DAVE HEREORA (Labour) : I again take this opportunity to take a call surrounding the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill. The scope of the bill is indeed quite large in terms of iwi and hapū and their geographical interests, ranging from the settlement of Maketū, reaching around the bluff to Newdick’s Beach, following through to Otamarakau and down through to Te Kaha, as far south as Tongariro. It also takes on board the lakes in Rotorua and, obviously, this settlement is designed to hand the ownership of the lakes back to Te Arawa. I think it is important to acknowledge that area and the hapū that work within that area.

When we talked about the agreement that was struck back in 1922 between the Crown and Te Arawa, we also recall that during that time Te Arawa generously postponed claims to the lake beds during World War I and gifted a percentage of the payment to assist the Crown during the Depression. They repeated that gesture in support of our country during World War II. The Crown acknowledges the spiritual, cultural, economic, and traditional importance of the lakes and their resources to Te Arawa. The Crown also acknowledges, for example, that it failed to legislate for a significant number of fishing licences for Te Arawa in 1908, when it promoted legislation to acknowledge the problem of hardship. The introduction of exotic fish species also significantly depleted the indigenous species that Te Arawa depended on for food, hospitality, trade, and koha.

The preamble to the bill acknowledges Te Arawa’s historical and cultural affinity with the lakes. The transfer of the lake beds has guaranteed free public access for recreational activities, such as swimming, boating, fishing, etc., along with the preservation of the existing rights of commercial users and the owners of boatsheds and jetties. Although the 1922 agreement is not challenged by this settlement, this legislation will settle all of Te Arawa’s historical claims related to the lakes at any time between 1840 and 1922, including any claims related to the 1922 agreement.

Negotiations between the trust board and the Crown began in 1999. Throughout the settlement negotiations, both parties recognised that their mandate extended only to lakes-related matters, and that any settlement reached would not settle Te Arawa’s historical grievances in matters unrelated to the lakes claim. I acknowledge the hard work and effort made by all those in Te Arawa, who faced many obstacles and challenges, but preserved their patience and dignity. Without their hard work, it would have been much more difficult to reach such a significant point as we have reached with the bill that is here today.

Let us be very clear that the bill settles only claims made under the Treaty in regard to the lakes until 1992 and any issues that Te Arawa may have, either now or in the future, concerning the annuity provided to the trust board under the 1922 agreement. In doing so, this legislation clarifies that the Crown settlement offer does not settle any claims under the Treaty that do not concern the lakes or the annuity. Te Arawa maintain the opportunity to negotiate with the Crown for the settlement of their historical grievances under the Treaty in relation to land and any other matters unrelated to the lakes and the annuity.

The bill also involves the apology, which is equally as important as the financial redress, as it moves forward by recognising the mana of Te Arawa in respect of the lakes. More important, the bill commences the vital option of rebuilding the relationship between both parties. The apology is important to the Crown, because it acknowledges the breaches of the Treaty in respect of the lakes and extends an open hand, by way of an apology for those breaches, to Te Arawa.

An annuity redress is recognition of the fact that the Crown’s actions in respect of the lakes breached the Treaty. The annuity redress is additional to capitalising the annuity and settles any remaining issues post - 21 September 1992.

The cultural redress provided by the Crown in the bill is arguably the most significant aspect of the settlement. The cultural redress is provided to meet the cultural interests of Te Arawa in respect of the lakes, and it recognises their mana over the lakes. Significantly, the cultural redress recognises their close association with the lakes and provides measures to ensure their ownership of the lake beds and their continued involvement in the future management of the lakes.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : We are talking about a Treaty claim. Although National would normally be in favour of a Treaty claim, I want to raise a number of issues with the Committee this afternoon.

The issue of major concern to my colleagues and me is that of mandate. The Te Arawa Māori Trust Board said that 93 percent of Te Arawa had said that they agreed with the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill. That remark has put a few people crook, because there is strong evidence that that is not actually so. One would think that when the Te Arawa Māori Trust Board said 93 percent of Te Arawa agreed with the bill, they would point out that only 9,000 people are registered with that board. Out of those 9,000 people, only 4,000 took part in the process. That is only about 10 percent, because the going kōrero—the going story—is that between 40,000 and 60,000 people whakapapa to Te Arawa in the last census. Putting about the story that 93 percent of those from Te Arawa have agreed with the bill does not seem to me to be very good.

There are issues about ownership. We heard from Ngāti Whāoa that they were given ownership of Lake Ngāpōuri. However, this bill, in settling a Treaty claim, gives the ownership of Lake Ngāpōuri to the Te Arawa Māori Trust Board. Again, I have some major difficulty with that, and we will explore it as we go through the process.

The removal of the jurisdiction of the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal must be looked at. Not in any other bill—Treaty settlement or otherwise—has this happened. There were questions about the model. Submitters have said that the model was based on a Government template from the Office of Treaty Settlements, rather than on a specific, indigenous model from Te Arawa. Instead, the Office of Treaty Settlements said: “Here’s a template. We’ll give this to Te Arawa, and they can sign it off. Then we’ll shoot up the road and give it to Tainui, and they can settle their river claim based basically on what the Office of Treaty Settlements has come up with.” It is absolutely ridiculous.

The annuity question is of major concern to me. In 1922, £6,000 was set aside. No one has really been able to answer the question about what that money was for. Was it an out-of-court settlement, or was it because Te Arawa gave ownership of the lakes over to the Crown and the Crown gave back £6,000 as an annuity every year? When I asked a number of questions about this—what the Treaty breach was; what we were trying to fix up here—I was told that, lo and behold, the Treaty breach was because inflation had not been taken into account and there had been no rent review, or no review of the annuity on a yearly basis. I never read that in the Treaty. I did not know that it was a breach of the Treaty if one did not do that, for goodness’ sake! It does not talk about annuities in articles 1, 2, or 3, and it does not talk about inflation, or anything of the kind.

Pita Paraone: It’s the principles.

Hon TAU HENARE: That is right—it is a principle. New Zealand First is absolutely the guns on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi!

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) : I want to join the debate at this point, partly to encourage all members to ensure that they have actually read the preamble to the bill. It is a useful starting point for understanding why we are here. Some members have read it thoroughly, and others, perhaps, have not had the opportunity to do so yet. As my colleague Dave Hereora illustrated, the preamble lays out a historical account of this settlement, and it has formed an important part of the basis of the agreement between Te Arawa and the Crown.

I want to pick up on a couple of points that Mr Henare raised, and I think they were raised last week when the discussion on the preamble was commenced by Mr Brownlee. Indeed, on the question of mandate, firstly, the matters came up during the second reading, and, for that matter, came before the select committee. There has been considerable discussion around this question of the legitimacy of the mandate.

It has to be noted, perhaps first and foremost, that the iwi and hapū that opposed the Te Arawa Māori Trust Board’s mandate, in their submissions to the Māori Affairs Committee—and my colleague Mr Flavell referred to them in his second reading speech—generally appear themselves not to have any formal mandate on which they were acting in making their presentation before the committee. It is an interesting dilemma for members to consider, whereby a properly mandated body was being challenged, before the committee, in its proven mandate by a small group that had no mandate on which to act. I urge members to consider where the justice of claim to proper representation therefore sits, in that regard.

I stress that the mandate the trust board has developed has been properly accepted. The process was extensive and is a well-trodden path in other previous settlements. It includes: multiple hui ā-iwi—seven, I understand, in this case; proper submission of the deed of mandate to the Crown; a public consultation on that deed; proper consideration by a range of officials; and, ultimately, formal acceptance of the mandate. It is important that members who were not part of the select committee are aware that the Waitangi Tribunal relatively recently considered the question of the trust board’s mandate, in relation to application for an urgent inquiry by some of the members who also appeared before the select committee. I tell members that the tribunal upheld that the mandate was collectively determined appropriate to deal with the complex, overlapping customary interests in the lakes, and has been well-maintained. I emphasise that the mandate has been well-maintained throughout the extended period of negotiation. I have no doubt the mandate recognised by my predecessor the Rt Hon Sir Douglas Graham was appropriate for the negotiation of the settlement of all of Te Arawa’s claims to the lakes, and that it remains as strong today.

On the question of ratification, Mr Henare quite rightly visited that. It is an important question in any settlement, and is one that often comes up at this point in the process of considering legislation. Firstly, perhaps it is a little misleading to look at the bald census figures, and Mr Henare referred to some. I think the generally held view is around 40,000—that is the figure that is often said to refer to those who whakapapa to Te Arawa; some say a little more, and so on. But we should bear in mind a number of things: firstly, that figure is all of the people, including those under 18—of which there are a considerable number—who are below voting age. If we take off those, we are left with around 23,000 people of voting age in Te Arawa. So it is about 58 percent of that total.

Secondly, with regard to those who choose to register to participate in the process, well, that is a choice. So it is important that we are confident, and I think we can be. I think Sir Douglas Graham went through a very clear process to ensure his confidence, and I remain satisfied of it. There has been a full opportunity for all those who are eligible to participate, should they choose to. Of the 51 percent who did register to participate, 94 percent approved the settlement. That is a very high level of approval by any measure.

I reassure members, because it is a legitimate issue to raise, that the ratification rate for Te Arawa lakes is comparable with ratification rates in previous settlements. For example, the Ngā Tahu settlement results were almost identical to Te Arawa, with a participation rate of around 50 percent and an approval rate of 94 percent, as opposed to Te Arawa’s at 51 and 94 percent. Back in 1995 the Waikato Tainui settlement voter turn-out rate—in other words the participation rate—was only 40 percent with 65 percent approval. Yet, as we have seen, these two other examples have endured. I want to give that reassurance to members.

Finally, Mr Henare also raised the matter of the removal of jurisdiction of courts and the Waitangi Tribunal in this legislation. I reassure him, and other members, that that is normal and typical of what occurs in settlement legislation, because it is a necessary part of ensuring that the end result is full and final.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. Kia ora tātou, tātou e hui nei i tēnei pō. I did take the Minister’s advice and I read the whole lot of the preamble, very well. I read it a couple of times and tried to pick out a couple of points to refer the Committee to.

Firstly, I say there was probably a hope, over a hundred years ago, that the matter of the ownership of the Te Arawa lakes was fully and finally resolved. But then if we look at the track record, we see a little differently. So let us just look back at some of the detail. On taking the Minister’s advice, I found the preamble told me that in 1909 Te Arawa went to the courts to seek clarification of the ownership of the lakes. The Crown disputed the ownership issue. In 1912 the Supreme Court upheld Te Arawa’s right to have claims to the ownership of the lakes investigated in the Native Land Court. The Crown, according to the document, used stalling tactics—like not providing survey plans to the court—and that meant the application was not heard until 1918. In 1920 the Crown approached Te Arawa to negotiate a settlement of the claims to ownership of the lakes.

In 1922 Te Arawa and the Crown reached an out-of-court agreement on the ownership issue. That agreement had a provision for an annuity of £6,000 a year, and no provision in the agreement for the annuity to be reviewed. Over time the value of the annuity paid to the Te Arawa Māori Trust Board diminished to a point where it did not make any significant contribution to the affairs of the board. Of course, Mr Henare raised the issue in respect of inflation. Before and after the 1922 agreement, the Crown and local government assumed responsibility for regulating activities, including discharges, that impacted on the lakes. Those included the milling of native timber, farming, and the discharge of human effluent. The result of all of that is that Te Arawa are getting back a contaminated site. I should be happy; unfortunately, I am not.

That is a brief history in terms of what is in the preamble, so it is not surprising that of the 20 submissions on the bill to the Māori Affairs Committee, 18 were against it. I attended a number of the meetings held where people expressed concerns about the offer and the conditions of settlement. But as one of the lawyers put it—and in response to the Minister’s kōrero—to the people, if Te Arawa did not take the deal, they could not expect to have the issue considered again for many, many years. He said they should look at what had happened to Te Whakatōhea, and that if they did not play the game, they would go to the back of the queue. So let us just look at that. I think the Minister and Mr Henare have covered the issues about the participation rate and so on. I tend to agree with Mr Henare about participation, but I hear what the Minister is saying. The bottom line is that the deal put to our people was to take it or dip out. Of course our people were going to vote for the deal in that sort of scenario.

So what is the deal? There is cultural redress, with the transfer of the lakes to the new Te Arawa body, and also $2.7 million for financial redress and $7.3 million in annuity redress, which is around the capitalisation of the annuity payments provided for in the 1922 agreement and the settlement of any annuity issues. The deal also includes an acknowledgment of breaches of the Treaty and an apology.

Let us put the deal into a context. It is acknowledged by most commentators that settlements are always going to be around 1 percent of the true value of claims. It is acknowledged that all of these settlements are set against the Tainui and the Ngāi Tahu settlements, where the ratchet clause means that both of those tribal nations will get more money if the total set aside for Treaty settlements exceeds $1 billion. What is the magic about $1 billion? It is something called the “fiscal envelope”, which was rejected by Māoridom following hui up and down the country some 10 years ago. Is the fiscal envelope still alive? Hell, yes—$1.3 billion to be exact. That is the total set aside to be available for settlements between 1994 and 1996, from memory, to 2010.

To put that figure further in context, I will say $771 million is set aside in 2006 for NH90 helicopters, $200 million was set aside in 2003 for Tranz Rail, there was the Air New Zealand bail-out of $885 million in 2001, $620 million was set aside in 1990 for the Bank of New Zealand bail-out, and so on. We can add to that the notion around tourism—the fact that tourism is a major part of the Te Arawa make-up—an industry of over $200 million each year. So there are some huge inequities here, and those need to be considered throughout the length and breadth of our discussion.

The select committee identified some key issues that the Minister alluded to—for example, whether the Te Arawa Māori Trust Board had the mandate to negotiate on behalf of tribes. My answer would be that where tribes gave a mandate, yes it did. But there are questions regarding those tribes that are not affiliated to the trust board—we heard about those in the select committee—or those where no hui were held, such as Ngāti Whāoa. The Crown’s agenda has always been to get a settlement, so that the claimants do not come back. Did trust board members consult regularly with the tribes they represented? That is absolutely an internal issue, but it remains very questionable. Did the trust board consult in any ongoing way about the progress of all of the confederation? One would have thought that should be the case for the non-affiliated tribes. The answer, from my perspective, is that it did not consult them.

In respect of the Government’s models—as proposed in the preamble to the bill—the Te Arawa Māori Trust Board had a series of hui, it had a wānanga, and it decided on one model. It produced a document—it was called a “discussion document”—that had one model for consideration. The “discussion” was not actually about a choice of models but the acceptance of the model, because without a model there is no settlement. As reported in the select committee, the debate did not really take place. Had it taken place in respect of governance models, the likelihood would have been that possibly there would be more buy-in.

The explanatory note of the bill states that negotiations were “… conducted in good faith and in a spirit of co-operation and compromise:”. Unfortunately, I reject that, in terms of what I saw and experienced throughout the whole process. The second point is that “it is difficult to assess the loss and prejudice suffered by Te Arawa”. I also reject that; that is able to be done. The third point states: “it is not possible to compensate Te Arawa fully for that loss”. I think that is accepted in light of the thinking of the benefit of the whole nation, but one would have felt that we were a little closer to the mark if we had put up the amount set aside—as for all settlements. The fourth point states: “in forgoing full compensation”—and here is the catch—“Te Arawa intends to contribute to the development of New Zealand:”. I ask about Te Arawa’s contribution to the nation. As outlined in the document, they have given more than enough, in terms of going overseas and contributing by way of the tourism package for New Zealand. Surely we can match up there.

The final point states: “taking all matters into consideration, the settlement is fair in the circumstances.” That is an unfortunate statement at the end, because one would have thought that taking all things into consideration, first of all the amount could be considered in the light of the bigger picture and, secondly, from my perspective the process used to get us to that point needs serious consideration. The hope will be that we will contribute to addressing issues around Treaty settlements for the ones that come before the House in the future.

Finally, throughout this debate in the Committee stage, there will be a number of issues raised that I have set out on my Supplementary Order Paper 57, and I am sure they will contribute to robust debate. Kia ora tātou.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I have taken the advice of the Minister, the Hon Mark Burton, well before this debate on the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill, and have read the preamble very carefully. The first point I want to make relates to clauses 13 to 19. It seems to me that this negotiation illustrates just how this Government has gone so slowly—not only on this particular negotiation, but on other ones. As Mr Flavell said, the preamble makes very bad reading. In 1989, when the Te Arawa Māori Trust Board entered into preliminary negotiations about direct negotiations with the Crown and then right throughout the late 1990s, up until 2006, negotiations were conducted at a very dilatory pace.

That was the first point I was going to make, but my friend Mr Flavell, who is one of the MPs in this place one should always listen to very closely because he is a very sensible member, has raised another matter that gives me cause for great concern, and that is the abuse of the process and the style of negotiations by the Government; it is essentially saying to Te Arawa: “Take it or leave it.” That seems to me to be nothing more than duress and I promise members that if that is, in fact, the style of negotiation that was employed by the Government and its lawyers in this case, this will not be an end to discord between Te Arawa and the Crown. I have rich experience of negotiations between Māori and the Crown over the years, and unless loose ends are tied up, unless negotiations are honourable, unless negotiators go the extra mile to ensure that there is a final settlement, things will come undone. [Interruption]

I heard Mr Paraone of New Zealand First interjecting, and I simply say to him that I cannot get over the fact that New Zealand First supports this bill—but the only thing that is consistent about New Zealand First is its inconsistency. That member is supporting the bill, but his bench mate Mr Woolerton is, in fact, promoting the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill. The bloodcurdling explanation in the explanatory note of Mr Woolerton’s bill obviously has no impact on his bench mate, because Mr Woolerton is seeking to have deleted from all settlement legislation of this kind the very clauses that that honourable member is seeking to have retained. That is utterly confusing and utterly inconsistent.

In dealing with the preamble and looking at the negotiation, the third point I want to make is on the question of mandate. Several members on the Opposition side of the House have raised mandate questions, and in my opinion the report of the select committee is deficient. I acknowledge that when one is dealing with settlement legislation, the scope for debate is very narrow and I refer members to the commencement of the select committee report—the English version commences at page 17. It states that we have very great constraints on us when we are looking at Treaty settlement legislation, but nonetheless one of the issues we can look at is the issue of mandate, and some very serious questions of mandate arise on this particular settlement.

A number of submitters have questioned the mandate of the trust board, and I hear what the Minister has said, that there was at least one application to the Waitangi Tribunal, which dismissed the urgent application. But I wonder whether the committee, which has a very real responsibility to look at these issues, has, in fact, analysed the evidence. Page 20 of the select committee report states: “The trust board does not believe that any changes to the settlement are warranted on the basis of the concerns of Ngāti Whāoa.” The trust board says that it did not really think too much of Ngāti Rangitihi’s point, and that Ngāti Rangitihi’s submissions were not really worth the paper they were written on. The Office of Treaty Settlements was satisfied that the trust board had made a commitment to involve all the iwi and hapū in negotiations, and Te Puni Kōkiri noted that the hui-ā-iwi were well advertised. But nowhere in the report, other than reciting the actual submissions on the part of various people, can one show that the committee itself was truly satisfied that the mandate process was secure.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First) : Tēnā koe, Madam Chairperson. I want to make a contribution to this part of the debate on behalf of New Zealand First. We in New Zealand First certainly had an issue about mandate, but as part of the select committee process we have to accept that the members of Te Arawa, particularly those who do not support this settlement, had the opportunity to participate in this process. If people choose not to participate, we cannot continually use the argument that the figures, in terms of those who participate, are not great enough to consider this settlement being advanced. Although we are disappointed at the figures and they could be higher, at the end of the day we have to accept that those who have chosen to vote have made their intentions clear.

