GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : This vote must be one of the truly great embarrassments for the current Government. While there is an overwhelming desire among all sectors of New Zealand to see treaty issues settled fairly and justly and at a speedy pace, the Government has not made any effort to progress the great work of Doug Graham during the 1990s. Rather, it has slid along on the coat-tails of the work that Doug Graham did, and in fact has achieved very, very little. What bothers us is that while all of this is happening the Government is about to pass legislation, with the help of other parties, including the hopelessly directionless New Zealand First, to put in place seabed and foreshore legislation that will see the treaty grievance industry considerably enhanced—well, not enhanced; in fact, it will see it grow at an alarming rate.

I ask the Minister whether there is any explanation for the fact that the proposal for next year is to settle just $31 million worth of settlements. That is certainly a lot of money, but in the overall context of treaty settlements it is a very, very small amount, indicating that not much work is being done. I would also like to have some explanation of why the Government claims to have settled so many treaty negotiations, when, in fact, they were started under the watch of Sir Doug Graham. That was 5 years ago. We have had 5 years of Māori being pushed to the back and told that their interest is not that of the Government, and that they will simply have to wait for their settlement time to come. Where is the additional resourcing for the Waitangi Tribunal that might see some of these matters dealt with before my children are old enough to vote in parliamentary elections, or, indeed, to stand in this House to consider legislation on these matters? We are simply shuffling things around a bit and leaving them for future generations.

The question must be how long the fiscal cap will hold in place. How long will it be before various tribes start saying: “What you’re offering us in the year 2005, 2006, or 2007 is not enough, because it is based on a figure that was struck in 1990, some 15 years ago.”? We learnt recently that the income disparity between Māori and non-Māori in this country is of such a magnitude that if at any point the two figures were to be brought together, then, over a 10-year period, an additional $45 billion would be delivered to Māori New Zealand families—families that would be participating in the wider New Zealand economy. The fiscal parameters around the treaty settlements and any fisheries settlements amount to just on $2 billion. What we cannot understand is why we would not want to get that capital into the hands of those who can make a difference with it, so that the whole country can benefit from those larger incomes, and so the infrastructure of New Zealand in terms of social services, educational services, and health services can be enhanced by virtue of fewer people at the bottom end being so far away from the average income.

So this is a very, very sad record that the Labour Government has totalled up. It really does speak of the neglect it has inflicted upon Māori in this country, who are well-meaning in most of these cases, and simply want to get on with their lives, to remedy past injustices, and to move forward.

Darren Hughes: Has your leader benefited?

GERRY BROWNLEE: Let us make it very clear that when Don Brash said in his Ōrewa speech that he wanted to take out undue references to the Treaty of Waitangi from legislation, he was very much defining the difference between National and Labour. I tell Mr Hughes that we are not interested in putting flash words into legislation that confuse people; we are interested in making a difference to the lives of New Zealanders who want to get on with it. Treaty grievances are, by and large, understood. People know when there was a bad deal, and they want a better deal. They will not get it, of course, until this Government has gone.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : I want to report on the Māori Affairs Committee report on the progress of treaty negotiations. In this year’s report we note two things. Page 4 states: “Some of us remain concerned at the suitability of staff to conduct negotiations with senior tribal leaders. In particular, we note that OTS does not regularly engage lead negotiators who have equivalent community standing.” The Minister may well think that it is only the National Party that says that. I can tell her that that sentiment is shared by her colleagues, the Māori members who represent the various Māori seats that Labour holds. It is a widespread concern. The trouble is that we have a Minister who thinks that treaty negotiations are best conducted by a policy of benign neglect—that she can leave it to the Office of Treaty Settlements, and occasionally helicopter in to sign a document or deliver an apology. Well, that does not work. What is required is an intensive, ongoing effort by the Government, with a Minister actively seized of the negotiating process.

We know that the Minister prefers the area of labour relations. We know that she prefers—although perhaps not this week—issues to do with the Supreme Court. The one area of her responsibilities that is perhaps more important for the future of the country than any other is concluding the treaty settlement process. The reason we say “concluding” is that it is about actually unifying and healing the nation. Whilst we remain a nation in the middle of the treaty settlement process, we will, to a large extent, remain divided. We have only to look at the example of NgāiTahu, in particular—but there are others, as well—to see that once the settlement process is complete, there is a bringing together of communities. That is what is required, and it is what the Government has simply failed to understand. That is why Dr Brash, at Ōrewa, talked about the need to complete the settlement process.

We have made an undertaking that we will complete the settlement process in 5 years. That means a new way of thinking. It means new and fresh approaches to dealing with the process. Some of that does involve getting high-powered, highly qualified, well-respected people—senior people whom iwi negotiators will respect, and whom they will understand and be able to deal with—to speed the process. That is what occurred in the 1990s. It also involves the Minister taking a keen interest, and being closely involved, in the process. For instance, back in 1999 the then Minister, Sir Douglas Graham, was able to complete five heads of agreement with five Taranaki iwi. We are 5 years down the track, and not all of those are yet even into legislation. Last month I issued a press release, in which I said that in the space of 5 years Parliament had passed only four Treaty of Waitangi settlement Acts. The Minister clearly did not read that release accurately, because she claimed that I was wrong and that the Government had many other things in train, as well. I guess it does have things in train, but she could not say that, in terms of the legislation—the final event that actually creates the settlement itself—there were any more than four settlements. I know that the Minister says—and I would like her to take a call—that she has legislation afoot to put to Parliament to settle some Taranaki iwi claims, and we will support that, because we have been waiting a long, long time for it to occur.

We on the Opposition side of the Chamber are concerned to see the relatively low level of the vote for treaty settlements over previous years, ranging from a high of $60 million. It is noteworthy that that was in 1999-2000. Since then, it has been down to $27 million, $31 million, and so forth. That represents the slow pace and low number of settlements. The fact that the vote has collapsed to such an extent shows how woefully behind the pace the Government is. The Government has said that it believes the process can be completed in 15 years’ time. We have asked that question of the Office of Treaty Settlements—and, indeed, of the Minister when she appeared before the select committee—numerous times. Each time, the answer has been that it would require 15 years, give or take a few years. Fifteen years has been the consistent answer.

Well, that answer has been given now for 5 years. What that means, of course, is that in the Government’s mind its framework has already been extended out to 2020. I recall—and the Minister herself should recall—a time when she and the Office of Treaty Settlements were talking about 2012-15. That is what she said in 2001. But today we are talking about 2020—effectively 15 years down the track. So it was not surprising that, when the chief executive of the Office of Treaty Settlements was challenged on the slow pace of the settlements, he started talking about time frames and the need to put in some shape. One got the fundamental impression of a degree of frustration creeping into the office, because it has a Minister who simply does not care and does not take the focused effort that is necessary to expedite the process.

It is for the benefit of the country to conclude these settlements. I say it is for the benefit of the country, but perhaps more significantly—and the Minister of Māori Affairs certainly knows this—it is for the benefit of Māori themselves. Part of concluding the settlement process is not just the restoration of particular assets or sums of money. It is the sense of restoration of the iwi—the sense of iwi pride—that is an important part of people’s development. Those of us—and I presume this includes the Minister—who have gone to various iwi that have completed settlements and have moved into looking at the opportunities for the future can see the advantages that have resulted from those settlements. We can see that those iwi have been able to provide funds for students to attend universities and polytechnics, and to provide a whole range of services and facilities for the members of the iwi. The process and completion of the settlement is an inherent part of building capability and capacity within the Māori people. The money itself is not the critical issue, because in reality it will never be enough to give individuals a real opportunity to close the gaps. But what it does do is to heal the spirit. Once that is done, the development of people can be advanced. That is precisely where the Government has failed to seize the opportunity.

There will come an opportunity in 12 months’ time, when the public will get to choose which party it prefers to do the real business of concluding settlements that are to the benefit of this country. I would have to say that, based on the Government’s lackadaisical and lazy progress to date, Labour will not be the preferred choice.

Hon MARGARET WILSON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) : This is an estimates debate, so I think it is appropriate to record that the recent Budget saw an increase of $1.2 million for treaty negotiations. That does not include any extra funding that would have gone to the Waitangi Tribunal, and the support that we have given there. I have listened with interest, as I always do, to the comments of my colleagues in the Opposition. They certainly do give truth to the cliché that National is really quite brave when it is in Opposition, but when one examines its record from the nearly 10 years when it had the opportunity to do something about treaty settlements, one finds it was rather poor.

I, unfortunately, have had the position as the current Minister of having to clean up the mess that was left behind by the previous Government. That is one of the difficulties one has with the NgāiTahu settlement, which is much vaunted—and a very good settlement it was. But the fact that we are only now starting to implement it is a classic example of how if one rushes to judgment, so to speak, one repents for quite some time. The Tainui claim, of course, was settled by National—or was it? The easy bits were. The previous Government left all the hard bits, because it is Labour that cleans up the mess. Then we come to the Whakatōhea and the Te Ātiawa settlements. Those were great examples of the National Party’s approach to treaty settlements: to get there and tell people what to do. When Māori got an opportunity to speak for themselves, they said “wait, wait”. That is exactly what happened.

We are about to be treated to a new policy, called the fiscal envelope policy, that will undoubtedly be presented by the National Party at the next election. We will look forward with interest to see the next series of disasters that National will create in terms of imposing its will upon claimant groups, without taking into consideration the most essential aspect of the whole treaty settlement process: that it must be done in a way that takes account of the wishes of both parties—not only the wishes of the Crown, which has been the National Party’s approach to the issue as it imposed its will on claimants. We have gone into genuine negotiations with claimant groups. Yes, it does take longer than imposing the Crown’s wishes on claimants, but we have done that because we want to have lasting and durable settlements.

Dr Wayne Mapp: Are you suggesting NgāiTahu—

Hon MARGARET WILSON: Some of those settlements that the member talks about are now being reopened—not NgāiTahu’s, but I am told that some of the other settlements were not quite as full and final as they should have been. Perhaps the detail was not actually attended to by the previous Government. We have fine rhetoric from National, but when it comes to the hard work and the professional approach needed to get fair and durable settlements, its record is absolutely abysmal.

We are engaged now with over 25 claimant groups. In recent days we have had the Prime Minister’s apology, and I did not note that the honourable members were there to back up their fine words when the apology was given to Te Uri o Hau.

Dr Wayne Mapp: They didn’t invite us.

Hon MARGARET WILSON: The members should not have needed an invitation. If they were so concerned for claimants they would have been there—no problem, at all.

Dr Wayne Mapp: No respect.

