important in these sorts of challenges, in taking the iwi and hapū along with them and getting their support in the arduous process of negotiating the settlement on their behalf. It is a very tough challenge to take the people along in the process. Ngāti Apa leaders, the rūnanga, and the negotiators have managed to do that, and they are to be commended for that.

Finally, I say Ngāti Apa have been on a hard and long journey up until now, but this first reading represents the beginning of the end. We are now heading for the home straight, and the House can be assured that the Māori Affairs Committee will expedite its consideration of the bill, without compromising due process, and will report it back in the time nominated by the Minister, just as the chairman of the committee, my friend and colleague Tau Henare, has said. With those few words, it gives me great pleasure to support the first reading of the bill. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. Kia ora.

SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) : It has been very interesting listening to the speeches in this debate, and what is clear is that this is a settlement that has been advanced by Ngāti Apa with dignity, integrity, and purpose. I have been heartened to hear, as an outsider, of the involvement of youth in this settlement—our future in this nation—who have not had a backward-looking or an overly backward-looking approach but have been resolutely future-focused in their approach to this settlement. On the other side can I, like the other speakers, congratulate the members of the Crown who played an integral part—the Hon Chris Finlayson, and those before him, including Parekura Horomia, Mita Ririnui, and, of course, Tariana Turia. It is sometimes hollow, I think, to wax lyrical in settlement bills about what has happened, when one either is not affiliated to the iwi or has not been directly, or even indirectly, involved in Crown negotiations, but can I simply say that this is, I think, another settlement moving this nation forward. It is another huge occasion for all those who are involved in it and it is a happy, joyful day. I look forward to being on the Māori Affairs Committee that receives this bill shortly.

• Bill read a first time.

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) on behalf of the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: I move, That the Ngāti Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill be considered by the Māori Affairs Committee, that the committee report finally to the House on or before 17 March 2010, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), 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 187 and 190(1)(b) and (c).

• Motion agreed to.

• Waiata

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections) : I move, That the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The return of this bill to the House marks an important step towards implementing the Government’s policy to allow the contract management of New Zealand’s prisons on a case by case basis. The Government wants New Zealand to have a world-class corrections system. Allowing private companies to manage prisons will create opportunities to benefit from private sector initiative and expertise. In doing so, we will encourage more innovation and we stand to achieve greater efficiencies and effectiveness in New Zealand’s corrections system.

As this bill has now returned from the Law and Order Committee, I take this opportunity to thank the select committee for its hard work in its consideration of the bill and of the public submissions it received. I especially thank the chair of the committee, Sandra Goudie MP. I also acknowledge and thank those members of the public who took the time to make submissions to the select committee. The bill attracted submissions from a wide range of people and organisations, and these were all taken into account during the committee’s deliberations. Many submissions acknowledged that the Department of Corrections is under enormous pressure. This has not changed. I recently announced that the prison population in New Zealand had reached its highest level ever. The department is fast reaching the point where the number of prisoners will exceed the number of beds available. Addressing this issue and improving the performance of the corrections system overall is one of the Government’s top priorities.

Allowing for contract-managed prisons gives us an opportunity to create a corrections system that is modern, effective, and efficient. The Government is committed to achieving this in a way that is consistent with the principles of the Corrections Act 2004. These principles are to improve public safety and contribute to the maintenance of a just society. This must be done through the safe, secure, humane, and effective containment of prisoners. This bill does not contravene any of these important principles.

Under the provisions of the bill, the chief executive of the Department of Corrections will remain responsible for all prisoners in New Zealand and accountable for what happens to them. This includes prisoners held in contract-managed prisons. As a result, we will expect contract-managed prisons to comply with the same obligations and standards as the prisons directly managed by the department. Contract-managed prisons will have to comply with all relevant New Zealand legislation. This includes contractual obligations to comply with the Corrections Act and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The bill also imposes contractual obligations on private prisons to comply with all relevant international obligations and standards. Failure to comply with the relevant New Zealand legislation or our international obligations would be a breach of contract and could result in its termination.

The bill imposes further contractual obligations to specify the objectives and performance standards of each contract-managed prison. These include objectives and performance standards for the management of the prison, as well as for the management and care of prisoners. The performance standards and requirements that we will expect will be no less than those we expect in our own prisons. The bill also addresses the concern that contract-managed prisons will attempt to increase profits by having fewer staff than a public prison. It will be a contractual requirement for each private prison to appoint and train sufficient suitable staff to enable them to carry out their statutory and contractual obligations. The bill requires every prison under contract management to provide rehabilitative and reintegrative programmes that will help prisoners address the causes of their offending and will assist their reintegration into society.

In order to comply with these contractual obligations prison managers will be subject to comprehensive reporting requirements. These include regular reporting on staff training, on incidents involving violence or self-harm, and on the rehabilitation and reintegration programmes provided for prisoners. In addition, prison contractors must report promptly all escapes and deaths in custody. Failure to comply with any of these requirements would be a breach of contract.

The bill also contains a number of mechanisms to ensure that contractors are accountable and are complying with the terms of their contracts. Particularly important to ensure accountability and compliance will be the prison monitors, who will regularly report to the chief executive. A prison monitor will be appointed to every contract-managed prison. The prison monitor will have free and unfettered access to all parts of a private prison. This includes access to all prisoners and staff. The primary purpose of prison monitors will be to oversee the contractors’ compliance, the terms of the contract, and the requirements of the law. Prison monitors will also be able to investigate any issue in a private prison at the behest of the chief executive or on their own initiative.

I am pleased to report that following deliberations by the select committee, the role of prison monitors has been expanded to enhance their functionality in two key respects. The chief executive will be able to appoint additional monitors to private prisons to assist the primary monitor. Additional monitors will be used in situations where increased surveillance may be required. For example, additional monitors may be appointed to a prison to provide 24-hour monitoring, or an extra monitor may simply be appointed to a particularly large prison. The chief executive will also be able to appoint specialist monitors for particular purposes. These monitors will investigate any matter related to a contract-managed prison at the request of the chief executive or on their own initiative. It is intended that their primary purpose will be to respond to specific issues raised by the monitors based in private prisons. This could include, for example, investigating criminal activity in prison. This will allow for a thorough investigation to be conducted while not interfering with the day-to-day role of the resident prison monitor.

The select committee made other minor changes to the bill. It recognised the importance of providing prisoners with employment and skill development. The bill now requires specific reporting on the provision of employment and skill development to prisoners. The bill already has a requirement to report on the rehabilitative and reintegrative programmes provided for prisoners. However, employment and skills development are also essential activities to help prisoners in their eventual reintegration into the community. It was agreed that these activities had to be recognised in their own right with separate reporting requirements.

Additionally, the bill has been amended to address the flow of information between staff at contract-managed prisons, the Department of Corrections, and other Government agencies. This amendment is to ensure that the current sharing of information on prisoners between the Department of Corrections and other Government agencies will continue, notwithstanding that some prisoners will be in a contract-managed prison. This is because other Government agencies—such as the Police, the Ministry of Social Development, and the Department of Labour—often need this information in order to perform their functions and duties.

The changes made by the select committee that I have just highlighted will provide even greater protection for prisoners and will increase the department’s ability to monitor a contractor’s performance and compliance. These changes will enhance the effectiveness and functionality of the bill. As a result, this bill will allow the Government to reap the benefits of private sector innovation in prison management while providing adequate safeguards for the secure, safe, and humane custody of prisoners. As the Minister of Corrections I firmly believe that this bill will provide an effective statutory framework for the regulation and control of privately managed prisons in New Zealand. As such, I am committed to its successful implementation. I commend this bill to the House for its second reading.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) : Labour members will oppose the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill, and we will do so on two main platforms. One is a core principle that I will come to in a moment, and the other is centred on the objective of this bill, which could be characterised as an attempt to distance performance from accountability.