Secondly, in terms of recognition of the Te Arawa Māori Trust Board, of course there will always be a dissenting voice. We have noted that in whatever settlements come before the House, there has been dissension amongst iwi members. As those of us who have been involved in serving our people outside of this House well know, 90 percent of the people whom we set out to serve are the ones who are our biggest critics. This bill is no exception.

It has been commented that no complaint about the process of negotiation has been expressed by the mandated body. That has been clearly stated, particularly before the Māori Affairs Committee. Someone has to make the decisions. In this case the Te Arawa Māori Trust Board is the mandated group that has made the decision to accept this settlement. I take on board some of the comments made by the previous speaker, Christopher Finlayson, in terms of how the negotiation processes may have taken place. As I hear more and more about the settlements, particularly those that come before this House, one has to be concerned about how that process is being conducted. However, at the end of the day the mandated group accepted the final negotiation.

I was very surprised that members of the mandated body have accepted the removal of jurisdiction. Although the Minister has given a good explanation as to why that clause is included, I should say that a lot of responsibility rests on the advisers of the trust board to advise their client to accept that clause. I noticed that the advisers were rather young compared with a whole lot of other settlement groups, and they will have to carry that responsibility on their shoulders should things go awry.

As the member from the Māori Party commented, people are happy about getting the site back, but they are not so happy about the contamination, and that issue will be addressed as we go through the bill. In response to the comment about references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi being included in this bill, I will certainly make comment on that on behalf of my party when we come to that part of the bill. Kia ora.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I understand the kōrero from e tōku nei tuakana, i tū ake nei i mua i ahau. [my older brother who stood up just before me.]

I say to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Mark Burton, that I want to concern myself with recitals 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 in the preamble. In particular I want to ask about this statement in the preamble: “(15) In December 1998, the Crown recognised the mandate of the Arawa Māori Trust Board to represent Te Arawa in negotiations for a settlement with the Crown. Terms of negotiation specifying the scope, objectives, and general procedures for negotiations were signed by the negotiators appointed to represent the Board in March 1999:” I am wondering whether the Minister can tell the Committee what the initial offer was, as opposed to the offer accepted some years later down the track. Why does the preamble further state, in recital 18: “The Crown and the Arawa Māori Trust Board initialled a draft deed of settlement on 15 October 2004. …”, which is some 6 years after the 1998 mandate that was recognised by the Crown?

I do not want to harp on too much about it, but this annuity business is still bugging me. How does it come to a figure that just so happens to be $7.3 million when the figure for cultural redress is $2.3 million, which makes a nice, tidy sum of $10 million? Interestingly, the figure is not $10.793.26 million, it is just $10 million, which leads me to believe—and I am not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch of the imagination—that the fiscal envelope is still hanging around. It is just that these days it is called the multi-year appropriations, or maybe something else. So I ask the Minister in charge of the bill, the Hon Mark Burton, what the story behind the annuity is. How was that established? How was the annuity calculated? Was a formula used to calculate the capitalisation of the annuity from £6,000 back in 1920-odd, to $7.3 million now, and how far out did that annuity go? If we were not having this discussion now, what would have been the annuity in the year 2020, starting from that period? What would it have been if it had been capitalised out from then, and backwards, as well?

I know that one can lead a horse to water but one cannot make it drink and that there will always be the difficulty, even in general elections, that not only do people have the right to vote but also they have the right not to turn up on the day and vote, and I take the point made by Pita Paraone. There are some problems with this settlement. It is not as clean or as smooth as a number of other settlements have been. I am very, very worried that 10 years or 15 years from now our offspring will be arguing about the same issue. If that is the case—and no one can see into the future—it will be a sad day in regard to what I consider to have been a bit of a rush job in terms of the template that has been used. I know full well that this same template is being used to knock Tainui into line in terms of its river claim. I would be very, very surprised to see any Tainui settlement being different from the one in front of us.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) : Part 1 of the bill sets out the purpose, and the background to the settlement. It includes acknowledgments of the apology given by the Crown to Te Arawa, it records the intention of Parliament that the provisions of the bill are to be interpreted in a manner that best furthers the agreements expressed in the deed of settlement, and it defines various terms. It also provides for the settlement of the Te Arawa lakes historical claims and the Te Arawa lakes remaining annuity issues, and a range of other miscellaneous matters, such as perpetuities.

I will take this opportunity also to refer briefly to Supplementary Order Paper 56 in my name, which deals with a number of minor, technical matters. Some of these sit in Part 1, so I will take this opportunity to explain them all once, then be done with it.

The Protected Objects Amendment Act was passed by this House on Wednesday, 2 August this year. That Act amends the Antiquities Act 1975. Amendments to clauses 2, 11, and 57 of this bill, and a new clause 101, are required as a consequence of changes in terminology enacted by the Protected Objects Amendment Act 2006. Those changes will take effect on 1 November this year, and that is the reason this Supplementary Order Paper is necessary. The Protected Objects Amendment Act amends certain terms in the Antiquities Act. The old terms are used in all settlement deeds and legislation that include an antiquities protocol. The Protected Objects Amendment Act amends existing settlement legislation to reflect those changes, which is fine in dealing with legislation that has already been enacted, but does not, however, provide for changes to settlement bills, such as the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill, that are currently before the House. It is expected that the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill will be passed before 1 November; therefore, it needs to contain both the pre - 1 November references to antiquities and the post - 1 November references to protected objects. That is the purpose of my Supplementary Order Paper.

PAULA BENNETT (National) : I rise to speak on Part 1 of the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill. I did not sit on the submissions process in the Māori Affairs Committee, and I have had limited input into this bill. I certainly have limited knowledge of it, in all fairness; it is just what I have read and what I have heard in the House over the last few days. I suppose what I would ask—and what I have been asking my colleagues—is whether Te Arawa want this legislation. No one could really answer me on that. In fact, I started to get different answers from all directions, and that is what concerns me the most. So I thought I would do what any good politician should do: I would go directly to the source.

I grew up in Taupō, so I know former students and other people who are of Te Arawa, and I thought I would talk to them directly. I was very good friends with Aroha, and she is now living back in that area, so I rang her. As a bit of an aside, when we were at school we were called “marshmallows” by our Māori teacher, not because of our shape—as some people may think—but more because we were considered to be brown on the outside and white on the inside. That was the way she put it. A lot of that was about being disengaged from the process, and feeling disengaged from our own iwi and our participation in it. As I talked to Aroha on Friday, it struck me that we talk about the mandate and about the opportunity to vote, but the reality is that many Māori feel disengaged from the process and from their own iwi, let alone from the Pākehā process, the Crown, and everything else. We have to take all of those things into consideration when we look at whether there is a mandate for something like this legislation to go through.

I am reluctant to go back to numbers, because I think this issue is much more about people. When we start to spout off numbers like 40,000 and 4,000—that sort of stuff—we forget that we are talking about people. The fact that such a small margin of people feel engaged by the process has to raise some concerns, such as whether Te Arawa actually want this settlement. Someone is just telling me that marshmallows are pink on the outside until they are toasted. I think my teacher did mean “MallowPuffs”, so there we go. But it is the same point. We all have our MallowPuff stories that we bring from school and still carry with us today.

Anne Tolley: Scarred!

PAULA BENNETT: We are scarred by the feeling of being disengaged from the process. That is the question that I raise with the Minister in the chair, the Hon Mark Burton. It is one that brings us huge concern.

We can talk about the purpose of the bill and about the apology and everything else, but the question is whether this settlement will be full and final. If we do not have a sense of buy-in and of the settlement being what the people want and need, then will there really be an end to the grievance, or is this merely the start of a process? It feels to me as though this bill is still very much a part of the process, and that we have a long, long way to go. For that reason, I certainly support my party in opposing this bill.

The bill talks about the whole historical grievance of the period, and it makes sense in the way it is constructed, but I do not know whether that would be everybody’s story. That is when the situation becomes one where people are coming from different places on the issues and are not taking into consideration anyone. What could result from that, actually, is more of an uproar from people opposed to the legislation than of support from people who are standing up for it.

No one is keener than the National Party to see these settlements go through. The acknowledgment of wrongdoing and the settlement of claims are things that National started in the early 1990s, so they are obviously things we feel very passionately about. But when we look at the engagement of people like Douglas Graham, we can see how they got buy-in by taking the time in negotiations. When they talk about the process they went through, they say they did not go a few times to talk; they kept going back and going over the same ground many times. They found that other people became more engaged as that process went along. I wonder how we can come up with legislation like this, which perhaps does not really address the concerns of the majority of people, and how we can lay something like this issue to rest.

In the first reading debate, I said there was a lot more work to be done before we got the bill to this place, and I thought we should be going back to the drawing board before we took it through the select committee process.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) :Tēnā nō tātou katoa. In reference to Part 1, I point the Minister Mark Burton, and other members in the Chamber tonight, to a couple of the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 57, which I have put forward. I will try to explain them, hopefully, fairly clearly.

The first point is to raise again that the notion of “full and final” is something that I suspect our people do not accept. Maybe it was thought in 1922 that that settlement would be full and final, yet here we are revisiting it. I note the point made by Mr Finlayson that unless settlements are done in a fair and equitable way, and people know what is going on, there will be a time when these sorts of settlements come back in the door. So I just put that out there as a prediction—that at one point or another that will happen.

The second point I raise concerns my amendments to clause 5. I hope the Minister will consider some of these things. Firstly, there is to be group called the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group, which is to be made up of Te Arawa, the Rotorua District Council, and Environment Bay of Plenty. Under the bill, the involvement of Te Arawa in this group is limited to only two members. I do not know whether the Minister picked that up. Te Arawa is mentioned as having two members, but for the members from Environment Bay of Plenty and the Rotorua District Council no numbers are mentioned. It may be that their numbers are limited. I hope to address that further on in the discussions.

It is important to have all of the parties at the table. The district council must accept some of the responsibility for the state of the lakes, as should Environment Bay of Plenty as the current agency operating on behalf of the Crown. But surely it is appropriate that the number of representatives from Te Arawa, as the owner, equals the combined total of the representatives of both other agencies. How else can the owner ensure leverage to address the issues of cleaning up the lake? I am suggesting in my Supplementary Order Paper that the number of those representatives on that body equal the number of representatives of Te Arawa, and that that be stated. To put it another way, those responsible for the state of the lake could continue to fail unless this matter is addressed.

The other issue I mention is that there is actually nothing in the bill that sets out the responsibilities of the Crown. Let us make it clear: the Crown had the responsibility, the Crown stuffed up, the Crown acknowledges that it stuffed up, and the Crown is handing back a polluted site. These are the sorts of things that stick in the heart and soul of my people.

To that end, I will recommend the insertion of a new clause—and, hopefully, the Minister will consider this—stating that the total number appointed to the group by the Rotorua District Council and Environment Bay of Plenty must not exceed the number appointed by the Te Arawa Lakes Trust. That is part of a recommendation that will be put up later.

I just also point out to the Minister that the hapū and iwi are set out in schedule 2, and clauses 5, 6, and 7 talk about a review of the iwi and hapū. In terms of the management entity, there is actually some doubling up of hapū. So a review would be a very important move.

The apology in the bill acknowledges the part that Te Arawa has played in terms of Aotearoa. It states: “Te Arawa has honoured its obligations and responsibilities under te Tiriti o Waitangi …”. We have contributed to the war effort overseas, and we gifted portions of the annuity for the national good in the 1930s and 1940s. It also states: “Te Arawa has demonstrated a record of co-operation with the Crown …”, but the benefits back from the Crown were not realised. Finally, it acknowledges that Te Arawa have made a significant contribution to tourism and to the wealth of New Zealand—Rotorua in particular.

Also, the Crown acknowledges its actions—this is quite important. The contribution of the Crown includes the introduction of exotic fish; prosecution of Te Arawa people for fishing without licences; deliberate delays in providing survey plans and public maps to Te Arawa for Native Land Court hearings; and the failure to review the annuity paid to Te Arawa as a part of the 1922 agreement. The Crown acknowledges that the pollution and degradation of several of the lakes have caused a sense of grievance. It acknowledges its failure to deal with grievances in any appropriate way, despite petitions to the Government, tribunal hearings, and the like. These issues are actually documented in the bill. The bill sets out for the whole nation to see what the Crown acknowledges. So what is up with that? Te Arawa contributes to the nation, and what do they get back? Exotic fish, prosecution, and deliberate delays.

In relation to clause 13, although the Māori Affairs Committee considered submissions from a number of iwi, Ngāti Whāoa in particular were clear that they wanted three lakes to be withdrawn: Ngāhewa, Ngāpōuri—also known as Ōpōuri—and Tūtaeīnanga. Why? Because determination of the ownership of these lakes and the surrounding areas is still in debate before the Waitangi Tribunal. Yes, a report was written by Judge Fox regarding a hearing for urgency, and the Melvin report was produced, but I ask whether it would not have been better for us to wait for the process of law to run its full course before implementing this bill. Let iwi have the ability to take issues to court—the Waitangi Tribunal, in this case—allow the process of law to go to its nth degree, then make decisions from that. Including these lakes now may well result in further grievance down the line.

It is against this background that my Supplementary Order Paper takes these lakes out of the agreement. It omits clause 15, which refers to the settlement of the lakes claim being final. It will never be final, for generation after generation, especially as, as we note, our people revisit injustice.

Clause 16 talks about the jurisdiction of the tribunal to consider claims. This question was put by the select committee to the officials. It seems that the motivation is so that Te Arawa cannot relitigate issues around claims and settlements. So where are the safety mechanisms to ensure that the bill is enacted to its full capacity, and where do Te Arawa go to seek redress? These are some of the questions that need to be asked and answered. This is important, bearing in mind that the Crown, with the bill, acknowledges that it stonewalled Te Arawa’s attempts to get justice. Since 1922, it has taken 80 to 90 years to get a settlement. In one sense, our people do not trust the Crown.

These are important amendments that I hope the Minister will consider as we go through the Supplementary Order Paper process. I have taken the amendments fairly seriously in putting them in front of the Committee—in particular, in front of the Minister—to address some of the anomalies that are part of this bill.

METIRIA TUREI (Green) : I will take a brief call to comment on the Supplementary Order Papers on this part. The Greens will support the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper. We do not see any problems with it; it makes perfectly good sense to include the reference and issues around the Protected Objects Amendment Act. In terms of the Supplementary Order Paper from the Māori Party, we agree entirely with three of the amendments and will be supporting them wholeheartedly, and one we will not support. I will just explain what we are doing.

The one we will not support at this stage, unless something changes quite soon, is the omission of the Crown stratum from the legislation. The reason is that I am still very uncertain that by enabling Te Arawa to have ownership of the water body, that does not then provide some kind of legal responsibility over the quality of the water or what happens to it. Unless I feel very certain that no further legal issues might arise from that ownership, I think it is better to leave that out at this stage. I know that it is controversial and I understand entirely the desire to return the water body to Te Arawa, but I am just concerned that I do not have enough information about the legal consequences of doing that.

So the Green Party will not support that Māori Party amendment. But we completely support the other amendments, particularly the change to clause 13. At the Māori Affairs Committee I asked officials from the Office of Treaty Settlements why they were including Lake Ōpōuri in the settlement and why they were giving it to the main group instead of to those who had provided to us in the select committee a vast array of information about the lake’s legal ownership and the trail of it. Those people gave us incredible information, and the officials said that the Office of Treaty Settlements owned the lake now, that it was negotiating with the main group, and that it was going to give the lake to them. That was it! There was no recognition at all of the history of the struggle of this family and its hapū to have that lake returned to them, even though they had a significant and detailed paper trail showing their legal ownership over time.

I thought the approach from the Office of Treaty Settlements was disgusting. It simply was not interested in pursuing the matter and making sure there were ways of dealing with the ownership issues around specific lakes for specific hapū. There were other ways of doing it. Hapū groupings could have been set up. If there were a number of hapū who had connections with the lake, a mechanism could have been provided for them to have more control over what happened to it. That would have recognised everybody’s rangatiratanga and made the whole process so much easier. Also, it would have meant that those who were directly or more closely associated with a particular lake could have had that mana recognised. But there was no system for doing that, and it was obvious that the Office of Treaty Settlements had not bothered to explore ways of doing that.

It has meant that this particularly hapū, who have a paper trail showing their ownership and their struggle to get that ownership recognised, are once again dispossessed of their property. The whole point of treaty settlements is to reverse that dispossession. It is a crazy situation that arises out of a settlement process that does not understand what it means to provide restitution to the victims of a historical wrong. The process is actually set up to provide the Government with the easiest possible way out. It is a process that looks good from the outside and gets complaints from the public for being too generous at 1 percent return on the lands that were lost. The Government wins—it looks great for the Government—but Māori miss out again and again.

The reason we are very pleased to support the amendment to omit clause 15—the full and final settlement clause—from the legislation is that it is a lie. It is not full and final. That is the point. It cannot be full and final until there is a decent process that really and truly recognises what is happening for iwi and hapū in their struggles to get these settlements through. This settlement claim is nearly 10 years old. It is now nearly 10 years since Te Arawa went to the tribunal. They have been fighting through this process for 10 years. They have had to spend thousands and thousands of dollars and it has taken hundreds and hundreds of person hours. People die in the process of trying to get these settlements through. And that is considered fair? They are supposed to be happy with what they have got, and every generation from now on is supposed to say: “Well, that’s it. It’s full and final. It’s what the legislation says. It’s fair in the circumstances. That’s all right.” It is not OK.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) : I want to pick up on one or two of the points made by the previous two speakers. Mr Flavell outlined the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 57 in his name, and—as I did in respect of Supplementary Order Paper 56 in my name—covered the effects of it across the bill. I will deal with the impacts of the Supplementary Order Paper at the various stages of the bill and with the points raised by the member who has just resumed her seat.

The first point I want to remake to the Committee is that the deed of settlement and this bill have been negotiated and agreed to in good faith with Te Arawa’s mandated negotiators. The member who has just resumed her seat quite rightly laments those who have died along the way, in the 10 years that this process has taken. People have spent their life’s work—and life’s blood, in some cases—to get to this point. For others who do not have that depth of background and commitment to then flippantly presume to usurp the authority, the mana, and the mandate of those people—a mandate, I repeat, that is upheld by the tribunal—and at a whim to replace their work with a Supplementary Order Paper in this Committee is, I think, an insult. I think it undermines the integrity of the process—the integrity that the negotiators upheld it as having. I think it is a serious matter.

I know that the intent of the member who has just resumed her seat is absolutely serious, and that she is highly motivated to get a fair result. I do not question that, but I ask her to consider whether one should usurp those who have worked for 10 years on the process and who have earned the right to negotiate and have their mandate renewed and upheld over and over again, in many cases at huge personal cost to themselves. I think few people will ever understand the cost, not only in dollars or in time but also in the effect on those people and their families and whānau. In my view, we owe it to them to treat the integrity of this process very carefully. I believe that the process has been one where everyone has come to the table to try to get a fair and proper result.

The Supplementary Order Paper that Mr Flavell proposes would change fundamentally the agreed settlement. For that reason I cannot, and the Government cannot, support it. As I have tried to illustrate, it is entirely inappropriate to undermine in this way those who have the mandate, and I think that on that basis alone the amendments could be rejected. In terms of Part 1, Supplementary Order Paper 57, dated 6 September, seeks to amend clause 5. That clause, in fact, simply outlines the content of the bill and has no actual bearing on the interpretation or application of the legislation. It therefore has no material value. The Supplementary Order Paper also proposes amendments to definitions in clause 11 that are consequential to a proposed amendment to Part 2. I will deal with that when we get to that point in the bill.

In terms of clause 13, I think the Supplementary Order Paper proposes that any claims in relation to three of the lakes should not be settled. I repeat that the trust board has upheld and renewed the mandate throughout this process in relation to all 14 of the lakes on behalf of all Te Arawa. The Supplementary Order Paper proposes to remove from the settlement, with no apparent authority from anyone, the claims in relation to three lakes named on the Supplementary Order Paper. The settlement was ratified by the Te Arawa claimant community, and I think it would simply be wrong of this Committee to vote for a non-mandated challenge rather than a properly mandated process and a properly mandated ratification process.