Hon MARGARET WILSON: Precisely. The Opposition has no respect for the claimant group, or for the fact that you are part of the Crown and you should have been there to be represented at the same time as the Government. But you walked away—

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker—

Hon MARGARET WILSON: I am sorry; I apologise. National walked away.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairman. My complaint, Sir, is not against the Attorney-General and Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, who has apologised. My complaint is against the chief Government whip, who consistently browbeats someone who tries to take a point of order. I do not want to be particularly pedantic, but I think it was a bit rich—[Interruption] Now we have the Minister of Māori Affairs, Parekura Horomia, interfering on a point of order. I think you should suggest to the chief Government whip that she lets Parliament deal with Parliament and does not always scream out across the Chamber like a demented hen, as she tries to stop MPs from taking legitimate points of order. Surely you would agree that standing up to protect the Chair is a responsible thing to do, without having Jill Pettis screaming out.

Jill Pettis: Speaking to the point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): No, I do not need any help on this matter, thank you very much. You are quite right, Mr Hide, and I hope the Committee will take notice of that.

Hon MARGARET WILSON: I take the point, and I apologise to the Chair. The point I was making was that if National was serious and genuine about its concern for claimants, it would have a united approach to the settlement of grievances. Certainly, this Government has tried to work with the precedents that were established by the previous Government, in the interests of certainty. We have tried to do that as well as we can, because we saw that this process is bigger than either of us—in fact, it is important to the whole country. It saddens me that we have a debate like this that comes down to personal attacks, instead of looking to be able to resolve those differences.

• Vote agreed to.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : In looking at Vote Māori Affairs, we really are looking at a Government department that seems hell-bent on entrenching grievance and misery in this country—a department that does not seem to have any idea of where it is heading, or any idea of what it is supposed to achieve. One thing that really winds me up is that we are constantly told that Māori are special, are set apart, and have particular and exceptional rights inside this country, and that then there are the rest of us, who are, apparently, the Crown, and who have some obligation—in fact, a considerable obligation—to that other group. I want to make it clear that the National Party rejects that concept completely. I want the Minister to tell us this afternoon what positive things his department is doing, because I am struggling to see in the list of this year’s estimates just what those things may be.

Hon John Tamihere: He will struggle all right!

GERRY BROWNLEE: There is Mr Tamihere coming into the Chamber, making smart comments again, and chipping away at anybody and everybody who disagrees with him. He has just presided last evening over an utter debacle up in the far north, involving a totally crook organisation of which he was once the chief executive. That is the sort of thing that those of us who are told we are the Crown—and who have, therefore, some obligation to Māori—cannot understand. We are, quite frankly, sick of it.

I want the Minister of Māori Affairs to explain to the Committee what the whānau development programme is all about. The 2004 Budget puts $14 million a year into whānau development. We cannot work out quite what that is all about, but we do hear that there are people in various Māori organisations who refer to that money as “the Horomia picnic money”—people can put in an application, get a few thousand dollars, and go and have a hāngi on Parekura Horomia. What is whānau development, and why do we have to have whānau development for Māori, when there is no such equivalent for other families in this country? Māori, of course, under this Government are different; they are not part of the community of New Zealand. Māori are the reserved elite, and this Government is determined they should be kept there. The sad deception is that Māori, under Labour, are still at the bottom of every social statistic that represents the worst aspects of life in this country. Māori still lag very significantly behind the rest of the nation when it comes to average income, Māori are the ones who die of the worst kind of diseases and of other diseases that could be prevented, and Māori families are the ones that struggle with the issue of poor housing in the far north and in various other parts of the country. But we have a Government that is utterly hoodwinking Māori into believing that it is on their side.

I want to know how a poor Māori family will get anything out of Te MāngaiPāho being given another $26 million this year. That organisation has just had an audit run over it, and there were no fewer than 40 discrepancies in the management of that organisation.

Brian Connell: How many?

GERRY BROWNLEE: Forty discrepancies were picked up by the Audit Office. And I tell members that the Minister has decided to give Te MāngaiPāho more money. Not one Māori who is suffering from diabetes and not being treated, not one Māori kid struggling with his or her reading at school, and not one Māori living in substandard housing will benefit from that. But Māori should not worry, because Parekura Horomia is there, and if they write him a nice letter he will send them a few bob for a barbecue.

I want to know why we are spending so much money on the Māori television channel. There will be those who say that part of the Government’s obligation from the early 1990s is to ensure that the Māori language is preserved and has its place in broadcasting. But when I look at mainstream television, I see most of Sunday morning is devoted to Māori television. The children’s programme modelled on What Now is another chunk of such programming. I want to know why there has to be a separate channel for Māori. Why does there have to be a separate organisation for Māori, and why can that organisation not hold its management structure together? Why does it have to be so riddled with the sort of disasters that we have seen since the appointment of John Davy? Why did the Government not use its State broadcasting charter to simply insist that the goals of Māori Television were delivered through the State television already owned by the taxpayer?

I look at Māori Television programming, and I say that there are a couple of programmes that I very much enjoy, like Kai Time on the Road.

Hon Parekura Horomia: Ha, ha!

GERRY BROWNLEE: I tell members that I am almost encouraged by Kai Time on the Road to write a letter to Mr Horomia myself, to see whether I can get some of his barbecue money. Those programmes are about New Zealand discovering its own identity. There is an easy transition between te reo Māori and English, but it is all done in the context of what happens in this country. I think the Government wants to create the illusion that by having a separate Māori television channel, that group of people is a separate nation. If there is a separate nation it is a pretty bad state, because the people who overwhelmingly represent the lowest and worst of our social statistics are part of that nation. So there is a long, long way to go.

I think this Minister has not done the sort of work he should be doing in order to make a difference. I still cannot get an answer from Te PuniKōkiri about what capacity building is. What one receives are screeds of paper that generally rabbit on about all sorts of garbage. One is handed that and expected to accept that that is what capacity building is. I recently wrote to a number of Māori trusts, asking them whether they had received any funding from an assistance with management fund that was available to them. The answers I received stated that none of them had had any money, that some of them had had some literature from Te PuniKōkiri, and that one had had a letter from Te PuniKōkiri stating that the trust was not subject to the Official Information Act, so it did not have to reply to me, and that it should simply send my letter to Te PuniKōkiri, which would write back to me. I am still waiting for that letter. I think that that Government department needs to have a serious rule run over it.

I have been incredibly patient, quite frankly, for almost 6 months now, while trying to get my understanding of these things upskilled a bit, but I cannot see anything positive coming out of Te PuniKōkiri, at all—nothing. What we get is—[Interruption] There—did members see that? I want that comment to go in . That was the senior Government whip, from the Labour Party—the Labour Party, mind you—once again offering my trade background as a sort of derogatory comment. That is why that crowd will be slung out of Government. That is why Whanganui is a dead seat for Labour, and why that member will not be on the Government benches after the next election. Those members have no respect for working New Zealanders, and they have no respect for Māori New Zealanders, who just want to get on with their lives.

TARIANA TURIA (Leader—Māori Party) : The tragedy of any estimates is that the majority of money spent on Māori is spent by others, and mostly inefficiently and ineffectively. But I do want to recognise the importance of the funding that has been allocated in the new initiatives for strengthening whānau and community Māori language use. We believe te reo Māori is the cornerstone of all that is Māori, and, given this, it would have been great if the Government had in fact made a more significant commitment. What our party would like to see is that all te reo Māori courses offered by tertiary institutions are freely available to our people. Our people should not have to pay to learn their own language, given that it was successive Governments’ policies that prevented our people from using the reo from some time ago, and I think of my own mother as an example of somebody who ended up losing her mother tongue.

It is a matter of great pleasure for me today that when I stated my affirmation in the House in te reo, I did so as the first member of Parliament to deliver the affirmation in our own reo without it having to be translated into English. Te reo Māori is not my first language, so I have a personal appreciation of the desperate need for our language to survive. Language is about identity, which is why I respect the right of other nations to retain their languages as they live in this land. The next step for te reo Māori would be for all members to pronounce each other’s names correctly in this House. That is about being respectful.

I want to refer to four other areas targeted in the Māori affairs portfolio—three pertaining to State bureaucracy, and the whānau development package. When analysing the appropriations of new initiatives, I was concerned to see the level of funding dedicated to propping up departmental and agency infrastructures. Budget 2004 sets aside funding for Te PuniKōkiri, Te MāngaiPāho, and the Māori Trust Office. All of this will be greeted with cappuccino and cheers along Lambton Quay, but I wonder how many of the people who journeyed down to sit in the public gallery yesterday will benefit from the $6 million to enhance the capability of Māori affairs. I wonder how those mokopuna who looked down on our proceedings yesterday from the gallery will appreciate the importance of the $1.4 million for technical and development funding for the Māori Trust Office, and the $2.036 million for capability funding for Te MāngaiPāho. It is the people who need to be invested in, not Government agencies.

My key focus today in looking at the Māori affairs portfolio is more to address one specific aspect of this year’s estimates, and that is whānau development. While I can appreciate that the honourable Gerry Brownlee does not understand what whānau development is about, it is a very important plank for our people. The Māori Party has no doubt that our people are our greatest taonga, and, in this regard, we are delighted that the work I had commenced over 2 years ago, with the national whānau development hui, followed by 13 regional hui, has seen good results in the $14 million allocated for whānau development. The Māori Party is delighted there will be support for whānau to achieve their own aspirations. Only our whānau know what is best for themselves, and our role is to ensure that any Government intervention is one that resources and empowers whānau to address our own social, cultural, and economic aspirations. We will no longer tolerate others looking from afar and determining the solutions and, frankly, the problems for our people; we can decide that for ourselves.

We are particularly delighted to note that there is $8.5 million dedicated to action research programmes. Action research is designed to achieve change. The focus is to take action to improve a situation, and the research is the conscious effort, as part of this process, to build on our knowledge. Whānau development action research programmes will therefore achieve change, improve situations for our people, then continue to inform and guide them in their ongoing planning processes. Whānau will be doing this for themselves, and we will all be watching to see that no outsiders looking in are taking the lead. The critical component in all of this, of course, is whānau.

Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Associate Minister of Maori Affairs) : I want to take a short call to respond to the honourable member who is a spokesperson for the National Party for matters Māori, Mr Gerry Brownlee. On a number of matters, and in every speech he has made since his appointment, we have yet to know what that party would do in power with regard to some of the difficulties that are being managed by this Government with regard to our communities. At no time do we hear any detail. One hears the buffoonery and all the rest of it, but one never hears any detail, substance, or policy. [Interruption] That member is always very good, like the member for Rakaia, at screaming and yelling across the Chamber. [] There he is, yelling and screaming at me again, for the listeners. The reality is that he is one of the cheerleaders for Gerry Brownlee, which is probably why he got into the caucus.