An offer was made to the Law and Order Committee to have the idea—that is, that private is better than public in the prison service—tested in an independent way by agencies and commercial enterprises that do not have an axe to grind or a vested interest. The Minister of Corrections, Judith Collins, to this day, will not submit this proposal to independent scrutiny, and at that point we have to ask ourselves why. I know that other members from the Labour side will deal with this matter in more detail, so putting aside for a moment the notion that it is the role of the Crown, as a core responsibility, to incarcerate, and therefore be responsible for incarcerating its citizenry, there are core responsibilities within the Crown portfolio. I suspect that we are not yet—or, at least, I hope not—talking about privatising other services, like the police. Of course we would not do that—I hope. I am sure we would not, I hope, have a debate in this House about privatising core services—for instance, our military capacity. I hope that we will not; I pray that we will not.

The incarceration, the rehabilitation, and the responsibility for incarcerating our citizenry is, indeed, I put to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, a core responsibility of the State. This Parliament sets the laws, the courts interpret those laws and pass sentence, and then it is handed back to the Crown, through the Department of Corrections, to incarcerate, administer, and punish—because that is part of prison, and one is soft on crime, in my view, if one does not believe that—but also then to rehabilitate, and, hopefully, return to our society folk who will not engage in the heinous crimes they did to get there in the first place. That, in my view, and I submit this to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, is a core responsibility of the State.

Yet I could be wrong. The Minister could be wrong in promoting the privatisation of the prison service. I put to this Parliament that that argument could well be alleviated if that Minister would submit her ideas and her proposals to independent accountability, to thorough analysis by those who do not have a vested interest, in order to test the argument and the idea. There has been no evidence put to this Parliament, or the Law and Order Committee, from anybody that justifies the privatisation of prisons. Members should remember that the original proposition for this bill was the potential privatisation and management of future, new, yet-to-be-built prisons. But that does not appear in this bill, and we know from an email sent, I believe, in June of this year that Barry Matthews—and the chief executive of the Department of Corrections will be held to account for his comments in the select committee when he appears in the financial review—sent a threatening email to staff saying that there was no money for a wage increase and that if they did not toe the line, he would recommend the privatisation of the management of prisons.

The only justification for privatisation that has been put up is one of cost. We have just heard flimflam from the Minister, sounding high and mighty, but I will say that the principal goals about rehabilitation, about skills training, and about providing facilities where the game is lifted and where prisoners and dangerous folk are secured from our community are all valid and principled aims. But there is no reason why those valid and principled aims could not be brought to bear on a department called the Department of Corrections.

Much was made of the only historical example of privatisation that we have in this country, which was when the Auckland Central Remand Prison was privatised. That is the only example we have, and that was reversed by the then incoming Labour Government. That is the only example we have. The Minister trumpeted that she will have the ability to, if you will, penalise a private company, for instance, for escapes by taking the money out of their kick. All those objectives I have outlined, and a practical measure like that, could well be exercised by this Minister, if she had a will to do it, if she had a will to make her department accountable, because we move this bill through its parliamentary stages in an environment where the Department of Corrections is, in industrial terms, at war with itself by taking its own department to the Employment Court to try to protect its own members from a Minister who describes broken bones of prison officers as “minor injuries”.

But let us, for a moment, consider the only justification that the Minister has trumpeted, in an environment of economic recession, for going private—that is, cost cutting. The thesis is that the private sector can incarcerate, rehabilitate, and provide skills at a cheaper rate, of course, than the public sector. The Minister said as much in an answer to me, in volume 656 of the Hansard, when she said: “I am aware of information from my own department that in 2004-05, the last year the Auckland Central Remand Prison was privately run, the cost was $57,280 per prisoner, whereas the equivalent in the public sector cost $61,796 per prisoner.” Well, that is interesting, because I also have in front of me the document that her own department submitted, and this is the only real justification put up for privatising prisons. It states that the costs from the same period, 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005, inclusive of property-related overheads, were $57,280 for the private provider and $50,208 for the public provider, the Department of Corrections.

So I would like to know who is telling porkies, because those figures raise the issue that the advice the Minister has from her own department, as per the Hansard, does not match the advice that the select committee got from her own department, which, up until today, we have not been able to talk about. So who is telling the truth, because cost is the only justification that this Minister has used? Apparently one cannot rehabilitate prisoners under the Department of Corrections. Apparently one cannot take money out of Barry Matthews’ budget, if there is an escape. Well, I say they can if they have the political will. They can use all those motivational tactics, such that they are, with the Crown department running the show.

I say this: there are nefarious motives of some, and prison officers came before the select committee to advise us of what had occurred under the GEO Group. Prison officers who worked at the Auckland Central Remand Prison, both when privately and publicly managed, submitted to the committee that decisions were made on a day-to-day basis that were intended to protect the reputation of GEO and also to ensure that performance bonuses provided under the contract were obtained by GEO. They talked about prison officers who had erred but were asked to go quietly and resign, rather than being disciplined. I think that is not on.

The issue before this House is one, I believe, that is simple. This bill is about distancing, as I said at the start, the performance of a Minister—or lack of it—from his or her accountability as Minister. This is a Minister who cannot be accountable to this Parliament for the actions of her own department, and we have had a litany of prison incidents through the latest Burton assault, and through the attack with razor blades, which she trumpeted she had got out of our prisons. Yet what happened in the Pāremoremo maximum security prison quite recently? This is a Minister who cannot get accountability out of her own department but washes her hands of it and says that it is an operational matter. When we bring evidence that a prison officer’s bones were broken the Minister says it is an operational matter, or a minor injury. So what will happen when the Auditor-General cannot penetrate a private company, or when the Ombudsman cannot penetrate a private company? Not only will it be an operational matter but journalists and those who want to exercise an Official Information Act request, or hold a select committee inquiry, will have to go and dig even deeper, and they will not be able to penetrate the private provider. The Minister will be able to say not only that it is operational but that it is a private matter, and tell them to go away. This will be a sad day for the House, and one that I believe this Minister will regret.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I am delighted to speak to the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill, which I see as an opportunity for innovation and new ideas. The previous Labour Government had that opportunity but trampled all over it and got rid of it as soon as it could. I thank my colleagues on the Law and Order Committee who did an outstanding job, and I also acknowledge David Garrett from ACT who made a sensible contribution. Opposition members had plenty of time to understand how a private contract for the management of a prison might operate, but their ideology prevents them from even considering it. There are not any principles involved; this is about ideology and about safeguarding the stronghold of unions. But unions, by their very nature, cripple innovation and new ideas. That is the ideology of the Opposition. But this Government believes that this bill will pave the way for innovation in a safe and effective way in terms of the management of the incarceration of offenders.

It is crucial that we actually deliver the very best Department of Corrections service for New Zealand. To do that we should not limit our choices; we should have alternative ways of doing things so we have some way of measuring the performance of each one. In order to have a world-class corrections system we need that exposure to world-class innovation and expertise. We can get that by allowing private companies to provide those custodial services and create the opportunity to benefit from private sector initiatives and know-how. It is quite clear that the Auckland remand prison started that innovation when it had the opportunity, before Labour squashed it in 2004. It was the first prison to have Māori involvement in its management, and our understanding is that it was highly successful, yet it was trampled over by the previous Government. It was not seen as something that was important. One of the most appealing aspects of private prison management will be the ability to build performance incentives and penalties into the contract, but public safety is one of the top priorities.

I see that the Opposition has been going on about the core principle of the Crown being responsible for the incarceration of criminals, and that it should not contract out that responsibility. But the Crown contracts out its responsibility in a range of fields. The only one that I can think of is that it sets the rules by which we can drive a car, but we do not expect the car to be driven for us.

Carmel Sepuloni: That’s ridiculous!

SANDRA GOUDIE: Well, I could not think of another analogy quickly enough, but that is pretty much it. Why should this be the only area of core responsibility that it should not be able to contract out?

This bill is about new ideas and independent benchmarks, but of course the Opposition is bereft of any of those. It is also about leadership, and leadership makes that difference. Private prison managers will raise standards across the whole of the corrections sector. At least we in National are willing to provide the opportunity for that to happen, whereas the Opposition is not open even to considering that as an option, and that is a real shame. How can we move forward unless we have some innovation and new ideas? We are all for that.

