Madam SPEAKER: I have much pleasure in informing members that His Excellency Fernando Lasama de Araujo, President of Parliament, National Parliament of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is within the precincts of this Chamber. I am sure that members would wish that he be welcomed and accorded a seat on the left of the Chair. I am sure the House would also wish to welcome members of his delegation present in the gallery.

Madam SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Gordon Copeland raising as a matter of privilege the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ failure to disclose a gift. I have also received a letter from Rodney Hide raising as a matter of privilege the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ failure to disclose a debt and the name of the person who discharged it.

These are the first matters of privilege raised with the Speaker relating to compliance with a member’s obligations under Appendix B of the Standing Orders dealing with pecuniary interests. Standing Order 400(g) and (h) establishes that the House may treat as a contempt a member knowingly failing to make a return of pecuniary interests by a due date, or providing false or misleading information in a return.

In considering a matter of privilege, the Speaker is required to determine whether the facts alleged could, if true, amount to a contempt of the House. The Speaker does not inquire into the validity of the evidence presented, and does not hold a full inquiry to establish the facts. The Speaker examines the facts presented by the member raising the matter of privilege, and must determine whether the allegation, as explained by the member who is the subject of the complaint, might reasonably lead to the inference that a contempt has occurred.

The allegations are serious ones and the standard of proof required reflects this. Knowingly providing false or misleading information is a significant test. A member’s return must be inaccurate in a material matter that the member knew to be incorrect at the time, or at least ought to have known.

The Speaker, in considering a matter of privilege, is also required under Standing Order 394(2) to judge the degree of importance of the matter raised, whether it is technical or trivial, and whether it warrants the full attention of the House.

The facts presented in the two matters raised are similar, but two different allegations have been made. It is not disputed that legal fees were incurred and defrayed. Firstly, what is in question is whether a debtor-creditor relationship actually existed. If it did, then it is not unreasonable to assume that the member knew, or ought to have known, and should have disclosed the debt and the name of any other person who may have discharged it. Secondly, if a debtor-creditor relationship did not exist, was a gift received and was the name of the donor known or reasonably discernable, or was a donation made that covered expenses in an election campaign?

These matters are technical, but of vital importance to a proper understanding of the rules for the disclosure of pecuniary interests. They require investigation. It is not the Speaker’s role to investigate. That is the role of the Privileges Committee. Accordingly, I have determined that a question of privilege is involved. Consequently, the question of privilege stands referred to the Privileges Committee.

In doing so, I inform members that Mr Peters provided me with a very full and compelling explanation of his position. I was persuaded to determine that a question of privilege was involved because of the high public interest and the implications for the reputation of members and of the institution of Parliament. The issues raised are not peculiar to Mr Peters; they have the potential to affect members generally. The rules need to be clarified to assist members in making judgments about what is required to be disclosed as a pecuniary interest, and what is not.

The House has the exclusive right to control its own proceedings. The Standing Orders are a matter for the House alone to determine. Members themselves must take responsibility for the rules for the disclosure of pecuniary interests. In determining this question of privilege, I trust that the Privileges Committee will examine the rules, and make recommendations for the future that will ensure that the House is not brought into disrepute and thereby impeded in the performance of its functions.

Copies of my ruling are available in the Bills Office.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) : When we concluded the earlier part of this debate I had followed Judy Turner, the United Future member, who had followed Paula Bennett, who once again told the Committee a completely different story about the National Party’s policy on social services affecting the community and voluntary sector. This is the only consistent thing that we can expect from National members—that they say one thing to one audience and another thing to a different audience. National members will say whatever they think the audience they are speaking to wants to hear. It does not matter whether it is about Kiwibank and whether it will be kept, as they say to one audience, or sold, as they say to another. It does not matter whether it is about Working for Families, about which we have now had two entirely different stories from John Key and two entirely different stories from Bill English, peppered with an apology from Bill English. It was not an apology for gross offence and insult to his leader, nor an apology to the public of New Zealand for threatening to take away the money in their pockets that they deserve, but an apology for being recorded and using words that he had not chosen carefully.

This is another demonstration of one set of words for one audience and another for another audience. It is the same with accident compensation. National members have tried to tell the public of New Zealand that their policy on accident compensation is now full and open and is not about privatising; it is about competition. We know that it is about privatising, in the same way as their industrial relations policy is. The community and voluntary sector policy that Paula Bennett talked about last week is not a commitment to Labour’s Pathways to Partnership funding, where we have committed ourselves to fully fund essential social services over the next 4 years. We have put on public record the 850 community organisations that provide those essential social services and that will benefit from that funding.

Paula Bennett’s commitment is not to support Pathways to Partnership. It was put on the public record by her leader, John Key, that National would encourage community organisations to put in a bid in a competitive tendering round at a fully funded rate. We know what that means. It means that that organisation would not win the contract because its bid in the competitive tendering round would be too high. That is not a commitment to Pathways to Partnership from National. It is not a commitment to the community and voluntary sector. It is not a commitment to building the capacity and recognising the support that our community and voluntary sector needs.

I know that the public of New Zealand will see through the different speeches that are given to different audiences. Mr Key, Mr English, and Paula Bennett need to understand that New Zealand is a small country. We are a country that communicates, listens to what is said, and understands the implications of the policy. The community and voluntary sector deserves better.

• Vote agreed to.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) : This is a massive vote. It is almost $18 billion, so I will not be able to refer to all of it in this speech, which I have only 5 minutes for. I will deal with a few issues that I think are really, really important.

On the front page of the New Zealand Herald today is a story about a 4-month old baby who is in critical care at Starship hospital. The baby has very young teenage parents, aged 18 and 19, and they are from Papakura, in my electorate. We have yet another story that seems certain to involve the police, the courts, and who knows what else. It is another tragedy for those of us who live and work in South Auckland.

Is there very much in this estimate about such matters? I have some notes that the select committee has made about South Auckland. The South Auckland MPs asked for a meeting with the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development to find out why it is that at 2 o’clock in the morning nobody from Child, Youth and Family is available to pick up the kids who wander around the streets of our South Auckland towns. Why is that? We have not had that meeting. We have now been promised that he will turn up tomorrow to our select committee and talk to us. We asked for that meeting weeks ago, and nothing has happened in that time. Instead, we are told by Child, Youth and Family that it is an organisation that can only react to complaints. Well, it certainly has a lot of them.

I do not understand why we have a huge Government department—there are over 3,000 staff at Child, Youth and Family and they are all part of the Ministry of Social Development, which has over 9,000 staff—yet we know that at around 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning around Manurewa and Papakura, and Randwick Park, there are young people out of control and wandering around with nowhere to go, and when the police pick them up and take them home, so often no one is home. No responsible sober adult is home and nobody cares. I would like to hope that maybe someone is out there looking for them, but someone is not, in most cases.

All we hear from the Ministry of Social Development and its Minister is how wonderful everything is. Well, it is not. I have said time and time again that these bureaucrats will never make a difference until they get off their bottoms and get out there with the Mayor of Papakura and pick up these kids.

What we also see here are all sorts of things that the ministry is talking about. I am pleased to see that the ministry is now going to fund a bit more of the Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters, which we have in Papakura and that works really well. We find that the ministry had not changed any of that funding since 2003-04, but now we are being promised a bit more.

I do not understand why we cannot do more of this. Why can we not simply take the families who really need the help, give them the skills, teach them a bit of self-esteem, and let them show how wonderful they can be, instead of waiting until it is too late and throwing up our hands in horror and saying “Oh, gee. I wonder how that happened.”? Instead, we have seen an absolute fixation on saying that all families need to be treated the same, when, actually, they do not. Some families need a huge amount of extra effort, and they should get it. At the end of the day, what we have is children who miss out. The children I am thinking of in my electorate are the children who have nothing except what they can get from a benefit-dependent family and what charitable organisations can give to them. They need the extra help. Yet we see more and more for the ministry. There is a massive bureaucracy. We now have 60.5 fulltime-equivalent communications staff in the Ministry of Social Development.

Nathan Guy: How many?

JUDITH COLLINS: There are 60.5 fulltime-equivalent staff—that is three times the number when Labour first came into office. Considering the fact that there are supposed to be fewer beneficiaries, one has to wonder who the staff are communicating with. There are 60.5 fulltime-equivalents in such senior roles. There are over 370 policy analysts now. The fact is that the ministry is just bloated with bureaucracy. In the meantime front-line staff have been cut under this Labour Government: 450 case managers—front-line staff—have been cut. The Government is telling us that this is because there is less unemployment, but there has been a huge increase in the number of people on sickness and invalids benefits. Those people need to be helped to get back into wellness and helped to find work if it is possible, yet the Ministry of Social Development is cutting the front-line staff and bloating the bureaucracy back at head office. Well, there is a word for that and it starts with “h.”

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) : Tēnā koe, Madam Chairperson. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. Electricity bills are skyrocketing, food prices are increasing, house prices are at the highest level they have ever been, and petrol prices are sitting at record levels. So telling us that Vote Social Development has gone up by a miserly 4.6 percent will bring no comfort to those people in my electorate who are struggling to survive the recent thunderstorms in places like Te Hāpua, Panguru, Kaeō, Moerewa, Waitangi, Whangarei, and Poutō, and to survive the ongoing economic cyclones that continue to bat our region.

When visits to the doctor or the dentist, buying warm clothes, fixing the washing machine, or getting the car registered are seen as luxuries for people, members can start to get a picture of the level of poverty that many of my people are having to deal with. Last month five community organisations were forced to meet in Whangarei to deal with the growing levels of desperate need. The fact that food bank use in Whangarei has doubled this year and that the status of child poverty is worsening—including the fact that kids from poor families are getting sick three times more often than kids from families on higher incomes—means we know that something is seriously wrong with the priorities this Government has for running the country.

Even though the Social Services Committee report states that “the appropriation for the unemployment benefit is less than last year”, “we expect the number of sickness beneficiaries to decrease by about 5 percent”, but that “the number of people seeking budgetary advice is increasing.”, it is not too hard to work out that if there are fewer benefits available but more people struggling with debt, then we have a national scandal on our hands. And let us get one thing straight: just because many Māori people are forced by economic circumstance and racism to survive on benefits, it does not mean Māori Party members support the kind of intergenerational dependency on benefits that Labour uses to control Māori people, because we do not. In fact, we hate it. We hate the way in which benefits have been used to reduce Māoridom to a level of subservience that bleeds the soul, sucks hope out of people, destroys community initiative, and devastates our people’s future. When we get the chance, we will put in place the economic programmes that will allow our people to contribute fully to our country, and to do so on a decent living wage.