But let me just point out a number of things. Under this Government—a Labour-led Government—Māori have surged forward in the last 5 years, more so than they ever did in the previous 15. Māori unemployment, with regard to which these estimates are very well calibrated, will continue to drop. It is now down to its lowest level for the last 16 years, and it will continue to drop. In terms of the whānau development fund about which the great Mr Gerry Brownlee opined he knew nothing, I agree with that—he knew nothing about it. Let me just disclose for members what that budget might go towards—and it is not “might”; some of it will. We know in our communities which families are in difficulty, and we know in our communities exactly where our babies who are in difficulties are. At the moment, we will ring fence them by way of a wrap-around care plan, and look at the whole family’s difficulties—not just when they come to the attention of the care and protection or youth justice agencies, or are managed by our criminal justice system. Early intervention, early risk identification, is where that funding is going. It will drop youth offending overnight, once it hits the communities that it can roll out in. Māori families will start to lift their performance, as they are doing right now.

We are in a wonderful stage of our evolution, and we will move on from the victimhood and grievance policies being suggested by the Māori Party. We are moving on, but not from the deficit model of the Māori Party or the National Party—in fact, I now know why Tariana Turia gets on so well with Don Brash, after that speech. We are moving forward in a positive and progressive framework. We understand the latent and wonderful potential of our communities, and they have to be talked up. Our children will start to march for things; they will not be told by leaders of the Māori Party to march against things. They will be told that they are as good as every other baby, and that they have the same opportunities as every other baby in this country to be wonderful and positive Kiwi citizens moving forward, albeit Māori and with a love of their heritage and their culture. They are still Kiwi babies, but they are Māori in terms of their culture, their reo, and their tikanga.

That is the sort of estimates and Budget that are being brought down, and that this Minister of Māori Affairs will champion on behalf of our people. A huge amount of money has gone into the retention of our reo and our tikanga. It is now time to feel and understand the fruits of that victory, rather than always be grasping for something else in that regard. Let us start standing up now, and let us deliver. These estimates commend to the leadership in our communities that they start to stand up and take some ownership of our problems, to acknowledge that they have responsibilities, duties, and obligations, and to stop putting them off on other communities or on others. That is why, when the scrutiny comes on a number of the leaders in our communities, they run to the Māori Party, because they understand control and victimhood but they do not understand solutions, at this particular point in time.

I commend the estimates, and I also commend my colleagues in the Māori caucus who have held the faith and held true to the Labour Party, which has a history of always delivering to all communities, but, particularly, of lifting Māori performance.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Māori Affairs) : I heard the prattle from the deputy leader of the National Party. It suggested—like his leader, Don Brash, who mirrors Don Quixote in the sense of tilting at windmills—a whole lot of hot air in relation to what we have not done for Māoridom. I say to Mr Brownlee that he is mirroring the practices of Dick Whittington in looking back too much. We are not into the deficit model and we are not into Māori remaining in dependency. We are certainly surging forward, and the last 5 years have shown as much.

I pick up in relation to Te MāngaiPāho, as he suggested, that there were 40 recommendations and 60 percent of that has been done. Māori Television did get started, whereas that party failed even to consider it. These estimates provide for substantial investment in realising a positive future for Māori through whānau development, enterprise development, partnerships, education, employment, and housing. Key areas of investment include new initiatives, strengthening whānau, investing in sport and cultural activities—where our people are at—and promoting whānau and enterprise activities. We are clear about the differentiation between mana and moni. Mana, our tikanga, our culture, our inheritance, tuku-ed to us—passed on to us—by our ancestors as the first indigenous people of this nation. We do want to make money. We do want to get into commerciality. There are just some people who want to keep us behind false mirrors and in a make-believe world in which we have to be dependent on the Crown and those things that take us backwards.

We are strengthening Māori language. This is the week of Māori language. I tell that lot to try harder. It is encouraging when one goes overseas to understand that most people recognise indigenous languages—that they do have two or three languages under their belt. What is wrong? Why do that lot fear it? That is the problem. All that we do is do the haka and get macho, encouraged by the dastardly game of rugby.

We have really tried hard to ensure that the expansion of the Māori Business Facilitation Service goes forward. The Labour Government continues actively to demonstrate its commitment to accelerating the advancement of Māori. Our focus is on Māori succeeding as Māori wherever, and in whatever field, they choose. We have provided a real platform for Māori to reach their potential, not stymie it. The appropriations contained in the estimates for Vote Māori Affairs demonstrate the commitment of this Government to Māori development by providing the resources necessary for Māori to reach their aspirations. This Budget is designed to provide a pathway for Māori, to elevate their profile from dependency to vision, and from grievance mode to economic and social opportunity.

Without a doubt this Government has a lot to be proud of in relation to its achievements with Māori. Māori unemployment is almost at its lowest for 20 years. That is progress! There are 40,000 more Māori in work, and in the last 10 years there have been more Māori in trade and industry than there ever has been. Māori participation in tertiary education has almost doubled. The Leader of the Opposition prattled on, suggesting that Māori qualifications are less significant than their Pākehā counterparts. What a lot of rot! That was what the Ōrewa speech was about—scratching that itch, which some of those members are well practised at doing. That was what that speech was about. Do not make believe that it was about something else!

Māori Television and Iwi radio stations are a great asset. Māori are now managing an increased proportion of the commercial assets in the fishing and forestry sectors. Thanks to this Government, Māori are now living longer and enjoying life more fully. All that the deputy leader wanted to talk about was eating—opening his mouth and going to barbecues. He should lose some weight! This Government is demonstrating a real commitment to supporting Māori in their aspirations to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. We will be the people of the future. We will become healthier, wealthier, and wiser. We aim to strengthen Māori whānau, and to ensure that all Māori have a secure sense of culture and an opportunity to participate in this great nation. We are not a divisive or a separatist Government. We believe in recognising the rights of the tangata whenua in this country.

• Vote agreed to.

JUDY TURNER (United Future) : Members will be aware that civil defence emergencies are times when, in stressful, tragic, and often dangerous circumstances, ordinary people who have had their lives turned upside down perform amazing acts of kindness and bravery for the benefit of others. Officials charged with the task of organising relief and providing leadership work outrageous hours. Voluntary agencies work round the clock to provide comfort and support. It was a privilege to be part of that activity in the Whakatāne area last week. I want to take some time to mention very key organisations: the Whakatāne, Ōpōtiki, and Kawerau District Councils and their staff, for the work they did; Environment Bay of Plenty; the New Zealand Fire Service; Street John Ambulance; the citizens advice bureau; Victim Support; Ngāti Awa Social Services; church groups; the police; the New Zealand Army; Te Whare Wānanga o Aotearoa; Federated Farmers; and Radio 1XX; and, of course, our civil defence people. All those people contributed to the crisis and recovery phases of this emergency.

It is important, because of the millions of dollars that will be required to restore the area, that members are made aware of what it was like to be on the ground in Whakatāne over the last while. It began with days of heavy rain, and with a busload of people in transit attempting to pass through Whakatāne but being unable to because of slips on the roads. They were blocked and had to stay overnight in the local Salvation Army hall. The following night, residents in the suburb of Awatapu were woken in the middle of the night by police and army personnel, and told to grab some things and to leave immediately. They waded or were carried through flood water to army trucks, leaving behind their own vehicles, which often had, by that time, been swamped. They were taken to the local war memorial hall. Within hours, systems were being set up to register evacuees and to attempt to track their whereabouts. At the hall, people—some still in wet clothing—were sitting in plastic chairs around trestle tables. There was no heating in the hall. Children, bored and poorly supervised by tired and stunned parents, ran around, getting on the nerves of elderly evacuees. The Salvation Army set up some tea and coffee. The citizens advice bureau continued to register a steady stream of people as the evacuations continued, hour after hour.

There were some queries: “Where are the new forms we’re meant to be registering people on, and why are we using the old ones?”. I challenge the Minister, with the emergencies we have had this year, that as well as money being spent on the restoration of those areas, it is also time for the civil defence organisation to look very closely at some of its systems and to check that everybody has everything that is required for those emergencies.

Kitchens sprung into action as the early food donations started to come in. There was no radio at the centre, so it was very difficult to track what was happening outside the hall. District councillors donned civil defence identification and became great sources of reference, and worked extremely well. Friends and relatives from unaffected areas arrived and took people home. Others opened their homes to complete strangers. Additional accommodation was needed. Te whare wānanga and the Salvation Army set up warmer and more comfortable facilities, and the elderly and families with small children had to be relocated to those points. People were anxious. They had left their pets behind, and they wanted to go home and attend to that. They wanted to go back and get some more clothes. Some could; many were not allowed.

The water treatment station was shut down. There were reports of raw sewage on the streets. Tar-seal was lifting as water bubbled up from below. And then we had swarms of earthquakes, which set everybody’s nerves on edge. The report of the death of Bev Freeman came as a real shock to people; her death was the consequence of an awful landslide. Roads were blocked. There was a serious breach in the stopbanks that resulted in the flooding of huge areas of farmland. The engineers were trying to manage a full dam, and tidal changes had to be balanced as water was released from that dam. Te Teko was evacuated. Edgecumbe was evacuated. Awatapu was evacuated. Landslides threatened homes at Ōhope beach.

I would like to thank the Minister and the Prime Minister for responding so quickly to the invitation to come into the area, and for taking the opportunity to go up in helicopters to see the very big picture. It was very important to local people that those people saw the full picture.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Civil Defence) : May I start off by thanking Judy Turner for the work that she was doing when I arrived down on the Sunday. I have been there four times, of course, and I have seen the progress of the emergency. One thing I really want to say about civil defence emergencies is that it brings out the best in the Kiwi spirit, where people set aside any differences and lend a hand to each other. That is really very important. I also congratulate the civil defence organisations—people working, concerned about their fellow citizens—and the mayors of the two districts, John Forbes from Ōpōtiki and Colin Hammond from Whakatāne.

The Government has responded very quickly. Task Force Green is up and running. We have the one-stop shop up and running. We have rural advisers in there. We have had people from the Earthquake Commission there, as well. We are looking at how we can help a number of farmers. The situation is at the stage where the total damage cannot be estimated, because the water has not cleared, as yet, and unfortunately today they are expecting more rain. There will be more rain on top of the huge falls of rain in the weekend before last, and earthquakes. So there are a lot of people who are really worried.