Finally, the Supplementary Order Paper also proposes that clause 15, which provides for the full and final settlement of Te Arawa’s claims to the lakes, be removed. I simply ask how we can possibly ever hope to ever have a full and final settlement if this Committee, at its whim, sets about removing from this legislation a properly negotiated full and final settlement negotiated by people who have the mandate and the mana to do so. I urge members to give serious consideration to the issue of who holds the mandate to negotiate. If those people reached a proper and fairly negotiated end result, then who has any demonstrated mandate to challenge it?

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I do not want to jump in and support the Greens too much, but I do not believe for a minute that my colleague was either usurping or even insulting when she spoke in terms of wanting more for the people of Te Arawa. But hoi anō, he take anō tērā. [that is another matter.]

I want to ask members to look at clause 5(4)(c), relating to the rights and obligations attaching to ownership of Te Arawa lake beds. I ask the Minister whether there is an issue about liability—when the bill comes into force—if, for example, I am out on the lake one day and happen to have a wee bit of an accident. If that accident is not of my doing but of the owner’s doing—for example, if something jumps out of the water—

Pita Paraone: Taniwha.

Hon TAU HENARE: I did not say that! But who is liable? Does this mean that the new entity is liable, because it is the owner of the lake bed? Is that an issue we should be concerned about? I think that it is something we should concern ourselves with, in terms of liability, I tell the Minister, and I hope he can see his way through to have a yarn about that.

As well, in clause 8, “Text of apology in Māori:”, it does not seem as though—and I could be wrong—there is any mention of whānau: “E tuku ana e Karauna i tēnei kupu pouri ki a Te Arawa nui tonu, ki ō rātau tūpuna, ki ngā whakatupuranga, ki ngā iwi me ngā hapū hoki o Te Arawa.” I was always under the understanding that the Treaty of Waitangi mentioned whānau, as well. Maybe we should have just a little peek at whether the word whānau is inserted in there. I know that the Minister has said that far be it from us to change any of the negotiated parts of this bill, but I respectfully remind him that we, too, are elected; we, too, have a mandate; and we, too, have an obligation to raise issues that come out of the select committee process, and out of our talks with various people around the island.

That is more so at this point, I suggest, in relation to the member Te Ururoa Flavell, because he is the elected member of that area, and people have come to him, as the elected member, to raise concerns about either the process or what is actually in the bill.

Those are my concerns, I tell the Minister, and I hope that he takes—now or later on—some time to mention those, and see what the issues are about ownership, liability, and whānau. Sometimes when we use the Treaty of Waitangi, we forget about the words that are used in it, and we give today’s interpretation of what we think the Treaty is, without actually going back and having a look to see what the words are. It is not so much about the meanings, or the principles, of the Treaty of Waitangi; it is about the words in the Treaty. I think we do ourselves no favours by not, I suppose, carrying on the words used in 1840 till now. I have no doubt that sometime in the future we will see this legislation before us again.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First) : I commence talking to this part of the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill by making reference to the area of definitions. I specifically refer to the “Cultural Redress Schedule”, and say that I think the definition there is quite clear. What is not there, and what I would have thought might have been included—and is something that could be considered for future settlement bills—is the definition itself of cultural redress, in that clause covering definitions. Although some of us know that cultural redress means the recognition of traditional, historical, cultural, and spiritual association, I think it might have been helpful to include that definition in the legislation.

I refer now to clause 13, and in particular to subclause (1)(a)(i) where reference, after the mention of “settlement date”, is made to the fact that the claim “is founded on a right arising—(A) from te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) or its principles;”. I want to say, straight off, that New Zealand First supports the process, and it supports the outcome, therefore we will support the legislation. However, I want to respond to the comment made by Mr Finlayson on behalf of his party. Of course New Zealand First is disappointed that this reference to those ill-defined principles—in fact, undefined principles—is included. New Zealand First says that our bill referring to the deletion of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, when passed, will now have to include this legislation. I just wanted to make that point, and although it might seem that members within New Zealand First are at odds with one another, I tell members we are clearly not; we are just disappointed that references to those principles are included in this legislation. It is just another bill that will be affected by our deletion bill when it becomes law.

In relation to Supplementary Order Paper 57, proposed by the Māori Party member, Te Ururoa Flavell, I focus on clause 11 and the definition of “Crown stratum”. His Supplementary Order Paper suggests that the entire definition should be omitted. The effect of that would be that the Crown would retain no ownership interest in the lakes, but I think the bill’s whole purpose is to vest just the lake bed and all those attachments—other than the water and the air above the lake bed—in iwi, and to leave what has been described as the Crown stratum to the Crown, which will hold it, of course, on behalf of all New Zealanders.

Hon Dover Samuels: What about the trout? Who’s the trout going to be vested in?

PITA PARAONE: Ha ha! The Supplementary Order Paper also refers to the “Te Arawa Lakebed” in clause 11 and, again, the provision suggests that the paragraph referred to should be excluded. But if we did that, the Crown stratum would be excluded from the definition. Of course, this settlement bill is about the ownership of the lake bed being transferred to Te Arawa, and it is important that that is defined, including the air space and water column, commonly known as the Crown stratum.

The Supplementary Order Paper also seeks to add a new clause, to exclude a claim relating to Lakes Ngāhewa, Ngāpōuri, and Tutaeīnanga. In the Māori Affairs Committee we looked at the claim by Ngāti Whāoa in terms of Lake Ngāpōuri, and we were advised by officials that although it was correct that all the land around the lake had been sold to the tribe, the sale did not include the actual lake or lake bed. So, on that advice, we in New Zealand First are quite happy to support the ongoing process related to this bill.

Again, the Supplementary Order Paper suggests that clause 15, which provides for full and final settlement, should be omitted. It is not the first time that I have heard the member say that settlements are not full and final. In fact, I think it has been suggested by the member that the affected iwi, hapū, and whānau should consider re-claiming, or putting in a further claim. Look, if that is what we want for the generations to follow, then that is what we will get. So I suggest that the member might want to reconsider that position. The other thing is that although he might not want to reconsider, the proof of the pudding will come when we actually vote on this bill—and I say that abstention is not good enough. Members are either against the bill, or not. I make that comment in reference to how people will vote. Kia ora.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) : I want just to pick up on a couple of points that have been raised. I want to give Mr Henare reassurance about his concern over liability of Te Arawa for persons having an accident. He did not quite explain what might cause the accident, but in general terms an accident occurring in and around the lake would be subject to the normal principles of law. Of course, thankfully we still have a Labour Government, and therefore we still have accident compensation. So any accident or injury incurred would be well looked after by the accident compensation system.

The serious matter that the member raised, and I think the National member Mr Finlayson raised this during the second reading, concerns questions around references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. I think it is important to remind members that under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 the tribunal is charged with making recommendations on claims relating to the practical application of the Treaty, and determining whether certain matters are consistent with the principles of the Treaty. In the interests of finality, this bill needs to refer to the principles of the Treaty to make clear that the Waitangi Tribunal and the courts will no longer have jurisdiction to consider relevant claims in the future. I remind members again that this is an approach that has been taken consistently. Members can go right back, if they wish, and reference the National Government’s Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998 for a case in point.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) : I have a number of concerns in respect of this bill. The main concern is around mandate. Mandate is something that has been raised consistently throughout discussion on this bill, and it is an issue that should be addressed. The need for a robust mandating process is so that in the future things cannot be resurrected or do not explode again. There is a saying about burying things dead, and burying things alive. When we bury things alive, they fester away and come back to bite us. In Taranaki, for instance, we deal with a thorny issue quite often. It is called a boxthorn hedge. When people get pricked by a boxthorn hedge, they have to dig out the prickle and deal with it, then and there. If they do not, it lies dormant under the surface of the skin for some time and they think the whole problem has gone away, then, one day, it explodes and there is pus and mess all over the place to be dealt with. The problem with the lack of a robust mandating process in respect of this issue is that when it explodes again, it will be Māori who cop the flak for the lack of will to deal properly with this process.

We have heard from other speakers in the Chamber today about those who are unhappy with some of the resolutions that have come out of this. One of them, particularly, is Ngāti Whāoa’s claim on Lake Ōpouri. That claim is currently on the table. It has not been dealt with. It deals with part of the settlement of this proposal, and is one that is bound to come back. It is interesting to note the history of the Government’s lack of listening to Māori on this issue. We heard my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell talk earlier about the 1922 process. It was interesting, and I think quite ironic, that even the first time this matter was raised in this sitting, last week, we witnessed the situation where strings were being pulled and process was being abrogated to try to drag this out, because it did not suit the Government to debate it at the correct time as laid down on the Order Paper. Even then, it was being dragged out. Things have been jiggery-poked around to try to have them the Government’s way.

I find New Zealand First’s response to this quite amazing. Its members have said, and it was said earlier by my colleague Pita Paraone, that they disagree with a big chunk of the bill, but they will vote for it tonight, on the basis that if New Zealand First is successful with another piece of legislation, it will pull this legislation to bits again. Where is the credibility in that? Where is the integrity in a system that allows that to happen? I find that incredibly difficult to understand. Another thing that I find difficult to understand is the response of the Minister Mark Burton when asked some difficult questions, again by the honourable member Te Ururoa Flavell. In my paraphrased version, he came out with: “Well, who the hell are you?”.

The fact is that when we have a close look at the separation of powers—and this is something I spent some time on a little while ago—we see that Parliament is at the top of the pyramid, and the executive comes under that. So who the hell are we? We are the people who get to ask what the hell is going on. There is nothing wrong with holding a system to account. In fact, that is what we are here for; that is why we are elected to be in this House—to ask those questions. If members do not like the question, then they should not slag off the person asking the question. They should give a considered response that will not see, in years to come, Māori being able to put up their hand again and say that they were not happy with this process, that they flagged that several times during the formulation of the settlement process, that they raised it time and time again, and that it was raised in the House. The punishment for their doing that is to be branded by the rednecks as never being happy, and the issue is called a Māori issue, as opposed to a New Zealand issue, a governance issue, a settlement issue, or the process of trying to move forward as one nation.

I ask New Zealand First to have a look at where it is coming from, in relation to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The stance those members have taken appears to be inconsistent. There seems to be a weird sort of response to some of these questions; it seems when their leader is out of the country they do not know exactly how they are voting on any particular issue at any one time.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Tēnā koe, Mr Chairman; nau mai ki te Whare. I want to take just a brief call to respond to a couple of things that have been put before the Committee this afternoon, particularly relating to this part, although there will be time again later on to have another shot.

I say that most of Te Arawa—in fact, most of the nation—would probably want to have settlements. Why? So we can move on, like everybody else wants to do. But as somebody who lives in the electorate that covers Te Arawa, I respectfully tell the Committee that I understand fairly clearly the outcomes of the discussion today. I live in the area, I know the people, and some of them know me. I know the marae; I am there. So I respectfully ask that people understand that this issue is not just about me; it is about Te Arawa. In that light, the discussions that have been heard with regard to this bill have hit at the heart not just of me but of Te Arawa. Why? How do I know that? It is because Te Arawa, in terms of claims, like most other iwi, are split smack down the middle. Why? It is because people have not necessarily had the information to be able to assist them. As my colleague Mr Borrows from Wanganui has said, our job is to raise those issues.

I want to make a couple of points to the Minister. Firstly, I would have thought, and I can understand, that statements like “properly negotiated” imply there is a level playing field. I tell the Minister that the people I have spoken to, some of whom have been negotiators not just on one Treaty settlement but on other settlements, are fairly clearly of the mind that there is no negotiation. They say they are told that here is the deal and they can take it or leave it, but that if they do not take it, they will go to the back of the queue. Is there any justice in that? I would suggest not, despite the fact that the member may well be an honourable person and the officials may well be honourable too.

We heard from the officials, who came in the door and told us of the parameters within which they had to negotiate. I ask the Minister this: is 1 percent fair, under anybody’s terms? Do Te Arawa want the whole world? No, we do not. Could Te Arawa accept 50 percent? Maybe. Or 20 percent? Maybe. But 1 percent? Give me a break! That is not how it works. So “properly negotiated” is not how I see the settlement, with all due respect. Those negotiators talked about guns to the head and that sort of stuff, and that is disappointing. I just wanted to make that point.

Second, in terms of my Supplementary Order Paper 57, here is the rub: the bill states that Te Arawa have two people on the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group. As to the rest of the members, there is no mention of anybody else except the groups—no numbers are specified. One has to be suspicious about that, so I raise that issue.

In respect of Ngāhewa, one of the three lakes referred to on Supplementary Order Paper 57, again we all followed the process of law. The process of law is in front of the Waitangi Tribunal. Why does the Government not let the process of law finish, and then allow the process in this settlement to carry on after that? But here we have three lakes being put straight out while issues to do with them are in front of the Waitangi Tribunal. That is all that is being asked—for the Government to consider those sorts of issues.

As to whether the settlement is fair and equitable, I have talked about that and I suggest that, no matter what the member from New Zealand First says—eh, Pita; 1 percent—our people will come back. They came back 80 years on from 1922, and here we are today. They will come back again. It will be not just Te Arawa but others who come back. What we have to try to do is to say that, on the one hand, we want settlements and, on the other, we want to move on, so let us work it out and let us work on other things. Let us think outside the box about how we can achieve a settlement, maybe by making time payments. But when we match this settlement up with all the figures I gave in terms of the preamble, we see it simply does not match up. Although I accept that the settlement was negotiated to this point in time, I see no problem with putting up new ideas and Supplementary Order Papers to address things that may be simple, but, in fact, that mean a hell of a lot in the context of the bill.

Two people are put up for Te Arawa—that is all. No numbers are specified for anybody else. Another group could have 10, for that matter. All I am saying, as an example, is that we should put up an equitable number from the groups involved as a way of moving forward, because those sorts of things will come back to bite.

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) : I move, That the question be now put.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I want to raise a couple of new matters, and they are important. Part 1, as we know, deals with the purpose of the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill, and with acknowledgments, the apology, various interpretation provisions, and miscellaneous matters. I want to say something following on from Mr Flavell about Subpart 3, “Settlement of claims”.

When we look at clauses 15 and 16, we might think that these boilerplate provisions would make it tolerably clear that the settlement was full and final, and that any attempt to relitigate would fail. But I can tell the Committee now that these clauses can be easily got round, depending on the facts of the particular case. These clauses will not get in the way, 20, 30, or 40 years hence, of the disgruntled would-be claimants having their day in court or their day in the tribunal. That is why it is very important not simply to enact boilerplate provisions but also—as I said in an earlier contribution—to really try to deal with the substance of the issue, which is to sort out all these problems of mandate and these lingering problems. Otherwise, these problems will come back. I have had experience in getting round jurisdictional clauses, and I am sure that Mr Chauvel has, too. At the end of the day—depending on the facts—it is a piece of cake.

Can I raise a couple of definitional issues. I must express my amazement at the approach of New Zealand First. As I understand those members’ comments about comments I have made about the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, they will support these provisions now, only to have them deleted later on. That is a weird approach, if ever there was one. It can be described only as absolute humbug. These clauses—and I particularly refer to clauses 7(2)(d), 7(4), and 9—are, in my opinion, reasonably easily able to be remedied. In my first reading speech I outlined about nine key principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, which had been derived from cases and brought together by the Waitangi Tribunal and by academics over various times. I think it should be very easy to remedy those clauses. For example, if one takes clause 7(4), we have an acknowledgment by the Crown that it failed to review the annuity paid to Te Arawa as part of the 1922 agreement, and that that was a breach of the principles of the Treaty. Well, what principle? At one stage when I was talking about this matter, one of the Associate Ministers called out: “It is the principle of protection.”, and I asked why the Government would not put it in. So it is a reasonably straightforward exercise to spell out with some specificity what principle of the Treaty of Waitangi we are talking about.

Pita Paraone: So you are supporting it.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Well, on behalf of the National Party, I have said that we will support the legislation, although it is pretty crummy legislation. For example, it seeks to delete provisions that are already deleted—in a piece of masterly drafting on New Zealand First’s part. But in answer to the member, we will support the bill. However, it will need a lot of hard work done on it; the Justice and Electoral Committee will do that.

The second point I make is about the Crown’s acknowledgments. There is a general point and a particular point. I will ask the Minister about the general point, and I know that his preliminary response will be to say that the National Party did this when it was in Government—and I acknowledge that it did. I ask whether it is wise, given the experience of time—and, after all, that lot have been in for 7 years now—to include in the body of the legislation acknowledgments and an apology. Should they stand as part of the deed, rather than our run the risk that they can be subject to statutory interpretation concerns later on? I personally think that those acknowledgments should not be contained in the legislation. I want to know why they are there. But, having said that, there is the particular question of what exactly these acknowledgments are. What is spiritual importance? What does that mean and how does it relate to cultural importance? How does it relate to traditional importance? These terms are vague and—I am telling the Minister now—they will give rise to concerns later on.

The next point will come up more in Part 2’s debate, but I will touch on it now. It is the definition of “Crown stratum”. From my researches I think this is the first time it has appeared in legislation, and I would be very interested to know how this concept developed. There is, of course, an assumption that the Crown owns the stratum.

The final point I make relates to clause 17, because I am not sure about the practical impact of it. This clause deals with the rule against perpetuities not applying. What are the relevant rules of the Perpetuities Act 1964 that could apply here? If the Minister could explain this provision I would be very grateful.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Due to the duties I have as deputy leader of our party and also as shadow Leader of the House, I have not been able to be in the Chamber until this point. I am the Māori affairs spokesperson and the spokesperson on Treaty issues, and I would appreciate the opportunity to make a short contribution on the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill. [Interruption] I know that our friend over here, Chuck Chauvel, wants to shut everybody out, but I just implore you, Mr Chairperson, to perhaps think about it. I know that you have almost jumped the gun and got the vote under way, but not quite.

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

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : I was not seeking leave; I was acknowledging your ability as the Chair, Mr Chairperson, to make a decision. The text of acknowledgment in clause 7(1) of the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill states: “(1) The Crown recognises that Te Arawa value the Te Arawa lakes and the lakes’ resources as taonga. The Crown acknowledges the spiritual, cultural, economic, and traditional importance to Te Arawa of the lakes and the lakes’ resources.” I think that that statement begs the question, of who Te Arawa are. Further, it would ask the question, if this is to be a full and final settlement, whether we do not have to be certain that the overwhelming majority of Te Arawa are happy with the settlement. And does that not then, in turn, cause us to look at the mandating of those who have been in negotiations with the Government?

Firstly, I think those who have been in negotiation have acted honourably and in the belief they were doing their best for the people who had put them there. However, we still go back to the point that there were 20 submission on the bill, and of those 20 submissions 18 were opposed to it. That group of 18 submitters all came from Te Arawa. This afternoon we have heard Te Ururoa Flavell making it very clear that inside Te Arawa there are some significant objections to this particular settlement. So it would be useful for the Minister to stand up and tell us what the mandating process was.

Hon Mark Burton: I already have, when the member was—

GERRY BROWNLEE: It does not matter. The Minister could do this through every part.

Hon Mark Burton: Well, I did.

GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, did the Minister tell us, ultimately, that only 4,000 of this group of 40,000 voted for the settlement?

Dave Hereora: He did that, Gerry.