We should judge a nation by the way in which it treats its most vulnerable citizens. Catholic Communications put it pretty clearly in its recently released statement entitled “Poverty in an Affluent Society”, which describes poverty as “an evil when it is forced on people through oppression or disadvantage.” It goes on to state: “When a section of our society is allowed to fall into poverty and hardship, everyone is at risk from the symptoms of that economic violence. The diseases that thrive in conditions of poverty threaten the health of everyone; the violence that accompanies economic stress does not confine itself to the poorest suburbs; and the uncertainty of those living with insecure work is exposed in mental illness and suicide rates.”

Again, although the estimates report of the Social Services Committee on Vote Social Development states: “The ministry aims to achieve further productivity and efficiency improvements.”, I also note that Grey Power is saying that 75,000 old people are living in poverty, and another 230,000 are living just above the poverty line. The Child Poverty Action Group tells us that 230,000 kids are denied benefits simply because their parents cannot get a job.

We know that productivity and efficiency improvements will neither feed nor clothe nor pay the power bill for those sectors of our society whose needs are greatest. I ask this simple question: how can the Ministry of Social Development talk so blandly about its role in detecting, snooping, preventing, and investigating benefit fraud, and achieving further productivity and efficiency improvements, while our nation’s most vulnerable citizens continue to suffer?

The ministry can prattle on about the confidence it has in falling benefit numbers, but our interest is not in crystal-ball gazing; our interest is in the right for all people in this land to lead a positive and dignified life, not just a life in which simple survival is the primary focus. The Māori Party wants to see communities where neighbours care for each other, where the immediate needs of hardship are addressed immediately, and where the State plays its proper role in ensuring fairness, justice, and equity for all of its citizens. Kia ora tātou.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) : I certainly support the comments made by Hone Harawira in his contribution to the Committee in respect of the latter part of his speech. I am sure that he is as pleased as I am that our policies in the area under discussion, social development, mean that 130,000 fewer children in our country are living in poverty now. We talk about poverty in New Zealand only now because the Labour-led Government, for the first time ever in our history, publishes an annual report on all the statistics, which allows us to measure poverty and measure the success or failure of all our social policies right across the spectrum. Public accountability from central government for delivery of its policies is new and has been established only in the last 8 years so that we can see what areas we have made progress in and what areas we still need to continue to work on.

Clearly, in the area of poverty there is more work to be done, but the work that has been done in the last 9 years has had a lot of success. From 2004 to 2007 median household incomes grew by 6 percent in real terms—in real terms, not just in total. Over the same period, income inequality in our nation reduced for the first time since it began to rise in the late 1980s, when, literally, the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. From 2004 to 2007 that inequality reduced for the first time ever. Income for low to middle income families grew much more rapidly than it did for average-income households, and much of that is attributable to our Working for Families package.

Overall poverty fell from 19 percent in 2001 to 13 percent in 2007, and that represents 190,000 fewer New Zealanders living in poverty. At the same time, relative poverty fell. Over that same period—2004 to 2007—child poverty rates fell on all standard measures, and that is something we can be proud of.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What about now? What about 2008?

Hon RUTH DYSON: If Nick Smith knew anything about social reporting and measures he would know that those figures are not available yet.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: You don’t want them to be, either.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Oh yes, we certainly do. We certainly do because for the first time our Government published those figures, and every year they have got better. That member should hang his head in shame that under his watch, under his Government, and under his Cabinet child poverty increased every single year. Every single year that that member was in this House as a Cabinet Minister the number of children in our country living in poverty increased. That member should hang his head in shame.

Benefit numbers have reduced dramatically since Labour has led the Government. If we add up all the benefits—invalids benefit, sickness benefit, domestic purposes benefit, and unemployment benefit—the total number of working-age people on benefits has decreased from 1999 to June of this year by 36 percent. All main benefit numbers have reduced from 401,415 when Nick Smith was a Cabinet Minister—I am sorry if I have just put anyone into the position of needing to be on a sickness benefit, with that thought—to the current level of 258,317. That is a reduction of 36 percent.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: How much has it gone up on the sickness benefit?

Hon RUTH DYSON: I say to Mr Smith that there has been an increase of 41 percent, and there has been an 89 percent reduction in the number of people on an unemployment benefit. The best way of giving people their self-esteem, their confidence, and their independence, and of reducing poverty and giving them a brighter future is to support them into paid work.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: You’ve just changed the label!

Hon RUTH DYSON: There has been not one single change in measure—not one single change in criteria. The only reason the figure between 1999 and now is looking good is that we had a change in Government. That is the difference between then and now. There has been no change in criteria, no fiddling the books, and no telling one story to one audience and another story to another audience. There has been a 36 percent reduction in the total number of people on a working-age benefit, and the only change is that Mr Smith is no longer in Cabinet. That might now make people who previously thought about Nick Smith in Cabinet and needed to go on a sickness benefit feel a little better and be able to go out and get a paid job. Every week that Labour has led the Government there has been an increase of nearly 1,000 jobs in our economy—an additional 1,000 jobs in our economy—and we are supporting people to get into that work and off benefits.

The other point that I want to make during this debate is that, as well as moving people from a benefit into a paid job, the other substantial contribution that we have made to eliminating poverty in society is the introduction of the Working for Families package. The reason I am keen to talk about it is that a lot of people in New Zealand have benefited from it. Thousands and thousands of people have benefited from Working for Families, and those same people are now very nervous about the future because they have heard John Key and Bill English make completely contradictory statements about the future of Working for Families.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: They have not!

Hon RUTH DYSON: I just happen to have quotes in case Nick Smith does not watch TV, does not read the paper, and never goes on to the Internet to see what is the favourite story on Stuff and Scoop most days—it is the contradictory statements from John Key and Bill English.

Bill English put out a statement a little while ago saying that Working for Families would remain unchanged if National were the Government. Then over the weekend he decided that National cannot have a family of four going on the TV during the election campaign and saying, “John Key will take money off us.” He is not stupid; he knows that that would not be a good look for National. People who are dependent on Working for Families to be able to afford the additional things in their life do not want to know that National will take that money off them. Bill English said “We can’t do that. Later on we’ll have to do a bit of a sort-out. We have to do something, but we can’t do it now.” As David Henderson would say—and I would not quote him terribly often—be afraid; Be Very Afraid. The National Party has said that it will borrow money, that it will privatise the services of our nation, and that it will cut the Working for Families package. It has also hinted at hocking off Kiwibank and at getting rid of the employer contribution and the Government contribution in KiwiSaver.

So who is affected by those changes of policies? Who feels the effects of no increases in the minimum wage, of cuts in benefits, of cuts to Working for Families, of ensuring that the employer contribution and the Government contribution to KiwiSaver go, and of hocking off Kiwibank to yet another Australian bank? Who feels the impact of those policies? We know who would feel it: the most vulnerable members of our society. These are the people whom Labour has put the strongest focus on to ensure that people who are on benefits, Māori and Pacific Islanders, people who are brought up in dysfunctional families, and disabled people have the support that they need and deserve to be able to move from a benefit into a paid job, or, if they are not able to do that, to receive the level of financial support that they need. That is the commitment that our Government made prior to 1999 and has delivered on, year after year—increasing support, and ensuring that people do get the support that they are entitled to.

Those same people now are feeling very threatened, not just because they can hear Nick Smith’s contribution in this House—he is chipping away—but because they have read the contradictory statements made by John Key and Bill English. They know that those members will say one thing to one audience and another thing to another audience, and they know that if Bill English and John Key lead the National Party into Government in the future, their lives will be significantly and negatively impacted upon.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) : Over the last 6 years United Future has been the proverbial dripping tap in the ear of the Minister for Social Development and Employment on the issue of grandparents raising grandchildren and of kinship caregivers. We were absolutely delighted when it was announced in the Budget that, with the aim of achieving better outcomes for these families, an additional $24.6 million will be given to 7,500 caregivers who are caring for more than 10,000 children. This new funding will apply to those who will have been receiving, up to 1 April 2009, the unsupported child’s benefit and the orphans benefit. That core benefit will match the foster care allowance, and I thank the Government for hearing that call, because I know it means a lot to those people.

However—and I have already said this to the Minister—United Future does not feel that we have quite finished this call for help for these people yet. There are still some areas where foster parents benefit in a way that kinship caregivers will currently still miss out on, and that covers the allowances that foster-care parents get—additional amounts that they get to supplement children’s pocket money, school uniforms, doctors’ visits, etc. There is a whole host of other additional payments that foster parents can get for the children they care for that are still unavailable to kinship caregivers, such as grandparents raising grandchildren.

People have asked whether we should pay family members to look after their own. That is the ethical issue around this. The case that United Future has tried to make on this question is to flip it around and ask what it would cost us if we did not support these people to do the job they have nobly stepped up to the plate to do. That is a much more interesting question from an economic point of view. When we talk to grandparents raising grandchildren—to people like Diane Vivian, who is one of the unsung heroes of this nation—we discover that these people largely look after seriously traumatised children. These are children who have been at serious risk of harm. Half of the time, Child Youth and Family has made the approach to the grandparents and said: “Would you please consider stepping up to the plate, at least for a short period of time?”. Some of these grandparents took on children for what was going to be a couple of weeks, and 3 years later they still have them and have finally figured out it is a permanent arrangement.

These people lose a season of their lives. If they are in their late 40s or 50s, they quite often lose that season of their lives where they would be putting away some money in a nest egg for their retirement; that season is gone, and they are at home looking after children who need additional care as a result of what they have been through. If they are superannuitants, then the strain is even more phenomenal. These people make decisions every week about whether to fill their prescription or to pay school fees for their grandchildren. These people often live in fear; they have been threatened by family members who have lost income due to them stepping up to the plate and taking care of those children. These people pay a price socially. They tell us they no longer fit with their peers, because they have grandchildren in tow among a group of people who no longer have the care of young children. They do not fit comfortably with the parents of their grandchildren’s friends, because they are from a different generation. They can experience a huge amount of isolation.

These are people for whom half of the time their greatest worry is: “Will I live long enough to fulfil the obligation I have now committed myself to?”. We are talking about literally thousands and thousands of households, not 100 or 200, of grandparents raising grandchildren, doing a very good job and the best they can, and the last thing they need is to be struggling financially. They have enough pressure with the job they have taken on. So although we congratulate the Government on hearing our call and making an adjustment so that grandparents in this situation will now get the same base rate as foster-care parents, we call on the Government—and I think it even falls on the National Party, which is polling very well—to state very clearly what it is prepared to do into the next financial year for grandparents raising grandchildren. Will they offer the additional allowances that other foster-care parents get?

One of the other issues that needs to be considered for these people is respite care. They sometimes have very few options for having someone look after the children for a weekend or even a week or two so they can get a much-needed break. It really is something that United Future is concerned about, going forward. We are glad for this gain but we call on the Government to look to the additional needs.