The bill, which is about prison management contracts, will set out a number of requirements, the sorts of requirements we discussed at length in the select committee: objective and performance standards no lower than those of publicly run prisons, staff training, coordination of services and processes with publicly run prisons, maintenance of insurance to indemnify the Crown, avoidance of conflicts of interest, provision of rehabilitation and reintegration programmes, and dispute resolution and termination provisions. Of course, there is an opportunity here for private prisons to do a far better job than prisons that are managed by the Crown.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: Than they did last time?

SANDRA GOUDIE: They did that last time.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: No they didn’t. Look at the facts.

SANDRA GOUDIE: Well, I think they did. This is a bone of contention. Perhaps under the previous Government they were not allowed to have that opportunity, which is no surprise. Why are we not surprised? Opposition members talk also about the fact that there is no accountability. Well, actually there is, but they want it to go far beyond the reasonable inquiries of the actual contract management of the prison and into the financial position of the company that might have the contract, which is far beyond the contract itself. Once again, that is the whole issue of micromanaging, nanny State ideology, which is a hallmark of the Opposition, is it not?

National is absolutely delighted to progress the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. I heartily support the exceptional leadership of the Minister of Corrections, Judith Collins, and commend the National Government for bringing this bill to the House.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) : Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person. I have just gone through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and I cannot find the right to drive a car. But the member Sandra Goudie has just sat down after saying to this House that she could not find a comparison other than that we set the rules about how people can drive a car and where they can drive a car, but that does not mean that we have to drive the car for everyone. That was her response to our statement from this side of the House that the right to liberty is a fundamental human right, and that only the State has the circumstances where it can deprive individuals of their liberty. That is something that sits only within the role of the State, and I am firmly of the view that it is wrong to generate private profit from the deprivation of liberty. Yet that member thinks that driving a car is a comparison to undermining one of the basic tenets of our New Zealand democracy. I am quite appalled.

What that member is challenging us to do is to set aside matters of principle. Never mind the fact that National members are driven by an ideology, which is that public is bad and private is good, no matter what. In response, I ask members which sector caused the greatest global meltdown in the financial markets. Was it the public sector or the private sector?

Hon Members: Private sector.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: It was the private sector. I think we are agreed on that. But members on that side of the House have this mantra: if it is public, it is bad; if it is private, it is good. The legislation that we are debating here in this House is ideological, but that member has challenged members on this side of the House not to deal with the bill on philosophical grounds.

Moving away from the right to liberty being fundamental and the role of the State in terms of the deprivation of liberty, let us look at the costs. I think that member has not read her own report, possibly because this particular piece of information came from the Department of Corrections. But is it to be found within the body of the report back from the Law and Order Committee as part of the general report back? No, it is in the Labour minority report.

Let us look at the information about costs. The Auckland Central Remand Prison, our one experience of the privatised model, was under private management from 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005. When we look at operating costs only, we see that they were $35,700 per prisoner, and it cost $57,280 per prisoner if we include property-related overheads. Let us look at remand prisoners held in the public prisons during exactly that same period, 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005. Operating costs per prisoner were $32,000 as compared with $35,700 under private management, and when we include property-related overheads, we see that the cost was $50,208 compared with $57,280. The rest of the country did better than the Auckland Central Remand Prison.

Sandra Goudie: Try comparing apples with apples.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: That member says that we are not really comparing apples with apples, because the Auckland Central Remand Prison had extra costs—it was Auckland-based, and there were probably other pressures on in Auckland. So let us look at the Auckland Central Remand Prison under public management from 1 July 2005 to 30 June 2006. Costs have of course gone up, because it is a year later. Let us see what the figures look like. Operating costs per prisoner were $33,900 compared with $35,700 under private management. When we include property-related overheads, it was $55,853 compared with $57,280 under private management. So the Government’s proposition fails from first base.

The evidence from the one example where we had the private management of a public prison shows that it was more expensive to privatise the management of the prison than it was to run it publicly.

Hon Darren Hughes: Why are we doing this?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I have no idea. It is purely ideological, from the Government’s position. It simply believes that it has to give those people who want to be involved in the privatisation of a core public function access to what essentially is the money that would be put into our public system anyway. There is no value to be offered to the New Zealand public in return for the opening up of prison management.

I know that the Government likes to present this move as competition as opposed to privatisation, but it is clearly the privatisation of a core State function, and I do not think that the public will see it in any other way, shape, or form. Of course, the Prime Minister was on record, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, as saying that there would be no privatisation in National’s first term in office. So goodness knows what it has on its table for next time—

Hon Darren Hughes: There won’t be a next time.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL:—but I suspect it will all come out during the election campaign. There will not be a next time, because the public will know exactly what National means by the word “competition”. They know that that will simply be code for privatisation.

There is another point that the member has not focused on at all, and that is the question raised by my colleague—the separation of accountability from performance. We have very strict measures in place to ensure that there is proper accountability for the Department of Corrections to this place, to Parliament. We have the select committee that gives oversight to the functions of the Department of Corrections. We have the Official Information Act. We have the use of parliamentary written and oral questions. We have the Auditor-General, who at this stage has unfettered access to Government departments and to agencies to inquire into any matter where he or she feels it is appropriate to do so. Then, of course, we have the role of the Ombudsman, which is a very specific role as it relates to prisons. What happens when the management function is privatised? All of these checks and balances go out the window.

Sandra Goudie: Ha, ha!

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: The chair of the select committee is laughing. She thinks that is very funny. I do not think it is very funny, because I think one of the reasons why the Government wants to create this arm’s-length mechanism is to ensure that it does not have accountability for one of our most important public roles.

I alert the House to the fact that when we come to the Committee stage my colleague the Hon Rick Barker intends to put forward three amendments. The first will re-instigate the role of the Ombudsman. It will give the Ombudsman complete and unrestricted access to any contracted prison, and to prisoners, prison records, and prison staff, to ensure that it can carry out the duties and responsibilities of the Ombudsman’s office in a similar manner as if the contracted prison was a prison run by the Department of Corrections. He will also propose that the Office of the Auditor-General have exactly the same rights, in terms of complete and unrestricted access to all aspects of a contracted prison.

The third amendment that the Hon Rick Barker will put forward is to ensure that there is no contract for the running of a prison under the Act for more than 3 years, and certainly no automatic right or expectation of renewal. That is because we want to send a very strong message to those who wish to think about going down this track again: we will do what we did previously. It is not cost-effective to privatise this function. Setting aside all of the principled arguments that we would put to this House, Labour will overturn the privatisation agenda of this Government after the next election. Therefore, there is no point in any private business going down the pathway of taking advantage of any of these measures. With this amendment, we will ensure that at the end of the contract period, that contract will not be renewed, and indeed we will not be in a position to see any future privatisation agenda take hold in this country.

I think that the Government is being quite dishonest in terms of the lack of oversight, and also in its lack of transparency in terms of the actual costs of the experience that we have had. We could use many overseas examples of private prisons where the costs are higher, the rate of suicides is higher, the rate of escapes is higher, and the cost-benefit as well simply does not stack up. I think on every level this proposition fails, and Labour will not be supporting the passage of this bill.

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) : The Green Party remains absolutely opposed to this legislation. It is not evidence-based. It is ideological, it is dangerous to the community, to staff, and to prisoners, and it will increase costs to the public purse.

First, I thank all of those brave souls who came to the Law and Order Committee to discuss with the committee their experiences of working within prisons and with prisoners. I pay particular regard to Pat McGill from the Napier Pilot City Trust, who, with his many years of service to his community, talked of the importance of a community taking responsibility for its members, developing an inclusive culture that respects all people, and seeking non-violent solutions to issues of crime and poverty.

I acknowledge the Corrections Association of New Zealand for its contribution from front-line staff in its submission to the committee. The association rightfully referred the committee to the many examples of private prison companies overseas that have reduced staff conditions and placed their staff in increasingly dangerous circumstances. Indeed, the officials themselves reported that there were more escapes from the private prison in New Zealand than from prisons in the public sector. The Corrections Association talked about how the experience in New Zealand and overseas shows that private prison guards are paid less and have reduced conditions of employment, and submitted that there is nothing in this legislation to protect current staff and their jobs, and certainly no obligation on the part of the private prison to continue with their collective agreement. The association also raised very serious fears about the impact on staff of a combination of less experienced officers, double-bunking, and longer lock-up periods for prisoners, all of which compound the serious and very real dangers to staff.