I also have to say that it is good to have the buy-in from the local radio station 1XX. Its work in this emergency has been tremendous and I want to compare that with places like Tūrangi that got caught up in the floods in February. The Tūrangi radio station goes on to a network over the weekend, and people could not get local messages. Here, 1XX was able to do that.

This Government has always treated people in emergency situations with generosity—with a real human hand. That is what is going to happen this time. That is what has already been started and it will continue to happen. I thank the local members—Mita Ririnui, who was there on the ground, day after day. I thank my colleague Parekura Horomia. He was up there giving comfort to his people. I thank Damien O’Connor, who was getting a fix on the rural, agricultural problems that people are facing.

Brian Connell: I think you will find it was water.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: Well that person can yell and shout. That is all he does—hollow words—he has not got the Kiwi spirit that everyone else has. I think his snide remarks are cheap. I say to Mr Connell that he can do better than that. When I went to a sports hall, to see the people in there; people, possibly some very—

Brian Connell: Wet people.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: Well, very wet people—not as wet as that member, who is giggling at the plight of other people. Mr Connell does himself no good and he should shut up. These people have been cooking for one another and arranging entertainment for kids who have been there for days. They have been supporting one another. It has been about people saying: “There is always someone worse off than me.” When we went to Bryans Beach, where Mrs Freeman died, to see the neighbours there with their shovels, trying to clear water away, after they had suffered that big tragedy, that showed how people really do care.

Brian Connell: Where were you when we had the droughts in Canterbury? You weren’t seen.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: I get to see and do more in Canterbury than that member ever will. He is just a big bag of wind.

I also want to mention Janet Mackey, who was stuck on the other side of Ōpōtiki. She was there lending her help. The MPs, including Tony Ryall, worked in the area. I acknowledge the work of all the MPs, across party lines, who have given generously and who have not been demeaning, as Mr Connell wants to be.

• Vote agreed to.

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) : What a muddling mess this Minister, the Hon George Hawkins, is making of this portfolio. It does not matter where one goes across the country, on one extreme the front-line coppers are saying: “We are under stress and under-resourced.”; and at the other end of the spectrum, up the executive ladder of the New Zealand Police, they act more like politicians than anything else, and they say, as they have one eye on the Minister of Police to make sure they are giving the right answers: “No, we have got plenty of resources. Our front-line police are not stressed.” Right in the middle of all of that is the public of New Zealand, who are the victims of rising crime every day. A tidal wave of crime is coming over this country, and all this Minister can do is say that things are OK. It is the leadership of this Minister that is causing the New Zealand Police to be in disarray. Front-line police—

Hon David Cunliffe: What a sad, sterile speech.

BRIAN CONNELL: There is a member calling out. I do not recognise him. I think he may have had his head in an oven somewhere. I do not know whether anyone knows his name, but he looks very, very strange. I do not know what it is about the Minister of Police that he can thumb his nose, when he comes to the select committee, and say to people that crime is on the way down. He says: “We are getting on top of crime.” The Minister is confused and has selective memory loss. He cannot even read things put in front of him.

Before I came down here I got some statistics about crime and how it is trending. These are police statistics that go back to the year 1999 and relate to total recorded crime. In 1999, there were 438,704 recorded crimes in this country; in 2002 there were 440,129; and in 2003 there were 442,489. Yet the Minister of Police looked me in the eye at the select committee and said: “We are getting on top of crime; it is trending down.” I asked him: “What about violent crime?”. He gave me this answer: “Violent crime is on the way down.” Even this well-meaning buffoon could not have got that wrong. In 1999 the figure for recorded violent crime was 39,688; in 2002 it was 44,960; and in the year 2003 it was 45,614. The Minister thinks that that is being on top of crime and that it is going the other way.

Well, I have news for him, and here is some more news. He said that drug crime was plateauing. I dragged out the statistics on drug crime as well. Recorded drug crime statistics in 2001 were 53,340; in 2002, they were 55,366; and in 2003, they were a whopping 58,822, and the Minister of Police told everyone that they were on top of crime. Violent crime, drug crime, and property-damage crime—the crime that leads to the next spate of burglaries—is trending up, and that Minister thinks that it is going the other way.

Let us talk about the Southern Communications Centre. I have to commend the Minister for at least turning up today. When these questions were posed yesterday he ran a mile. He was not going to be seen anywhere to answer those questions, but today we have him. When the Minister went to the select committee to deal with the estimates he said that the stress and the under-staffing at the Southern Communications Centre was a problem and he recognised it. When I asked what he would do about it he said they were going to get more staff.

That was fine. I gave him a tick for that. I asked whether he had budgeted for more staff—“Er, um . . .”! I said that I would help him by asking whether he had budgeted for more staff at the Southern Communications Centre than the 79 staff he had already allocated for policing. The Minister said “No”. I thought that was OK; it was fairly short notice. My next question was whether over the next 3 years any of 109 staff allocated were going to the Southern Communications Centre, and his answer was “No”. Then on 23 June this year he changed his tune. He was asked in the House about staffing and performance at the Southern Communications Centre and he said that there was no problem.

RON MARK (NZ First) : I intend to carry on in a similar vein about what a horrible mess we have. I recall being very proud, as a member of the Labour Party, of some of the speeches delivered by the Hon Phil Goff and George Hawkins on what they would do about crime and law and order under the leadership of the Rt Hon Mike Moore. I believed that those people meant what they said and would do what they said. Years went by, things changed, and I ended up in a coalition Government with National, listening to the screaming and the ranting from that side of the House. On some occasions I feared for the very life of Phil Goff. I feared that the vein in his forehead would pop as he went ballistic about parole, bail, and the things that were happening in the streets with violent crime. I fully expecteded that when those two men got to the Government benches they would get rid of gangs, smash the methamphetamine rings, smash organised crime, and make our streets safer, because those were the things they promised whilst they were in Opposition.

After 5 long years of governance, on the back of 9 years of preparation, we look at this rubbish. That Minister is not smashing organised crime or the methamphetamine industry. He is policing it. The last time I heard the word “policing” being used was by the United Nations. I think it was in Uganda. I think it might well have been in Bosnia, where they stood by, and through their policing action, watched 8,000 people being slaughtered. That is what is happening on the streets of this country. I am tired, and the citizens of New Zealand are tired, of hearing this Government and that Minister say that the police have adequate resources. I get messages from a gentleman who sent a personal plea—

Clayton Cosgrove: Another source?

RON MARK: This is a letter to the Minister, from another man, stating: “Just when are you going to stop trying to pull the wool over New Zealanders that there are sufficient police in New Zealand? Over the weekend I attended a family function in a large New Zealand city of 60,000-plus. During the evening I had contact with the constabulary who advised us that he was one of two patrol cars on duty that night, and there was only one person—that is, himself—in his car.” Crime is down? What an absolute load of rubbish! Members should look at the police statement of intent and at the graphs. The graphs of recorded crime are going up and have consistently gone up since this Government came to power—and that is according to a Government document. The worst thing about it is that it is recorded crime. The national survey on victimisation states that unreported crime is two to three times greater than recorded crime.

The Minister of Police and the Minister of Māori Affairs have the audacity to tell us that crime is going down. Their own documents, and answers to written questions, show quite clearly that they are telling porkies to people. Crime is going up.

If members want evidence they should go to the Bay of Plenty, where people are struggling because they do not have insurance to cover their homes. A tragedy is in front of the Minister’s eyes in relation to his other portfolio, and why do those people not have insurance? It is because they cannot afford it. The net result is that when people get burgled they do not report it. How many burglaries go unreported and give us a false impression of real crime? The reality is: two times as many more burglaries as are recorded.

The only way this crime wave can be dealt with, and the only way people can be made safer in their homes, is to have more police on the beat, as we have consistently been asking for. The number of police should be doubled. If people do not believe that, they should see the over-stressed, over-worked, and over-pressured bobbies on the beat, or get in a car to go around with them at night. Maybe they should spend a whole weekend, or sit in a communications centre for 24 hours and see for themselves the pressure those people are under.

CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) : I rise to support these estimates. With regard to that member’s contribution—and I believe he has family connections with police, and obviously they are honourable connections—it would be nice if occasionally he supported his local police force and the police in general. Generally, all we have from that member is the boot going in. I shall contrast that member’s contribution with what the general public thinks in terms of how the police are doing their job. If members looked at the police annual report in relation to the estimates, they would note that comments on public satisfaction surveys were “very satisfied” and “satisfied”. All contact was “75 percent satisfied”; crime-related contact “70 percent people satisfied”, and “all other contact”, 83 percent of people satisfied—[Interruption] The member says that it is not right. I invite him to open his eyes and look at the statistics and data in the police annual report. [] The Minister does not write that report, so Mr Connell should not play politics. The police write that report, and I do not believe that they lie.

Mr Mark waved a piece of paper, as he is wont to do, banged his finger on the desk, as he is wont to do, threw his pen down, and cited yet another source. When that member talks about his crime sources I can do no better than quote an article in the Christchurch Press on 17 July titled “MP Feels heat as cold facts revealed”. That member leapt into print on a rumour—from a police source, so he said—about the young hoons who had stolen cars, were apprehended by the police, and placed in the custody of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. It was then alleged that they went on a ski trip. That story was proved to be wrong. I challenge the credibility of that member and his so-called sources in the police. I believe that the police are credible.

The Christchurch Press stated in relation to Mr Mark’s statements that the only problem was that Mr Mark’s statements were not true. But in its haste to publicise the story, the MP’s party, New Zealand First, failed to check the facts. What did Mr Mark say in response to that? Mr Mark, “a law and order spokesman, conceded last night that his sources could have got it wrong. ‘This would be the only time any of my sources have been wrong. I stand by my sources.’ ”

Hon David Cunliffe: Was he lying?

CLAYTON COSGROVE: I will not comment on what that member behind me said. I challenge the credibility of Mr Mark. He had a few years in Government, as the chief Government whip, to do something about policing. When he was in Government in coalition with the National Party, Bill English launched a staffing review to cut police numbers by 540. That is a fact. The answers proving that fact are not sources such as Mr Mark talked about; they are answers to parliamentary questions.

Since we came to power 450 extra police are on the streets. There are now more police staff than at any time in history—and that is not from some ghostlike fictitious source; that is a fact, and we stand by that because we deal with facts, just like the survey of citizens who had interactions with the police force—83 to 70 percent satisfaction. That is a fact. This Government puts its money where its mouth is.