GERRY BROWNLEE: Dave Hereora—I will say that name again: Dave Hereora, which is a name that not many people will have heard before, none the less he is a member of Parliament—is a fine gentleman. He does a marvellous job chairing the Māori Affairs Committee—I mean that quite sincerely. He has said that that point has been covered. The question then is why the Government is comfortable that fewer than 10 percent of those who say they are Te Arawa have voted in favour of this settlement. The settlement should therefore be an imposition on the rest of them. I ask Mr Hereora whether it is not true that much of Māori history is oral, and the stories that belong to a particular iwi are transmitted from one generation to another. What is to stop the story for 90 percent of Te Arawa being: “We got sold out. This was not a full and final settlement. We were not part of it. It’s not what we wanted.”? For anyone to say that that will not happen, because the settlement is done by Act of Parliament and once it is all done they will all be happy and never come back again, I say is rubbish.

This is the second go at this bill. We freely acknowledge that the first time round was not too hot. But it was an imposition the first time round that causes us to be here now. If only 10 percent, or less, of one’s whole iwi was in favour of this settlement, then it is an imposition now, as well. No one can claim that the settlement is full and final, and only people who have their eyes shut would raise their hands and say “I vote” on the basis of this being full and final.

It seems to me that it would not have been hard to sort this out before we got to this stage. Why were some of the affected hapū not included in the negotiating group? Why did the Government not insist on some form of rūnunga structure that had that wider representation? What was it about the Te Arawa Māori Trust Board and the exclusions of representation on that board that the Government found so acceptable? I say again that I mean no offence to the trust board or its members, but I think the Office of Treaty Settlements should be looking at getting settlements that are very, very well mandated, where there can be no doubt about what is accepted. Te Ururoa Flavell made the good point that these are generous settlements on the part of the settling party.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The question now is that the question be now put.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) : Part 2 provides for the vesting of the Te Arawa lake beds and the rights and obligations of, and limitations on, ownership. It includes clauses relating to the protection of recreational activities—which is an important part of this settlement—public utilities, existing structures, and existing commercial activities and clauses relating to the consent process for new structures and commercial activities.

In relation, in particular, to the issue of access—a matter that came up today and during the second reading—a number of members expressed concern that the settlement separates the lake beds from their waters. If I could perhaps explain, the beds of the Te Arawa lakes are transferred to Te Arawa and the water column and airspace, known collectively in this bill as the “Crown stratum”, remain vested in the Crown. That was in large part done to protect the public interest, as it enables the Crown to have an active role in determining what happens on, and in, the lakes that are subject to the settlement. In negotiating the ownership provisions of the settlement, Te Arawa and the Crown agreed that the Crown retaining ownership of the water column and airspace above the lake beds was appropriate and enabled the interests of both the public, as represented by the Crown, and, equally, Te Arawa to be met.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : Clause 22, “Status of conservation areas”, states: “Any part of a Te Arawa lakebed or the Crown stratum that is a conservation area under the Conservation Act 1987 ceases to be a conservation area.” Can the Minister in the chair, the Hon Mark Burton, tell us whether that means the conservation estate will be used to settle claims. If so, are we setting a precedent for the Crown to use the conservation estate as a redress tool? I would like him to look at that.

Also, clause 23 is about the vesting of the lake beds. Clause 24, “Freehold estate in lakebeds inalienable”, states: “(1) The Trustees of the Te Arawa Lakes Trust must not—(a) dispose of or alienate the freehold estate of all or part of a Te Arawa lakebed; or (b) grant or create a mortgage or other charge in or over all or part of a Te Arawa lakebed.” I am not suggesting for one moment that Te Arawa would do that, because they worked very hard to get them back—for 80-odd years. But should they not have the same rights as you and I do, when we own fee simple title to a property? I am allowed to sell my property; I have ownership of it. Do we need to tell the other side of the deal that they are not allowed to do that? Is there any reason why that provision is in the bill?

Clause 26 is entitled “Limits to obligations for weeds attached to lakebeds”. Clauses 25 and 27 also relate to that, and I understand them, but who is responsible for cleaning up the lakes? Is it Environment Bay of Plenty, the Rotorua District Council, the Government, or a new entity—one made up of the Te Arawa Lakes Trust, Environment Bay of Plenty, and all the other organisations? How much will the clean-up cost? Or are we there yet?

The next question to the Minister may seem facetious, but it is not. Clause 30, “Boundaries relating to Te Arawa lakebeds”, states: “(1) There is a moveable natural boundary between a Te Arawa lakebed and any adjoining land …”. Does that mean that if erosion occurs on the boundaries of a lake, that land will become part of the lake; if so, what happens when there is an earthquake, as is wont to happen in the Tarawera area?

Clause 35, “Liability”, states: “The Trustees of the Te Arawa Lakes Trust are not liable for an existing structure for which they would, apart from this section, be liable by reason of their ownership of the Te Arawa lakebed …”. So what about a new structure?

I turn to clause 41, concerning new commercial activities and new structures. That clause is probably the one that leads the National Party to say we will not be supporting the bill. Basically, it adds another level of administration, or, I suppose, the power of veto is in the hands of not only those who look after the Resource Management Act but also now the Te Arawa Lakes Trust. It will have the power of veto over new commercial activities and new structures on the lakes. We are not happy about that. If we are to have a society where there is one law for all and we all come under the Resource Management Act, then let us have that situation. If somebody wants to build a new structure on a lake, does this legislation mean there is to be a regime whereby that person first has to get approval from the lakes trust? When approval is given for that structure, does the person then have to toddle off to the district council to try to get a resource consent for it? Or is it vice versa—which comes first? That is what we are not happy about. We would rather see a situation where anybody who is building a new structure or setting up an enterprise or commercial activity on a lake has a one-stop shop. And that, obviously, would be the Resource Management Act—the same as for any other normal person in our society. That is really the crux of the matter in terms of one of the major issues that we have with regard to this bill.

If the Minister could address some of the points—not all, but some of them—that I have made, I would appreciate it very much.

PAULA BENNETT (National) : I rise to speak on Part 2 of the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill and I have some questions for the Minister, the Hon Mark Burton, as well.

As I read through the bill, I was struck by clause 24, under “Rights and obligations of ownership”, in the same way as my colleague the Hon Tau Henare was, regarding the rights of the Te Arawa Lakes Trust over their own property. The legislation is a full and final settlement and there it is, but then all sorts of holds are put on the trustees of the Te Arawa Lakes Trust. The bill states that they must not “(a) dispose of or alienate the freehold estate of all or part of a Te Arawa lakebed;”. I can see some fairly obvious reasons for that—it means it is still available to the public, and perhaps opens up that control for everyone to use. But it does not make sense to me that the trustees do not have the same rights as everyone else does over ownership so that they can do as they so wish with their property. I would be interested to hear from the Minister on that. I may misunderstand the issue, having come in and read the law as it is, but then a lot of people will do that.

I also have questions around the fact that trustees may grant “a leasehold estate in all or part of a Te Arawa lakebed for a term of not more than 35 years,”. I would have thought it was up to them how they held a leasehold and what they did with their own land, if this legislation is to go through.

I also want to talk a bit more about “Limitations on rights and obligations” in clauses 25 to 27. The media have raised a lot of concern around the issue of the lakes not being handed over in the same state they were in 80 years ago. As someone who comes from the area, I certainly can see the changes over the last 20 or 30 years. I have questions around that issue and what it means. If the trustees are not responsible for the control or removal of weeds, for example, then there are so many questions around who actually is responsible. I would be interested to hear from the Minister about this because the answer is not in the legislation itself, so there is some concern as to what sort of deals have been done to have those things looked after and what sort of accountability there is to ensure those things are followed up for all the people who are using the lakes.

I also did not understand and needed help with the issue of recreational activities in clause 32. I wonder if the Minister could explain that to me a little bit more. Is the Minister saying that everyone will still be able to do those activities at the lakes or will they now be just for the use of Te Arawa? Reading through clause 32, I did not feel that the legislation was as clear as it could have been. I suppose it is too late for the Minister to look at an amendment, but I could look at one that made that clause a little clearer as to “swimming, boating, water-skiing, and fishing, to the extent that those activities are recreational;”. Even looking at clause 40, I could not work out if those activities will still be open to everyone at the same level that they currently are, and under the same protections and laws, or whether they will be changed because the lakes will be under trust ownership, and the trust would have more say as to who could use the lakes for recreational activities.

That raises another issue about how the trust will work in with the local bodies on the laws that govern the area and what is acceptable for public use and what is not. Obviously, there will have to be changes, because what the public and the council think is acceptable use of the land may not be considered acceptable usage by Te Arawa once it goes back into their ownership. They may wish to make some considerable changes to the lakes and the lake beds and how they are used, how they are fished, and everything else. I would be very interested in hearing how those changes will come about and what difference that could make to the public that have been using the lakes for—in many cases—generations and for quite some lifetimes.

I would be most interested in hearing answers to those. Thank you.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) : I speak in brief response to one or two of the points members have made. First, Mr Henare raised a question under clause 30(1) about the “moveable natural boundary” issue. I think the answer to his concern is contained in clause 30(2) and that is that “the boundary is governed by the applicable common law rules of accretion, erosion, and avulsion.” It was a fair concern, but I think it is taken care of.

Perhaps the more substantial issue that he raised—as did Paula Bennett—relates to the environmental degradation of the lakes. I think it is important to stress here that Treaty settlements are not intended to address environmental degradation and pollution. The environmental regulatory regime that exists at the local and national levels will continue to apply, post-settlement. Therefore, any obligations upon local and central government to clean up the Te Arawa lakes that exist before the settlement will continue to exist post-settlement. That point is actually explicit in the bill—that Te Arawa will not be liable for any contamination that exists. I think the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group that is created herein will play a valuable role in, and make an important contribution to, improving the integrated and sustainable management of the lakes. Again, it is really clear that the group is not charged with the responsibility for cleaning up the lakes; that responsibility lies with local and central government.

To that end, the Te Arawa lakes water quality problems are being dealt with through the Rotorua lakes protection and restoration programme developed by Environment Bay of Plenty, Rotorua District Council, and indeed, Te Arawa Māori Trust Board. Under that programme, I say to members, action plans are in place to address water quality problems on several lakes. In addition, the Ministry for the Environment has committed funding and is continuing to work with its partners Environment Bay of Plenty, the Rotorua District Council and Te Arawa to clean up Lake Rotoiti.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Kia ora, kia ora anō tātou katoa. I want to pick up a couple of points in this particular part of Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill and put them for the Minister, the Hon Mark Burton, to consider.

The first one is the definition of Crown stratum. It was covered partly in Part 1, but I want to raise it here, even though some of my discussion has been ruled out of order. That is all right, I will leave it there and move on to Part 2, clause 23. Clause 23(2) states: “The Crown retains the ownership of the Crown stratum.” That is the statement in the bill and the Minister, in his explanatory note, has added on: “as Crown land under the Land Act 1948”. The question to the Committee and people listening at home is, how the Crown can retain ownership of something that it has not proven ownership to in law. How can the Crown claim something that it has not proved ownership to in law? And what is the reference to the Land Act of 1948? There is no mention whatsoever of the Crown stratum in that Act or, in fact, in any other current legislation.

According to our research, it is defined for the first time in the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill. So here we have this notion of a Crown stratum that is, all of a sudden, being defined at this point in time—not in the past, but here today. When asked about this in question time last week, the Minister, the Hon Mita Ririnui suggested that the words are new but the concept is not. This is interesting when we consider that there is a hell of a lot of care taken to ensure that the wording of bills is absolutely on the nose. Pinching is theft—same concept, but different words.

The Minister said that the Crown’s view was that it had ownership of the water stratum, including the airspace, on behalf of all New Zealanders. Here is the thing—Te Arawa could look after it quite well. Ehara mātou i te iwi kaiponu. [We are not selfish people.]

We are willing to share as well and to work with all other New Zealanders. But this has not been tested. It has never been tested. It has not been considered. Unfortunately, that seems to be how things work—the Crown just takes things when it wants to. It reminds me of other legislation that has been before Parliament. My research tells me about the Maori Affairs Act 1953; about Māori land being considered unproductive; and, of course, about the infamous Foreshore and Seabed Act.

If the concept is not new, why was there no mention of it in the Lake Taupō legislation, the Ngāi Tahu settlement, or the Ngāti Tūrangitukua claims settlement? The main problem with this is that the Crown has assumed ownership without having that assumption tested at all. The Māori Party will tell all of Māoridom: “Here we go again, another confiscation.” We should let the process run and let the law follow its course, rather than taking land away as we did with the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

In June 1990 a Treaty claim was made called Wai 150, which was lodged by Sir Graham Latimer on behalf of the New Zealand Māori Council. The claim sought findings that Māori have rangatiratanga over the allocation of radio frequencies, and that in the absence of an agreement with Māori, the sale of frequency management licences under the Radiocommunications Act of 1989 would breach the Treaty of Waitangi by being prejudicial to the interests of Māori. The report noted: “The spectrum is a taonga to be shared by the tribes and by all mankind. Neither of the treaty partners can have monopoly rights to this resource.” Although the ownership issue is still to be fully tested, the Waitangi Tribunal is clear that the Crown cannot have a monopoly on the resource. So here is a further treaty breach. The report continued “Tribal rangatiratanga gives Maori a greater right of access to the newly discovered spectrum. In any scheme of spectrum management it has rights greater than the general public, and especially when it is being used for the protection of the taonga of the language and the culture.” All of these issues come to the table when we are considering this bill.

Clause 25, “No rights to the water or aquatic life”, states that the fee simple estate in the lake bed is vested in the trustees of the Te Arawa Lakes Trust. The bill states that this does not include rights or obligations to the water. Let us define what a lake is. Here are some definitions of a lake. The first is that it is “a body of fresh or salt water of considerable size surrounded by land”. The second definition is “a large inland body of fresh water or saltwater”. The Concise Oxford Dictionary states that a lake is a “large area of water surrounded by land”. During the consultation process, people at various hui asked: “How the hang can you have a lake without water?”. Te Arawa has a lake back, but there is one problem—there is no water in it. There is no clear definition in respect of this.

So what are we getting back? We are getting the silt, the pollution, the paru, and the tūtae on the bottom, and Te Arawa is supposed to be grateful. Unfortunately, that is how it seems to be. It is also unfortunate that the trustees do not have any rights or obligations in respect of aquatic life in the lakes. Damn, I wish we had that. But we get the plants that are attached to the lake bed. We get the plants—how awesome. Who looks after the clean-up? At this point in time there is no commitment from the district council, although it has intimated that commitment may be there. Similarly, Environment Bay of Plenty and Environment Waikato are supposed to be part of the deal somehow, but there has been nothing from them. What about the Government? I am still waiting to hear, but I understand that some money has been given. Here is the rub: the Te Arawa lakes settlement is $10 million and the clean-up will cost $200 million. So we have a bit of a problem.

The hope will be that there is a commitment to follow through with cleaning up these lakes. We also hope that we will go back and revisit this notion of Crown stratum because it is very important. How can the Crown claim something that has not even been put into the law of the country? There is something wrong there. We will be making a big noise through Māori Television, and whatever other medium we have, to make sure that this information goes out to our people. Because in a subtle way we have another confiscation on its way, and the Māori Party will not stand by to let that happen.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I agree with the previous speaker that this is the first time the concept of Crown stratum has appeared in settlement legislation. He has raised some very interesting questions that really need to be addressed.

I approached Part 2 by looking for example at the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act to see the way in which, for example, Lake Te Waihora, or Lake Ellesmere, was dealt with, and also a couple of other lakes. It is interesting that in that legislation there was the transfer of the fee simple. In section 171 of that Act there was reference to the title extending to the bed only. There were also provisions about existing public access and use and existing lawful commercial use and structures. But it did not go as far as this part of the bill is purporting to do regarding the Te Arawa lake beds.

I focus, for example, on clause 24, which provides that the freehold estate of the lake beds is to be inalienable. I do not know, from my brief reading, if that is specifically referred to in any of the provisions of the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act. In effect, as my colleague Mr Henare said, this means that less than full property rights are being transferred to Te Arawa, because Te Arawa cannot dispose of or alienate the freehold estate, nor can they grant or create a mortgage or other charge in or over a part of the lake bed. I cannot understand why they should not be permitted to do that. Subclause (2) of clause 24 is unexceptional because it provides for a transfer or transmission to a trustee, and, of course, a provision like that would be needed. But the trustees of the trust may grant a leasehold estate in all or part of a lake bed for a term not more than 35 years, and they may also grant licences, easements, or profits à prendre over all or part of the lake bed.

So I would like to hear from the Minister in the chair, the Hon Mark Burton, because we are getting new concepts engrafted on to this legislation. As Mr Flavell said, it appears that this is the first time the concept of Crown stratum has come along. My second point relates to what exactly the Te Arawa Lakes Trust can do with this freehold estate that is transferred to it. This legislation seems to give them less than full ownership rights.

I will not deal with other parts of Part 2, because they deal with recreational matters and existing structures and so on, but I endorse what Mr Henare said about new commercial activities and new structures. Clause 41 provides that the written consent of the trustees will be required before new structures and new commercial activities may be permitted. Actually, the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act seems to be silent on the issue of new commercial activities and new structures, although there is provision for a joint management plan to be introduced by Ngāi Tahu and the Minister of Conservation and Director-General of Conservation. In any event, what we have in clause 41 is another layer of management, and it does seem to be a rather clumsy way of dealing with matters.

So they are, perhaps, matters that the Minister in the chair may care to address. The rest of the part is pretty unexceptional, and I will not waste the time of the Committee on it.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I advise members that the first amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 57 in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell, to omit subclause (2) of clause 23, and to omit paragraph (a) of clause 25, are out of order because they are inconsistent with the principles and objects of the bill.

• The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 56 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to clause 23 be agreed to.
• Amendment agreed to.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Kia ora anō. Kia ora tātou. I have a couple of quick points.

Most of the other issues have been covered, but one of the things I have not had answered, which I ask the Minister in the chair, the Hon Mark Burton, to consider, is an issue in clause 48, which is in respect of the establishment of the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group. I put forward an amendment earlier to clause 5(5)(a) in respect of the number of Te Arawa members on that group being two, and I would not mind a response on that, because I think it is a key issue. I tried to put forward an amendment on it earlier, but the Minister did not give me a response with regard to how we might cover the equitable arrangement around it. So I would appreciate some feedback over that.

The other issue we talked about was the bigger picture around the whole notion about accountability, in a sense—not just the statement in the bill about Te Arawa having two members. As we mentioned earlier, the Rotorua District Council and Environment Bay of Plenty will be parties to the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group, but one would have thought that the notion of equitable numbers between the new owner—namely, Te Arawa—and those other bodies responsible would allow for a better balance of power sharing, in the sense of rangatiratanga under article 2 of the Treaty, and, therefore, might have meant a better way forward. I know that a number of submitters—and, indeed, people back in Rotorua—have argued that, as the new owners, surely we can have equitable numbers on the body that will be looking after the clean-up of the lakes. They were fairly adamant that it would be very good to address that sort of notion. So I wanted to address that.

The other provisions I want to bring to the attention of the Minister are new clauses 51A and 51B, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 57, which is in my name. He will know that one of the issues raised was that of the three lakes—namely, Ngāhewa, Ōpōuri/Ngāpōuri, and Tūtaeīnangā—that fall under the jurisdiction of Environment Waikato. So the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group will be made up of members of the Rotorua District Council and Environment Bay of Plenty, with Te Arawa—and we hope Te Arawa will have equal representation with the other two parties, if that discussion is to have some fruition—but that group will have no jurisdiction over three of those 14 lakes. There are 14 lakes, and three of them are outside the jurisdiction of the three parties that are supposed to be cleaning the place up.