I also thank the staff who had worked in the private prison in Auckland, but who came to the select committee despite the risk to their potential future employment. They talked about how decisions were made by GEO Group management to protect the GEO Group’s reputation—this is the lived experience of staff in the private prison—and to ensure that performance bonuses were paid. That experience included the practice of staff not being disciplined but being encouraged to resign so that performance bonuses would continue to be paid. The staff said that emphasis on ensuring compliance with the contract meant there was an incentive not to find drugs in the prison, as opposed to the practice in the public sector where there is a genuine wish to find drugs if they are present. Indeed, the staff raised concerns about inadequate drug testing under GEO Group management, so as to comply with the contract and retain the performance bonus. These are classic examples of that private company, in managing the private prison, massaging the compliance so that it could continue to make money off the public purse, and thereby putting staff, prisoners, and the public at large at greater risk of harm.

A similar situation also applied to self-harm incidents where, under the GEO Group, staff were encouraged to avoid reporting those incidents in order to protect their performance bonuses and to avoid penalties being imposed through the contract. Basic protocol was disregarded, such as having prisoners escorted to the visiting areas by guards who were related to them. One guard was later allowed to resign and not prosecuted for breaching that protocol, so that performance bonuses would continue to be paid from the public purse to the private company.

Submitters were concerned that because prison officers worked in a high-risk environment, it was vital that officers were of a high calibre, but they said that under the GEO Group, casual, inexperienced staff were often employed in the private prison in Auckland, thereby exposing officers to dangerous situations. Australian staff, who did not relate well to Māori or Pacific Island prisoners, were brought over to work in the private prison, and those staff were paid better than their New Zealand counterparts, and took jobs from New Zealand corrections officers because the GEO Group paid Department of Corrections staff significantly less than those brought over from Australia.

This is the practical, daily, lived experience, and it reflects the research around private prisons. The US Department of Justice report Emerging Issues on Privatized Prisons clearly shows that the privatisation models simply mimic the public sector. The promises to provide more than 20 percent of savings did not eventuate under private management, and the modest savings that were made came as a result of staff reductions and other labour-related costs. Another report, from Australia, “Privatisation and New South Wales Prisons: Value for Money and Neo-liberal Regulation”, again shows that privatisation of prisons there did not result in value for money, or in a significant reduction in costs. In fact, the paper shows that the rhetoric of cost-effectiveness undermines the alternative criteria, such as safety, educational outcomes, or reduced reoffending.

Of course, we can see all that reflected in the practice of the GEO Group in the Auckland remand prison, because by reducing those other criteria for safety, like detecting for drugs and following basic protocols, the company could maintain its performance bonuses and do a good job of trying to suck up public money. So we know that in a private prison conditions worsen for staff, and money is made for the private company through its failing to provide adequate wages and conditions, and its failing to report drug and violent incidents.

National and its cronies, however, will continue with the fallacy that private prisons are cheaper. It is a fallacy; we know for a fact that it is not true. The officials to the Law and Order Committee told us it was untrue when they provided us with the figures that colleagues from Labour have been discussing in this debate.

Jane Kelsey came to the committee and provided a very interesting economic analysis, particularly about the economic issues facing private ventures into public services. That submission put a spotlight on the fallacy of the National Government—and the Māori Party, if it feels it is supporting this bill. Her analysis clearly showed that having private companies running prisons is more costly to the public purse, in a variety of ways. The global recession, for example, means that it is harder for private prison companies to get finance, and there is an intense pressure on those companies to maximise short-term profits. If profits do not meet expectations, then there are pressures to renegotiate the contract with the State. The State, then, potentially has to carry the risk of the private company’s failure; the legislation before us does not constrain the length of a private contract, so that is a financial risk that the State could carry for many years to come. In addition, as it happened with the private prison here in New Zealand, the then Labour Government had to wait out the contract before returning the prison to public management, because of the cost of closing it down earlier. That is a cost borne by the public—public money is used to prop up other businesses or private companies, particularly international companies.

This bill shuts out the public from knowledge of the commercial interests in the dealings of the private company, even though it is public money that is being used to feed that private company. Reports of the monitors are not made public. The Official Information Act can be thwarted by using commercial sensitivity provisions. There is no accountability, or at least accountability to the shareholders of the company, and no accountability to the public whose safety is at heart here. There are a number of other issues that no doubt we will canvass during the Committee stage of the bill.

Finally, National and the Māori Party are trying to argue that this bill will be good for Māori business or Māori iwi, because Māori will be able to get into the business of prisons. Those parties are wrong. Private prisons operate through corporate structures that limit their liability, and that puts joint ventures with iwi very much at financial risk. Not only is it a bad deal for Māori economically but it is grossly unethical for Māori to make a profit from the incarceration of Māori in a legal system that has been demonstrably proven to be biased. We urge the Māori Party to oppose any profiteering from racism. Profiteering from racism will never be OK. We urge the Māori Party to oppose this legislation. Prison is the harshest penalty that our community imposes on its citizens. The use of that extraordinary power must remain in the hands of the State, which is accountable only to the community and not to international private profiteering companies. Thank you.

DAVID GARRETT (ACT) : I start by saying that last Friday I had the opportunity to visit the maximum security section at what is now known as Auckland prison, but used to be known as “Pare Max”. One could not say I had the pleasure of doing so, because as Mr Cosgrove and others have said, no one in their right mind would really want to go and live in C Block as it is now. I had several impressions of the place, aside from the obvious. One of them was of how professional the staff were. They were not the inhumane brutes whom some have portrayed prison staff to be. They were clearly compassionate and professional—some might say too compassionate. I had good talks with several of them. They were not the opponents of private prisons that Mr Cosgrove talks to—Mr Hanlon and his mates get intimidated, supposedly, by someone speaking the obvious—but just ordinary guys.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You threatened him.

DAVID GARRETT: Oh yeah, I threatened him. Hanlon was threatened because I mentioned the obvious fact, having sat there in the Law and Order Committee and heard the evidence that Ms Turei just gave us, that Mr Hanlon and his mates would not get a job in the private prison.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You threatened his colleagues.

DAVID GARRETT: I ask Mr Cosgrove whether that big, tall joker was scared of me. I had a chance to talk to the ordinary prison officers up there—half a dozen of them, men and women—and they were great people. I was very, very impressed with what I saw. So I wonder why there is a feeling of such threat about the idea of a private prison.

I walked into the Chamber towards the end of Ms Turei’s speech, and I wondered whether she and I had been in the same select committee room, because some of what she said simply parroted what those prison officers who were obviously union goons were there to say. Without any substantiation at all, they accused a private prison operator of falsifying records. I will go through it again: shredding documents, sacking people so they could not face disciplinary tribunals, etc. Well, in another life I was a lawyer, and I say that in order to substantiate those charges—those very, very serious charges—one would need to have evidence. We have not seen any of that, except in the sacred protection of this House or in a select committee room. So I am very sceptical about that. I wonder why the union is so frightened of having competition in prison management. Ms Turei and the Labour Party members simply ignore the facts.

Mr Tanzcos, who used to sit over there, once said in this House, I am told, that even though he accepted that on every measure—whether it be suicide, violence on officers, violence on offenders, or whatever else it might be—when the Auckland Central Remand Prison was run privately it did better than the public prisons, he was still opposed to it. That is still the “criminal apologist” attitude over there: those members are opposed to prisons being run privately. Just as the sky will fall in tomorrow because of global warming or climate change or whatever it is called now, they say private equals bad. It does not matter what the evidence is; they say private equals bad. That is just not so.