The people of Oxford in my electorate battled for 10 years for a second policeman. They now have it. They have now also got an extension to the police station. That community battled for 10 years. There is a new police station in Kaiapoi. My predecessor, Mike Moore, in Opposition worked his guts out to get a new police station, but now, under this Government, we have it. He could not get them out of the National Party, but we now have extra police numbers in my electorate. There are now extra police in Papanui, Oxford, and Kaiapoi.

Brian Connell: Not true!

CLAYTON COSGROVE: I challenge that member to say that to the police in Kaiapoi, because under this Government the people got extra police in Oxford and an extension to the police station; Kaiapoi got a new police station; more resources went to Papanui—and it took the Minister a couple of years to do it. It took that former Government over there 9 years to refuse those communities in my electorate. I am proud to stand by those facts; they are not unattributed sources.

RON MARK (NZ First) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek leave of the House to table the New Zealand First - National Government coalition agreement that specified and catered for, and delivered 500 extra police under New Zealand First governance.

• Document not tabled.

CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek leave to table a Christchurch Press media report entitled “MP”—referring to Mr Mark—feels heat as cold facts revealed” of 17 July 2004.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : Firstly, I want to praise the police for tracking down and trapping those Israeli Mossad agents who were trying to obtain fraudulent New Zealand passports and undermine our sovereignty. The police did a great job, and it shows that resources should be put into the estimates for the police to allow them to do that sort of national security work, rather than too much funding sitting in the Security Intelligence Service budget. It is obvious that in this particular case the Security Intelligence Service and its Australian partner did not catch Eli Cara, one of the agents who have been imprisoned who had crossed the Tasman 24 times. It seems that the Security Intelligence Service in this particular case was seen as a bit of a soft touch, and according to the New Zealand Herald yesterday there is information that Mossad approached the Security Intelligence Service to try to get its help to have the charges against those Mossad agents dropped. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation did not seem to do anything about Mr Cara or about the operation, which may have been largely run from Australia. In fact, it seems that the Australian Government is too closely associated with the Israeli Government. A few days ago it was one of only six nations in the United Nations to support the Israelis building the West Bank wall, which has been condemned by the International Court of Justice. I think the Australian Government and its intelligence services have fallen down very much in not supporting New Zealand in that important matter.

I would also like to praise the police activities on the hīkoi. The police did very well in making sure it proceeded peacefully and in a very orderly fashion from one end of the North Island to the other. I would like to contrast that with some of the mistakes that the police have made recently in prosecuting other protesters.

In the court last week Mr Hopkinson, who had burnt a flag at a protest last year, was let free. It was not right for the police to proceed with that prosecution in the first place. That law has been on the books for 22 years. There have been plenty of flag burnings in that time but no prosecutions. That law is contrary to the New Zealand Bill of Rights, as Justice France pointed out in his decision last Friday, and the police should not have proceeded in that case.

The police should not have proceeded, either, with the prosecution against Aucklander Bruce Hubbard for sending an email to the United States Embassy referring to the United States “napalming babies”, which was considered offensive by the people at the embassy. However, that case had to be dropped after quite a bit of harassment of Mr Hubbard, because, whether or not we like what he said, the prosecution infringed Mr Hubbard’s right to free speech. All of us have the right to free speech.

The third case that the police should not have proceeded to prosecute, and was a waste of police time and of the money put into the police estimates, was the case of Auckland teacher and animal rights protester Jesse Duffield. He had drawn the attention of the threat assessment unit of the police because last October he had gone up to Tegel chicken headquarters with a couple of mates, and he had handed out a letter saying they did not like the way the company treated chickens, and a couple of his mates had thrown a bit of straw on the floor. He was subject to a charge that has now been dropped. For 9 months he had a large proportion of his possessions seized—his computer, hundreds of disks and videos, cellphones, posters, and even an anti-GE T-shirt produced by the Young Greens in Christchurch a year or two back. It was just a simple, anti-GE T-shirt, but it was seen as an illustration of nefarious activities.

The police should take heed of those three cases, which were either overturned by the court or dropped due to public pressure, and they should do the sort of thing they did on the hīkoi.

CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) : I am grateful to colleagues that I have been given a second shot at that mob over there. I am very grateful because, like all Labour members, when I get a chance to get those members and the odd New Zealand First member in the cross hairs, I enjoy the opportunity. It is a bit like shooting ducks on the water.

Brian Connell: That’s illegal.

CLAYTON COSGROVE: I know, and we would never do that. And I would never liken National Party members to ducks—maybe a few other animals, but never to ducks.

Some mention was made of comparative crime figures. I remind members of what this Government’s appropriations have done. I will deal with facts here, of course, not unattributed sources. In respect of Mr Locke’s comments about Mossad, maybe some of Mr Mark’s unattributable sources have something to offer there, as well! Let us look at the crime rate figures. Violent crime rose 77 percent in the period 1990 to 1999, and has risen just 15 percent since 1999. Let us look at overall recorded crime, which rose 16.6 percent from 1990, to peak in the calendar year 1996 at 477,596 recorded offences. Members over there do not like the facts; they prefer ghostlike sources, but we will give them the facts, anyway. Since 1999, total recorded crime has risen just 1 percent, and is now 35,000 offences—7.4 percent—lower, and the crime rate per head of population is 13.8 percent lower than it was in 1996. Unfortunately—and I do apologise to the Opposition for the humiliation that those statistics cause them—those statistics are facts.

As I said in my previous contribution, the facts are that National was going to cut 540 police out of the system. Members should ask any policeman or policewoman around the country; the police remember what the previous Government, aided and abetted by its coalition partner, was proposing to do if it were re-elected in 1999. We came in and we said we would put more police on the beat, and we did—in the order of, I believe, 450.

Mr Mark challenged people to go out and talk with the police, and to get in police cars at night, all of which I have done. I regularly go around my police stations every couple of months or couple of weeks, and talk with police. We had the Minister of Police down there about a month or so ago, and he listened to what the police had to say. Of course the police, like any other honourable civil servants—especially the police, who put themselves in harm’s way—always want more resources in order to do a more effective job. But I tell members that when I go into the Papanui Police Station and talk about the history and about what is happening now, I find that the morale there is fantastic, with people like Andy McGregor leading a great team of individuals. I go to the Kaiapoi Police Station and talk to the lads and the women police there; I talk about morale, and I listen to those people. They are out there actually doing the job while Mr Ron Mark puts the boot into them every day about the job they do. I understand that Mr Mark was a soldier, and an honourable one. I do not know the details of his history, but I assume he was in harm’s way at some point in his career. I have not been in harm’s way, but I would have thought that a man who had been in harm’s way in the soldiering profession would have deep respect for, and would deeply support, others such as the members of the New Zealand Police who go out every day to protect ordinary folk—and also flash individuals like Mr Connell, with his ranch or whatever it is in Ashburton—and their property.

I can point to many, many constituents in my electorate who have been assisted by the resources given to the police. Their crimes have been resolved. I just tell Mr Mark that he ought to stand beside the police, get behind them, actually encourage them, and get up in this Parliament every once in a while—not every day, not every week, just once in a while—and say something supportive about the men and women in blue, and not put the boot into them every day. He should not do what he did to a policeman in my electorate in Rangiora, and that was put the boot into a very good community cop because that community cop actually wanted to continue serving as a member of the Waimakariri District Council. Why does he not support people like that man—one of the most popular community cops we have—instead of putting the boot in?

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) : We have a new nickname for that member now—“Repetitive Clayton”. He was really starting to scramble. I think he said the same things about 10 times in the last minute. Never mind, one has to commend the guy for getting up and trying to defend the indefensible. George Hawkins does not have the courage to stand up and take a call, so he said to Clayton Cosgrove: “Mate, can you help me out, because I’m really scrambling here. These guys have got the better of me.”

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member knows that is not acceptable. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

BRIAN CONNELL: I withdraw and apologise. That Minister is not prepared to stand up and take a call, and he would rather have someone do his bidding for him. But he has forgotten something. After his name is the title “Minister of Police”. That, in my book, means he has to take some responsibility. That man should get on his feet, take some responsibility, and try to defend the men in blue, as the last member was trying to do.

I tell Clayton Cosgrove, the “Clayton’s” member for Waimakariri, that this piece of paper emphatically states that crime is on the way up, not on the way down. It does not matter what the village idiot says when he comes to the select committee—the crime rate in this country is going up. One cannot say that black is white, or white is black, when it is not true; one simply cannot say that. As for Clayton Cosgrove saying he had done so much work in getting police resources for the good people of Waimakariri, he completely forgot to say that the majority of those resources had been programmed under the last National Government.

The other issue I want to take him to task over is this. I have never in this House—and I do not do it publicly—bagged front-line coppers. The coppers in Darfield, Ashburton, Leeston, and Lincoln know that I come to this House, line up the Minister of Police, and say we want more resources in those areas. No matter what I say, he is not giving them to us. I was quoting an example of the Southern Communications Centre before, and I will go back to it, because it puts it into some sort of stark reality. The Minister came to this House on 23 June and said that there was no problem with the Southern Communications Centre—that its performance target in despatching coppers to 111 calls was to do so within 2 minutes, and 90 percent of the time, he said, it was being achieved. Well, barely a week before that I had in my possession, and the Minister would have had access to it as well, a memorandum from the manager of the Southern Communications Centre, who said: “We on some occasions only achieve 73 percent of that target.” The other thing this Minister of Police said to me in the select committee was that sick leave at the Southern Communications Centre was not a problem. Well, someone is confused, because the Southern Communications Centre manager, in the same memorandum, stated that sick leave was going through the roof. Do members know what the response of the Minister is when we say that issue has to be fixed? “Oh, I am going to find some more staff, but I haven’t budgeted for it.”

The real rub about the stress and the strains at that Southern Communications Centre is that coppers are not being despatched to crime scenes quickly enough. The waiting time in some cases, down in the South Island, for coppers to get to burglaries is nearly 4 days, and the Minister of Police sits there and will not take a call. He sits there with a smile on his face—a pathetic smile because he knows that I am right and he is wrong, and he is on the way out because we will not tolerate that.

Do members know what is really bad about all of this—his response to limited police resources? He is directing more and more of them to trap hitherto law-abiding motorists on the road.

Hon Richard Prebble: Like the Prime Minister!

BRIAN CONNELL: Well, that was an exception, was it not? She can zoom through south and central Canterbury at 160 kilometres an hour with police affirmation, and nothing happens. The Minister gets up in the Chamber and says: “If you don’t want a ticket, don’t speed.” Well, I will not use the “hypocritical” word, but, boy, we have got him on his feet at long last.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police) : We have heard another case of exaggeration—a wee bit like that member’s CV that used to circulate around the place. I must bring it down to the House and table it again just to remind people that that person is always into fiction. He is probably related to—a direct descendant of, possibly—Hans Christian Andersen. They are fairy tales.