So what happens for those three lakes? Nought. There is a view that the group should simply talk to Environment Waikato, but there is nothing there that acts as a lever to get Environment Waikato to come to the party. The officials told the Māori Affairs Committee that Part 2 of the Resource Management Act 1991 variously requires Environment Waikato to have regard to the Treaty of Waitangi and the values of Te Arawa in respect of their ancestral lands and water. That was supposed to be the leverage that would make sure that Environment Waikato comes to the party. Well, if that is the case, then it should have come to the party some 20 or 30 years ago, because that would have helped keep those lakes in the pristine condition that some of us remember as children. The Te Arawa Māori Trust Board told us that it had had no discussions with Environment Waikato. So I seek some assurances from the Minister, in terms of the particular point of those three lakes being outside the jurisdiction of Environment Bay of Plenty and in the hands of Environment Waikato, that Te Arawa has some guarantees that the concept of cleaning up all of the lakes in one shot will be part of the work conducted by Environment Waikato. I hope he will provide some sort of response to that. Kia ora.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) : I was not going to take another call, but I will quickly answer Mr Flavell’s two comments. I think I made the point earlier that responsibility for cleaning up the lakes, in the end, does not change as a result of the settlement. Ultimately, the responsibility continues to sit with the local and central agencies where it resides now.

The other matter the member raises has to do with the membership of the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group, and that is covered in his amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 57. I point out to the member that the agreement between the three parties is actually included in the schedule to the deed of settlement, not in the bill. That is where the detail of that agreement is laid out. The proposed amendments would fundamentally alter what is, effectively, the negotiated agreement between the Rotorua District Council, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, and the Te Arawa Lakes Trust. As I say, that is included in the schedule to the settlement, and that is where the functions of the group are prescribed. It would simply be inappropriate to try to override that through this mechanism.

DAVE HEREORA (Labour) : I take a short call in this debate on Part 3. I raise in particular the function and procedures of the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group, which are to include the review, amendment, and revocation provisions contained in the 8 October 2004 agreement. At the moment Te Arawa is on the committee at the discretion of the local authorities, so establishing the group by deed will ensure Te Arawa is on the group as of right, and therefore will ensure we have a significant and ongoing role in the strategic management of the lakes. We have heard that the strategy group will be made up of the Te Arawa post-settlement governance entity, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, and the Rotorua District Council, and that it will lead to the provision of leadership to organisations within the community, and the identification of significant and emerging lakes, etc.

In respect of a matter raised by the Māori Party member Mr Flavell, in relation to three lakes standing outside the jurisdiction of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, I think that that strategy committee will set up, in the first instance, a platform for the community to have some administration and management of the lakes. In leading to that, the committee will, under the Resource Management Act, invite Environment Waikato to participate as well, as time progresses. So I think it is an opportunity to set in place a structure so that the management of the lakes can be shared within the community.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The typescript amendment in the name of the honourable member Te Ururoa Flavell to insert a new heading and a new clause 48A is out of order, because it is inconsistent with the principles and objectives of the bill.

• The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 57 in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to Part 3 be agreed to.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) : I stand to address the title of this Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill. The question asked earlier by the honourable member Te Ururoa Flavell was: “What is a lake without any water in it?”. In actual fact, the only thing being given in respect of each of these lakes is the bed of the lake. It seems that the new definition of a Crown stratum is a huge move to change the goalposts. I propose that the title of this bill should be the “Te Arawa Lake Bed (Take It or Leave It) Bill”.

We know, as discussed earlier, that Ngāti Whāoa have a claim, but in respect of this claim the Government is saying it needs some settlements under its belt, so it is moving with this one and is not worrying about the existing claim. At the same time, it is not worrying about the uncertainties or issues that remain in respect of Te Arawa. The Government has moved in spite of that and said that Te Arawa must take the settlement or leave it, and just move along. That is the first point.

• Sitting suspended from 6.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

CHESTER BORROWS: Before the dinner break I suggested that the new title of the bill should be the “Te Arawa Lake Bed (Take It or Leave It) Bill” to account for the fact that it has nothing to do with lakes but only lake beds, in so far as what is being acknowledged in the settlement to Te Arawa. I also made the point that some cognisance needs to be taken of the fact that the settlement is contested by Ngāti Whāoa in respect of Lake Ōpōuri. To move on with the settlement while that is still unresolved seems to be unfair and seems to endorse the “take it or leave it” part of the proposed new title.

Another obvious inequity is the proposal that we grant the holder title in fee simple. But fee simple entitles holders of land to be able to deal with the land as they see fit, such as selling it or raising mortgages on it, and this legislation explicitly denies that right—although I note in another inconsistency there is the ability to grant a lease over that land. So that seems to be in line with: “We will promise you everything and give you nothing, and before you get it we will take it away from you.” That was not done in the Ngāi Tahu settlement, so there is a real inconsistency there, and one has to wonder why, if Treaty settlements are to be dealt with in a consistent manner, that would be the case.

The creation of a Crown stratum, which did not exist under other settlements and seems to be a new animal under this legislation, seems to warrant some sort of explanation, but that has not been given. Other than a definition of what it is, there does not appear in the legislation to be any tie-in with where that comes from in law. Some explanation is needed, because it seems to add to the “take it or leave it” bit, as well. What it boils down to is that it is pretty much the “We won, you lost. Eat that.” approach alluded to late in 1999. That seems to be the approach to how this entire legislation has been dealt with, and the settlement.

Through the course of this debate a number of issues and concerns have been raised by way of seeking explanation and some sort of fleshing out of what the terms mean, yet no attempt has been made to do that. The whole point of debating this legislation in the Committee is to get clarification on those issues so that people can have some clarity. The people who are talking about their legacy and about what they in turn wish to hold in trust to then pass on to their future generations have a right to know exactly where the Crown sees itself on this. If it is unclear as to what this legislation means precisely, then what is it handing on? Is it really just handing on a headache not only for the people of Te Arawa and the people of Ngāti Whāoa but also for the rest of us?

We have seen in the past that every time Māori have tried to redress some inconsistency over time, it is Māori who cop the flak. They are the ones who get whacked around the ears by the rednecks who say: “This is a Māori problem. Here they go again.”, and it detracts from the sovereignty Māori have over the things that are acknowledged to be theirs pursuant to the Treaty of Waitangi. If we do not sort this out now, we will ensure there will be a problem 5, 10, 50, or 100 years down the track. The point was made earlier that the 1922 decision has come back 80 years later. What we are creating is just another headache for people to deal with in years to come.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : Very briefly, a number of points of interest have emerged from this debate in the Committee stage. The first, by reference to recitals (13) through (19) of the preamble, is that negotiations were conducted at a very dilatory pace over a number of years. But at the end of the day, the Government’s approaches to this particular Treaty settlement could be described in this way: the first approach—that of the Government to Te Arawa—is to “take it or leave it”, as Mr Borrows said; the second approach, when dealing with the legislation before the House and this Committee, is to “accept it or forget about it and go and see a taxidermist”. I think those approaches are most unfortunate, especially when there are very important and legitimate issues that need to be raised—and these, in essence, have emerged during the course of the debate.

The first issue, which has been unsatisfactorily dealt with by the Minister, Mark Burton, and the Government team, concerns mandate. The report of the Māori Affairs Committee that deals with mandate questions is unsatisfactory. As I said when we debated Part 1, if mandate questions are not resolved satisfactorily—if the discordant remnants of Te Arawa are not brought into this settlement—there will be problems in years to come.

That leads on to the second point. It is very easy to put into the bill jurisdictional clauses that have the effect of trying to oust the jurisdiction of the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal in relation to matters concerning the Te Arawa settlement. I have seen such clauses before, in relation both to Treaty settlements and to other attempts to oust the jurisdiction of the courts—but where there is a will there is a way. If there are issues of justice that remnants of Te Arawa want to raise in 20 years’ time and the courts consider those issues legitimate, then they will get around the jurisdictional issues. So the kinds of points raised by the National Party and the Māori Party will not go away.

The third issue raised in the course of the Committee stage concerns definitions. Right throughout this debate—in the first reading, the second reading, and again in the Committee stage—I have raised issues about the vague reference to principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. I have raised questions about what references to spiritual significance and cultural significance are, and I, like my friend Mr Flavell, have referred to this interesting concept of Crown stratum that appears for the first time in this legislation. I think more care needed to be taken with some of the definitions and with some of the concepts. When looking at Part 2 I contrasted the scheme of this bill with the scheme, for example, of the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act of 1998. So some interesting definitional issues were not properly addressed.

Finally, when my team on the National Party and I looked at Part 2, which deals with issues about cultural redress, we said that some issues arose in the context of that particular part. I regret to say that they were not adequately dealt with. I particularly refer to clause 24. As Mr Borrows said, it transfers lake beds to Te Arawa and provides for a scheme of transfer that means the people of Te Arawa have something less than full entitlements to their property. For example, they are not able to dispose of or alienate a freehold, which is a fetter on their rights as property owners. They are not entitled to grant or create a mortgage, but they are entitled to lease the estate for a term of not more than 35 years. They are entitled to grant easements and licences. Those issues were not properly resolved.

Above all, if I can say this, what I have found most interesting is the unique position of New Zealand First in relation to this bill. It has an approach that can only be described as bizarre. It will support this bill and the Treaty clauses in it, but only, as it were, pro tem, because as soon as Mr Woolerton’s bill on the issue of deleting Treaty principles comes back to the House, New Zealand First will seek to delete them from this bill.

As I have said on more than one occasion in this Parliament, Treaty settlements are, and should be, a cause for great rejoicing in New Zealand. As I have also said before, quoting Isaiah, they give people the chance to undo the burdens of the past, so that everyone can point to the future in a spirit of optimism and goodwill. But this is bad legislation. It really does not address some fundamental issues. If you like, it is a paint-by-numbers bill that, in a boilerplate kind of way, seeks to impose on this settlement the standard forms, terms, and conditions of other settlements. As I have attempted to explain by reference to the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act, every settlement is, in a sense, sui generis, and it requires sui generis legislation. It requires people to look at the particular circumstances that gave rise to the settlement. I regret to say that with this legislation, the particular circumstances of the Te Arawa people have not been addressed. That is why, with great disappointment, really, and bearing in mind the history of negotiations over the years, National will be opposing the passage of this bill.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Kia ora tātou katoa. Firstly, I will summarise some of the comments made this afternoon and this evening in respect of this bill. I will make it really clear to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Mark Burton, that, in a sense, I am fairly confident that most iwi Māori would like to move forward, with the settlements behind us. But the mere fact that most of the iwi involved in settlements have experienced splits that have devastated iwi, hapū, and whānau, in some cases resulting in physical violence in relation to simple things like votes, must tell us there are some concerns about the process. The Māori Party intends to continue to challenge the process used to achieve settlements. But we are also willing to contribute to some ideas that have been put up by a number of people over the years, to try to find a way forward. We also acknowledge the work being done by the new chief executive, or general manager—whatever his title is—of the Office of Treaty Settlements, in going around people and getting some views back, in respect of moving forward. That is the first thing I want to say.

But the practical reality, right here and right now, is that the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill has come to this Parliament, so I attempted in the first part of this session to talk about its history and how it has got here. We talked about the notion that in 1922 one might have thought that this particular issue had been solved, through agreement between the Crown and Te Arawa. I believe that Te Arawa, my people, my koroua and kuia, believed at that time there was a way forward, by way of an agreement that looked at the issue of ownership. The practical reality, right here and right now, is that we are revisiting the dreams and aspirations the people had at that time, on the back of the view that back in 1922 it might have been thought an agreement would provide an economic platform for Te Arawa to develop, through a board. But that development did not happen. Why? The annuity did not increase. There was no issue about reviewing it and, of course, over time the money got to the point of being absolutely useless for the development of the people.

The deed today comes to us against that background, and it is also acknowledged by the Crown that it comes against the background of a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. There is an acknowledgement by the Crown of that, and that this settlement is about doing something about it. How does the Crown do something about it? It offers some money, and it offers some lakes back. Yet as we said a little earlier, the Crown has offered the lakes back but there is no water—water is not part of the settlement. So one would think that that issue remains out there to be discussed.

The problem, as I mentioned earlier, is that the Crown has assumed ownership of the Crown stratum—that being the water above the lake bed, and the sky above that. The big issue for me is that that matter has not been tested in court, and other speakers, along with myself, have said that this is the first time the notion has been tested in the Parliament of this land. The downside of it, of course, for the benefit of those who are listening, is that it creates a precedent. Once a precedent is created, it says that that is it for everybody else. So everybody needs to know that here it is, on the Table tonight and again on Thursday, that the Crown has assumed ownership of the stratum. How do we know that? It is called the Crown stratum, yet this is the first time it appears in the laws of this land.

So will this agreement be lasting? I have suggested, as have other speakers, that no, the agreement will not be lasting. It will not be full and final, and I make no apologies for encouraging our people to come back and relitigate the whole issue. Why? It has come against a background of protest that started with the “fiscal envelope”. Is the “fiscal envelope” still alive? The answer is yes, it is. I need to say that this bill is set in the context of the “fiscal envelope” and that all of the conditions that came out of the settlements with Ngāi Tahu and Tainui have had an impact on this particular bill. One issue that came up, which I want to put out there again, is in respect of ownership. OK—Te Arawa are getting the lakes back, but in fact they can be outvoted by the other two bodies that are part of the management board or the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group. Te Arawa can be outvoted, in fact, by the same groups that contributed to the pollution of Lake Rotorua.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) : I will make just one final, brief contribution to this debate. We have heard from a number of members, including Mr Finlayson who quoted Isaiah. I would like to quote to him Ecclesiastes: “To every thing there is a time …” and it is time for this to be settled. It is time for this Parliament to recognise that despite the comment made in the course of this debate, we have duly mandated negotiators. They are not self-appointed or self-opinionated negotiators, but duly mandated human beings—who I am sure are not perfect, any more than we are, and who I am sure have not negotiated the perfect settlement, any more than the Crown negotiators have, but who have negotiated, in good faith, over years, a settlement. And that is their right to do, as the duly mandated negotiators.

That is a mandate that Sir Douglas Graham recognised, on behalf of the Crown, and I acknowledge his fine work. Margaret Wilson, who followed him, continued to recognise that mandate. I recognise her fine work. I have continued, on behalf of the Crown, to recognise that mandate, and I remind the Committee that so has the Waitangi Tribunal when that mandate has been challenged. I simply suggest to members that it is time this settlement was allowed to reach its conclusion. It may not be perfect, but it is the result of the best endeavour of the negotiators from the Crown and the duly mandated negotiators from Te Arawa to negotiate together in good faith, and to reach this settlement. This is their settlement; this is what they have arrived at. I simply urge members to allow it to progress, and to allow the people to then move on from grievance to development.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) : I move, That the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) be now read a third time. The main feature of this bill is its aim to get back into the system those parents who have stopped paying their child support. That is its most controversial feature, and I will comment on that in some detail.

At the moment, we have about $1.1 billion in outstanding child support liability, and $651 million of that sum is penalties that have been imposed on outstanding principal, of around $450 million. The problem is that in many cases liable parents simply stop meeting their obligations because the penalties have become too great. The consequence of that is that no child support is payable, and the children who should be benefiting from it suffer. So what this bill says, in effect, is that where parents seek to reactivate those outstanding payments, there will be a provision for a write-off of certain of the debt obligations. The logic here is that it is far better to get those parents to pay something towards the welfare, upbringing, and upkeep of their children than the current arrangement, where many are paying nothing. That was the major point of difference between the various parties as this bill progressed.

But I want to make this point clear. None of the $651 million in outstanding interest and penalty payments will go to the children. That is revenue to the Crown, if it is ever collected. The logic here is that it is far better to get the lion’s share of the $450 million that is outstanding child support going to the parents and the children, rather than concentrating on the $651 million that will never be collected and will never go to the children anyway.

That is the major change that this bill introduces. It is a significant step forward. It will mean a reduction in the level of outstanding child support, as those penalties are written off. It will not be quite as generous as some have advocated for—that we are about to cut the debt in half. But the Inland Revenue Department will be monitoring these new arrangements, and any that are entered into under this bill, to ensure that the parents who commit to those arrangements meet their obligations and stay on track. The powers in this bill will not be exercised lightly.

But I come back again to the point. At the moment, the one group that suffers from the build-up of debt and the fact that people simply opt out of trying to meet their obligations is the children. Whatever one’s view of the dynamics of family break-up, it is vital that the kids are the ones who get the recompense and the benefit, and that is what this legislation seeks to achieve.

The bill also contains some other measures relating to the overall stability of the child support system. It strengthens the Inland Revenue Department’s ability to investigate liable parents who deliberately structure their financial affairs to avoid paying the proper amount of child support and to get exemptions from the child support system. That has been a bone of contention for a long time. There is a sense of great injustice on the part of custodial parents that liable parents are structuring their affairs in such a way as to avoid their obligations. This bill gives the Inland Revenue Department greater authority and greater power in terms of investigating those situations, so that those parents can be brought to book and ensure that their liabilities are met.

I mentioned that the bill contains a couple of new exemptions. The first is a temporary one for young parents for whom it is still compulsory to be at school. It is clearly impractical to impose child support liabilities and responsibilities on children who are still at school and not in a position to be earning. The second exemption is a far more serious, important, and permanent one. It is for the victims of sexual offences, when a child has been born as a result of a sexual crime. Again, in those circumstances the imposition of a child support liability has been unjust, and this matter will now be resolved by those provisions.

The remaining measures in the bill are largely administrative in nature. They include new appeal rights following an administrative review, and giving priority to payments owed to custodians over payments owed to the Crown. That will be a particularly important step forward also.

This bill was introduced some months ago. It has been considered carefully by the Social Services Committee, and I pay tribute to the members of that committee for their consideration and for the amendments that they brought forward to further improve the bill as a result of their hearings. I also thank my officials in the Inland Revenue Department, the draftspeople and those who have worked on the detail of this legislation, and the members of the public and the various family specialists who took the time to make submissions to the select committee and to lobby individual members of the committee on this matter.

Child support is a vexed and contentious issue, and will remain so almost permanently. There will be refinements and changes over the years, but the fundamental point will never be able to be escaped from: when parents become parents, they accept—in the case of child support legislation, until the child turns 19—ongoing responsibilities. Whatever the subsequent status of their relationship, they must meet those responsibilities, and they must honour their continuing obligations to their children. This bill is a practical step forward in terms of enabling the money to flow to the children, who will benefit. Where parents do get behind with their payments, the bill gives them the capacity to enter into repayment regimes, which means they do not end up simply defaulting altogether.

Finally, I thank the members of the House who have contributed to the debate at various stages. I know that it has been a fraught debate, but it has also been a useful one, and I acknowledge the contributions made from all sides. I commend this bill to the House.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) : Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4). I thank the Minister for his very gracious comments about the members of the Social Services Committee and the work we did on this bill.

This is not a perfect bill; it is not even a slightly perfect bill. It does have some good points in it, and I will just briefly mention a couple of those. One is the exemptions, which the Minister has mentioned, and the other is the ability of the Inland Revenue Department to look beyond the declared income of liable parents. The department will be able to look further into those parents’ assets and their ability to find or have access to money, and that, hopefully, will indicate their real paying power. Certainly, I am one of the many people in this House who come across parents who may have, for example, $150,000 incomes, but who have restructured their incomes so that in one particular case a parent is paying just $30 a week towards the upkeep of the child. I personally find that a disgrace and I am sure the Minister would agree.

What we have, though, in this bill is something the National Party has spoken strongly against—that is, the write-off of $600 million worth of penalties. We are against that for this reason. The Minister said he would rather have people pay to the children the $400 million they currently owe in direct child support, and that the $600 million will really go only to the Crown—I think that was the general thrust of what he said. Well, here is some news for the Minister. It is my child, it is the children of other parents in this House, and it is the children of other taxpayers who are already paying that bill. They are the ones who are paying up, right now, for the delinquent parents who do not take their obligations as parents seriously.