• Vote agreed to.

GORDON COPELAND (Independent) : I was waiting momentarily for the arrival of the Minister of Commerce, but I assume she will be deputised for in this debate.

I want to speak about two very important issues, which right now are affecting every single family in our country. Those two issues are, firstly, the price of milk, and, secondly, if I get some time to mention it briefly, the price of motor fuels.

Back in early April, I asked the Parliamentary Library to investigate for me the price of milk in New Zealand as compared to its comparable retail price in the United States, Canada, England, and Australia. I did that because I was very concerned that we have just simplistically said in the House—and Ministers have said this in the House—that the price of milk has gone up in response to international demand. When those figures came back and I discovered that the price of milk in New Zealand was actually higher than it was in some parts of Australia, the UK, and Canada, I began to get very concerned indeed. As I took that information out to the media I was very surprised at the massive response I got from many households, families, and business people, who said: “Look, you’re really on to something here. We are paying far too much for milk in New Zealand.”

I want to ask first of all what it is that we are paying for when we buy milk in New Zealand. It is pretty simple. First, it is the cost of milk from the farmer. Farmers get 60c a litre, or $1.20 per 2 litres. There is then the cost of treating that milk before it can be sold legally in New Zealand—in what used to be called milk treatment plants—which is a very simple and cheap process. We have the cost of taking the milk to the point of retail, then it is retailed off the shelf. It is impossible to conclude from that simple little analysis that it can be justified for New Zealanders to be paying well over $3, and up to $4 at the moment, for 2 litres of milk.

Accordingly I wrote to the Commerce Commission on 28 April and asked it to start an investigation into this matter. I received a response from the chief commissioner saying that the matter was outside the purview of the commission but nevertheless it would begin to look at the subject because it also had some concerns. In response to that letter, on 1 May I sent a lengthy letter to Paula Rebstock at the Commerce Commission, who had responded to my original letter, outlining that I thought there was a definite problem we should be looking at. I want to explain why.

If we exported milk overseas—which we do not; we export milk powder—in addition to the four simple costs I have mentioned of the milk, the treatment, the transport, and the retailer’s margin, for milk going overseas we would have to add all of the costs for Fonterra itself. That would include not only the processing costs to convert milk to, say, cheese, but in addition the vast international corporate structure of the company itself, with its highly paid executives, marketing, and the like. All of it exists purely for exports. Secondly, there would be the cost of insurance and freight to the border of the importing countries, the exchange rate risk involved, the tariffs payable at the border of the importing country, the cost of distribution from the port of entry to the retail shelf, the cost of any value-added tax, GST, or similar at the point of sale, and, finally, the retailer’s margin.

When we add up all of that, it is clear that it would be impossible for milk to be sold from this country at the price we charge it to New Zealanders and still make a profit. When we add on all of that, the cost overseas would be vastly higher than it actually is. That leaves me seriously concerned. The Commerce Commission has said that it will come back to me in due course, and I still have not heard from it, but just the Saturday before last in Hamilton a group of dairy farmers said to me: “Look, you are on to something very important here because we have come to the conclusion that the price of domestic milk in New Zealand is actually subsidising Fonterra’s international operations.” If that is true, we have a very serious problem and I believe that in that case the Government must undertake a full inquiry.

I believe that we need to decouple the price of milk in New Zealand from the international price of milk products. After all, in Saudi Arabia, where people pay 20c a litre for petrol, the Saudi Arabian Government does not force them to pay an international price because the price of oil has gone up in other countries. Thank you.

• Vote agreed to.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green) : First, I would like to endorse the remarks of the previous speaker, Gordon Copeland, about the need to investigate the price of milk and to decouple the New Zealand price from the international price, and to start to investigate the prices not just of milk but also of other consumer goods on sale in New Zealand. We are finding huge profit margins. I think there was a profit margin of 286 percent on a piece of pumpkin in the supermarket. We are finding, as Gordon Copeland has said, substantial profit margins in respect of the price of milk that seem to be exorbitant and not justified by the inputs into them. So the Green Party would strongly endorse the need for the Commerce Commission, or the Commerce Committee of this Parliament, to investigate these matters.

I would like to talk briefly on the food safety estimates, and I have the Primary Production Committee’s report on the food safety estimates here before me. It is a rather disappointing and shallow report, I am afraid, and it underscores for me that certainly the food safety aspects of the Food Safety Authority should be investigated—I believe by the Health Committee rather than by the Primary Production Committee. The issues of huge concern to New Zealanders, relating to the Food Safety Authority, are precisely health issues—issues of food safety. Frankly, I am astonished that the select committee in its report did not allude to the fact, or did not seem to realise, that there is growing concern amongst New Zealanders at the failure of the Food Safety Authority in New Zealand to protect food safety.

Indeed, a series of food safety scares has undermined consumers’ confidence in the safety of food, and in the ability of the Food Safety Authority to be independent or to protect consumer interests. Only last week, I think it was on Thursday, we had yet another food safety scare, when the Food Safety Authority discovered that a genetically engineered type of rice, which had not been approved for animal or human consumption anywhere in the world—anywhere in the world—was on sale here in New Zealand. In fact, 3 tonnes of it had already been sold, presumably to households around New Zealand. How is it possible that an illegal and unapproved genetically engineered type of rice would be imported into New Zealand, come through our borders, be on sale, and be sold around New Zealand without anybody picking that up? This is the sort of almost monthly scare, it seems, that has completely undermined consumers’ confidence in the ability of the Food Safety Authority to protect food safety.

It is said in the report that one of the purposes in the rather modest budget the Food Safety Authority has is the provision of reliable information for consumers on food issues. Well, if this is the Food Safety Authority’s mandate—if this is what it is funded to do—could somebody please explain to me why our authority is adamantly, passionately, and militantly opposed to the consumers’ right to know where their food comes from? Actually, I would also be deeply interested in knowing why National and Labour are opposed to the right of ordinary consumers to work out where their food comes from, and why those parties, along with the Food Safety Authority, are opposing a petition that I brought to Parliament, signed by 39,000 New Zealanders—which New Zealanders were lining up to sign—to require country-of-origin labelling to be disclosed on fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish. This labelling is extremely inexpensive and easy to do, because it would be point-of-sale labelling. It could be implemented tomorrow without cost, yet our Food Safety Authority is opposing it, along with National and Labour, and despite the fact that the authority has a specific objective that it is funded for—to provide reliable information for consumers on food issues.

When I explain to consumers in New Zealand that the Food Safety Authority and National and Labour are opposed to their fundamental right to know where their food comes from, they are appalled. They want to know why, when we are importing 1.8 million tonnes of food into New Zealand, those bodies will not allow us to find out where it comes from. Thank you.

• Vote agreed to.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : The global challenge of climate change is one of the issues of our time, and this afternoon I will take the time to challenge the Government’s pretty poor record over the last 9 years in respect of climate change. If we look at the issue of greenhouse gas emissions from New Zealand, we see that Labour came into Government in 1999 promising to reduce those emissions by 20 percent by the year 2005. But we know from the official record that has been reported to the UN that far from emissions being reduced, they have continued to increase and, most worryingly, to increase at an ever-faster rate. In the estimates that we are considering before the Committee, we note that in fact the Government is seeking $12 million this year for the monitoring and measurement of those emissions.

My first question to the Minister is about the fact that in 2007 the Government said sustainability was the issue of the year. The Prime Minister actually mentioned that word 38 times in her first speech to the House. Of course, there was also the New Zealand Government’s claimed goal of moving towards carbon neutrality in 2007. So my question to the Minister is simply this: where is the data for New Zealand’s 2007 emissions? We know that emissions were pretty bad in 2006, and there is speculation that they were even worse in 2007. I want to know why the Government does not come clean and tell New Zealanders what the emissions from New Zealand were in 2007. We know that the Government spent $6 million—$6 million—last year on a carbon monitoring programme. I tell the Minister that if he has spent $6 million, we expect to know what the data for those emissions were. We know the energy data from the Ministry of Economic Development and we know the agricultural and forestry data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, so why do the people of New Zealand not know the data for those emissions in 2007?

I have lodged a whole series of questions to the Minister, but he has ducked and he has dived—he is almost trying to avoid accountability. We have a fiscal responsibility Act, I tell the Minister, but I ask whether it will take a requirement prior to the election to get transparency into that data and for the Minister to come clean.

Chris Auchinvole: Probably—probably.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, maybe it should, but I want to know why a Government that says climate change is the greatest issue of our time will not tell us what the net emissions were for 2007. It is a very simple, straightforward question—

Chris Auchinvole: Does he know?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —and if the Minister does not know that, I ask how he can have the cheek to come to Parliament and ask for another $12 million to monitor those carbon emissions when he cannot answer with a very simple, easily calculable decision on what the emissions were for 2007.

I will tell members what I think. I think the Government is too embarrassed to tell us what the figures were for 2007. I can tell the Committee what Government members will say. They will say that after 8 years of a Labour Government, emissions in 2007 grew by a greater rate than they did in any previous year since records began. We know the Government’s climate change policy drove record amounts of deforestation last year, with the loss of 19,000 hectares of forest, and that will make the figures we have to finally report to the United Nations next April awful—just awful. I say to the Minister that the electorate has a right to know. Before people go to the polls this year, they need to know this Government’s record, so I simply challenge the Minister to tell us the emission figures for last year.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): Before I call anybody else who may wish to speak, I just remind people that when using phones in the Chamber they need to keep their voices down. I do not really want to hear entire conversations being relayed across the Chamber. Thank you.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : I find it extraordinary that here is the Government that has made climate change its great issue—in fact, the Prime Minister has said that climate change is the issue on which she wants to campaign in this election—yet the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, has not been able to answer a very simple question: what were the greenhouse gas emissions for New Zealand in 2007? We know that for every year from 2000-01 all the way through to 2006, the greenhouse gas emissions for New Zealand grew by nine million tonnes. But why is it that the Government is trying to hide the figures for last year? If this were a Government of open transparency, if this Government really believed in its programme of policies around climate change, it would be pleased to get the figures out for last year.

Why is it that this Labour Government will not be open and transparent about New Zealand’s emissions in 2007? It is extraordinary that the Minister will not take a call and answer that very basic question. I think I know why; it is that this Government’s record, despite all the rhetoric on climate change, has been just awful. We know that every one of its policy measures has turned to custard. We could talk about the failure of the projects to reduce emissions, where the Government tendered out projects and then had to buy them back in again. We could talk about what has happened with electricity, whereby 75 percent of new electricity generation that has been commissioned since Labour has been the Government has been thermal. Can you believe it?

Hon David Carter: No!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Three-quarters of the new generating capacity that has been commissioned by this Government has been thermal.