I just want to put a few facts. The amount of violent crime increased by 77 percent between 1990 and 1999. I tell Mr Connell it was 77 percent, and he should listen. Violent crime has risen just 15 percent since we became the Government. Overall recorded crime rose 16.6 percent from 1990 to its peak in 1996. That was a huge increase. That is National’s record. Our record, of course, has been far better. I say to the member that under National crimes reached 477,000, and last year there were 442,000—and that number is dropping. I know that that member does not have the nous to be able to work that out, but if he had a calculator he could work out that crime is dropping. But the rate of crime is also dropping.

What did the National Party Government do when it was trying to look after the police? It had a computer scheme called INCIS, which took all the money, so National could not build new police stations, like those Clayton Cosgrove has in his area. That Government spent only $720,000 on capital works at police stations in each of the last 3 years it was in power. This Government is spending well over $70 million in 5 years—$70 million compared with $720,000. See the difference! When it came to police cars, what happened? One year the previous Government spent only $4 million on police cars—just $4.7 million. How much is this Government spending this year? We are spending some $29 million.

We have settled the police wage round for the next 3 years. The police are not marching on Parliament, as they did when National was in power. The police marched on Parliament in huge numbers because they could not get a fair deal from that Government. What that Government was doing was cutting police numbers by 540, as part of the Martin review.The numbers were going down. The numbers of non-sworn staff were also going down. We had immediately to inject extra money. I know that my colleagues now call me the “Billion-dollar Minister” because I got a billion dollars for the police in the Budget. It was the first time that had ever happened. What happened under National? The amount was just over $850 million. It was pitiful. National members were not prepared to put the money where they said they would. National members say we need more police, but the reality is the National Government cut the numbers.

I can tell members of some very good results on the North Shore. I heard last week that household burglaries on the North Shore have gone down by 54 percent, over 3 years. That is great. I have been to Wanganui and the crime rate there has dropped by 34 percent since Labour has been in Government. There is always good news. But, of course, what do those negative members do? They put the boot into the cops and say they are not catching enough criminals. Well, they are catching more than ever. Under National, 29 percent of crimes were resolved. What is it under Labour? It is 43.7 percent, and it will probably rise. That is one of the best results anywhere in like countries around the world. We have more police, more equipment, and better laws. DNA sampling is actually helping us to catch more criminals, and some of the crimes have been serious. Burglary suspects now have to give DNA samples.

Hon John Tamihere: Boy racers.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: What happened there? A problem has been solved. I have to say my good friend and colleague Clayton Cosgrove did an excellent job. I went down to Christchurch with him and saw the haul of cars that had been taken from young people. This Government moves; it addresses problems. I have to say we have a different police force from the one under National and under the National - New Zealand First coalition, where the idea was to cut money. They tried it and they did.

RON MARK (NZ First) : It is always good to see a Minister rise and defend himself, as opposed to relying on another member of Parliament to do so. I want to touch on a couple of points. There is an old saying—and most grandmothers tend to remind us younger people of it—that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Do members remember that saying? This afternoon’s debate about statistics, as to whether the crime rate is up or down, can be very simply put into perspective by picking up a Government document and turning to page 18 of the statement of intent for 2004-05. This is not a source; this is a Government document. It is easy to read. The graph there is the one that the Government’s agency has printed for the Government. It has not been sourced from Mr Connell or from myself. The Government, the Minister’s own department, has produced the graph, and what does it show? It shows that the trend in violent crime, every year from 1995 to 1999, was steadily and consistently tracking down. It is not my document; it is the Minister’s own document. What happened from 1999 until now? The Government’s own statistics show that the graph has steadily and consistently, after a massive leap between 1999 and 2000, continued to rise. If we pick up the national crime statistics trends as published, what do we see? We see that in 1999 there were 39,688 cases of violent crime, and in 2003 there were 45,614. Excuse me! If the Government’s own documents give us those figures, what credibility is there in the Minister’s claims and in the claims of Labour members of Parliament that they have violent crime under control—that it is going down? There is no control on it, as the public would see it.

What is the crime that most concerns, upsets, annoys, and worries elderly New Zealanders, and mums and dads? It is violent crime. I am sorry, but long and loud speeches do not change the facts in the Minister’s own documents, which are that violent crime is going up. We do not like that, and I know that the Minister does not like it. But we need to look clearly at why those things are happening. Some of us would point to the methamphetamine rings. It is fair for the Minister to criticise past Governments and to talk about police staffing cuts. Yes, there was a party that sought to replace cops with a computer, and that was wrong. New Zealand First tried to curb that by getting in 500 extra police, which countered directly against the then Government’s intent.

Hon George Hawkins: Voted for it.

RON MARK: The Minister can say that, but the facts are the facts in the coalition agreement, and in the subsequent estimates and the subsequent financial reports. They are there for everybody to read; no amount of yelling will change that.

I challenge the Minister by asking whether, if at the end of this year violent crime has again gone up, he will resign from Parliament. It is a simple question. Helen Clark came to this Chamber and in her opening speech, when Government members took the benches for the first time, said that New Zealand would see a new era of accountability. That is what she said. The country said: “Halleluiah, on the back of the last 9 years we are looking for that. On the back of Fay Richwhite, we are looking for that. On the back of the wine box, the bloodstock industry, and the film industry, we are looking for that.” I say to the Minister that now we want to see it. It is time to put the money where the mouth is. It is not about what is said before an election and what is said after an election—the “Maharey principle”. It is about accountability.

We accept that everybody cannot get everything right every time. Mr Cosgrove has made some criticisms of me, but I ask whether I was right when I said that home detention was a mess. Yes, I was right. How do I know that? The Minister himself admitted it to me. Was I right when I said that there were people on home detention who were baking P, and that someone had died from a P overdose? The Minister’s first reaction was to say it was wrong—it was a made-up story. But I was right. The Department of Corrections confirmed that. Was I right when I said there were rapists, thugs, and wife-beaters serving home detention? Minister Barker stood up and said there were no violent offenders on home detention. Was I right? I was right. Was I right when I said that the light armoured vehicle project would blow out to $700 million? Yes, I was right. The Minister cannot be right all the time, but there is one distinct characteristic that comes before a fall, and I will bring members back to nana again. Apart from saying there were lies, damned lies, and statistics, she also said that pride comes before a fall. Arrogance tends to be a commensurate requirement in order for pride to be allowed to get out of control, and I am seeing plenty of that now.

• Vote agreed to.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : What we have in the chair is a Minister of Corrections who is engaged in a cover-up and a whitewash. The Minister spent $1.5 million of taxpayers’ money on fake and phoney iwi consultation, and when confronted with that said yes, the money seemed to be excessive, and he would demand a report. He then had an internal report written by the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections, and it covered nothing. It is a disgrace that Minister Paul Swain, when confronted with the allegations of misspending, went to his own department for a report. I tell members that Minister Paul Swain will be found wanting.

The great Tainui people did not accept what Minister Paul Swain found out. They did not rely on the Department of Corrections; they employed a forensic accountant. Rather than looking at the $1.5 million, they looked at just one contract, for $305,000. I have here a copy of the report on that. It shows that the Department of Corrections has been spending taxpayers’ money out of control, not on iwi consultation but to get a result. And what do we find? We find soft contracts without specified deliverables, fake time sheets, duplicate payments, and the Department of Corrections spending taxpayers’ money on iwi consultation in a corporate box. And who happened to be there? Staff of the Department of Corrections were there, on that iwi consultation.

Hon Paul Swain: How many corporate boxes have you been in?

RODNEY HIDE: Now the Minister wants to know how many corporate boxes I have been in. Well, I can say that I have not been in any that were paid for by the Department of Corrections.

John Carter: He wouldn’t know.

RODNEY HIDE: He would not know. Then what happened in the Chamber when the Minister was asked about that report, which has seen the co-chairman of Tainui fired because the Tainui people have standards and expect accountability? I do not know why Labour has an MP from Tainui, because she has not alerted Labour’s own Minister to this problem. The report found there had been $42,000 of duplicate payments. The trust was being paid to employ four full-time people, and the department was then paying those employees, as well. Those were the duplicate payments. The Department of Corrections said it would hold back the money because there had been duplicate payments. When the four people complained, the department paid it. The report by the forensic accountant, Dennis Parsons, states that that money should never have been paid, because it was an incorrect payment. That is what Tainui found.

I ask the Minister whether his own department alerted him to that. Either it did or it did not. Did it alert him to the double payments, to the fake time sheets, or to the corporate box? Did it alert him to the fact that his department was paying for consultants, who were on contract to do a job, to fly to Australia? Did it alert him to that? And what did the Minister say in the Chamber today? He got up and said he did not believe any of that. He said he had not read the report, but he did not believe that could be true. If I were the Minister, I would be asking for an independent report into where that money went. I would be going to the Tainui people, and saying I had heard that Rodney Hide had a report, and asking if they could maybe share a copy of it with me, so I could have my people look at it. The Minister’s chief executive has sold him a pup, and he has bought it. The chief executive has written a cover-up and engaged in a whitewash, and the Minister has done nothing about it.

MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) : There are three areas in the estimates for corrections that I would like to concentrate on: prison construction, home detention, and the integrated offender management system, and I will try to get through the lot if time allows. We are to have four new prisons: Ngāwhā, opening in 2005, Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility, opening in 2006, South Auckland Men’s Corrections Facility at Spring Hill, opening in 2007, and Otago Region Corrections Facility, opening in 2007. We are talking here about over half a billion dollars a year being spent on running the Department of Corrections. The total cost of the projects I have just mentioned has ballooned to $624 million. That is an abject lesson that no Government project should ever be pursued without adequate tendering—and I do not believe that has been done—without front-end cost appraisals, without true accountability, and without due respect being given to the taxpayers who are forced to pay for it. When we look at how prisons are being built and run, we see that it is nothing more than a sop to the unions and a sop to Labour Party ideology—and I will get on to that a little later.

The facts are, firstly, that the estimated costs were not set for the projects. Secondly, they were inadequately tendered, having incremental decisions made all the way through the different stages of each project. If that were done in private enterprise, the plug would have been pulled a long time ago. The shareholders in private enterprise would have complained. In this case the shareholders are the public of New Zealand, and they should complain. Thirdly, no consideration was given to viable alternatives in providing the safety and security that is rightly demanded and expected by innocent and law-abiding taxpayers. For example, why should there not be double-bunking? Why should prisoners be kept in conditions that are better than those of many of our aged citizens and some of our more at-risk families? Also, we could increase the muster capacity of our current prisons by adding extra wings, rather than necessarily having to build new, expensive facilities to house criminals. Again, why on earth did we not have private management, such as has been done in the case of Auckland Central Remand Prison, tendered out?