The Māori Party, to my left, has come in for a bit of stick from Ms Turei, and I imagine from Mr Cosgrove as well, about its support for the idea of privately run prisons. Well, in my view that is a courageous move on the part of the Māori Party members. They have said—and I will be honest; I doubt whether they are right—that iwi can run prisons better than they are being run, and that they can turn round the sorry statistics that show that 14 percent of our population is 60 percent or something of our prisoners. The Māori Party has said that iwi-run groups can do that better. I say we should give them a go. If they can do it better, who can complain? I ask Mr Cosgrove whether he is frightened of iwi groups tendering successfully for a private prison and getting good outcomes. Is he scared of that?

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Firstly, I am not scared. Secondly, I seek leave to table a document in which Mr Garth McVicar, chief executive of the Sensible Sentencing Trust and Mr Garrett’s mentor, opposes what Mr Garrett is supporting today.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I am going to put the leave, but I say members do know that it is discourteous to break up a speech. [Interruption] I am telling the member that I will put the leave. [Interruption] The member should not speak to the Chair in that manner. I will put the leave. Members ought to be aware that leave should be put at the end of a speech. Leave is sought to table a document. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There is not.

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

DAVID GARRETT: I would be quite happy for Mr Cosgrove to table anything from Mr McVicar, who, by the way, is not my mentor or my sponsor. I am not here as a member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, as Mr Cosgrove has sneeringly observed from time to time. I am here as a member of the ACT Party, and as a proud member of the ACT Party.

But I do not subscribe to the kind of nonsense that Mr Tanczos said: that even if we have fewer suicides, less violence, fewer attacks, and literacy classes that do much better than those in public prisons, we should still oppose privately run prisons. That is idiocy—utter idiocy. So I commend the Māori Party, and I really hope that iwi management will work. Overseas evidence suggests that it is unlikely to work, but I hope that it has something to offer.

In any event, I do not see what is so bad and so scary about prisons being open to private competition, especially when the very little evidence we have of what happened here is overwhelmingly positive. There is a weird fixation on the fact that no one should possibly make money from incarceration. Well, I just do not get it. I just do not get it. If an organisation can meet the same standards as public prisons, which privately managed prisons will have to meet, and if that organisation can achieve better results than the public prisons, which, hopefully, it can, then who cares if someone makes some money? Who cares? I do not. I do not, and our party does not.

We take pleasure in supporting the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. It might not work; let us see. But we will certainly be voting for it and following its outcome with interest. Thank you.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou katoa e te Whare kua hui mai i tēnei pō ki te wānanga i tēnei pire. The Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill starts with a very basic purpose: to amend the Corrections Act to allow for the competitive tendering of prison management.

Different parties across the House will come to this debate with a variety of priorities that they seek for the bill to address. For the Māori Party, we cannot ignore the reality that at this time we have record prison inmate numbers, about half of whom claim to be Māori, and we have an exceptionally high recidivism rate. No New Zealander can rest easy with the fact that about 50 percent of the people in jail come from 14 percent of the population, and certainly the Māori Party does not rest easy with that fact. We also know that the State system is far from properly addressing the matter of the rehabilitation of Māori. We say that consultation with the Treaty partner must be a priority in developing an effective approach towards addressing the disproportionately high imprisonment levels of the indigenous people of this country. We would expect, therefore, that with regard to this bill, as with any legislation relating to prisons, it would be a priority to consider the difference that will be made for tangata whenua as a result of this particular bill.

Yet there appears to be a silence in the provisions of the bill for Māori. I understand that in the course of the select committee process a number of the submitters were concerned that the bill does not require the chief executive to engage specifically with Māori in tendering for the management of prisons. They were also concerned that the bill does not require the successful contractor to involve Māori in decisions about the management and treatment of Māori offenders. It is therefore surprising that the Department of Corrections did not think it necessary to consult Te Puni Kōkiri in responding to the committee’s report. At the first reading of the bill, Te Puni Kōkiri recommended that there be explicit and measurable performance objectives and standards relating to the rehabilitation of, and a reduction in recidivism by, Māori inmates. It saw that as being a key element by which accountability could be achieved, so much so that it should be legislated for and regularly reported on. We recommend that such consultation takes place as a priority. Secondly, we noted the response from the department with regard to the consultation with Māori: that the chief executive will consult with iwi and other Māori entities—and here is the catch—as appropriate. We say that this is unacceptable. Leaving consultation up to judgment as to whether it is appropriate is too tenuous a position to address a situation of such alarming proportions.

We note the advice from the Māori Council that Māori should be given the opportunity to manage the prisons because State control has failed. Therefore, we align our views very much with those Mr Garrett just provided in his speech. I place on the record of the House that the Māori Council has stated that the Auckland Central Remand Prison experience clearly demonstrated that the Māori management style delivered in that setting was appropriate for all ethnic groups. There is the positive. It should be remembered that after 150 years of prisons in New Zealand, the Auckland Central Remand Prison was the first prison to employ a Māori general manager—namely, Dom Karauria. Under his leadership, the six iwi—Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei, Te Kawerau-a-Maki, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki Tribal Trust, Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Te Ata, and Te Waiōhua—were the mana whenua tribes that signed a formal memorandum of partnership with the Department of Corrections with regard to the establishment and support of the Auckland Central Remand Prison.

Before the Auckland example, in March 1999 a Northland iwi, Ngāti Hine, talked with the Corrections Corporation of Australia regarding a proposed site at Ngāwhā near Kaikohe. Their proposal was a joint venture to participate in the administration of a prison. The Australian corporation would run the prison for 5 years, and then Ngāti Hine would take over its management. Unfortunately, however, Labour scuttled the proposal.

Our conclusion is that there is certainly a willingness among the people to be engaged in the running of prisons; the Auckland Central Remand Prison experience is a model for showing that prisons can be run and managed, and Māori treated and rehabilitated, in a way that is, at long last, effective for Māori. The standard set by the Auckland Central Remand Prison was about improving performance in service provision, cultural safety, community consultation, and attitude right across all levels of management. We believe that the experience of best practice in the Auckland Central Remand Prison model is an important investment in success, and, at a minimum, we recommend that the successful contractor must involve Māori in decisions about the management and treatment of Māori offenders.

The overrepresentation of Māori in the New Zealand prison system has been of such longstanding concern that we want to see specific requirements written into the legislation to ensure that there are specific legislated provisions for Māori. We have three broad questions that we do not as yet have answers for. Firstly, of course, we want to know whether private management of prisons will be effective in addressing and reducing Māori offending. We ask how different it will be from State management, and whether it will be profit-driven. Secondly, we want to be assured that Māori management of the prisons will be effective. We know from the experience at the Auckland Central Remand Prison that we can be confident in the results, but we ask how different it will be able to be from State management. We ask whether iwi will require profit to be derived from the activity. These are some of the questions that we put to the House tonight. Finally, something else is required: whare whakaoranga, or rehabilitation centres, which will be consistent with the restorative philosophy and a kaupapa Māori approach. That is the question we ask. Can those facilities be available in these sorts of models?

My colleague Dr Sharples has often talked with great enthusiasm of a proposal he is advancing as the Associate Minister of Corrections: a Whare Oranga Ake—a house of renaissance, if you like. Such a centre would offer prisoners who are determined to make changes in their lives a pathway to reform. It will expect them to confront their offending, to deal with the causes, and to prepare for a life outside prison with courses in literacy and numeracy and a programme in trade or vocational skills. Part of the expectation is that support groups will help those prisoners make the transition and will monitor their progress. The broader goal will be repatriating prisoners back to society and to their whānau, where appropriate placing emphasis on the restoration of healing to their victims and their victims’ families.

So often in the House we address the entrenched problems: the pathway to offending and the difficulties that families find themselves in. Dr Sharples gives us confidence that there are other options. So too does Ngāti Hine and the experience that those at the Auckland Central Remand Prison left for us to consider. We are serious about the need for the recognition of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in this bill, and for specific legislative requirement to provide kaupapa Māori - based programmes for Māori prisoners. We want to ensure that there are measures to provide for and measure the rehabilitation of Māori and the reduction of Māori recidivism, and we want to ensure that the chief executive will engage specifically with Māori in tendering for the management of prisons, and will have a commitment to involve Māori in decisions about the management and treatment of Māori offenders. In the hope that the commitment of Dr Sharples will be respected with regard to all of the matters that I place before the House, we will be supporting this bill at its second reading.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) : I am very pleased to stand and speak in support of the second reading of the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. We have seen some very positive steps forward in making this country safer for all New Zealanders through this first year of the National-led Government. It certainly needed to take those steps, because, despite protestations to the contrary, the previous Government oversaw the emergence of some extremely large social problems, the greatest of which was the deterioration of the sense of safety that New Zealanders felt. Second only to the economy is the issue of law and order. It is not good enough to say that it is a 21st century problem. It is our problem, in our country, and we in this House are charged with the responsibility to address it.