Hon David Parker: Not so.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Minister in the chair says “Not so.” Those are the figures from his very own ministry; it accepts that 75 percent of new generation has been thermal. Then we have the worst forestry figures since records began in 1951—that is, trees play a really important role in absorbing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, but with this Government’s policies we have seen record levels of deforestation.

Hon Shane Jones: It’s due to the Siberian forests.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, Shane Jones! Is it not interesting—crime is due to the moon, deforestation is due to the Siberian forests! We know that the Government’s solar water heating policy has resulted in a drop in the number of Siberian forests! That is a new line. I have to say the reason that so many trees were cut down last year in New Zealand, the reason there was a chainsaw massacre, is that this Government’s stupid policies around forestry encouraged foresters to get out there and to chainsaw down their forests. I just ask Mr Jones whether he can name a single climate change policy that this Government has succeeded on. The project to reduce emissions has failed. I am not sure what happened to the billion-dollar surplus of solar water heaters being installed. We know that the policy—

Hon Shane Jones: “Treelords”.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: He says that “Treelords” is the answer. Does he know that the biggest loss of forests has occurred in the central North Island area under his Government’s watch? On every front, there has been failure on climate change. We have an emissions—

Hon Shane Jones: Stop these unfounded allegations.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I challenge Shane Jones to take a call to explain why emissions have gone up every single year under this Government and tell us the data for 2007. I simply conclude that the Government has become so embarrassed—

Hon Shane Jones: A passing blip.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is a passing blip! I say to Mr Jones that the problem is that the “passing blip” has been going on for 9 years—every single year. Perhaps the Labour Government will go down in history as a passing blip. New Zealand deserves better. I say to Mr Jones that the Government has had 9 years to deal with the issue of climate change. Emissions have continued to grow. Every one of the Government’s policies has failed, and I simply challenge the Government to come clean with the 2007 figures.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs): I just make the comment that although the previous speaker was calling for members of the Government to speak, it has limited calls left in this debate, unfortunately.

• Vote agreed to.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) : I wish to question the Government’s performance on energy supply, or the lack of it. This is the fourth year, since the Government came into office, that there has been an electricity crisis. New Zealand has relied on a broken-down cable between the North Island and the South Island, running at only 5 percent of capacity. An inefficient gas-fired plant that was riddled with asbestos had to be fired up to keep the lights on. The so-called emergency plant at Whirinaki burnt millions of litres of expensive and carbon-emitting diesel just to keep the lights on. That is not a matter of electricity supply; that is a lack of supply. It is an insecure situation.

Spot prices hit the highest levels since the electricity market began—over $450 per megawatt hours at some points. I will not question at this stage the way that we calculate that spot price. Suffice it to say it has brought misery and economic difficulty to a number of companies. High-value companies that would normally be having economic success were suddenly faced with a period of downturn and had to consider cutting shifts and reducing staff, simply because we seem not to have security of supply.

The Government’s response to the difficulty was pathetic. Mr Parker spent weeks telling the country there was no problem at all: the security of supply was tight, but nothing else needed to be done. He said for the entire infrastructure to be broken, all at the same time, was a coincidence. Finally and reluctantly, through gritted teeth, he was forced to admit that New Zealand needed to save power. In June the power companies, to which he had devolved responsibility, launched a power-saving campaign. What happened as a result of that campaign? I can imagine the misery in some households, where elderly people felt they had to have only one bar of a heater on and shivered in the cold. Old people, particularly, suffer under these experiences. People who would normally bottle fruit were constrained not to engage in such a useful activity. Finally, the rain fell and the Government escaped having to require even more serious savings.

Pita Paraone: The rain fell and it’s been falling for weeks.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: But it was pure luck, I tell that member, that we managed to get through that situation, not good management. The member knows that, because people have had a bit of rain up in the north.

The Government has been irresponsible in its approach. Savings should have started far sooner than they did. Of course we have reservoirs, but our reservoirs are generally fairly shallow and they do not hold great quantities of water. In a similar crisis in 2003, an electricity savings campaign started in April. This year the Government waited until mid-June before sounding the alarm. The difficulty with that is that we will not ever be able to calculate the economic damage done to New Zealand during that period simply through not having a reliable supply of electricity.

What is most galling is that the Government now mocks the Opposition for raising serious questions about New Zealand’s security of electricity supply. The Opposition was being responsible and was listening to the experts, who were raising the same questions that we were. We were actually the party that was looking out for New Zealanders’ interests, because the present Labour Government had walked away from its responsibilities.

Electricity prices have gone up by nearly 50 percent in the past 5 years; I think that they have gone up by 48 percent. Security of supply is perilous and not guaranteed.

Hon Shane Jones: Geothermal energy’s growing.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Geothermal energy—I see. Well, thermal energy use is growing under this Government. We have heard Dr Nick Smith asking what the actual figures have been on carbon emissions, and there was a reluctance on the part of the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, to take a call. Here the Government, as in most other fields, has utterly failed.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Energy) : I rise to respond to some of the comments that have been made about energy policy and its relationship with climate change policy. Of course, we hear National again claiming that we had a crisis this year in electricity, which was quite the opposite conclusion to the one reached by the New Zealand Herald, the Dominion Post, and all of the energy analysts other than Bryan Leyland, who is always out there on the fringe with the National Party. In respect of this year, in the 3 months to June we had the lowest inflows to our hydro lakes since 1947, and the data going back to 1947 is so old that we have to question whether it would be quite as accurate as the data we have today. By June we had the lowest inflows since 1947, and, despite those record low inflows, we have maintained higher lake levels than was achieved in the 1992 power crisis under the previous National Government, when it had to put out streetlights and things like that.

Sue Moroney: Now, that was a crisis.

Hon DAVID PARKER: That was a crisis, as was the crisis in Auckland in the late 1990s, when the lights went out on the whole of the Auckland central business district for 2 weeks, under a National Government. By contrast, we have managed our way through this situation very well—and why? It is because security of supply margins have improved under a Labour-led Government.

The two main aspects that we need to have investment in, in electricity, in order to achieve security of supply, are transmission, which is the big lines that are owned by Transpower, and sufficient generation build. In the 1990s, investment in transmission was running at about $50 million per annum. This year it is $450 million. That is a ninefold increase. Next year it increases further still. We have enormous projects under way, consented to under the Resource Management Act, throughout the country, and paid for without borrowing. In addition to the billions of dollars we have coming in transmission investment, which is, as I said, $450 million this year alone, we also have 1,400 megawatts of new generation capacity being built in the next 4 years. To put that in perspective, 1,400 megawatts is something like 10 years’ demand growth. Security margins in that period are increasing substantially, and they have improved significantly over the last 2 or 3 years.

Of that 1,400 megawatts, more than half is baseload geothermal. Just about all of it is renewable. The way to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector is to build renewables. That is what this Government is doing. We have an ambition of 90 percent renewables by 2025. In order to achieve it we have to build 170 megawatts of new renewables each year. That enables the increase in demand to be met, as well as allowing some existing thermal plant to be retired or to be put into more of a dry year role.

Phil Heatley: Ha, ha! It doesn’t do that.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I heard Mr Heatley laughing and calling out that that was not being done. This year alone we are building 400 megawatts. There are 400 megawatts of renewables under construction as we speak. As I said, 1,400 megawatts is coming on stream in the next 10 years, just about all of it renewable.

In terms of the effect on greenhouse gas emissions, of course, notwithstanding Dr Nick Smith’s comments, he is wrong. The deficit projected for the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, which runs from 2008 to 2012, was until this year in the mid - 30 million tonnes. We have trimmed that deficit back to a projected deficit of 14.7 million tonnes, because we are on top of our electricity-related emissions. For the first time in our history our transport emissions have plateaued. We are on the way to carbon neutrality in the electricity sector by 2025, and in the whole of the energy sector by 2040.

An important part of that is energy efficiency. We have for the first time introduced into our energy settings the principle that, as a country, we should invest in efficiency ahead of extra energy, or extra energy capacity, where it is cheaper. In that cost-benefit analysis we should include environmental externalities, like the cost of carbon emissions, which are already a cost to the country.

How do we do that? We do it through an emissions trading scheme. How do we bring forward renewables? We do it through having a renewables preference through the emissions trading scheme legislation. Notwithstanding the cant we hear from the National Party, National members opposed both of those measures, and every other measure for sustainability that we have brought forward. Criticisms were made of the earlier projects to reduce emissions. Those, too, were unfounded. That has brought forward wind, and that is why wind is now economic in New Zealand. Under a Labour-led Government we are charging towards sustainability.

• Vote agreed to.

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) : I am pleased to take this opportunity to ask a series of questions about what is going on in the State services portfolio. I have to say, though, that after having just listened to the Minister, in a different portfolio, run through what he knows about the energy situation in New Zealand, I am not greatly hopeful that we will get any particular elucidation in response to the questions I want to raise.

First, I say our observation is that many State servants in this country—in fact, thousands—do a superb job in assisting with the activities of the Government throughout New Zealand. There is no question about that. We take our hat off to the people who make services work, particularly those who are in the front-line services that we all come to rely on, such as education, health, the police, defence, and all the sorts of services that keep us safe and keep our community moving.

But we are perplexed by the rapid growth of the non-core bureaucracy in New Zealand. The rapid growth in the number of people inside Government departments is so great that the office space now taken up by bureaucrats in Wellington could be accommodated in no less than 25 rugby fields’ worth of office space. The bureaucracy has grown so fast here in the capital city that it has pushed property prices to all sorts of record levels. It is really interesting to see in these straitened times all sorts of deals being done on rents in large buildings all around the capital city, when those landlords who are lucky enough—and good luck to them—to have a State tenant are sitting there with a smile on their face, because the rather large rents they have been able to negotiate will continue to be paid at the expense of the taxpayer.

We have a number of questions that relate to that extraordinary growth. We make the observation that despite the fact that the State Service is filled with a lot of people who are very, very capable and competent, none the less it has what we would say is a large, redundant capacity, made up of those people who look after the Public Service Association, and who, despite claiming they are non-political, are the most political bunch that I have ever come across.

I ask the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, whether he might go into some explanation of this matter. We see in the appropriation a little item noted as “Chief executive appointment and performance management services, advice on governance and performance of State Services, leading and reinforcing integrity and conduct, support to the Minister of State Services, and operational services to client departments.” Firstly, I would ask whether the Minister of State Services or any of his predecessors had to be taught lessons about integrity and conduct, because we might get an interesting response from the Minister. We have certainly seen in the last year an increasing politicisation of the Public Service, whereby many public servants have been put in the unenviable and somewhat compromised position of having to run the Government line on any particular issue. We have seen the difficulties that that caused, particularly in the Ministry for the Environment. So some assurance, I think, that the Minister himself understands the need for integrity in the conduct of the portfolio would be something that we would look to.