Brian Connell: Union payback time.

MARC ALEXANDER: That is exactly right; it is a sop to the union. When privately managed prisons run effectively, they can do so with the public interest and the public purse at heart. The Auckland Central Remand Prison saves taxpayers $27,000 per inmate per year, yet this Minister and this Government have decided to get rid of the one bright spark in our Department of Corrections. Why? Because it embarrasses the hell out of the Minister’s department, and because it upsets and embarrasses the union responsible for the State-managed prisons.

If we look at the situation regarding home detention, we find the hopeless, cost-reducing, ideological mess that is this Government’s home-detention policy, and it can be nothing else. It has not reduced reoffending, it puts the public at risk, it is difficult to monitor, it is not cost effective, and it is administered contrary to the expectations of the public and their interests in the justice system of this country. United Future does, however, congratulate the Minister on his signal that he will have a review. We look forward to its conclusions, and trust that it will not be another socialist whitewash of the existing failed policy.

Brian Connell: What about the “goon squad”?

MARC ALEXANDER: I am waiting for that with bated breath, along with everyone else.

I question the validity of the integrated offender management system, which is the greatest con job perpetrated by the Department of Corrections. We asked for the empirical basis upon which that system was being pursued as our prisoner management model. We received nothing. We asked for the benchmarks upon which its success or failure would be determined. We received nothing. We asked for information about when and how its efficacy would to be determined, rather than having a swarm of partial reviews, committee assessments, and apologetic kowtowing to technical issues about the questionable reliability of the rehabilitation quotient. We received nothing. That system is nothing more than ideology masked as common sense, and it does not do that very well, at all. In fact, it does the reverse of that. We were told that there were factors that would affect the success of the integrated offender management system, such as the personal decisions made by the offender, the ability to lead a non-offending lifestyle, and so on.

Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Corrections) : There were a couple of contributions: one that was worthy of reply, and one that was not. I want to begin with Rodney Hide’s contribution. I felt that it was a typical leadership bid, and I say to Rodney Hide that he should stop undermining Richard Prebble, and should come out and be honest and open about his leadership ambitions.

Darren Hughes: Hang on! He is the leader.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: I am sorry; yes, he is the leader of the ACT party. I forgot that. Members will remember that Rodney Hide was going to be a statesman. He said that he would stop doing all the muckraking, and would be a leader. He said he would talk about the vision thing, and particularly things in the future, and he would get away from corrections. He said he did not want to talk about corrections any more. That lasted about 2 months, because ACT went from 2 percent in the polls down to 1 percent. So now Rodney Hide is back to undermining the ACT spokesperson on corrections, and no one really knows whom that is at this stage. The point is that it is hardly worth even talking about the ACT contribution.

I will spend some time making a quick contribution on Marc Alexander’s points. Marc Alexander gets a bit obsessive about a couple of things, but by and large he makes a reasonable contribution in this Chamber. He said a number of things, and I just wanted to cover a couple of them. He said that there was no tendering for prison construction, and that it was all done on an incremental basis. That is true, and that started under National in 1997. That was the basis of the policy.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Good government.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: It is funny to hear that it is good government, because now we have Paul Hutchison, whose leader wants to build more prisons. But Paul Swain opposed a prison! National members of Parliament oppose prisons being built in their electorates but support Don Brash for wanting to build the 10 new prisons that would be needed under the new parole provisions of the National Party policy. I come back to Marc Alexander’s point, and say the incremental policy was started under National, on the basis that the then National Government decided it would not be able to give a whole pile of money to the Department of Corrections. It said the department should go away and do the site selection first, and then come back and ask for more funding. National said that after the department had done a bit of building, it could come back and ask for more funds. That is what has happened. That policy started under National, and the funding has been increased as a result of that.

Mr Alexander also talked about double-bunking. The member knows that probably about 1,000 of the 6,000 or so cells are double-bunked. But what the member does not understand is that going to prison is not like picking up a flatmate and deciding to live in Mount Victoria. One has to be very careful about who goes in with whom in a prison, as the fact is that a lot of the people in there are violent. They stand over people, and if the member thinks that simply double-bunking and putting violent people in with other violent people is the way to solve the problem of the prison population, he does not have any understanding of prisons. If he talked to a few of the corrections officers, they would tell him that double-bunking is enormously difficult. It makes prisons hard to manage, and it leads to a higher incidence of potential riots and chaos within the prison system. I invite the member, because I know he does visit prisons, to ask prison officers whether they think double-bunking is a good idea. They will tell him that one needs to be very careful.

Marc Alexander: Rubbish!

Hon PAUL SWAIN: It is not rubbish; it is what the corrections officers will tell the member. Of course, one of the problems is that if there is contraband—drugs or something—in a cell, double-bunking makes the problem of isolating who is at fault much more difficult. The member needs to talk to corrections officers. Here is the deal: if he goes and talks to corrections officers and comes back and tells me that they all support double-bunking, I will rethink the policy. That is a fair deal.

Then Marc Alexander asked about expansion—expanding existing sites. The problem is that we need to get consent to do that, and people like him would probably oppose it every time consent is sought. We do try to expand on existing sites where we can, like the Rimutaka Prison, but there is a limit to how much it can expand. Marc Alexander would also be told by staff that the bigger a prison is, the harder it is to manage. The National Party actually started the regional prisons policy, which was not a bad policy. It stated that if an offender went to prison and wanted to be reintegrated back into the community, he or she should go to prison somewhere close to the family and whānau. That is not a bad policy. The problem with the National Party is that every time we try to build a regional prison, it opposes it.

Darren Hughes: What did Tony Ryall say?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: There was the possibility of some suggestion a long time ago that there would be a prison in the Bay of Plenty. Who was the first to oppose it? Tony Ryall. Who is the strongest supporter of Don Brash’s policy of building prisons? Tony Ryall. It is a kind of voodoo economics. The National members cannot promise to build prisons on the one hand, as a result of getting rid of parole, and on the other hand oppose every prison that will be built, ever. There will have to be a prison in Nelson, and I call upon Nick Smith to say whether he supports a prison being built in Nelson. I want to know whether Nick Smith supports that. And what about Bill English? Would he support a prison being built in Southland? What about Lockwood Smith, in the case of Kaipara? Or what about building a prison on the North Shore? Paul Hutchison is another example of National’s opposition to regional prisons. There is a big prison to be built at Spring Hill, in Paul Hutchison’s electorate. Instead of that member supporting the prison, he came out and opposed it. So we can see that it is all voodoo economics, and that it will not work.

In terms of private prisons, they were a clear point of distinction between the Labour-Progressive Government and National, ACT, and United Future. We consider that keeping people in custody is a role of the State, and we are very proud of that.

Mr Alexander then asked about the integrated offender management system policy. In fact, that is such a good policy now that a lot of the prison systems in Australia are following it. I think the member should know that. He should get out more. He should get on a plane, go overseas, and look at what is happening, instead of being stuck in a narrow little isolated view in New Zealand. The Australian prison system now is modelling much of how it runs its prisons on the integrated offender management system, because the Australians consider it to be a good system. I tell that member to go out and look around the prisons before coming to the Chamber with those views.

The Government is now really keen to put three things together. Those are early intervention—making sure people do not get to prison in the first place—and, if people do get to prison, building some programmes to make sure that when they come out they do not reoffend. But the most important thing that I am putting my effort into this financial year under these estimates is reintegration—making sure that when prisoners come out of prison, they do not go back. Members may be interested to know that one in four prisoners return to prison within the first 12 months after their release. If we could reduce that to one prisoner in five in the first 12 months, we would not have to build a new prison. It is as simple as that; the maths are pretty compelling. We know it is very, very important to get the resettlement process going better, so that we can have people going back into the community and getting a job and a house, and going back to their whānau—all that sort of thing. It is very important that we do that properly. In these estimates we have been able to get some funding to do that.

We will be piloting reintegration into the community first in the Wellington region, by making sure that no one comes out of prison without a proper programme—potentially a job, somewhere to live, and some support around the person. We know that it works. It is simple; we know it works. In the past we have not done it as well as we should have, and we have acknowledged that. We have acknowledged that we need to do it better, and now the officials are working away with some of the funding that I was able to extract from the very generous Minister of Finance for reintegration. We will be piloting reintegration into the community. In the future I am sure we will see that, as it becomes successful, it will be rolled out in other areas. A number of colleagues have come to me to ask whether they could have a reintegration person who is responsible for taking that up at each prison. I am sure that will come. We need to do it for our youth offenders and our women offenders, because they are in different categories and have different needs.

We need to make sure that people who come out of prison come out with opportunity. We know that building prisons is part of the answer, but a good Labour-led Government worries about the other two things, which are early intervention—stopping people from going to prison in the first place—and then making sure that when people get out of prison, they do not go back. That is what a Labour-Progressive coalition Government does. That is the way to tackle the law and order problem in New Zealand.

• Vote agreed to.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) : Certainly, over the last few years under Labour we have seen some very disturbing trends in the Accident Compensation Corporation portfolio. I look to the non-earners account, which has gone up from $500 million in 1999 to $728 million in the current year. Over the same time period we have seen the Labour Government bring in its so-called Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act. There is no doubt that everybody is in agreement with the ethos of concentrating on injury prevention, and this Government has just said it now spends $48 million per year on injury prevention. But what is the real record of injuries under this Labour Government? The real record is an increase in moderate to severe injuries over the last 4 years, despite the increased expenditure, and despite the so-called increase in focus on injury prevention.

We have heard a lot of talk by this Labour Government but have seen absolutely no results in this very important area, apart from barmy practices out there on our roads, where the Government concentrates very rare police resources to give out fines in low-risk areas and totally neglect high-risk areas. One of the reasons the chief executive officer gave for the increased number of injuries was that more people were surviving traffic accidents. Well, that is absolutely pathetic. We see, on the one hand, this utterly crazy policy of the Labour Government that has police officers concentrated in the low-risk areas of our highways and neglecting the high-risk areas, a far higher mortality rate on our roads than we should have—about twice that of Britain—and higher expenditure on injury prevention, but we see the number of moderate to severe injuries going up.