Although we grapple with difficult issues, they can and must be redressed. Ineffectuality is essentially driven by indecision. Under the previous Government, we saw services stretched thin in the corrections system by increasing community-based sentencing without sufficient Government support behind those services. When cracks were found, particularly in our probation service, those cracks were largely caused by the fact that services were asked to do too much with too little. The centre issue was the increasing demand upon our Department of Corrections and our prison facilities. Our capacity and capability failed to address those issues. The bill addresses the issues of both capacity and capability. Sadly, we need to increase our capacity for prisons. That is an indictment on any society, yet it is a reality. Such an ongoing increase severely impacts our ability to increase capacity. The bill addresses some aspects of the need to increase our capacity by making the management of prisons a contestable item in the Budget. It also brings in extra expertise beyond our own capacity, but that is not the bill’s paramount reason.

The bill is not just about cost effectiveness; more important, it is about increasing capability. It is about making New Zealand safer and our society a better one. The intention of this amendment bill is to open up the prison service to innovation and improvement, to make it even more effective and efficient, and, yes, to grind down the costs of one of the most expensive aspects of Government. Let me ask members opposite why, if what we have is so good, are things also so bad in our society? Obviously, we need to be open to change and we need to be open to innovation. With all those who work very hard and diligently in the service, we also need to be open to new ways in which we can increase our capability. We must keep New Zealanders safe from criminals, but we must also see fewer people committing crime and we must effectively rehabilitate those who do. On 21 September we had 8,509 prisoners in our corrections facilities. Our record plainly tells us we need to lift our level in all three areas. If what we have is so good, why do we face this indictment on our society?

The contract management of prisons—something that the Opposition is extremely ideologically opposed to—is proving in many other jurisdictions around the world not only to be effective but also to bring excellence in the running of prison facilities, to provide opportunity for innovation and change, and to improve what we do, why we do it, and how we do it. Every person who enters a New Zealand prison will leave that prison and come back into society. We have a very high rate of incarceration. We have an extremely high rate of recidivism. We have problems, and this bill enables different expertise—different ideas from different jurisdictions and from New Zealand, of which my colleague from the Māori Party has spoken—to come in and create a climate of change in how we do things. We respect our corrections service, but let us all be open to innovation and change. We need to find more socially effective solutions, but we also need to find more financially effective solutions.

I am very confident that this bill offers the New Zealand public a road forward that will bring positive change and improvement, and, with that, safer streets and safer homes. Thank you.

CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) : I am very happy to stand and speak in opposition to the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill, and many of the speeches we have heard this evening highlight the reason why. When I look across the room, I cannot believe there are people who would support this bill. The previous speaker, Mr Jonathan Young, went on about the fact that when National came into Government there was such a high level of incarceration. That is a huge contradiction, when we know that a big part of the platform that the National Party stood on to win last year’s election was that apparently we were not locking up enough people. Yet today that member is saying that we had high levels of incarceration and we were locking up far too many offenders. This is the type of thing that shows the flip-flop nature of that Government.

There are a few things I want to touch on, with regard to what other people have spoken about tonight. One comment that I found quite offensive was made by the ACT member David Garrett, and concerned one of the submissions made by the prison union, the Corrections Association of New Zealand. He talked about the fact that the union representatives came to the committee and talked about this, that, and the other, and he referred to them as union goons. Personally, I find that comment offensive. As far as I am concerned, the only goon in the room when they were presenting their submission was that member himself.

That same member—that same goon—also went on about the fact that there was no evidence as to why private prisons would not work. I sat on the Law and Order Committee with my learned colleagues Clayton Cosgrove and Rick Barker and we heard much evidence to support our line that private prisons did not work, the one time we ran that proposition in New Zealand. They have not worked overseas, either. I found it difficult to listen to the ACT member go on about the fact that there has been no evidence that private prisons do not work.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Where is the goon?

CARMEL SEPULONI: I do not know where the goon is. He went on about the fact that they are safer, cheaper, and better, and that we had no grounds for opposing what they were putting forward to us. Apart from the evidence that came from GEO Group, the Australians who want to gain entry into our country to run our prisons and gain the profits from it, I think every other submission basically proved the fact that it would not be cheaper, safer, and better for New Zealand.

There are a couple of points I want to touch on that have not been brought up so far. One of them concerns the length of the contracts that this Government will be looking at when it does privatise prisons and when it lets GEO Group or maybe other companies run these prisons. The issue that came up during the select committee was that there was no time limit on the length of these contracts. Basically, from what we could see, how long the contract would run for would be at the discretion of the Minister. That is a real concern, because if the Minister of Corrections ties us into a 25-year or 35-year contract and it does not work, then it will cost New Zealand taxpayers a lot of money to buy our way out of a contract that is not working and is failing in our country. That is a real issue.

It is important to mention that one of our members, Mr Rick Barker, put forward a Supplementary Order Paper on the issue, proposing that we cannot be tied into a contract for more than 3 years, so that the contract has to be looked at and we can decide to opt out. That is important, because if it is not working we need to have that choice.

Another issue that came up—apart from the obvious, and it is the one thing I have not mentioned yet—is that incarceration is a core function of the State.

Sandra Goudie: Here we go! Nanny State!

CARMEL SEPULONI: The chairperson of the Law and Order Committee says “Here we go!”. She may not realise it—and ordinary New Zealanders will—but incarceration is a core function of the State. When something goes wrong with our prisons, we need to be able to turn round and hold our Government accountable. Unfortunately, with the private management of our prisons, which this Government is proposing, we will not be able to do that. In many ways, possibly, it will work for this Government, because then it gets to shift the blame and take no responsibility for any of the mistakes that undoubtedly will be made under its rule as Government. It will not have to take responsibility; it cannot be held accountable. But that is a very real issue, and it is something that we have been pushing from the start.

Labour’s minority report brought up the issue of the select committee process, and this is another point I wish to cover this evening because it has not yet been discussed: “Labour members have serious concerns about the Government members using their majority on this committee to block our access to Ministry of Justice officials. The Ministry of Justice had input into the departmental report and we believe that the committee would have benefited from hearing the views and insight of the Ministry. We question the motive for not allowing the committee access to these officials, and we are disappointed that this opportunity has been denied when we are considering such a significant shift in our justice system.”

There was absolutely no reason to deny us access to those officials. At the end of the day, National had the numbers. All we wanted was to make sure that some independent scrutiny was going on, and that we could ask the questions we needed to ask. But, instead, the Government side of the House used its numbers to block us from being able to do that.

More important—to mention another point carrying on from that—there are constitutional issues in respect of this matter. Government members, as I have said, used their majority vote to block Opposition members from making legitimate inquiries of a Government ministry that had specialist knowledge of the matters being considered. Just as members have rights to free speech, we believe that select committee members must have rights of access to officials and information. What this shows is that the bill we have before us is already flawed because of the process that was followed during the select committee proceedings and because of the fact that Government members used their numbers to block us from being able to access the information that we needed in order to be able to make accurate decisions. That is a huge problem that arose from the Government side of the House blocking us with its majority.

One thing that came up earlier, and I do want to touch on this, concerned the Māori Party member who was talking about the fact that Māori should have a right to manage prisons as well and that perhaps that would be a good thing. One of my colleagues, Mr Kelvin Davis, wrote a column on this issue, and I think he made a really important point. He made the point that as a Māori he did not want to see his whānau being worth more to Māori being locked up inside than they would be outside. That is the issue that he had. We are not saying Māori should be the only ones not allowed to manage prisons; we are saying no one should be allowed to privately manage prisons. This is going back to the fact that this is a core function of the State, and it is not something that should be so easily handed over to the private sector to take control of, when we should be able to hold our Government to account. It should be that our Government is responsible for anything that goes on in those prisons, not the private sector.