But we note that a figure of about $11.5 million is allocated just for that particular purpose—that is an awful lot of paper, a terrific amount of paper-shuffling, and, of course, a whole lot of people writing all sorts of reports and other such material. My colleague Phil Heatley mentioned before that all this Government ever does is to form committees, put together commissions, and have inquiries left, right, and centre. Well, it is no wonder, when that is one’s only answer in a policy sense to the things that matter in this country, that one ends up with such a very large, non-core bureaucracy.

The other interesting figure for us here is the Mainstream Supported Employment Programme. The estimates state: “This appropriation is limited to salary subsidy, training, and other support provided by the Mainstream Supported Employment Programme, which is a programme to assist people with disabilities to gain permanent employment in the State sector.” There is a very, very small figure for this programme, given the size of this vote—a $200 million vote—with just $3 million to be spent on this particular initiative. That seems to me to be very, very light. We have the Government spending money in other department’s programmes in order to encourage the private sector to give people a go, yet the Government itself is not following through on that.

• Vote agreed to.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) : I take this opportunity to congratulate Lawrence Yule on obtaining the position of president of Local Government New Zealand, and also, of course, Kerry Prendergast on retaining her position as vice-chair. They are good people for local government and we wish them all the best and give them every support.

I want to just start in the 5 minutes I have by saying what a disappointment the way that the Labour Government has treated the local government sector is. It has actually failed local government and it has been quite insulting in the way it has addressed local government issues. Over the last three terms in Government it has imposed huge costs on local government, and nothing represents that better than the cost of bureaucracy that the ratepayers now have to meet in the local government sector. This Government has passed at least 67 or 68 pieces of legislation imposing new costs on local government, and local government has had to respond by employing more and more people to take up the duties and the responsibilities that the Labour Government has thrust upon it.

The bureaucracy in local government has increased over the last 9 years by at least 25 percent, and the cost to ratepayers has been extraordinary. We saw last year, of course, a ratepayer revolt. One of the problems local government has is that infrastructural costs are growing, and the demands by the public are going beyond the expectations of the ability of local government to meet those costs. The Labour Government has done little to respond to local government’s problems, particularly in infrastructure. It has tinkered around the edges with some small votes for some water supplies, etc., but, quite honestly, in the main, it has not addressed the infrastructural needs.

John Key said at the Local Government New Zealand conference just recently that if the National Party is fortunate enough to become the next Government, it will take the matter of infrastructure in this country seriously, and that includes the issue of local government infrastructure. It is estimated that there is in excess of a $30 billion demand for infrastructural growth in the local government sector over the next 10 years, and, quite honestly, local government ratepayers cannot address this matter by themselves. The Labour Government knows this, but the Minister in the chair, Nanaia Mahuta, and more particularly not so much her but the Ministers before her have done little or nothing to actually address this issue, even though local government has brought this to the attention of the Labour Government.

The National Party, if it becomes the Government, certainly will address this issue. It understands the need for development and progress in infrastructure and has made it very clear that it will use a whole lot of financial tools to allow local government to address the issue of the infrastructural demands that the ratepayers are requesting. Even my colleague from up north, Shane Jones, knows that there is just not enough strength in the economy from the ratepayers to address the needs of the far north, and unfortunately he sits there, interjects, and does not help the Labour Government do anything about it.

The second area I want to address briefly is this. The Labour Government’s response to the rates revolt was to have what was called the Shand report. The Shand report came out with 96 recommendations. Just last week we had solved them, and Local Government New Zealand came along and said: “Look, we’re so worried that the Labour Government has not done anything to address this issue that we’re going to take up 13 of these issues ourselves.” Actually, good on it for responding. I understand that the Minister has recently written a letter to local government in response to the Shand report. Unfortunately, I have not seen it; we have not been sent a copy, and we do not know quite what the response is. Maybe the Minister will explain to the Committee.

But the fact is that there were some recommendations. Not all of the recommendations in the Shand report are acceptable, because some of them are contradictory. But, nevertheless, there were some very good suggestions that needed to be picked up. Again, in his speech to the Local Government New Zealand conference, John Key addressed some of those matters specifically. National will deal with those issues that need to be addressed, if it becomes the Government, and certainly a number of those will be addressed in our local government policy when it is released a little later. The real worry that local government and ratepayers have is that the Labour Government has not responded in the way one would have expected it to.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) : In her speech to the Local Government New Zealand conference last week, the Prime Minister proved that the Government has completely missed the point on local government rating issues. I will quote from that speech, in which the Prime Minister said: “The report of the Rates Inquiry concluded that local authority finances were generally healthy, reinforcing the conclusion reached earlier by government officials.” That completely and utterly misses the point, and the point is that local government finances may be healthy but the finances of the ratepayers—the people who matter to the National Party members—are hurting. It does not take a genius to read that since 1999, during the term of this Labour Government, average rates have risen by 64.62 percent. That affects not the council finances but the ratepayers. Does the Prime Minister recognise this in her speech? No, she does not.

What the Prime Minister does is pick winners. Is that not just the way of this Government? Is that not the way that this Government responds to the issues of affordability for local government? The Government has sanitary works schemes. Well, that picks favourites. One has to be extremely poor to qualify for the Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme. I do not think we have had many down in the South Island, at all. The Drinking-water Assistance Programme is a joke. Nobody can seem to get any of that pot of money. We have the Rotorua lakes’ pot of gold. That was less about remedial works on Lake Rotorua than it was about saving the seat of the local member, which is under threat. I could go on and on—for example, there is the Sustainable Management Fund, and funding for arts, culture, and heritage. Well, say that in respect of the Auckland amenities. This approach by Government completely misses the point of local government affordability—that is, the effect that it has on its ratepayers, specifically those ratepayers who are on low-fixed incomes.

My colleague has mentioned the over 60 pieces of legislation that have been brought down to local government without the cheque attached. It is a tired old story. What does the Government do about it? It does nothing. Let us turn to the Shand report. We had 96 recommendations. Members will see that my copy of the Shand report has been well-thumbed. That is because colleagues on this side of the Chamber take this issue very seriously. What has the Government done about it? It has done nothing. In fact, the Minister of Local Government noted to local government—and this quote comes from last month; I do not know which day—“Central government has made its decisions in light of the fact that, as the rates inquiry found, local authority finances are generally healthy.” Funny that; it is the same thing that the Prime Minister—

Phil Heatley: Generally what?

JACQUI DEAN: Generally healthy. I hand that document over to my colleague John Carter, who will, no doubt, look at it with the same disbelief as I do.

What does the Government intend to do with the Shand report recommendations, most of which are incredibly sound and 13 of which have been picked up by the Society of Local Government Information Managers and Local Government New Zealand? What does the Government intend to do with them? Well, from what I can see, it intends to do very little, because it does not see the problem.

I will tell members who does see the problem in local government. It is the ratepayer. The ratepayer is now expected to cope with the flow-on effects of the Building Act requirements that have been placed on local government by this Labour-led Government—many, many different compliance costs as a result of the Building Act, and also the requirement to be accredited as a building consent authority. What a load of nonsense that was. Local authority planners and engineers are tied up for months and months by a Government that simply does not trust them to do their job—a Government that does not trust council building inspectors, who are tradesmen of long standing and know what they are doing in carrying out their jobs. Do members know what is happening in the local government sector? Those people are walking away. These building inspectors, these professionals, who for years and years had great relationships with the local builders in the community, have had enough and are walking away. The result is that we have to bring in new building inspectors, who perhaps do not have the experience and background, to pick up the slack, and, of course, there are more rises in rates.

I seek leave to table a quote from the Minister of Local Government to councils this year, where she notes that central government has made its decisions in light of the fact that, as the rates inquiry found, local authority finances are generally healthy.

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

JACQUI DEAN: I seek leave to table the speech made by Helen Clark to the Local Government New Zealand conference, in which she notes that the report of the rates inquiry concluded that local authority finances were generally healthy.

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

• Vote agreed to.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) : In Vote Immigration this year taxpayers’ money is set aside for an inquiry into activities going on in the Pacific division of Immigration New Zealand. This is an extraordinary situation. Under this Labour Government the very credibility and integrity of the New Zealand Immigration Service have been hugely damaged.

First, we had the Ingram inquiry in 2005, when the Hon David Cunliffe, the predecessor of the current Minister of Immigration, was Minister. We had the Hon David Cunliffe claiming that the Ingram report into the activities of Taito Phillip Field was an authoritative report because it had been written by a Queen’s Counsel. He refused to ask the hard questions. He refused to ask the question why, for example, the group manager of service international, who had recently been appointed to his department—a fellow called Kerupi Tavita—had failed to blow the whistle on the activities of Taito Phillip Field, when Kerupi Tavita had been advised on several occasions by the branch manager in Samoa of what was going on. David Cunliffe refused to ask the hard questions.

And what do we have now? Because the Opposition asked the hard questions, we now have Taito Phillip Field facing 12 charges of bribery and corruption and 25 charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice. The Minister in the chair, Clayton Cosgrove, claimed that the Ingram report, which supposedly investigated all of this and found that nothing actually wrong—nothing criminal—was going on, was an authoritative report because it had been written by a Queen’s Counsel.

He was just an Associate Minister at the time; the Minister was the Hon David Cunliffe. I come to the next scandal under David Cunliffe’s watch. Colleagues should not forget that it was David Cunliffe who told this Parliament that he was running the show now. Do members remember that when he took over the health portfolio, he stood in this Chamber and said: “I am running this show,”? Was he running the show when he was Minister of Immigration just before that? Just after the Ingram report came out in July 2005, the Chemis inquiry report was completed. The Chemis inquiry was also about this fellow called Kerupi Tavita, who heads the international service division. That is the part of the Immigration Service that, as the Minister will confirm, covers refugee decisions and the Pacific division. He was taken over to Immigration New Zealand by Mary Anne Thompson, whom we have all heard about, because she used to work with him in the Prime Minister’s department. Helen Clark seems to have had some very interesting people working in her department.

When KerupiTavita went over there, he established the Pacific division, and he contracted a person called Mai Malaulau to head it up. When Kerupi Tavita got there, he approved the payment of $400 for a gift to himself, which was against Immigration New Zealand policy. He also approved the payment of thousands of dollars to Mai Malaulau, whom he had contracted to run the Pacific division for 1,000 bucks a day. Her contract specifically excluded the payment of expenses, yet Kerupi Tavita authorised the payment of expenses to her on top of the $1,000 a day.

What did David Cunliffe do about that? He was the Minister of Immigration. He took over in September 2005, just after the Chemis report was made available. What did David Cunliffe do about it—the guy who was running the show? What did he do about the fact that the group manager of service international was approving payments that were totally unlawful in his department?