I have had enough of people turning up and telling me about what good parents they are, yet also telling me on the other hand why they should not be meeting any of the costs of their children. I think that those people need a fairly good, swift kick—metaphorical, of course. People who behave like that are a disgrace. When those parents are men, they tell me they are men but, frankly, I do not think they are, because men who have pride do not behave like that towards their children and towards the mothers of their children.

Having heard the Minister talk about the debt and the amount owing in penalties, I would also like to point out a very, very salient fact. It is that 65,000 of the parents who pay the liable parent contribution—that is, about half of them—pay no more than $14 per week towards the upkeep of their own children. And that amount is not per child; it is for all their children. So, for instance, if they have six children with three different mothers, they have to pay only $14 a week in total towards the upkeep of their children. As any responsible parent can tell us, that amount is nothing towards the cost of bringing up a teenage child or a preschool child. It has nothing to do with the real costs of raising children. That is one of the reasons so many custodial parents who are good mums and dads have to say to their children that they are sorry but the children cannot play a particular sport, because their parents do not have the money. That situation happens because of liable parents who pay only $14 a week.

Then, out of the 65,000 men and women who are paying only $14 a week towards the upkeep of their own children, 44,339 are not even making that payment of $14 a week. They are in debt. Those are the people for whom we will be writing off penalties tonight because, apparently, they cannot meet a payment of $14 a week. If they cannot meet a payment of $14 a week, what are they doing going around becoming fathers and mothers when they have so little sense of responsibility? I do not believe for a moment that those people cannot meet a payment of $14 a week. That is an absolute disgrace—but we sit here in this House saying that it will all be better because, somehow, those people will become more responsible towards their children. I do not believe for a moment that writing off the debt of the 44,339 people who are not even paying their $14 a week towards the upkeep of their children—in one case, 11 children—will mean that suddenly those people will have a conscience because we have said we will write off that penalty. That simply will not happen.

I do not understand why a United Future Minister of Revenue, Peter Dunne, is saying that we will write this debt off—that we will get soft—when in his own party’s policies he has some good policies about child support. United Future members have said they will stop those delinquent parents from leaving New Zealand. We in the National Party agree with that. We say: “Good on you!” to those members. If we can stop people from not paying their parking fines as they leave the country, then why do we give them a free wave through and say: “Goodbye, haere rā, and we will see you next time.”, when they do not meet the cost of looking after their children—the pathetic cost of $14 a week? I do not understand why Peter Dunne is supporting that. I do not understand why this bill has the support of Peter Dunne and United Future members, who have said very strongly and properly that they will look at the real costs of looking after children—at why it is an issue, and at how we can actually get a real costing around that. Yet, here we are tonight, debating a bill where we will write off $600 million in unpaid debt. We are sending the message to those $14-a-week dads and mums that they do not need to bother too much, because eventually the debt will become too high and we will write it off again.

I am here to tell the House that the National Party will not support that sort of delinquency coming from parents—particularly when it comes from parents who should know better. There are parents with four or more children who are not even paying $14 a week towards their children—769 of them. There are 25,768 parents who are not even meeting the payment of $14 a week for one child. And the message we send to the good mums and dads who meet their payments, and to those who struggle to meet their payments but do their very best to do so, is: “Well, you are a bit of a mug, aren’t you? Why are you doing that when your neighbour down the street doesn’t have to?”.

Frankly, I am so tired of listening to fathers’ groups that go around and protest outside MPs’ houses and judges’ houses, and try to bully them. Well, they have met their match in the National Party, because we will not be bullied by that sort of behaviour. People in those groups tell us that they care about their children. If they cared so much about their children, I ask why my child, the children of every other parent in this House, and the children of every other taxpayer, are paying for those fathers’ children, and going without the things they could have because there are parents who do not care about their own children.

I know there will be people who say some parents do care but simply cannot meet the cost of child support payments, because often they have other children and new partnerships—multiple partnerships. Well, I am here to tell those people that before they enter into new partnerships they should think about the children they have, and they should think about the liability and responsibility they have. I make no excuses for those people. They come from all walks of life. It is utterly wrong for us to think that the only people who do not pay child support are those who do not earn much money; many people with a lot of money take great delight in hiding their income for that very reason.

I am glad to hear that the Inland Revenue Department will be able to look at that. But the trouble is that at the select committee, department officials told us, in relation to a very worthy case we discussed with them, that they could not necessarily determine whether they had even looked into the situation. So the problem I have with this legislation is that it is too soft on people it should not be soft on, and it is just not good enough for the good custodial parents out there and the really good liable parents who pay their way and look after their children—who, as much as they say they love them, look after them that way.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) : On behalf of United Future I rise in support of the third reading of the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4). When parents separate and have to parent their children while funding two households and the additional costs incurred by access arrangements, things can get pretty financially tight and be pretty emotionally stressful. At the Social Services Committee we heard from parents who felt they were anonymous funders, liable, and lonely. We heard from parents who received the minimum liable-parent payment from ex-partners who skilfully used business mechanisms to hide income. We heard from those who wanted both parents’ income taken into consideration, and those who wanted calculations to more accurately reflect the time spent with both parents. We also heard from some who were burdened with both liable-parent payments and the costs of the new or reconstituted families they now supported. A number of submitters wanted evidence of how their liable-parent payments were spent, with many believing they were funding their ex-partner’s exotic overseas holidays or drug habits rather than the children whom the money was meant for. At least one submitter wanted there to be an upper limit of liability for each child.

But for me one submitter stood out from the rest. He was a dad who had never ever before considered making a submission to a select committee. He was so passionate about his experience and the conclusions he had come to regarding liable-parent payments that he was motivated to drive for hours to come to Wellington and appear before us. He is the custodial parent of his two girls. When his relationship disintegrated and battle lines were drawn, he came to the realisation that no one was going to win in a war that was about to erupt over the care arrangements for his children—least of all the children.

He proposed an alternative approach that involved him being the primary caregiver, but with his children having both scheduled and spontaneous contact with their mother whenever they wanted. At his suggestion, and by mutual agreement, no money would change hands. His comment to the committee was: “I feel that if anyone should pay, I should be paying my ex-wife for the privilege of being the primary caregiver.” His story serves to remind us that financial concerns should never be allowed to create barriers to a parent-child relationship, and removing barriers is exactly what this bill is all about. However, the liable-parent payment system is well overdue for a serious rethink.

These are some of the questions I think need to be part of that consideration. Firstly, does the Inland Revenue Department’s current formula for calculating payments undermine the opportunity for more equitable financial arrangements? Secondly, when the Inland Revenue Department makes a mistake in its calculations, how easy is it for the mistake to be remedied? We heard that it is very difficult. Thirdly, should the cost of access be factored into the formula? Fourthly, can we devise a more flexible sliding scale when counting the number of days children spend with each parent, instead of the current 40 percent contact that is required when calculating liable-parent payments? Should both parents’ economic position be taken into consideration when support is calculated? Should custodial parents have to give some sort of account for how payments are used? Does the benefit system need to develop more flexibility so that more equitable parenting orders can be designed and implemented?

These were all questions raised by submitters that were unable to be dealt with in this amendment bill. But United Future believes that we need to look closely at the reforms that are now present in other jurisdictions, to see whether we can learn from others. We need not allow this amendment to be the end of the matter.

Let us be very clear that parental responsibilities do not diminish because the parent to child relationship has disintegrated. Parental responsibilities do not reduce because two households are involved. Parental responsibility does not shrink in any way because parents have repartnered, have reconstituted families, or have had additional children to a new partner. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, children have the right to have meaningful contact with both parents. We need to be mindful of all those considerations as we move beyond this amendment bill and start to look at how better we could be implementing a system that serves the interests of, firstly, the children but, secondly, of both parents.

I do not think any of us, having heard the evidence in the select committee, would quibble about the fact that the current legislation as it stands, even with this amendment bill, which is an improvement, serves the needs of the people it claims to. So United Future will support this amendment bill.

I was very pleased to hear the Minister, the Hon Peter Dunne, talk about the discussions he had just last week in Australia with officials who have already engaged in a round of reforms on this matter. He has had serious discussion with them, and United Future is intending on making sure that Cabinet seriously considers the need for some reforms that are long overdue in New Zealand. However, we are very happy to support the third reading of this amendment bill.

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) : I must confess to being a little sad to have to oppose a bill that purports to address the difficult area of ensuring there is adequate support for children in this country. This issue is at the very heart of National’s values, and I know the belief is shared across the House that every child has the right to parental support, and every child has the right to receive support from a mum and a dad, no matter what the adults’ arrangements might be. I support the moves in the bill that will allow better scrutiny of liable parents. As Judy Turner said, the Social Services Commitee heard some excellent submissions from people who came with stories that showed that the machinations of various liable parents meant that the only ones they were really hurting were their own children. I regret that the bill was not even able to expand its focus in order to look at the circumstances of both parents of a child or children.

But the aim of the bill is to increase the amount of child support. Again, that is an admirable aim, and the Minister said tonight that the aim was to get more liable parents paying their child support. But the philosophy of this Government, in backing this bill in the very narrow form that we have in front of us tonight, is that if penalties are written off, more people will pay their child support. We have $1.1 billion outstanding from liable parents. I was astounded to read figures obtained from the Minister and released yesterday by our welfare spokesperson, Judith Collins. Those figures showed that the amount in arrears has more than doubled, and the total amount owed, including penalties, has almost tripled since the year 2000. Yet the number of liable parents has not grown exponentially.

So we have before us the example that the same numbers of parents, more or less, have not paid their child support and allowed their arrears to accumulate, and this Government brings a bill before Parliament that says that if it wipes off those penalties and arrears, then those people will start paying child support again. I cannot support that philosophy, and throughout the process I asked for that to be substantiated by officials and by Government members on the Social Services Committee. They have been unable to do so. In this third reading, before the final passing of the bill, I hope Government members will stand and explain that philosophy to the House. How does it work, when we have people who are deliberately not paying their child support and are told not to worry about the debt? How does it encourage them to pay child support when the Government is saying they do not need to worry about the debt, because the Government will write it off?

One of the reasons the Government has given is that the penalties become so overwhelming that people just cannot see a way out of the situation, so they skedaddle to Australia. The chartered accountants came before the select committee with a very practical piece of advice as to how we could address the accumulation of those penalties. They suggested that instead of a rate of 2 percent accumulating on those arrears, we reduce it to 1 percent. The officials rejected that advice. But I thought it made sense, because there was still a punishment for not paying child support, but not at such a rate that huge amounts of arrears were accumulating. Maybe I am cynical, but I have to question whether the advice was rejected because 51 percent of the money paid in arrears and penalties on arrears is now kept by the Government and only 49 percent makes its way back to custodial parents, whereas in 2003, 70 percent was paid back to custodial parents and only 30 percent was kept by the Government.

There is very good evidence to show—and, as I said, the figures that Judith Collins released yesterday also show—that more and more liable parents are ducking their responsibilities and refusing to pay. Of course, we know that the amount owed by expats in Australia has ballooned to $280 million - odd. That figure is four times what was owed in 2003. Yet the Government brings in a bill to try to get those parents to pay what they owe, which does not really address that issue in any practical way, other than saying they do not have to worry about paying the penalty and debt they owe, because the Government will write it off on their behalf.

Finally, I echo what Judy Turner said in her speech. There was a wide range of submissions, and some excellent submissions, made to the committee. The most disappointing thing for me during the passage of the bill has been that this Government has had 7 years to address some of the issues around the Child Support Act 1991. Some of the issues were laid before the select committee in great detail, and all the Government has done is alter the maximum and minimum amounts of income to set the formula in 2001, and not much else. A huge opportunity has been missed.

The committee heard about some excellent ideas being used throughout the world, because other countries are grappling with ways to ensure that parents take responsibility and make provision for their children. In Australia they have shared parenting arrangements. In Canada they have a system that treats all parents quite consistently. We heard about shared custody and the “cliff-face” of a child support system where there is a 40 percent cut-off that causes parents to fight over how many nights they can each have the children, because there is a huge financial advantage if one goes beyond that 40 percent. It takes the focus away from the welfare, upbringing, and support of the child and puts it on the issue of who will pay what money.

We heard from chartered accountants that if we were really trying to dig into some of these very clever ways that some liable parents use to get around the law, we would use the adjudication unit of the Inland Revenue Department. They said it was an underused body and has a depth of commercial experience. The unit is used to dealing with the sorts of trusts and financial set-ups that people use to hide their assets. We also heard—mainly from fathers—about the agony of being charged with liability for children who were not theirs.

I am sad to be opposing the bill, but it just does not cut the mustard. A huge opportunity was missed to explore in greater depth that whole area of child support.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) : On behalf of New Zealand First I rise to support the third reading of the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4). New Zealand First believes that this bill is a genuine attempt to take some action on the very contentious and difficult issue of child support. It would have been totally irresponsible to ignore the situation we currently have in New Zealand and do absolutely nothing. The issue has needed to be addressed for quite some time, and all parties in the House have agreed on this. Inaction is not the answer, it never has been the answer, and it never will be the answer.

We have heard from various speakers that one of the purposes of the bill is to improve compliance with financial support obligations, so that more children receive the financial support to which they are entitled. In this House we know that children’s needs are many, and usually very expensive. It is important today to be part of the in-crowd, and that usually involves having a cellphone, the label gear, and even an iPod. We know that peer pressure can be particularly intense for teenagers.

The bill proposes writing off the debt penalties—not the arrears—as a part incentive for parents to try to reactivate their payments. As we have all heard during the passage of this bill through the House, this measure will provide only limited relief. We are very aware there is a provision for reviewing the measure, if liable parents default on their obligations. We must say that the penalties should never go towards the child, but elsewhere in the system, if they are indeed collected. It is an unrealistic situation when interest that parents owe is larger than the actual principal.

This bill may hopefully encourage some lapsed parents to re-enter the system, because we all know that children need the financial support of both of their parents. It is absolutely essential to reconnect parents with their financial responsibilities. One of the earlier speakers, Judith Collins, said there were 44,339 parents who needed to be reconnected in this respect. Non-payment of child support is a very serious issue, and, unfortunately, the losers are always the children.

We are very aware that the child support money owed by parents overseas has nearly quadrupled in the last 3 years. Some of this increase will undoubtedly be debt penalties. We all know that debt penalties rise rapidly. If this is an impediment, it needs to be managed so that more parents can re-enter the system. New Zealand First believes that it is far better to do something about debt penalties and try to manage this whole situation. We will be very interested to hear further from Peter Dunne about his Australian visit.

We want the collection rate for child support to be far higher than it is at present. It is essential that, as far as possible, a parent’s child support, too, accurately reflects that person’s ability to provide financial assistance for his or her children. We are very aware—and we are very pleased to have had it addressed in this bill—that some irresponsible parents hide their assets in a trust, so that, lo and behold, they do not have to pay a reasonable contribution towards their child or their children. But, again, it is the children who suffer. They are, unfortunately, the innocent victims, and it should not happen.

On the other hand, I know of a liable mother who provides so much for her absent children that she is forced to live on the breadline. Life would be far easier for her if she took other courses of action. But she is determined not to do so, and she will continue to make the compulsory and extra voluntary payments for her children. So we are pleased to see some provision in this bill to administratively review the level of child support where there is reason to believe that the true level of a parent’s funds has been hidden.

We know that children are our future and that they deserve the support of both parents. It is a serious and important issue, and measures have needed to be put in place for a very long time. We need to ensure that there is greater compliance for parents and that they meet their financial contributions.

We note too that the bill proposes a temporary exemption for young parents for whom it is compulsory to be at school. If those parents take on some part-time or casual work, they will be required to make some contribution towards the support of their child. Again, this is another challenge that the bill deals with. We must say that this bill is dealing with families at a very difficult and critical point in their lives. It is a very hard problem to resolve. We are aware, too, that this bill might not provide the perfect solution, but at least it is a part solution. We must move forward with solutions on this issue of child support.

The message from this Parliament tonight is very clear: parents are responsible for the financial welfare of their children, and any incentive that can be used to encourage lapsed parents to follow through with their responsibilities must be supported. New Zealand First supports this bill.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : The Green Party supports the third reading of the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4). I am well aware that this bill does not provide the wide range of improvements to New Zealand’s child support regime that many of the people who came to make submissions to us at the Social Services Committee wanted. However, it makes some limited reforms to the system, which we think are desirable.

Those reforms include working to improve the level of compliance with obligations, so that more children receive the support to which they are entitled. They also include new provisions for the write-off of penalty debt, extending the existing provisions for ensuring that a parent’s liability accurately reflects that parent’s ability to provide help for his or her children, and also putting into place a new appeal right that will look to provide greater fairness between applicants and respondents subsequent to an administrative review. The bill also adds to the list of those exempt from paying child support by including liable parents under 16 years of age—and unfortunately, we still have a number of those—victims of sex offences, and also people who are in prison or in hospital long term, within certain income limits. All of those changes seem sensible and deal with the practicalities of implementing earlier versions of the Child Support Act 1991.

During the consideration of the bill, I was particularly interested in issues around the extension of the ability of the Inland Revenue Department to inquire into the validity of exemptions or determinations made, especially in situations where, for example, it is suspected that the liable parent’s real income and/or assets are much higher than stated. I think everyone in the House—and we have heard a number of speeches on this already—is probably aware of circumstances where people have dodged, or continue to dodge, their responsibilities to their children, through the use of various mechanisms totally geared towards hiding their true worth.

Although I have a lot of sympathy for the predicament some liable parents find themselves in, I do not extend that to those who adopt legal and financial structures that reduce or hide—often completely or massively—their visible taxable income, thereby defeating the intent of the Act and, I think, the moral purpose that most of us in this House have that parents should take some responsibility, within their means, for the children that they produce. The new measures put in place by this bill will enable the Inland Revenue Department to initiate a process that looks into the reality of someone’s earning capacity and his or her property and financial resources.

I realise that many submitters will be unhappy with this bill because it has not dealt with their deep and genuinely felt concerns about some of the problems around the way our child support system operates in practice, especially when there is a situation where parents share the care of a child. However, in fact, many of the submissions covered matters that fall outside the scope of this amending bill—for example, matters in relation to the way contribution payments are assessed and what should happen to liable parents who find themselves in real hardship. Those and other issues raised by submitters are worthy of ongoing debate and review.

I think there are certain areas of our child support law that do need further amendment. For example, I have a great deal of sympathy for those who argue that there should be a lot more flexibility, reality, and fairness in how contributions are calculated in some specific situations. Those matters, however, are complex and deserve attention in their own right. We were not able to do that within the consideration process of this particular bill at the select committee. The Green Party will be interested to hear whether the Government has any intention to further review and amend the child support framework at any time in the near future.

Meanwhile, we are happy to support the bill in front of us tonight. We will be voting for it accordingly.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) : Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa i te Whare. As we consider the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) on this date, I am mindful that today is also the 29th anniversary of the death of Steve Biko, a young black African man killed by the apartheid regime of South Africa for daring to oppose the racism in his world.

As we consider this bill on this day, I also take this opportunity to honour our kaumātua from the far north, Mr Pia Īhaka from Te Kao, a man for whom there was only one tribe—Te Aupōuri—and to whom all other tribes in the north were mere subtribes. I honour him for his dedication to te reo Māori and for his commitment to ensuring that any child under his direction achieved a level of excellence at Ngā Manu Kōrero—the national Māori speech competition. As we consider this Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) on this day, I mention Ngā Manu Kōrero, because as we speak, the nation celebrates the culmination of months of effort from hundreds of Māori youth at the 2006 Ngā Manu Kōrero competitions currently being held in Ōpunake—the 41st time that this premier event has been held.