Hon Members: Why?

CARMEL SEPULONI: Members on that side of the House are asking why, and I will touch on a couple of examples before I end this speech. Even the members on the select committee were not listening when the submissions were made.

One submission came through that basically told the whole story. I think this story was told by 30 prison officers. They talked about what happened when they were working in—

Hon Members: Union officials.

CARMEL SEPULONI: —not union officials; these were prison officers—a private prison, and the difference between that and working in a prison that was run by the State. They talked about the cover-ups that went on, and about the lack of reporting on issues because of the fact that these private companies wanted to be able to claim the bonuses and everything else that was available to them. They talked about all of the flaws that existed. These stories came from people who had worked on both sides—in privately run prisons and State-run prisons. Members on that side of the House asked about the evidence. The evidence is all in the submissions. The only submission that those members were willing to listen to was the one that came from the Australian company that wants to run our prisons in New Zealand. We are opposed to this bill and we will not be supporting it. We are opposed to private prisons. Thank you.

MELISSA LEE (National) : After hearing that speech all I can do is echo some of the thoughts from this side of the House. What is the fear on the Opposition side of the House? Fear of change is irrational. All I can say is that because Labour has so much fear of change, perhaps it will continue to languish in the bottom 2 percent. Is that right? Two percent? Well, that rating will continue. I start with that point. Members opposite should remember that a new broom sweeps clean.

If we listened to members opposite, we would think that privatisation is what we are doing. We are talking about private management of prisons. We are not actually selling the prisons or the prison services—just the management of prisons. Members should just read the title of the bill—it is the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. The purpose of the bill is to provide opportunity for innovation and change—I know that might be scary for the Opposition—through independent prison service providers, to ensure effective and efficient provision of prison services, and to enable the Government to look for cost savings in the overall delivery of prisons. These are three purposes of this bill.

Public safety is the top priority of the corrections system. We owe it to the public to provide the best practice possible and the best options to improve the safe and effective management of offenders. In different bills being debated in this House, many have spoken—and I too spoke about this earlier today—about the need for New Zealand to align itself to the international best practice to make sure that we compete with the rest of the world on the same footing.

I believe that the corrections system must also have a world-class standard. I am not talking about providing inmates with world-class hotel accommodation. I am talking about providing world-class innovation and expertise in order to deliver the very best corrections service for New Zealand. To do that, we need to be exposed to what is happening around the world. We need to allow competition in the form of bids in order to provide the best possible outcome for our corrections service, and the aim of this bill will, in the end, determine whether a local or an international bidder provides the service.

Personally, I want effective and safe prisons where inmates achieve better outcomes than they do now. During the select committee process—where we debated the issues quite robustly, as one can imagine—one of the key points I kept coming back to was that the prison management contracts would demand objectives and performance standards that are no lower than for publicly run prisons. There will have to have better outcomes. Otherwise, what would be the point?

The other point that appeals to me is that when the private management contract of Auckland Central Remand Prison ended in 2005, many of the benefits and improvements of the management were retained by the prison services when they took back the management of the prison. They retained the improvements that had been made.

The other point I would like to make is in relation to the very high number of Māori inmates in our prisons. Contract management of prisons and private prison services are, as has been proven by past experience, more open to direct Māori involvement, and this hands a potential opportunity to Māori inmates to achieve better outcomes. Perhaps, given the opportunity, they may achieve the rehabilitation and reintegration process they have so missed out on.

My colleague Sandra Goudie said earlier that Labour killed the Auckland Central Remand Prison private management deal. The Iwi Whānui o Tāmaki-makau-rau publicly criticised the Labour Government’s decision to return it to public management: “Auckland Central Remand Prison is quite rightly regarded as the most innovative, effective, and culturally safe prison in New Zealand history.” That comment was made by the chair of Iwi Whānui o Tāmaki-makau-rau, Te Wārena Taua, in 2003.

In 2003 Mr Taua also said: “We strongly believe that removing the ACRP management contract, and preventing any further like it, represents the biggest step backwards in terms of prison management, particularly in the areas of inmate management and rehabilitation.” This bill provides that opportunity. What are we scared of? Let us give them a chance. I commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) : Let us be very clear about what the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill is all about. This bill is about an ideological position taken by the National Government that the private sector is better at everything, and that the Government should be cut back. If there is one thing we have learnt about the National Government since the election, it is that it will privatise something if it cannot cut it, and it will contract it out if it cannot privatise it. So if National cannot cut it, it will privatise it, and if it cannot privatise it, it will contract it out. This is an ideologically driven bill. It is part of National’s overall commitment to privatisation. National denied it before the election, but since the election it is becoming more and more apparent that this is exactly the same National Party as was in Government in the 1990s, which wrecked the electricity system, the railways, and everything else. That is exactly what it wants to do with prisons, as well.

As Clayton Cosgrove pointed out, the Labour Party has two principal objections to this bill. We object in principle to the idea that the incarceration of prisoners should be a profit-making venture, but also, perhaps more important, we object to this bill on accountability grounds. It is absolutely fundamental that the people who are locking up prisoners should be accountable to Parliament. They should be accountable through the Ombudsman, the Auditor-General, and the Minister of Corrections, and the Minister should be accountable.

We can see what will happen if this bill goes through. Unfortunately, it looks like it will because the National Party will use its significant numbers in the House to ram it through. We can imagine what will happen when there are the first escapes or the first riots in a prison. I know what John Key’s position will be. He will be relaxed about it because John Key is relaxed about pretty much everything. Would it not be nice to have a Prime Minister who took the job seriously? I do not think that will happen under this Government, so we have to get used to the fact that he will be relaxed about it, whatever happens. The Minister will stand up in the House and say that it is not actually a matter for her; it is a matter for the private prison operator. I can already hear her saying that, dripping with venom as she will be. Her saying that is one of the principle reasons why the Labour Party is absolutely opposed to this bill.

However, my colleague Rick Barker has put up three Supplementary Order Papers that make good sense if this bill is to be forced through by National. The first reinstates the role of the Ombudsman. I think that is incredibly important because the Ombudsman is the public’s watchdog. Giving the Ombudsman the role in a private prison that he or she would have in a public prison is critically important. The second of Rick Barker’s Supplementary Order Papers reinstates the role of the Auditor-General; that is important for the same reasons as reinstating the Ombudsman. The third of Rick Barker’s Supplementary Order Papers, which we will support, prohibits the Government entering into a contract for more than 3 years or into one that guarantees rights of renewal. That is absolutely critical.

This bill is not supported on this side of the House. We know from previous experience that it does not work; in fact, it will be more expensive. More taxpayer money will go into the incarceration of prisoners if the prisons are managed by the private sector. We know that because of the advice that was presented by the Department of Corrections. It says that the Auckland Central Remand Prison, under private management from 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005, had an all-inclusive cost of $57,280 per prisoner. During that same period of time, remand prisoners held in public prisons cost $50,208 each to hold. So the public sector was significantly cheaper per prisoner over the same period of time. How did the Auckland Central Remand Prison compare after it was brought back under public management? It was still cheaper than it was under private management, at a cost of $55,853 per prisoner per year. It does not make sense. It will not be cheaper; it will be more expensive. This is another way for the National Government to channel the money of hard-working taxpayers into the private sector.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: And overseas!

CHRIS HIPKINS: And to the overseas private sector, because it is very unlikely that any New Zealand firms will do this work. This money will go from hard-working taxpayers to Australian, American, or Canadian corporate companies. It will go out of New Zealand. It will not do anything to reduce offending or to make our communities safer. Anyone listening to National, ACT, and the Māori Party would think that the private management of prisons will somehow miraculously make everyone much safer. It will not make any difference; if anything, it could make the situation significantly worse.

The debate about the privatisation and contract management of prisons is the wrong debate to be having. We should be talking about how we reduce the number of people who end up in prison in the first place.