That was not the end of it. Just after the Chemis report came out, and Kerupi Tavita said: “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have approved those payments. They weren’t correct. They were actually not legal. I shouldn’t have done it.”—at the very time that he acknowledged that he had approved payments that should not have been made—he was flat out approving payments to his new executive assistant, Ms Visesio-Skelton.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : I would like to speak to Vote Immigration, because the immigration bill to be debated in the House soon, when it comes back from the select committee, is often promoted as streamlining processes and saving the public money. To some extent that is true, but there are other procedures that will cost the taxpayer a lot of money, and I just want to spend time on a couple. One relates particularly to the situations of Iranian Christian converts from Islam, where the taxpayer has had to bear the cost of their spending long periods in jail—nearly 4 years for Amir Mohebbi, and around 2 years for Thomas Yadegary and Ali Panah.

These people are now either accepted in society, or are out on bail with their cases being further considered. At least it is good they have bail, because it then does not cost $65,000—or whatever—a year to keep those people in a penal institution, and it is quite unjust when those people, the Christian converts from Islam, generally have not actually committed any crimes. But if the changes to the bill go through in this Parliament, when someone like Thomas Yadegary comes before the judge for a bail application, the lawyer for him will not be able to claim exceptional circumstances such as that the person has been in jail for, say, 2 years. Essentially the bill tries to construct a code to restrain judges from giving bail. It is not only costly to the State but very unjust, and to me it seems to offend against at least the principle of habeas corpus. One could say the detention is legal, but when it is indefinite it will be essentially indefinite detention for people who have committed no crime other than, in the case of the converts from Islam, of not signing a passport application to be sent back to Iran where, in the present circumstances, they are likely to be persecuted in one way or another. The Iranian Parliament is discussing a law for the death penalty for apostasy—for those not being loyal to Islam, the religion of their birth—and recently there were people sentenced on other charges to be stoned to death. Of course the situation varies from one part of Iran to another, but it is a dangerous place for a Christian convert from Islam to go back to. So the Greens are quite concerned about that.

In spite of the streamlining of appeal procedures in this bill, it sets up a greater structure for the use of secret and classified information. It allows 14 different Government agencies to claim that their particular information is classified; the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Ministry of Corrections, the Police, or whatever, can all claim information is classified when, under the old legislation, it was essentially intelligence from intelligence agencies and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security that was involved in the process.

I think this can lead to greater injustice, because what worse injustice is there than having one’s whole future affected in an immigration sense without knowing the details of the charges against one? Sure, there is a requirement, for the most part, for people so affected to be given a summary of the accusations against them, but, for fairness, they need to have a whole lot more information than that, not just a summary of the allegations. Even though there is provision in the bill for a special advocate to be appointed to advocate on behalf of the person, that special advocate cannot talk to the person he or she is defending after the special advocate is in receipt of classified information; communication can be in writing via the judge. If that situation were translated to a normal criminal trial it would be like the defence lawyer being able to communicate with the defendant only through the judge—a very unsatisfactory procedure. Information critical of the procedure was given to the select committee by Stuart Grieve, who was the special advocate in the only case where there has been a special advocate so far—the Ahmed Zaoui case.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) : I want the Minister of Immigration to tell us what he is going to do about the shambolic state within Immigration New Zealand, where his group manager of service international was investigated for appointing a business associate to head up the Pacific division, and where he approved payments for that person that appear to have been not totally lawful. At the time it was found that he was approving those payments, he carried on approving payments to his executive assistant for things like luxury hotels, rental cars, and even a flat-screen TV and a DVD player. The group manager approved those payments after he had been caught out approving payments to Mai Malaulau that she should not have received.

Then we have the daddy of them all. Not long after all of that was going on, we had the Oughton inquiry into the scandal surrounding the granting of residence to family members of Mary Anne Thompson. Again, the reports on those matters came out in April and August, under the watch of the Minister who says he runs the show, David Cunliffe.

I want that Minister one day to tell us what, in the Oughton report, was just an employment matter. David Oughton made three recommendations. The first of those recommendations was that those people who had missed out on residence because of unlawful decision-making needed to have their cases considered. Only the Minister could do that, so what has that to do with an employment matter? The second recommendation was that a protocol was needed to deal with the issue of family members of staff in Immigration New Zealand making applications that had to be considered. What has that to do with an employment matter? That is a matter that requires the consideration of the development of a protocol for an important function. Thirdly, the Oughton report said there was a wider problem of managers directing staff members to make decisions that were outside of policy—in other words, to make unlawful decisions. What does that have to do with a specific employment matter? So there we have the three recommendations of the Oughton inquiry. There was nothing to do with an employment matter, and David Cunliffe, the Minister who was briefed on that inquiry, claimed it was just an employment matter.

I want the current Minister, who has had to cover up for his predecessor, David Cunliffe, to tell us why the department fought to keep the Oughton report secret. The department fought for months to stop that report becoming public, and if it had not become public no one would have known about the unlawful decision-making and about the involvement of all those people who are still in Immigration New Zealand: the group manager of service international, who approved all those illegal payments and who was involved in the whole scandal around Mary Anne Thompson, and Mai Malaulau. Those people are still operating in Immigration New Zealand, and their actions would have all been covered up if Immigration New Zealand had not been forced, under the Official Information Act, to release the Oughton report.

The saga I have just outlined, that series of absolutely scandalous goings-on in Immigration New Zealand, deserves some answers. I know that the Minister will say there is an inquiry being made into the Pacific division, but one of the key people at the centre of all those scandals, Mr Kerupi Tavita, is not just the manager of the Pacific division but also group manager of service international, which includes the whole refugee section of Immigration New Zealand. How do we know that he has not applied his same scandalous management to the whole refugee sector? How do we know there have not been the same outrageous decisions—in fact, what have now turned out to be unlawful decisions—going on within the refugee section of Immigration New Zealand? Kerupi Tavita does not just head up the Pacific division; he covers the entire refugee decision-making process as well as the Pacific division.

I think the Minister should tell us today whether the inquiry will cover all of the activities of Mr Kerupi Tavita, because clearly he has been involved in decision making under his responsibility that is quite unlawful. He approved unlawful payments, and what is so bad is that when it was pointed out to him that he was approving unlawful payments he went on doing that. He went on approving them to his executive assistant after the Chemis report pointed out that he should not have been approving the payments to his head of the Pacific division, Mai Malaulau.

There is a series of scandals there, and I want the Minister to tell this Committee whether the inquiry will go wider than just the Pacific division of Immigration New Zealand.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) : I will deal with a couple of things. Mr Locke’s contribution may have been less animated than others but it asked some valid questions. Mr Locke raised some issues in respect of the new immigration bill and expressed some scepticism, perhaps, at its aims and objectives. I say to him that he is right. Many of the aims and objectives of that bill deal with the efficiency and the streamlining of the whole immigration process, but they are not brought about at the expense of the abrogation of people’s human rights or the contraction of those rights. For instance, we have a unified tribunal but that does not mean that the claims of rights that people—refugees or whatever—can engage in are somehow disposed of. No, they can go through the same claim for various types of status, but it is dealt with, if you like—and I paraphrase in an efficient way—by one authority. That, I think, is logical.

I note that Mr Locke has made some claims about dawn raids and immigration staff being given the power to enter premises. I say to Mr Locke, without being provocative, that that is inflammatory language. I know from when I was the Associate Minister that there were rules, and raids or interventions outside of a particular set of hours had to be approved by the Minister. I say to Mr Locke that raids have occurred as long as I have been an Associate Minister and Minister—and, prior to that, Ministers ad infinitum—and, in my view, there have not been the sort of instances that Mr Locke is fearful of. He is right to raise them, but people act appropriately.

I have to say to Mr Locke, in summary, that we need to give communities the confidence that we are bringing in the right people—and we will come to Mr Smith’s comments in a moment—and that confidence can be engendered only if the communities know that we are preventing the bad guys from getting in, and also removing those folk who should not be here. But removals and raids have been going on under this Government appropriately, with appropriate interventions. We have not seen the language—which is bluntly scaremongering—of dawn raids and people’s rights being thrown out the window, which Mr Locke rightly raised and which he is fearful of, but which I think is hyped up under this Government and under this administration. I can give the member assurance that the ability to approach the Ombudsmen and Privacy Commissioner, and to appeal to courts—all those legal privileges and rights—is still preserved. But, as we have, to put it bluntly, seen certain individuals pull the wool over our eyes in terms of their status, it is appropriate that they are dealt with efficiently.

I reiterate to Mr Locke, in respect of his comments in relation to those who may be fearful of returning to places and who believe they may be subject to death or to torture or whatever, this point. There is some scepticism over those people—I think this issue was raised by a member of this House—who somehow convert to Christianity when they are on board the aircraft or going via the departure or exit lounge, or whatever, and so are en route to New Zealand. I must confess to being an old Irish Catholic myself. It took my parents and me a wee bit to get the baptismal font organised and ensure that I was an appropriate person in front of the deity to be considered to be a Catholic—that took a few years.

I think it is right for the Immigration Service to be a little sceptical of those who rush across our border, claim some particular status—some divine intervention from above—and then say: “Please don’t return me.” The question is how we test that. I think that is an issue that Mr Locke has raised. We are guided ultimately by the advice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. If the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says, to put it crudely, “Do not return”, the Immigration Service makes a judgment on that—even in relation to Iran, and even though Iran has a repugnant piece of legislation before its Parliament. We are reliant on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which tells us that there are certain countries that we should not remove folk to. But we cannot stick a finger in the air and say that because the person is a nice person, because we have heard good things about him or her, and because certain folk have different views on his or her status, we should abrogate all the appeal processes and review processes and let that person out, let that person come to New Zealand, and then let that person stay. If that is the case, there is no point in having legislation. So we do have regard for some of our world-class processes in making those assessments. People may not agree with those assessments, but we are reliant on external agencies like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the like.

I come to Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith’s dissertation in relation to matters pertaining to the goings-on in the Immigration Service. The member has asked what the Minister in the chair—that is me—will do about these things. The member keeps prattling on about the Oughton report. I will reiterate, in small sentences, for him what I was told in respect of the Oughton report on 14 December 2007, when I was first briefed. I was briefed that there was an independent investigation into historic employment matters. I was briefed that the report concluded that Mary Anne Thompson—[Interruption] I am telling the member. He asked me what I was briefed on; I am telling him. The report concluded that Mary Anne Thompson had not sought to influence decisions about her family members’ residence applications, and that disciplinary action had been taken against another Department of Labour employee. The member has constantly—for weeks on end—said: “What about the Oughton report? Why didn’t you do this? Why didn’t you do that?” Well, as I have said to the member, my first sighting of the Oughton report was when it was publicly released on 24 April.