The very first winner of the Korimako Trophy in 1965 was a young woman from St Mary’s College in Ponsonby, one Donna Awatere. In 1973, that award was won by a lawyer, Prue Kapua; in 1979, by print and television reporter Aroaro Hond; by broadcaster Julian Wilcox in 1993; and by Māori Party list candidate Tell Kuka in 2002. The Pei Te Hurinui Jones Trophy for the senior Māori section has been won by such luminaries as health specialist Mauriora Kīngi in 1979, the writer of the All Black haka “Kapa o Pango”, Derek Lardelli, in 1980, and the internationally renowned musician of “What’s the Time Mr Wolf”, Ruia Āperahama, in 1987.

As we consider this legislation on this day, I mention Ngā Manu Kōrero because those young people could teach this House about the quality and nature of robust but respectful speech-making. I also mention these examples of excellence because when we consider issues affecting our children we need to be guided by a sense of achievement and excellence, not just by financial return. I note that 300,000 children in Aotearoa are being supported by child support payments and I have no doubt that many such children will be found amongst the contestants in the audience at Ngā Manu Kōrero.

That is an important note in the context of this bill because many of the submissions received tended to reduce the concept of child raising to a formula based purely on money alone. One submission was about the cost of supporting a child. Another said that child support was a matter for parents to settle, not the Inland Revenue Department—although, given the massive arrears, that sounds more than a little unrealistic. Some submissions were depressing—men bitching about being ripped off by money-grabbing women, and women moaning about being lied to by men who said they had no money. Thankfully, there were some submissions that focused on the well-being of children as a priority over personal and departmental finances.

The Māori Party supports any efforts to ensure that parents accept their financial responsibilities to their children. We are talking about a lot of parents—more than 142,000 in 2005. So we support the intention of this bill to ensure that liable parents meet their obligations. We also note that changes are being proposed in this bill to make it easier for liable parents to think of rebuilding their relationships, and even rebuilding their whānau. If that means that 142,000 families may benefit from strengthening connections and responsibility, then we support that idea as well.

We also welcome the number of options proposed to get lapsed payers back into the system without forcing them into greater debt. One of the biggest obstacles to this has been the harsh penalties for late payment of child support. We note that it is only now that the Government is putting up a bill to deal with what has blown out to be more than $1 billion of debt. We support the proposal to address the penalties that erupt as soon as a parent slips up on child support payments. We also note that arrears of 37 percent in the first year, and 29 percent in following years, create an enormous debt, so it makes sense to encourage people to pay up.

We welcome the suggestion to write off penalties as an incentive for people to restart payments. We note that the Inland Revenue Department takes a case by case look at writing off penalty debt. That is a concern to us, because unless the criteria are clear we find that Māori people often suffer when things are left in the hands of departmental discretion. We also hope that the department has clear criteria when it comes to looking at cases where liable parents may not be paying what they are supposed to be paying. We make no fuss about the right to investigate, because as long as there is a system someone will try to rip it off, but we will support initiatives where the rules are clear and the emphasis is on improving relationships rather than snooping on people who are poor.

The Māori Party supports the proposed exemptions from liability for child support for teenagers under the age of 16, and for victims of sex offences. Allowing young people to put off child support payments until they can complete their education will help them as people, help them as parents, and help them understand their need to pay into the child support scheme. We also support the idea that victims not be further victimised by having to pay child support for children born as the result of sex crimes. While we are talking about exemptions, I would like to remind the House of a case in Waipukurau in 1995 where the mother of a boy born in 1984 and whāngai-ed at birth to an auntie applied to stop her child support. The boy had been living for 11 years as a whāngai with everyone’s support before the Department of Social Welfare stepped in at the last minute and demanded a liable parent contribution from the birth mother. The mother’s lawyer argued that the provisions did not apply because the child had been adopted and that Māori customary adoptions were affirmed in legislation. Fortunately, the court threw out the department’s case, saying that the department’s actions defied common sense. But although the precedent has been set in the court, I note that it has not been properly addressed in this legislation.

The Māori Party is keen to support any proposal that will harness the strengths and talents of our whānau. We will support any policy that encourages whānau development and that encourages parents to support their children, whether through the practice of whāngai or through the payment of child support.

I began my kōrero with some of the names of the winners of the Ngā Manu Kōrero. I forgot one name, and in the interests of cross-party support for this bill I would like to advise the House that the winner of the Ngā Kete o te Mātauranga trophy for 2003 and 2004 for best female speaker in the senior Māori section was none other than the niece of Shane Jones, Miss Ngāhuia Harawira.

My hope for Aotearoa, and the rationale for the Māori Party support for this bill, is that our actions are driven by a desire for excellence for our children, a willingness to support our children, a love of the gift of children, and our love for children themselves. Kia ora tātou.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) : Kia ora tātou, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to take a short call in support of the third reading of the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4). It has been a long road to this point, but I believe a worthwhile one. This bill will assist children in need, and that is the bottom line. As we have heard from many speakers, too many children in New Zealand are deprived of adequate support by the unwillingness or inability of parents to meet their obligations under the Child Support Act. By amending that Act, this bill will allow incentives to be put in place that will encourage the repayment of debt and ensure that more resources get to the children who need them.

During the various stages of this bill and at the Social Services Committee there has been discussion about whether the bill would set up an inappropriate “get out of jail free” card for delinquent dads. On balance, I do not believe that that will be the case, and this is why. In the first instance, the bill does not allow for the underlying debt to be forgiven. In the second instance, no penalties are remitted unless and until a liable parent maintains his or her agreement to repay the base debt, as per the undertakings he or she has given to the Inland Revenue Department. In the third instance, the initial penalties cannot be remitted under any circumstances, and the remission of other penalties is on a pro rata basis. Why do I go into that technical detail? I think it proves that this bill maintains discipline on liable parents throughout the process. It also provides some positive incentives for them to meet their obligations—and that is important.

I commend the work of the select committee for the attention it has paid to the bill. I know that members from right across the House have taken a close interest in it, because it concerns a subject that touches the hearts of many New Zealanders. In that context, it is also appropriate for us to acknowledge the difficulty of legislating in this area, whatever strategy is adopted, because the law is interacting with New Zealand families at a time when, by definition, those families are in crisis—at a time when a separation has occurred, often very recently, and with all the emotional trauma and dislocation that that brings.

Since it was first enacted, the law has sought to balance the rights and obligations of custodial and liable parents. It contains a repayment formula that is objective and fair, and it quite rightly provides for the imposition of penalties when debt accumulates. The other reason why this bill is before us today is that it is common ground in this House that the debt mountain has become too large.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Under Labour.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I think under both parties. It is important not to make this issue a partisan football; we must try to solve the problem in the interests of New Zealand children. That is what the majority of parties in this House are seeking to do.

We will get that debt mountain down by acknowledging that some people have got so far behind and out of the system that it is quite impossible for them to get back. I am reminded of a constituent I mentioned in an earlier stage of this debate who had accumulated several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of debt, mostly in penalties, on an income of around $30,000 before tax. Without this bill there is no financial way back for someone who gets to that point. And what does that mean? The human cost of that is that the father is on the run, there is no contact with the children and, beyond the cost being a financial deficit for the family, it is a human and emotional deficit, as well.

None of that means we are being soft on delinquent dads or liable parents. As I said earlier on that note, there will always be penalties payable, as well as all of the base debt payable. This bill seeks to balance the need for repayment of debt, the need to provide an incentive, and the need to maintain some sanctions. I commend the bill to the House.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) : Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the very important Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4). As my colleague Anne Tolley pointed out, this bill is a missed opportunity on the part of the Labour Government. Indeed, this is a very serious bill. If we look at its purpose, we see it is to improve the level of compliance with financial support obligations so that more children receive the financial support to which they are entitled. Yet here we have a Labour Minister saying that the debt mountain has got out of control. That just has to be a minimising of the scandalous fact that in the last 6 years under the Labour Government that amount has trebled. It is up by 300 percent; it has now reached $1.1 billion. In fact, in 2003—only 3 years ago—the debt owed by liable New Zealand parents resident in Australia was $73 million; now it is $280 million. It has quadrupled under the Labour Government, which just has not been watching what is happening with regard to a very, very important issue for children.

The fundamental reason for the Child Support Act 1991 is to ensure parental responsibility for the support of those parents’ children. We in National believe that must be clear. There must be clear signals to responsible parents, and there must be equally clear signals to irresponsible parents. As many of my colleagues have pointed out, this bill waives $650 million. That is what the Labour Government is prepared to do. The signal that sends to parents is that the Labour Government does not care about the debt. In fact, it basically encourages liable parents to be irresponsible, and that is of great concern.

Labour Government members over there on the other side of the Chamber are looking pretty tired and tawdry, and that is no wonder, because they have let this mountainous debt accumulate over the last 6 years. They set out to be the Government that was supposed to be accountable, but here we find that back in 2000 the debt was $380 million, and now it is $1.1 billion. There are $700 million of arrears. Yet the Minister of Revenue says that if we did get that money back, it would not go to the children. Of course the New Zealand taxpayer should have that money back. This Government is just going to write it off. That is what the Labour Government is doing—writing off $651 million in arrears that hard-working taxpayers have been required to give. We have seen, on the Government’s watch, a considerable laxity in this very important area.

Minister Cunliffe said child support is a very hard problem and the Government is honestly trying to do something about it, but the solution is not perfect. Well, that has to be the understatement of 2006. More important is what some of the technicians say about the bill. We heard from the New Zealand Law Society, from Judge Boshier and various other judges, and from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand. All of them were deeply critical of the technical aspects of the bill, and really felt that the Labour Government had not looked at the details in a practical way. That is what has personified or characterised this Government over the past 6 years. It is fine in terms of talk and high in rhetoric, but it is unable to really look at the practical aspects of legislation.

I have heard about that issue from liable parents right throughout New Zealand, who have said that when the collection agencies have come to them, they have been given such confusing information that it has driven them to despair. One particular individual said to me that on one day, he was sent a bill for $200,000. He rang up on the next day and was told that it was $3,000. He rang up and said that was great, but the call operator said that the case manager had gone on holiday and he would have to go to the next call centre, which was in Whangarei. He called that call centre and was told it did not know about his case, and he would have to try up in Northland or somewhere like that. The system is a shambles under this Labour Government, and that is absolutely a characteristic of it.

I will look at the detail of the bill. This is what Judge Boshier had to say about one of the most important parts of the bill, new Part 6B. He said the purpose of that provision was to extend existing provisions for ensuring that “parents’ child support liability accurately reflects their ability to provide financial assistance for children”. I do not consider those provisions will be effective. I recall at the time the Trapski review was carried out in 1994, issues were raised about the ability of the court to be able to set aside strategies or devices, such as family trusts and companies, which enabled a liable parent to reduce their child support obligations. Following that, Judge Boshier received a letter from Judge Walsh, in which he said: “After reflecting on the whole scheme of Part 6B, I am left with the impression it will be effectively a toothless provision.”

So here in this bill the opportunity has been lost by this Labour Government, which did not bother to get into the very important details of child support. After 6 years it has let this debt mountain increase threefold—300 percent—and fourfold in Australia. Yet when it comes to the machinery of the legislation, Judge Boshier and Judge Walsh say that the provision is effectively toothless. That view has come from one of the highest judges in the land.

What does the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand say? It says, regarding determinations initiated by the Inland Revenue Department: “In any event we have serious misgivings with the proposal as currently drafted in the Bill; both with the law and the practical and administrative implications. It is too wide, provides no objective test, does not clearly specify the purpose, and provides inadequate controls and safeguards.” That is from the Institute of Chartered Accountants, and that is the reason why the Labour Government has let this debt mountain get away on it. It wants to waive $600 million and not think about sorting out the machinery of governance and the organisation of debt collection in this country. It just wants to waive the money and not go and do the hard, practical work.

So when we hear Minister Cunliffe say that child support is a very hard problem and that Labour is honestly trying to do something about it but the solution is not perfect, that has to be the understatement of 2006. This Labour Government needs to clean up its own administration.

Dr Jackie Blue: And its act.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Yes—and its act. There is a certain irony about this bill coming at a time when Labour is refusing to pay $500,000 that it spent on a pledge card. It is refusing to pay its bills and it is also waiving $600 million of taxpayers’ money.

This bill, unfortunately, is a huge missed opportunity for the children of New Zealand. We in National are very sad not to be able to support it. The reason we are not supporting it is that the lazy Labour Government does not pay attention to detail when it comes to children.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : During the second reading of the bill I raised some quite serious concerns about the mess we have within the New Zealand building industry. In particular, I drew attention to the fiasco we have, whereby the standards committee is saying there is one set of rules and the Department of Building and Housing is saying there is another. I also drew the attention of the House to the view of certified builders that this level of confusion is unprecedented. We have had the whole debacle of leaky homes for over 4 years now, and it is still not clear for builders and for designers as to what the standards for building houses are.

My point in respect of this bill is that Standards New Zealand was created in the aftermath of the Napier earthquake quite specifically to deal with the issue of building standards. It is an organisation that has actually done a very good job over a very long time. I think some of the changes that the last Labour Government made in 1988, at the height of Rogernomics, were actually counter-productive to Standards New Zealand.

Hon Chris Carter: Look who is talking!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member Chris Carter, who was the Minister for Building Issues—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Mr Carter, you can take a call if you wish.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The member opposite made an accusation that was quite out of order. I suggest that you bring him to order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Mr Carter, I thought you would have taken what I said to you just before as a warning. Would you stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Chris Carter: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The difficulty for the Minister Mr Carter is that he turned a blind eye—

Hon Chris Carter: He’s telling porkies. He’s been caught with $15 million. He’s been caught with it.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Now the member has interjected. The fact is that unlike Mr Carter, who is not prepared to stand—

Hon Chris Carter: Or was it $18 million? Sorry, I was mistaken; it is $18 million, not $15 million.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Both figures are incorrect. The Minister does not know. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Mr Carter, those are not objections, so you will cease, please.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I make no apologies for standing up for the rights of New Zealanders to have their homes properly constructed. [Interruption] I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. You have just asked the member to withdraw and apologise, and he has just repeated exactly the same offence.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I do not think he will do it again.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Do members know how many Ministers for building and housing we have had?

Dr Jackie Blue: How many?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We have had seven Ministers.

Hon Chris Carter: None of them have been sued, though, have they.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Minister has already said that I may get sued. I tell Mr Carter that I make absolutely no apologies for standing up—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Mr Carter, I have asked you a number of times to cease. I ask your whip to tell you to cease, and that will be the end of it. I do not want to hear you again during Dr Smith’s speech.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The part I find interesting is that I am being sued by an American corporation. Is this not the same Labour Party that somehow believes National members are all beholden to Americans? There seems to be a bit of a dichotomy, because if we stand up for New Zealand consumers and say: “Come on, guys, treat the timber according to the New Zealand standard.”, the Minister is silent. He was not prepared to do anything about it, and I was prepared to put on the public record genuine concerns held by myself and New Zealand scientists about the standard of timber treatment.

I come back to the issues for the Minister in the chair, Lianne Dalziel, in terms of this bill. What is the current requirement for treating timber? As I pointed out, we had this fiasco whereby the Minister said that standards in New Zealand would be set by a very thorough process—by consensus or by an 80 percent vote. In June there was a vote and two members voted against the watering down of timber treatment standards.

Dr Jackie Blue: Then what happened?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The two members were sacked. It was put to the vote again in August, and can members guess what happened? There was consensus. So the standard has been changed. I ask the Minister whether that is acceptable. We are putting all sorts of ethical standards in this bill. Sacking members of a committee, including a scientist from AgriQuality, a State-owned enterprise, because they did not agree seems to me to be somewhat out of step with what I would think was ethical conduct.

I put these questions to the Minister before, and she was absolutely silent. She is the Minister in charge of Standards New Zealand, and I have a very simple question for her: can she explain why those two members were sacked from the committee? We know that they were the only two who voted against the change. Imagine if we had that in Parliament; that if one votes against the Government, off one goes—on your bike! That seems to me to be the style of ethical conduct we will have. The Minister has brought a bill to Parliament to introduce ethical standards into the standard-setting process, but she is silent when those sorts of shenanigans go on within Standards New Zealand.

I challenge the Minister to please provide some answers. What standard is acceptable today for building houses? That question is pretty important to a whole lot of New Zealanders out there. Tens of thousands of houses are being built, and people do not know what the standard is, because the Government has not got its act together. Question No. 2: can the Minister tell us why two members of the standards committee—the two who happened to vote against the watering down of the timber treatment standard—were suddenly fired? Was it, as everybody within the industry knows, because of commercial pressure from some companies that wanted them out? We deserve an answer from the Minister. Can she tell us why those two members were fired from the committee? More important, I would like to know from the Minister how, in terms of this bill, she can talk about introducing ethical standards when at the very same time she, the Minister in charge of Standards New Zealand, is silent when these sorts of difficulties are going on, and when these sorts of Crown agencies are involved in conduct that is hardly becoming in terms of increasing confidence in the most important area of Standards New Zealand’s work—that is, building standards.

PANSY WONG (National) : I am actually surprised, because the Minister in the chair, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, is well known for being upfront in taking calls. She is about the only Minister on the Labour front bench who is prepared to answer questions, and I think that the two questions posed by my colleague the Hon Nick Smith are very good ones. I am concerned about the fact that in June two members of the Standards Committee were sacked, simply because they voted against lowering the standard for building materials. My concern extends, then, to what would happen to the Auditor-General, who actually raised the issue that the Labour Party used taxpayers’ money illegally in the election campaign. I am coming back to the bill, but there is a concern, if appointed members of a committee get sacked, simply because they want to maintain a higher standard, about who then is left to hold the Government to account.

I also want to pose some more questions relating to Part 1. This part increases the functions of the Standards Council to include the development of standards that promote social responsibility. The term “social responsibility” is very subjective, and I have a horrible vision of our officials from the Ministry of Economic Development holding hands with international delegates and conducting strategic conversations in order to develop a social responsibility standard.

I have suddenly found, in the last financial review of the Ministry of Economic Development, that there is a buzzword and a communication strategy that apparently each Government department is conducting—that is, not just a conversation but a strategic conversation. I was very interested in this, and I asked the officials what “strategic conversation” means. It is a term that is actually contained in the objectives of a Government department’s mission statement. Apparently, the Ministry of Social Development states in regard to “strategic conversation”: “A less technically sophisticated evaluation that can add more to the strategic conversation is of more value than a technically sophisticated evaluation whose results may distract from ensuring the most strategic use of resources.”

I ask my colleagues whether any of them understands that statement. I thought that another Government department might be able to enlighten me as to this term “strategic conversation”. The Ministry of Economic Development states: “Our attention has turned to improving the quality of strategic thinking and conversation. As part of this we have put more focus on synthesising research to distil the implications for our strategy.” I ask my good colleagues on my side of the Chamber whether any of them is any the wiser about the term strategic conversation.

We are going to elevate strategic conversation to an international level in order to develop standards that will promote social responsibility. I would like the Minister to take a call and say how much more compliance implication that would impose on business, or on anybody trying to adhere to, or develop, eventually, a social responsibility standard. The Minister is the one who claimed sometime in June that she was conducting a dynamic review on the compliance burden, particularly horizontal, vertical, strategic—who knows? She is doing this particularly for small-business people, and I want to know what the implication of these new objectives will be for the Standards Council. What sort of a standard will be developed to promote this so-called social responsibility issue?

KATE WILKINSON (National) : One may be forgiven for giving this bill a somewhat cursory glance and thinking that, yes, it is combining the functions of two bodies, that sounds OK. It is combining the Standards Council and the Testing Laboratory Registration Council and is intended to align the functions of both with international standards. That sounds great, it should therefore save some costs. It should be a good bill. However, there is a big “but”.

I divert for a minute to mention something that has not been mentioned in the commentary on the bill. It seems to be international practice these days that only one body in any country has the function of registering certification bodies, and that is fine. In New Zealand it is this great thing called theJoint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand. Whilst it is possibly not technically within the scope of this bill, I do raise the issue of whether New Zealand is losing its sovereignty to this joint body. How answerable is the joint body to New Zealand courts? I would like the Minister in the chair, Lianne Dalziel, to address that issue, because I think it is one that is hugely fundamental to our constitutional law. As an international regulator, how many local controls would it need to comply with? Decisions about using world guidelines for standards will not be made by New Zealand, at all but by this joint body, on which we have two representatives.