Paul Quinn: What are your credentials?

CHRIS HIPKINS: I tell Mr Quinn that I—as opposed to him—actually managed to get elected in the Hutt Valley, where we host the biggest prison in the country. The people of the Hutt Valley sent the carpetbagger from Wellington City well on his way. They did not want a bar of Paul Quinn. I will not listen to a word that Paul Quinn says on the private management of Rimutaka Prison.

I tell him another thing. When we surveyed the constituents of Rimutaka and asked them what they thought about the contract management of Rimutaka Prison, 67 percent were opposed to it. Those are the people Mr Quinn fraudulently purports to represent. The people of the Hutt Valley do not want Rimutaka Prison to be put into private management, which is exactly what this bill would allow. It would allow Mr Quinn’s colleague Judith Collins to hock off the management of Rimutaka Prison to the private sector—to Australian, American, and Canadian firms—and to transfer the money of hard-working Kiwi taxpayers to offshore corporates rather than putting that money into the rehabilitation of prisoners and into crime prevention.

That is what we should be worried about. The debate should be about how we can prevent people going to prison in the first place. We would not need more prisons if we did that. We will not do that by, for example, cutting the resources that are provided to the Police, as National is doing. We rely on the police to help us keep our communities safe and to prevent offending. We would not do the things National is doing, such as cutting police cars. That is a critical part of it. We should be focused on how we prevent offending and how we can keep our communities safe, not how we make more money for the private sector out of the incarceration of prisoners.

I come back to the point I raised at the beginning, which my colleague Clayton Cosgrove raised, about accountability. It is not at all surprising that the Government wants to shirk responsibility, considering the long list of prison escapes, assaults, and deaths that have occurred on Judith Collins’ watch as the Minister of Corrections. That is one of the reasons why National wants to shirk responsibility by pushing it off to the private sector: so the Minister can stand up in the House and say that she does not know anything about it as it is a matter to raise with the private sector operator.

The other concern I have is that when a profit-making company has the authority to restrict the basic civil liberties of ordinary Kiwis, it leaves the system open to abuse. Profit motives could supersede the safety of the public, of staff, and of inmates. I think we should all be very concerned about that. There will be no incentive for private companies to report any failings at their prisons, because they would be less likely to be awarded contracts or have them renewed. It will not lead to the innovation and the raising of standards that people talk about. In fact, it will do the opposite. It will lead to prisons covering up mistakes so that they can have their contracts renewed. It will lead to them cutting corners so that their Australian, American, and Canadian owners can make more profits. This bill will not make New Zealanders any safer; it will boost the profits of the private sector. It is an ideological bill based on National’s fundamental view that the private sector has the best people to do it. We do not agree with that. We think this is a role for the State.

Dr CAM CALDER (National) : It is a privilege to stand and speak on the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. I thank the Hon George Hawkins for the very wise words he said to me here just a few minutes ago.

This bill is yet another example of John Key’s principled, pragmatic, inclusive National-led Government keeping our promises. This Government recognises that law and order and concerns about personal security are uppermost in the minds of New Zealanders. We are addressing their concerns in many areas and at a number of levels.

Paul Quinn: George said that?

Dr CAM CALDER: No, George did not say that, but this is what we are doing. We are facing up to the myriad of challenges. I contrast this with the late, unlamented, lackadaisical Labour administration, an administration where year after year an original thought was as rare as a burst of ribaldry at a vicarage garden party. It was an administration whose approach to any pressing problem or challenge was to dole out dollops of dross from a donkey dray of dogma—a tired, terminally fatigued administration that became a loquacious lobbyist for lassitude, languor, and inaction. In stark contrast to that administration, this Government is committed to finding solutions.

I wish, at this stage, to acknowledge the excellent work done by many men and women in the corrections service. We believe, however, that this bill will encourage and enhance the exposure of our corrections system to world-class innovation and expertise. That is crucial if we are to deliver the very best corrections services for New Zealand. Encouraging best practice, and the safe and effective delivery of correctional services, would be facilitated under private prison management by the ability to build performance incentives and penalties into contracts. I commend this bill to the House.

JO GOODHEW (Junior Whip—National) : I seek leave of the Committee that all clauses in the Committee stage of the Biosecurity Amendment Bill be taken as one question.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? It appears not. Leave is granted.

Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) : I move, That the Crimes (Provocation Repeal) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The Crimes (Provocation Repeal) Amendment Bill repeals sections 169 and 170 of the Crimes Act 1961, which provide a partial defence for murder if the accused was provoked. I thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for its careful consideration of this bill within a shortened time frame. In particular, I thank the chair, Chester Borrows, the member for Whanganui, who is proving himself to be an active and crucial part of the legislative process of this Government. The committee received 11 submissions and heard from 4 of the submitters.

The committee recommended one amendment to the bill, to make it clear that the partial defence of provocation, in so far as it has any effect as a rule or principle of common law in New Zealand, is abolished. This amendment minimises the ability for defence counsel to argue that the common law partial defence is revived or otherwise available despite the repeal effected by this bill. The partial defence of provocation is overwhelmingly used in cases where the accused has lashed out in anger. The law does not consider anger to be an excuse for resorting to violence in other legal contexts where the consequences are less extreme, such as assaults or domestic disputes. For that reason alone, it is inappropriate to allow anger to be a justification for murder. It is also a particular concern that the partial defence has been disproportionately successful in so-called homosexual panic cases. The sexual orientation of the victim should not be a relevant factor.

Historically, murder was punishable only by the death penalty, and more recently by a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. The partial defence was therefore considered necessary to ensure that some discretion was available to juries to acknowledge exceptional circumstances. The Sentencing Act 2002 abolished the mandatory life sentence for murder in favour of a presumption of life imprisonment, which may be departed from where such a sentence would be manifestly unjust. At the time, Parliament gave examples of circumstances when a lesser sentence may be justified, including mercy killings, failed suicide pacts, and situations in which the accused may be described as a battered defendant. In addition, section 9 of the Sentencing Act provides guidance on the types of mitigating factors that a court can take into account in issuing a sentence, including a sentence of life imprisonment. These factors include the defendant’s mental impairment or diminished capacity, as well as any history of abuse or whether the defendant is a battered individual. Battered defendants may also be able to rely on self-defence, which will result in acquittal. For these reasons, battered individuals and individuals with mental impairments or a diminished capacity should not be disadvantaged by the abolition of the partial defence of provocation.

The threshold to displace the presumption of a sentence of life imprisonment for murder is a high one, likely to be met only in exceptional cases. However, we can all envisage circumstances of extreme provocation in which it might be argued that a sentence of life imprisonment would be manifestly unjust. I expect the appellate courts to develop guidance on how provocation-type factors are to be treated at sentencing, as appropriate cases arise.

I take this opportunity to thank all members and parties in the House for their support for this bill and for their ongoing expectation that its passage will be swift. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) : I rise to, of course, support the Crimes (Provocation Repeal) Amendment Bill. I just had to check the title, because the bill that my colleague Charles Chauvel was involved in drafting and that I introduced in my name as a member’s bill, the Crimes (Abolition of Defence of Provocation) Amendment Bill, was actually a bill that we withdrew in order to enable the Government bill to proceed as it has done. I too would like to join with the Minister in congratulating the Justice and Electoral Committee on the work it did and the small number of submitters on the bill.

I know there are different views amongst different parts of the legal profession about the nature of the provocation defence, but I am very much of the view that it is an anachronistic relic of New Zealand’s legal past, and that it must be repealed. I am highly supportive of the legislation that we are debating here tonight. My issues around this particular defence date back to when I was a law student. I recall the case of Leigh Minnett. I want to again place on record the fact that in my view we need to pay tribute to people like her. Her life was taken from her, and then the person who took her life was able to rely upon a defence that actually excused the most extreme response to the most minor provocation that anyone could imagine. In that particular case, in the offender’s own words the provocation was that she was comparing his own prowess with that of her new partner. I remember at the time reading a women’s magazine that reassigned the letters of the word “manslaughter” to read “mans-laughter”.

• Debate interrupted.