There are a number of things that I will concede to the member have been legitimately raised. There have been some very concerning things about the individual that he has spoken about—things that happened historically. I would note that in the example he raises of Mr Tavita—the member will also concede this, I am sure—the individual personal assistant was prosecuted and dealt with in the courts. I say this to the member about what is being done. With Chris Blake, as the new chief executive, and myself as the new Minister at the time, there are now four robust inquiries taking place. The member raised a good point. He asked whether the activities of service international—the other activities centred around the example he used—will be encompassed and be examined by the Pacific review, and by the chief executive’s inquires. I say to the member that I am advised they will. I say it is a fair question that the member raises. Those activities will be examined. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I have confidence that the new chief executive will examine all or any processes that are called into question. That is the appropriate action of a chief executive. I believe that Chris Blake acted absolutely appropriately, and, as I have said time and time again, on 14 December when he advised me, he had already engaged the State Services Commission, as I have advised the member. Post that, he got legal advice in respect of whether he could reopen matters about Mary Anne Thompson, if he had a mind to—I think, a very appropriate action to take.

I have asked for an Auditor-General’s inquiry. I said to him, when I had an informal meeting with him, that his inquiry should go far, wide, deep, and high. He is unfettered in his inquiries, and in his terms of reference, and that is why I recommended to the Prime Minister that we engage his services.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: Is David Cunliffe as cooperative?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I say to Dr Smith that I think it is on the public record that the Auditor-General will be interviewing Ministers, including myself. I welcome it, I look forward to it. I am happy to put my hand on the Bible as part of it. I am advised that other Ministers in our Government whom the Auditor-General wishes to speak to will be available and will cooperate. That is what the public would expect.

There is also, of course, the State Services Commission inquiry, and that will look at a series of other matters. There is also a police inquiry that the member is aware of. In terms of what is going to happen, and what is being done about it, I tell the member that we have a litany of inquiries that will look at this organisation. But I would say, as Dr Smith—to use a military term—sprays and prays with the sort of political bullets he is firing at the department, that this is a department that has 1,200 staff. I will put my hand on my heart and say I believe that the overwhelming majority of those folk are damn good, honest, honourable public servants. I will not engage in political spray and pray. Those people deal with over half a million decisions annually and with over 350 million border crossings, and the very nature of immigration is that even if we had an ideal world, there would still be allegations flying around. That is the nature of those who try to penetrate our borders. That is the nature of some of the stakeholders, nefarious as some are, who deal with immigration. That is the nature of the portfolio. But I just offer the comment that the overwhelming majority of those 1,200 staff are good, honest, honourable people. It is a bit like politics, is it not? If there is one bad politician, we are all a pack of mongrels in the eyes of the public. That is the way it goes. It happens in all occupations.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: You can’t talk about Rodney like that.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I would not deal with the camp entertainment officer from Hi-de-Hi!. I say that we should respect the institution that is the Immigration Service. But I also agree with the member that all inquiries should examine all facets, identify wrongdoing, and cut it out.

• Vote agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The question now is that Vote Sport and Recreation stand part. I call the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have had to rejig a whole lot of meetings late this afternoon because I understand I am to be involved as a Minister in respect of the estimates shortly. Is there any chance of my being heard pretty soon so I can get back to meetings; if so, does anybody have any objections to that?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): What vote did the member wish to speak to?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, I do not—I am told that other members of the Committee have intimated they want to have a discussion on Vote Racing.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Obviously, the Committee is the master of its own destiny.

NATHAN GUY (Senior Whip—National) : The National member who wished to take a call on Vote Racing is no longer here this afternoon, so unfortunately we will not be taking a call on Vote Racing this evening.

Hon Members: Oh!

NATHAN GUY: I have alerted the whips about this.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : Well, thank you for the courtesy of telling me! I have been down here three times this afternoon.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have been notified that the Greens may take a call on Vote Racing. If they do so, then the Minister will need to be here.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: They are not taking a call on Vote Racing.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): In that case, Minister, you are free.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I do not want to have any special privileges, Mr Chairperson—

Keith Locke: Yes, we are taking a call on Vote Racing.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: If that is the case, can the debate on Vote Racing be held soon, please.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The Minister is quite entitled to seek leave to—

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I seek leave to have the debate held when the Green member gets down here.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : Mr Chairperson, I have to check on the speaker’s availability. I cannot just say offhand.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Can I suggest that the two members get together and organise that in the next 5 or 10 minutes.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : Mr Chairperson, I said “subject to the Green member being able to be down here”, which means that if she can get down here and it is OK with Mr Locke, who is looking after the affairs in the Committee now, then we can expedite this issue.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): That is fine. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken if it is agreed to? [Interruption] He is going to come back first? We need to wait until it is organised; it should not take too long.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) : I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The point that we made when we were speaking to the point of order—[Interruption] Sit down, junior.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member will be seated. There is no need for that, Mr Heatley. That leads to disorder in the House, on both sides, and I have to deal with it. The member will be seated. The point of order will be short and to the point.

PHIL HEATLEY: The point we are making is that clearly the Greens and New Zealand First have to talk about whether the Green speaker is available when the Minister wants to be in the Chamber. So our suggestion is that the Minister seek leave when he knows that that is the case and the Greens are happy with it. So rather than seek leave now and have us make a decision now, could the member seek leave when he knows that the Greens are available? That is our point. Otherwise, we do not object.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I understand that that is what will happen.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : It is a sad thing in this House when people cannot understand English and they therefore deny themselves the chance, albeit for a brief time in their political lives, to cooperate. It was a very reasonable request. I used the words “subject to the availability of the Green member”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member. I understand that that discussion is taking place now.

KATE WILKINSON (National) : The common perception on the street is that our court system is in disarray, it is foundering, and it is not working. Delays are getting longer, stays of prosecution for systemic reasons are becoming more common, and confidence in our court and justice systems is diminishing. What does the Minister have to say about this? If we look at the transcript in the report of the Law and Order Committee on the 2008-09 estimates for Vote Courts, we see that the Minister quite clearly stated, with confidence, that “the system is working”. That is what he said—the system is working.

But how can the system be working when median waiting times for High Court jury trials have increased by 70 percent to 304 days since 2003? How can the system be working when waiting times at District Courts have increased to 270 days since 2004, and by 11 percent in just the last 5 months? How can the system be working when some courts have waiting times of more than a year, including the High Courts in Wanganui and Whangarei? Since 2003 waiting times have more than doubled in Auckland, Blenheim, and Gisborne, and at District Courts in Rotorua, Blenheim and Invercargill. How can the system be working when many courts have waiting times of more than 300 days, including the High Courts at Hamilton, Nelson, Rotorua, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Wellington, and Auckland, and District Courts at Greymouth and Kaikohe? It is quite clear that the system is not working, and that under this Government waiting times and the number of outstanding cases have got worse.

As recently as Sunday in the Sunday Star-Times we saw yet another instance of a case being thrown out as the judge attacked the court system. Serious criminal charges are being thrown out unheard, after delays have been caused by what the judge called “shamefully inadequate” court facilities. The judge described as “grossly unsatisfactory” a delay of 2½ years in the trial of a man charged with child sex offences. The judge threw out 15 charges against that man, and he warned of his great concern that many more cases would follow as the backlog of District Court juries, which has risen by nearly 50 percent in 3 years, continues to mount. A trial scheduled for July 2007 was cancelled because no trained staffer was available to act as a registrar. The system is not working.

This Government has not got on top of the issue, and it is foundering and floundering. So bereft of ideas is the Minister that he was even heard to bleat that the National Party should stop criticising him and offer to help. The only excuse that the Minister can give is that the number of cases is increasing, and that the disposal rate of some cases is increasing. But the bottom line is that waiting times have more than doubled since 2003 in some jurisdictions—the bottom line is that waiting times have more than doubled. One response from the Minister, which, again, can be found in the select committee report transcript, was: “if everything stood still and nothing changed, from, say, 4 years ago, my court staff, with all the improvements we’ve made, would be waiting for work. … If the number of informations and prosecutions being laid had stayed where they were in, say, 2004, we would be twiddling our thumbs looking for work.” So this Government needs a buffer of 4 years to catch up, but according to the Minister that is OK because more cases are being processed. That may be true, but waiting times are getting longer and longer, and worse and worse.

Our court system is going backwards, and I have to say that it is not working. Where offenders have walked free—because of systemic failures and a permanent stay of proceedings—the response of this Minister to the victims of those crimes has been that that is OK, and that the system is working. I say that the system is not working.

• Vote agreed to.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : Having received clearance from both the National Party and the Greens that they do not wish to take part in the debate on Vote Racing, when they had first of all signalled they would, can I move that this matter therefore not be discussed and the estimates carry on as was previously arranged, albeit short of one item?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member would have to seek leave. Is the member seeking leave? The Committee is the master of its own destiny.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I am delighted to be able to speak on Vote Internal Affairs. I have to say that the Minister of Internal Affairs has been very disappointing. The Minister was in charge of a Fire Service review that crashed and burned, and he did not even have the intelligence to ensure that a fiscal analysis was undertaken as he tried to progress the review. The Minister cannot see a problem with a Fire Service fleet more than one-third of which is over 20 years old, with an average of 14 fire appliances a year being replaced since 2001. The fire appliances are getting older every day, and there is no way that the replacements can cover the ageing fleet.

The Minister thinks that a regulatory and enforcement team for gambling should be able to involve itself in community and social aspects of gambling, instead of leaving that to contract providers under the Ministry of Health.

The Minister also has oversight of the Charities Commission. What a disaster that has been! Legislation has had to be rushed through the House to cover universities, which were vulnerable, and to cover the delay in the processing of applications, to ensure that not-for-profit organisations are able to enjoy the tax-exempt status that they should have. There is a real question about whether it will cover off applications that are not processed before the end of 2008, because, from the estimates that many people have made based on their understanding of the time frame for processing applications, we are looking at it being somewhere around 2015 before they can all be finished and accomplished, and all of those applications can be processed.

The huge disappointment for me—and it is yet to be felt by the rest of New Zealand—was the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Act 2008. I say “Act” because it received the Royal assent on 24 July 2008. I say to people who are listening that they now have 6 months in which to get any information from the Births, Deaths and Marriages registrar that they can, before they may be denied that access. Under the current Act—which disappears in about mid-January, when the new legislation comes into force—anyone can approach the registrar for information and get a printout of it. That is as it should be; that is what a free, open, and democratic society allows.