The other question I would like the Minister to answer is how Parliament, if it so wanted, could actually modify the rules of this joint agency. Does it in fact have the power to do so? I think we are at very real risk of ceding our sovereignty to this joint trans-Tasman agency, and I take that as a very, very serious constitutional issue.

Leaving aside that wider issue—because it might be too intellectual for the other side—and coming back to the bill, I point out that the popular rhetoric seems to be about reducing compliance costs and making it easier for businesses to do business. So it would seem obvious that some analysis of those consequential compliance costs might have been completed before launching into this bill. What are the fiscal implications of the bill? We are told that the implications of this bill are “just too difficult to assess”. I would have to say that for all the talk and rhetoric about social responsibility, this bill has every chance of being yet another irresponsible bill with yet more unintended consequences. There has been no disclosure.

In fact, there is no idea of what the compliance costs resulting from this bill will actually be. The compliance cost statement in relation to the bill even identifies that compliance costs will be incurred because of these two accreditation bodies being reduced to one. But as there may be some confusion in the market because of these changes, “It is not possible to quantify the size of the compliance costs.” and we are expected just to accept that. Well, I do not think so.

I said before that this could have been a good bill. It is important that other countries have confidence in our system, for the accreditation of those certification bodies. We place a heavy reliance on our trade exports, and wishy-washy, unreliable, and inconsistent standards are certainly to be avoided. But this potentially good bill has been spoilt by the Government sneaking in a couple of new objectives of the Standards Council.

Just to go back in time, I tell members that under the existing Standards Act, the primary functions of the council—which are quite sensible—are to develop standards, to promote, encourage, and facilitate the use of standards in New Zealand, and to improve the quality of goods or services, having regard to economy in their production or supply. We cannot argue with that. They are also to promote standardisation in industry, trade, or commerce—we cannot argue with that—and to encourage and facilitate industrial development, trade, or commerce, which we cannot argue with, either, or to promote public or occupational safety, health, or welfare. That all makes some sense, because at the end of the day we must acknowledge the importance of objective standards, and standardisation of standards, with our trans-Tasman neighbour, Australia. Nobody wants to compromise those standards, but this bill just had to go that sneaky bit further.

STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) : I move, That the question be now put.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) : I rise to speak to the Standards and Conformance Bill, and to bring to the Minister’s attention, for starters—I am sure she is well aware of the Ministry of Economic Development’s website—the Government’s objectives for conformance and standards. I will not ask her to recite them off pat, because that would be unfair, of course, but I will remind her of what those objectives are. I will read through them. First and foremost is facilitating domestic and international trade. Second is minimising risks to health, safety, and the environment. The third is facilitating innovation and economic development as part of the economic transformation equation that our Prime Minister is banging the table about at the moment, while we are still going backwards on economic growth. The fourth is reducing compliance costs. That is what it says there; it is all about reducing compliance costs.

So I imagine that is why the Minister is planning a trip in February of 2007 to the ISO Working Group on Social Responsibility, which will take place in February 2007 in Sydney, Australia. I ask the Minister whether she will be attending that conference. I do not think she is sure about that.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: She doesn’t know.

CHRIS TREMAIN: She does not know. Well, I would like her to find out a little bit more—being the Minister of Commerce, responsible for commerce and standards, and for introducing a new standard that is all about minimising environmental risks and promoting social responsibility into the Standards Act 1988. Yet the Minister does not even know about a conference that will be taking place in Sydney in February 2007, on the ISO Working Group on Social Responsibility. Now we might ask ourselves why the heck might we have a conference on that. Well, I have to say that I would not be wasting my time in attending it myself. But it is the very reason this whole change in the Act is coming about, and the Minister is not even aware of it.

I want to talk to her about why it is coming through, because there is a hierarchy of standards that come about throughout the world. Firstly, there are international standards, then standards set on an Australasian level. Then regional and local standards are set—all done under the Standards Act of 1988. Just for the Minister’s reference—this evening is probably a bit of an education for her—I tell her that the Standards Act was originally put in to consolidate and amend the law relating to standards, and to repeal the original Standards Act of 1965.

A body was set up called the Standards Council, I say, for the Minister’s benefit, and there are 12 members on the council. She may not be aware, either, that the membership of that council is made up of bodies as august as the New Zealand Institute of Architects Inc. Was she aware of that? It includes the National Council of Women—it is there to help set standards and be part of it—and other august bodies like Local Government New Zealand. So that standards organisation is there to set standards for New Zealand, and now we are seeing this amending legislation being brought in to add to the functions of the council. The primary functions of the council should be to develop standards, and to promote encourage, and facilitate the use of standards in New Zealand. Let us go back to the Ministry of Economic Development website, and I ask what those objectives were—to facilitate innovation in economic development, and to reduce compliance costs.

I want to know how the heck minimising of environmental risk and promoting social responsibility will have any impact, whatsoever, on increasing economic transformation for this country. That is the question the Minister should be asking, because creating growth should be what it is all about. I will tell members why we have this—this whole thing comes from a conference that will end up in Sydney next year, dealing with the international standard ISO 26,000 on social responsibility.

Let me tell the Minister a little about ISO 26,000, which is the international standard that has been set, on a worldwide basis, for social responsibility. The interesting thing about that standard is that it will not include requirements, and thus will be a certification standard. So it will be optional. We are going through this whole process of amending legislation to make two changes to the Standards Act—for the minimisation of environmental risk and the promotion of social responsibility—all for ISO 26,000, which will be optional. That is unbelievable. How will it enhance economic transformation in this country?

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) : I move, That the question be now put.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I appreciate the opportunity to have some input into this debate. I am particularly concerned when I look at this bill; I am really delighted that my colleagues, and National, are opposing it. I think that it is quite scary when we see Labour making such amendments in legislation. When we look at Part 1, “clause 7: “Functions of council”, we see that subclause (4) states: “Section 10(2)(h) of the principal act is amended by inserting, after the word “standards”, the words “and other specifications”. To me, that is broad in the extreme. What does “and other specifications” really say about what we can expect in the future?

I am mindful of a recent press release about cars. If one also takes into account environmental and social responsibility, where will the emphasis be? If we look at the latest press release about small cars being death traps, we see that it says that smaller vehicles are built as economically as possible, and the biggest economy is attached to safety features. So yes, small vehicles have a saving in terms of fuel consumption, but safety features are sacrificed as a consequence. So will we support small vehicles because they seem to be more environmentally friendly, or will we oppose small vehicles because they have a much greater personal risk to people’s health and safety? The article goes on to say that there are a lot of problems in providing adequate performance protection. If specifications or standards are being set, which one will take precedence—the environment or people’s safety? Who will weigh up those sorts of issues when it comes to setting standards or, indeed, specifications? Here, “specifications” are a pretty broad brush and can be applied to just about anything.

When I was listening to my colleague Mr Chris Tremain earlier, I was very impressed with his presentation, and with his reacquainting us with the intention of standards—that is, to facilitate domestic and international trade. I would say that the Government has failed miserably in that regard, when one thinks about honey imports and the standards it applies there. The Government is putting our whole agricultural and horticultural sector at risk because those standards are not robust. The Government acknowledges that they are not, yet it has taken that on board and still made the decision to allow honey to be imported into New Zealand that is not heated to its optimum in order to ensure we do not have diseases coming into this country and putting the rest of our horticultural and agricultural sectors at risk.

This bill was supposed to enhance public confidence in the setting of standards, but in no way does it do that. What else does this bill say? Clause 7(5) states: “Section 10(2)(i) of the principal Act is amended by adding the words ‘or that the Minister may direct it to perform in accordance with section 112 of the Crown Entities Act 2004’.” What does section 112 state? It states: “If an Act, or a Crown entity company’s constitution, gives the responsible Minister power to add to the functions of a Crown entity, the Minister may direct the entity to perform any additional function that is so added and that is consistent with the entity’s objectives.” This bill now gives the Minister the power to direct it to perform any other functions that the Minister deems acceptable, and, again, that could be broad in the extreme. I have absolutely no faith in this Government, particularly with its record around fiscal responsibility and, indeed, around compliance costs.

I think two of the most telling submissions were from Telarc and from Health and Disability Auditing New Zealand Ltd. Both made very clear submissions, and, in fact, did the work for this Government of identifying what the compliance costs would be. What did this Government do? It completely ignored the content of those submissions around compliance costs. It completely dismissed those concerns that were raised. Health and Disability Auditing New Zealand Ltd made it quite clear by setting out graphs and identifying all the figures. It was going to cost that company $155,000, compared to $18,000. I think that is absolutely abominable. I can believe that this Government would be so ignorant of the effect of the introduction of this bill on other entities. Telarc itself also goes on to outline some of the costs in its submission.

TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) : I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): This part includes debate on the schedule.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : I am not at all surprised this evening that the Government has chosen not to take a single call on a bill to do with standards. If we think about it, it is not at all surprising. If we look at this Government, which Helen Clark promised would set new high standards, and the shemozzles we have seen since, I am not surprised that not a single member of the Labour Government would want to participate in a debate on standards. We could talk about the standards that Labour has set around immigration law, for instance, and Mr Phillip Field. [Interruption] Lianne Dalziel, the Minister in the chair, has finally popped up with a word in defence of Phillip Field. She is an ex-trade unionist.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: Tell us about the bill.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The bill is about standards. I would like the Minister in the chair to talk about standards. I think it could be quite interesting to hear from this Government about standards. We could hear about standards of ministerial conduct. We could hear about standards of parliamentary conduct. We have seen appalling examples of standards from everybody in the Government—from the Prime Minister down—in respect of this bill.

This Government says, in this classic Labour bill: “Do as we say, not as we do.” Government members want to have a Standards Council in order to preach to others about what should be the standard, but they do not want any standards applied to themselves. We had the extraordinary exhibition from the Prime Minister today that showed that the Government would not accept even the standard of the Solicitor-General or the Auditor-General. I ask the Minister why we are going to all this effort to pass laws about standards in respect of laboratories and petroleum, all because we want to have an independent standard-setting process. We have one of those—it is called the Auditor-General. What happens when the Auditor-General says that the Government has breached the law? Labour members say that it is nothing to do with them and that the Auditor-General is wrong.

Hon Chris Carter: Tell us about the $16 million.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I just challenge Mr Carter to talk about—

Hon Chris Carter: Oh, tell us about the court case.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: One minute the member wants me to refer to the bill on standards, and the next minute he wants me to talk about building standards. I have a simple question for Chris Carter. Can he tell me whether houses in New Zealand—he is an ex-Minister in this area—should be built according to standards set by Standards New Zealand or whether we should defer to the Department of Building and Housing? Can the Minister in the chair tell us? I have here a press release from the Certified Builders Association, which wants to know what standard applies. Can Mr Carter—a Minister of the Crown, the previous Minister for Building Issues, and the Minister of Housing—tell us? Can the Minister answer the question?

Hon Chris Carter: I’ve never been in court.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I have to say to the member that I stand by my record of standing up for causes, and I will continue to do that with courage—something that that member never does. But can he simply answer the question? What happens with Labour members is that they just want to change the law retrospectively if they get it wrong. Is that what Mr Carter will do with regard to breaking the law—

Hon Chris Carter: I didn’t break the law. Did you, Dr Smith?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Actually, the Solicitor-General says that Mr Carter did break the law. Mr Carter is subject to a court case for breaching the law over the pledge card. What is his answer on that?

Lindsay Tisch: No standards.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: He has no standards. I simply ask the Minister in the chair and Mr Carter how Labour members can preach about standards to other New Zealanders when they blatantly ignore the law and ignore the standard-setting authorities around Parliament—the Chief Electoral Officer, the Solicitor-General, and the Auditor-General. We simply say that it is hypocritical of the Government to advance law on standards when it ignores the standards set for others.

PANSY WONG (National) : The Labour Government is not only failing to live up to and set the standard, but it is also consistent in not caring about other people’s money. Let us look at Part 2, which is about—fair enough—amalgamating accreditation bodies to make one body, so that organisations can now receive accreditation under this new organisation, called the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand. But we are not talking about more compliance costs; we are talking about more actual costs to those organisations.

I particularly want to challenge some of the other parties that supported this bill, like New Zealand First and United Future, in relation to the organisation called Health and Disability Auditing New Zealand. It is not just any organisation; it actually accredits services. It is a designated auditing agency approved by the Director-General of Health to audit all service areas under the Health and Disability Service. Under its existing accreditation, which is from International Accreditation New Zealand, the fee cost is $18,915 for 3 years. I wonder whether my colleagues would like to take a guess at how many times that fee will increase, when the organisation switches to accreditation under the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand?

Hon Members: Tell us.

PANSY WONG: Five is too modest—10 times! The fee will be $155,823, which is 10 times the previous fee. I am not too sure what benefit it will buy for that organisation. Anyway, a member of the organisation raised that point with the Ministry of Economic Development, which, once again, said that he should not worry; it was a Government department and it was there to help. So the ministry talked to the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand and said that maybe it should review its fee structure, as it seemed a bit high, and that overnight there had been a tenfold increase. So the ministry came back with a counteroffer. Can members guess how much it was?

Kate Wilkinson: Nine times.

PANSY WONG: No, not quite that much. It actually reduced it, for 2 years, by $20,000. So from the original increase in fee, which was about $137,000, the increase will go down to $110,000. What can be gained, overnight, by an accreditation fee increase of $110,000?

Dr Jackie Blue: Hope.

PANSY WONG: Dr Jackie Blue is on the Health Committee. She can tell me how much $110,000 could purchase for us in terms of any operations. How many people could be put back on the waiting list that was culled?

I would like the Minister to take a call. I think that having a one-standard accreditation agency is a sound concept, but how do we justify the cost? We are not even talking about compliance costs—some of the organisations involved are providers of the health service. Overnight, Health and Disability Auditing New Zealand will have to pay an additional $110,000 simply to get accredited. I want the Minister to take a call and say what additional advantage will be offered to those health service providers that can now get an audit from that very reputable organisation, Health and Disability Auditing New Zealand.

I think we need to take these issues seriously. This bill is not just about increasing compliance costs that people will have to adhere to; it is actually about increasing, overnight, by $110,000—by 10 times—the cost for an organisation that is already accredited, appointed, and approved by the Director-General of Health. If that organisation is doing such a bad job, we should ask the director-general about it, but if he felt confident to appoint that agency, what is the justification for it suddenly to incur a $110,000 additional cost?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Before I call the next speaker, I will deal with another issue. The previous two votes should have been announced as “Ayes: 66; Noes: 51”. So both votes will be altered accordingly. Thank you.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I am very pleased to take another call on the Standards and Conformance Bill and to highlight yet another clause that gives rise to concern. Before I do so, I say that people should be really concerned and alarmed about the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand, because that is another one of those areas where there is agreement between Australia and—

Hon Lianne Dalziel: It was set up in 1998 by the National Government.

SANDRA GOUDIE: Well, I still have concerns around that relationship, and I hope—[Interruption] Well, I was not here then, and I can still have concerns around it. If it is anything like the Trans-Tasman therapeutic goods agency model, then I think we would do well to have concerns around it.

I draw the Committee’s attention to clause 16, “Powers of Council”. I note that part of the function is to: “collect and disseminate information relating to conformity assessment, including the publication of reports, pamphlets, books, journals, and other publications: (m) provide advisory and other services in respect of conformity assessment:”, and: “(n) promote research into the methods of conformity assessment:”. Members should look at that clause, coupled with the review and the consultant’s report back on the review, which states: “there are a number of gaps in knowledge of the standards and conformance infrastructure amongst the business community; and some regulators have opted not to utilise New Zealand’s standards and conformance infrastructure, especially in terms of developing or applying standards to support performance-based regulations and/or using third party conformity assessment. The report also found that some firms are not aware of the potential benefits standards and conformance may offer their industry generally or their individual business specifically.” I have to say, given the compliance costs involved with this bill—which have been outlined admirably by previous National speakers—that businesses will not look to adopt any sorts of standards or conformity in regard to this bill at all if they assess what the cost will be as a consequence.

Members should look at Telarc’s accreditation costs from the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand. They are a significant part of Telarc’s cost structure, being the third-largest cost after staff costs and rent, and equal to approximately 50 percent of its 2004-05 annual profit. That is pretty substantial and pretty horrific, and I suggest that not too many businesses will be rushing to get any standards or certification from that organisation. In 2001 the fee structure was amended in such a way that the impact on Telarc was a 30 percent increase in accreditation costs per certificate issued to its clients. That is a huge increase, and it makes a huge dent into the profits of such companies. So how can they possibly try to remunerate any staff, when those sorts of costs are involved?

The Minister in the chair, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, waxes lyrical about wanting to reduce compliance costs in this country, yet when push comes to shove she does absolutely nothing—in fact, she did the reverse. This bill is a classic example of the ignorance of this Government around fiscal capability and responsibility. The Government has no idea of what its actions continue to mean for businesses in this country, with the pervasive increased costs it keeps dumping on them, and this bill is a hugely significant example of that.

We note that the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand charter states that it is a not-for-profit organisation. One has to wonder what on earth it is planning to do with all of those fees, and whether, with the new agency being created, it will start imposing a lot of other constraints and conditions on all sorts of businesses, and requiring them to meet all sorts of standardisations.

When we look at the other provisions that have already been outlined, we see that the Minister can identify any sorts of specifications. New section 13(2)(m), inserted by clause 16, allows the Testing Laboratory Registration Council to: “provide advisory and other services in respect of conformity assessment:”. For goodness’ sake! The Government cannot even do that for itself, let alone for the public of New Zealand. It has failed miserably to provide an example to the New Zealand public in the way in which it conducts its own affairs, yet it expects the New Zealand public to have confidence in the way it acts on behalf of business.

NICKY WAGNER (National) : It is very hard for ordinary people to get excited about this Standards and Conformance Bill. The world of standards and conformance is all long words, acronyms, and plenty of specification numbers. This bill is so convoluted that none of the many media people around Parliament has even taken the slightest interest in it.

This bill is designed, firstly, to make sure that the Standards Council develops standards for goods and services, and that the Testing Laboratory Registration Council makes sure these standards are being met and conform with international standards, norms, and practices. That means, in lay speak, that New Zealand can be trusted internationally to produce goods and services of a high and consistent quality. The average New Zealander may not be interested in the detail of this bill, but he or she does expect, and rightly so, that goods purchased, and services used, are functionally effective. People also expect that the standards in force in New Zealand are in line with international practice.

But take a simple, small issue—noisy exhausts. New Zealanders are very unhappy about the current standards concerning noisy cars and the testing regime for noisy exhausts. New Zealand is out of step with the rest of the world in terms of noise standards. For most of us, it is pretty irrelevant, but not for someone whose home happens to be near a road that has been designated by boy racers as a drag strip—and there are plenty of those around the country. For someone whose hotel or business is in the centre of a city, the situation is a disaster. Families lose sleep and patience, businesses lose patronage and income, and our country loses its reputation for being clean and green.

Our legislation has become weaker and harder to enforce over the last few years while most other countries—those of Europe, the UK, and Australia—have tightened their standards. Australia has updated its requirements so that all new cars need to meet a drive-by test of 76 decibels, but in New Zealand, cars have to meet only an 81-decibel test. But the real problem is that we allow the modification of cars with no commitment to a regular testing regime to ensure that even our inadequate standards are met. Cheap Japanese cars, with modified noisy exhausts, have been a persistent and growing problem ever since Labour came to power.

• Progress to be reported presently.
• House resumed.
• The Chairperson reported progress on the Standards and Conformance Bill.