But let us look at the provisions of the new section 74, in section 27 of the new Act, which comes into force in about mid-January. I take as an example my most excellent colleague Nathan Guy; if he wanted to source some information about another member—or any member of the public—he would see under section 74(1): “Any person may request a Registrar …”. Well, that is fine. That looks pretty good. Section 74(2) states: “A Registrar may comply with a request …”. Well, that is really good, too. We then go through the conditions and we see that section 74(2)(a) states: “the request is in respect of a named person;”, which is fine; section 74(2)(b) states: “the request is for a source document …”, which is fine; section 74(2)(c) states: “the request is made in a manner approved by the Registrar-General;”, which is fine; and section 74(2)(d) states: “the prescribed fee is paid;”, which is fine. Section 74(2)(e) states: “the requirement in subsection (3) is met;”. The requirement is to sign a register, and that is another piece of unnecessary bureaucracy, but, OK, we can do it, though I cannot imagine what the cost to the department will be. Section 74(2)(f) is about a source document. Well, one would not be able to have access to it, because one has to clear some hurdles to do that.

The kicker is in the last subsection of section 74. Section 74(4) states: “This section is subject to sections 75B(2) and 75G to 78H.” I tell people that if they are just coming off the street and wanting to make general enquiries about somebody else, they will not be able to meet the thresholds of section 75B(2) and sections 75G to section 78H. Section 75G is about “Searches for purposes of gathering statistics, or for health, historical, or demographic research”, and there are lots of conditions around that. Public sector agencies may be able to source the information, and one can source it if one is a lawyer or a trustee, or for particular purposes along those lines. But if one is an average Joe Bloggs who wants general information from the Births, Deaths and Marriages registrar, that is looking extremely difficult, if not impossible. It is not clear, at all, how anybody will be able to access general information.

• Vote agreed to.

Hon MARYAN STREET (Minister for ACC) : I wanted to take a call on the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) estimates explicitly because the National Party was not going to. It made me wonder why National members would not take a call on the ACC estimates. There are obviously two reasons. The first is that they do not understand the accident compensation scheme, and the second is that they are clearly not prepared to defend their policy on accident compensation, which was released recently in the last adjournment.

Not only does John Key clearly not understand Working for Families, as is evidenced by a statement from his own deputy, but also it is very clear from interviews done on the accident compensation policy National released recently that National does not understand the accident compensation scheme either, and that Mr Key in particular does not understand the scheme. Mr Key told the public that the privatisation of accident compensation will result in safer workplaces for workers—wrong. The facts show that New Zealand workplace injury rates are significantly lower than those of Australia, where there is a large amount of privatisation. As everybody now knows, of course, Australian insurers would be running the show under National.

Mr Key told Radio Live that “in Australia … their rehabilitation rate has been much quicker”—wrong. The fact is that New Zealand workers return to work faster than their Australian counterparts. The latest figures show that 39 percent of injured workers in Australia receive compensation for 6 weeks or longer, compared with just 31 percent in New Zealand.

Mr Key said that the Accredited Employers Programme, which allows some employers to self-insure, enabled them to use private insurers—wrong. The facts are that these employers are explicitly prohibited from using private insurers. Mr Key claimed that 500 employers were on the scheme—wrong. There are, in fact, 145 Accredited Employers Programme contracts.

Mr Key told Radio Live that he believed there should be an independent ombudsman to investigate accident compensation claims. The facts are that there are already significant review rights and a further right of appeal through the courts, and that the ombudsman is already used in some accident compensation disputes. Mr Key also claimed that approval ratings for ACC were only 50 percent—wrong. The facts are that client satisfaction ratings are between 80 and 86 percent.

But then there is Mr Key’s apparent unfamiliarity with the fundamental principles that underpin the accident compensation scheme. On Radio Live he described the principles as “no fault, 24 hour, no fault, blah, blah, blah.” He is not only wrong but also appallingly naive about, and ignorant of, the principles.

The principles underpinning accident compensation are as good today as they were 40 years ago when Sir Owen Woodhouse spelt them out. For Mr Key’s benefit, I say that they are comprehensive entitlement, community responsibility, complete rehabilitation, administrative efficiency, and real compensation. It would not have taken Mr Key long to swot up those principles and find out what they were before releasing the National Party’s policy.

Clearly Mr Key does not understand the accident compensation scheme, in the same way that he does not understand Working for Families. The National Party policy was to introduce competition “in the Work Account”, which is what the policy as originally released stated. But then he went on to say that, perhaps, it most likely, probably, could be applied to the earners account and to the motor vehicle account well.

The attack on the accident compensation scheme is, in the first instance, unnecessary, because nobody among all the partners who contribute to the scheme considers it to be broken. Therefore, it is not in need of fixing. That attack, right through to the proposed solutions, has caused outrage amongst employers, employees, and medical practitioners. Mr Key could not have been more wrong.

• Vote agreed to.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) : Members of Parliament, and colleagues from right across the political parties in this New Zealand Parliament, acknowledge the importance of the State house sector in New Zealand to provide housing for the most vulnerable—families, single people, elderly people who are sometimes living alone, older couples, those who are on lower incomes or disabled, and those who find themselves in all sorts of circumstances that make their situations, particularly financially, more vulnerable than many other more fortunate New Zealanders. That is why Kiwis across the decades have been keen to support the provision of State housing for such families in need.

That is why it has been with some distress over the last few years that I have examined, on behalf of a concerned public, the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the management of that organisation—a $13 billion investment on behalf of taxpayers—under a Labour Government. We in the National Party believe that that particular asset should be managed for the most vulnerable New Zealanders, but, in the time that I have spent examining five areas of the State house sector in particular, I have been quite astonished at what I have uncovered. I have not even begun to look into some issues that I embarked upon, because I have been so swamped with concerns in five areas.

First of all, I recall a few years ago raising with the then Minister of Housing the issue of a single home in Auckland worth over $1 million, which was a State house. I pointed that out to the Minister at the time, Chris Carter, and of course his response was to deny, deny, deny that it existed, until I presented papers in Parliament to show that in fact it did exist. I suggested that perhaps this million-dollar State house could be sold, because even in the Auckland market at that time two or three average State houses in average streets and average suburbs—we are not talking about very dilapidated State houses in poor streets and poor suburbs—could have been bought with the $1 million sale of that home.

Interestingly enough, after the Minister denied it, we uncovered million-dollar State house after million-dollar State house, not just in Auckland but in various places in the country. Many, many State houses were worth over $1 million—some were worth only $750,000—and they ranged right up to almost $2 million. Two years after I pointed that out—and the general public had agreed with the sense of not having such high-value State homes but instead of having a larger number of modest homes—we found that the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Labour Government were on the front page of the New Zealand Herald, talking about selling million-dollar State houses. And it was a pleasure for me to write their policy!

A couple of years ago I pointed out to the then Minister of Housing the issue of a subletting scam in Christchurch, where a State house tenant had decided to get a State home, and not live in it but rent it out to make some cash, and perhaps even purchase a home, on the way through. That particular State house tenant had a trucking business and was on to a good thing. Of course, the first reaction from the Minister was to deny, deny, deny. Needless to say, I investigated this and tabled papers in Parliament; apparently the woman did exist, and this was going on. An investigation was undertaken and I tabled more examples week after week until we saw that the Minister was reported in the pages of the New Zealand Herald and the Dominion Post as deciding to set up an investigations unit within the Housing New Zealand Corporation—which, incidentally, has uncovered 44 subletting scams to date this year. I am very proud to be a member of the National Party again writing Labour policy on how to manage the State house sector.

I am also aware that over 2,000 State houses are defined as being “under-occupied”—that is, some four or five-bedroom State houses have only one or two people rattling around inside them. That is a huge inefficiency of stock when we consider that many large families—many of them Pacific Island and Māori families—are wanting a State home that suits them, but are bunking in with relatives in crowded conditions while at least 2,000 State houses have just one or two people rattling around in them.

The amount of vandalism in the State housing sector is going through the roof. Neighbours have complained that the tenants living next door to them have been kicking in doors, breaking windows, having parties up and down the street, and generally harassing them. These neighbours have rung the Housing New Zealand Corporation but they have had no response. At a Ridgeview Road property in Auckland where neighbours had been complaining for a couple of years, because of media attention the Minister decided to take the tenants to court, only to lose the court case. Why? It was because the Housing New Zealand Corporation had not documented the complaints of neighbours over a period of 2 years.

Members will recall that a couple of years ago I uncovered a very lucky tenant who was earning $127,000 before tax. It was deny, deny, deny, on the part of the Minister, until through Official Information Act requests I received a list from him of hundreds of tenants who were living in States houses and earning well over $70,000 or $80,000 a year, after tax. So of course there was a change in policy.

That is why the National Party considers State housing to be there for the very vulnerable; State houses are not there to be worth a million dollars, and not there for subletting scams, vandals, and high-income tenants. That is why National has announced policies such as the policy that says if someone lives in a State house and is a high-income tenant, that person can buy his or her State home. We will use the money from the sale to replace that State home with another, and we will get another struggling family off the waiting list. It is a no-brainer.

But for reasons that Labour has not told us, it is ideologically opposed to this policy. Labour should be a bit more aspirational. If people living in State homes improve their condition through work or whatever, and raise their income to $70,000, $80,000, or $90,000 and can afford to buy the State home they have raised their family in for the previous 5 or 10 years, why should we not give them the opportunity to buy it? The level of State housing stock will be maintained, because we will replace that home with the income received from the sale. It is a no-brainer and, what is more, it is aspirational for those in State housing who want to move into homeownership.

These are not the sorts of things we see in the estimates. All we see is more money being pumped into State housing for fixing up vandalism, broken windows, and kicked-in doors, for supporting million-dollar State homes, and for giving a home to someone who is renting from someone else who is running a subletting scam, all while that person owns a lovely little bach in the Bay of Islands! Who will ever forget that subletting scam!

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

PHIL HEATLEY: I was explaining, just before dinner, the importance of State housing—housing for the vulnerable, for those families who are generally struggling financially. I said that the housing the taxpayer provides quite willingly for them is not set aside for the purchase of million-dollar State homes, it is not set aside for those who are running sub-letting scams, which are rife within the Housing New Zealand Corporation, it is not for those who vandalise, kick in doors, and break windows, and it is not for high-income tenants on $70,000, $80,000, or $90,000 a year. It is for the vulnerable.

Members can be assured that the National Party, under John Key, will manage that State housing asset with the care and the attention it needs, to make sure it does house the most vulnerable. We will not turn our eyes away from that, and we will also have aspirations for those living in those houses.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The time for this debate has expired. Therefore, the remaining votes and provisions of the bill will be put as one question, and there is no debate.

• The question was put that Vote Housing, Vote Consumer Affairs, Vote National Archives, Vote National Library, Vote Pacific Island Affairs, Vote Statistics, Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade, Vote Official Development Assistance, Vote Racing, and Vote Revenue, the preamble, clauses 1 to 12, and schedules 1 to 7 be agreed to.