What is more, the Labour Government has, in its new, monopolistic policies, brought in industry risk rating. It has totally neglected the hugely important signal of individual risk rating, which sends a signal to individuals, individual workplaces, and employers that absolutely directly brings attention to greater workplace safety, early case management, and early rehabilitation—the very things that have slowed down under the monopoly that this Labour Government has brought to us with its so-called rehabilitation and compensation Act.

Let us have a look at long-term claimants. In 1997 there were 30,000 of them—hugely important and hugely costly to the Government. Under the National Government that figure had come down to the order of 15,000 by the year 2000, and since then it has hardly budged. This year the aim was to bring the figure down by another 500, but the Government achieved something like only 225. Once again, if we look at the very basis of the State-run, monopolistic system, we see there is very little incentive for early case management, early rehabilitation, and workplace safety. With the introduction of the competition model back in 1999, we saw rapid improvement in all those areas. Despite the Minister in the chair, Ruth Dyson, laughing in her seat, she has failed miserably in the basic statistics that are so important to this country and to any accident prevention scheme. She has absolutely failed. There is no doubt that the key to reducing the tail lies in making sure that the signals are realistic ones so that individuals will indeed respond to them.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC) : I begin by acknowledging the sadness of that speech, and saying it issued a very dire warning to the taxpayers of New Zealand, because there was a commitment from Paul Hutchison to privatise the Accident Compensation Corporation again. If the lessons of our past 1-year experiment with private insurers in New Zealand were not enough, why does the member not look across the Tasman to what happened when HIH went bust? Our private insurers were loss leading in exactly the same way that HIH was. When HIH collapsed it left the taxpayers of Australia owing millions and million of dollars. That has to be a very basic lesson. Loss leading in insurance causes collapses, and in the end the taxpayer has to pick that up.

Despite my disappointment with that speech, Dr Hutchison and other members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee had a very engaged and engaging time, and I thank them for the courtesy and genuine interest they showed to me as Minister and to the officials from both the Accident Compensation Corporation and the Department of Labour, when we considered the estimates. I notice that many of the points I went through with the select committee have been picked up in its estimates report, and I would like to share those with other members who may not have had the opportunity to read them in the last little while.

One of the key focuses for the coming year is to improve access to the accident compensation scheme, because, unfortunately, although the majority of members would consider that we know our entitlements and know how to put forward a claim if we have an injury—it is quite straightforward for us—there are many people who are, clearly, under-represented in claim reporting, particularly Māori and Pacific people, older New Zealanders, and people who have English as their second language. For those key groups, who obviously have the same legal entitlement as others, there will be a real emphasis to ensure they have full access to information about their entitlement under the scheme.

The second focus I want to mention is on improving rehabilitation outcomes. That starts right from the beginning by ensuring that we have high-quality early-intervention rehabilitation programmes available to claimants. It also looks at the business centre, where the response time to claimants’ enquiries has been greatly improved. The length of time it takes for the Accident Compensation Corporation to respond to queries has rapidly decreased, and that is a very good thing in terms of the frustration of claimants but also their rehabilitation outcomes.

That aim of further improvement over the coming years has been reflected, though, in the claimant satisfaction survey. I want to report to the Committee that since 2002 the Accident Compensation Corporation has improved its percentage of claimant satisfaction from the low 70s to 84 percent, which is nearly a 15 percent improvement in claimant satisfaction in the last 2 years. For those who have been on the scheme for a long time the claimant satisfaction level has increased from 78 percent to 89 percent, and for those on it for over 52 weeks it has increased from 68 percent to 73 percent. I would like to see continued improvement in those claimant satisfaction levels, and I hope that in next year’s estimates I can report a further improvement.

The other area I discussed with the select committee was my commitment that the Accident Compensation Corporation would work with a whole-of-Government approach, so that its relationships with other departments and agencies—particularly with the Ministry of Social Development, but also with the Ministry of Health and others—are greatly improved. One of the initiatives we have been working on with regard to the collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development is ensuring that people who, under the previous National Government, were totally ignored and denied any support or assistance to move off accident compensation and into a decent job are now offered help by experienced work brokers. People who are on accident compensation long term would much prefer to have the dignity and income of a job, but a lot of support is needed to get them to that position. That is the gap that we have filled, and I am very proud of the Accident Compensation Corporation for doing that.

The final point I want to talk about is one that we also discussed at the select committee. It relates to the legislation soon to be tabled in Parliament that will introduce major changes to the medical misadventure scheme. The medical misadventure provisions in accident compensation have been an anomaly for a long time, in that they are the only part of the scheme where there is a necessity to attribute fault or to meet some bizarre lottery of having both a rare and a severe injury.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The question now is that Vote ACC stand part of the schedules.

John Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I hate to do this, because it is not a thing I would like to think is happening in this Committee, but I clearly saw you being guided by the junior Government whip.

Clayton Cosgrove: You need your glasses.

John Carter: I do not need glasses, and the member should not interrupt while there is a point of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): There is to be silence during points of order.

John Carter: As much as it may be denied, it was pretty obvious to me what was happening, and it should not happen. If the junior Government whip wishes to make an instruction to the Minister, then he should do so before the Minister gets on her feet, and, similarly, you should stop looking into her eyes to take guidance, as well. So can I suggest that we now carry on, but I just wanted to make the point. [Interruption] I was going to say “longingly”!

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I understand where the member is coming from, and I can accept what he is saying. I will just let the member know that I was not looking into the Minister’s eyes, and it was up to the Minister whether or not she spoke.

• Vote agreed to.

JUDY TURNER (United Future) : I just want to touch on a few issues, because United Future has a very strong interest in this particular agency. Some very recent research has revealed that 80 percent of children murdered in New Zealand in recent years were not known to child protection agencies, prompting child advocates to urge people to dob in abuse. The Canterbury University research to be published next month found that only nine out of the 47 children murdered between 1996 and the year 2000 had been referred to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. “Most people think that when a baby dies CYFS must have known, but in four out of five cases that is not the case.” That is a quote from researcher and former chief social worker Mike Doolan.

So the figures demonstrate that the people best able to help are not professional social workers but neighbours, friends, and family. A study of 91 child homicides from 1991 to 2000 found that almost two-thirds of the children were under 5, which is too young for them to come to the notice of teachers or social workers in schools. More than a quarter—26 percent—were under the age of 1. Most were killed by their parents, and a quarter of them by their mothers or other relatives.

United Future has put forward a policy platform for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and it is a solution that supports the development of a system that supports families to ask for help early. Departmental officials admit that many notifications they receive are actually about family support needs. So the question that has to be asked is why they are not channelled to family support services. The question has to be asked which agencies genuinely have real contact with families, young children, and babies. They are obvious: the Plunket Society, midwives, and general practitioners are more likely to have regular contact with families of extremely young children than any other agency. Yet, from talking to those agencies, particularly some of the Plunket nurses, one finds that they feel that the advice they have to offer about what they are seeing up and down the country, in people’s homes as they go in to attend to mothers with young babies, is not wanted. They are told: “Stick to your job—we’re not interested in hearing your information.” It makes absolutely no sense at all that very effective agencies that are making real contact, and getting real insight into homes where there is genuine risk, are then unable to pass that information on or be given some sort of credibility when they ask for help.

The number of suspected child abuse cases has soared to a new high, with 10,000 more complaints reported to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services in the past year. In the year ended 30 June the department received 43,414 notifications of child abuse. That was an increase—get this—of 10,212 cases, or 30.8 percent, on the same period 12 months earlier. For social agencies, the most worrying aspect has been the rise in the number of suspected critical cases—those where the department is required to act within 24 hours. Those numbers were up dramatically in every part of the country. Nationally, critical cases were up by 41.1 percent.

What United Future is proposing, and what we implore of the Government, based on the fact that there are thousands of cases of children in the in trays of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, waiting to be allocated case managers, is that we separate out the two key functions of this organisation, so that they can stop competing with each other for the precious resources available. We want child protection handled completely separately from the other important mandate of the Act, which is the prevention of child abuse in the first place. If the notifications coming in are largely about low-risk to medium-risk cases where the need is for support, let us get those cases out to those agencies that already exist in our communities by the dozen that are well equipped with highly qualified staff, and well able and keen as mustard to be given the opportunity and the resourcing to step into the breach.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) : I thank the member who has just resumed her seat, not just for that contribution but also for her support for a department that is often the subject of political criticism in a way that is sometimes unfair. I also thank her for the acknowledgment of the hard work that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services does around the country—work that is often unacknowledged from a political perspective.

At the Social Services Committee, we enjoyed quite a lot of debate about the way that the department has improved over the last little while, primarily as a result of the baseline review. The focus of that review on the core functions of the department has enabled the department to start moving away from the “we are all things to all people” sort of attitude that was really part of the culture of the organisation before. The department is very focused now on meeting its statutory responsibilities, but it has also showed an incredible ability to link in much better with our community organisations, which provide services that link in very well with the department. One of the issues we discussed was how to ensure that the community organisations were able to pick up work at different levels. One of the considerations now being undertaken is the checking of our legislation, to ensure that the statutory requirements that are clearly the work and the responsibility of Department of Child, Youth and Family Services social workers are maintained, but that we ensure we have a process whereby other work that could be done by non-statutory social workers is able to be picked up by the community. That is a really exciting challenge for us in the future, and I look forward to being able to report back to the select committee on that in the next little while.

Obviously, the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services has been considerably strengthened by the increase in resources. It has had Dr Russ Ballard as its acting chief executive for the last little while. Dr Ballard finishes that job on this coming Friday, and I would like to place on record my admiration for the tremendous leadership he has undertaken in that position during what has been a very significant period of change. Next Monday we will welcome the new chief executive, Paula Tyler, who is from Alberta. I am sure she will be very warmly welcomed as part of the public service in New Zealand.

Some of the key highlights we discussed at the select committee were the family group conferences. Although those conferences are often not recognised in New Zealand, internationally they are regarded as a leadership model in dealing with family problems, in terms of ensuring there are links in with the different social services agencies, and in terms of ensuring the responsibility of both those agencies and, more important, the family are recognised and supported through to implementation. We have also recruited 17 permanent social workers.

One of the issues Judy Turner raised in her speech in the debate was the fact that a number of children come back into the care of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and that is clearly a problem. It has happened because in the past we have focused far too much on quantity, rather than on quality. We have a much clearer focus now on the quality of the interventions we undertake, and that will reduce the number of children who come back through the system. But in the last 6 months, we have had record numbers of notifications to the department, and that, of course, was discussed with the select committee, as well. For me as the Minister, it is a bit of a rock and a hard place, frankly. Of course we would like to have no child abuse at all in our community; that would be the ideal in the view of all the members of this Committee, I am sure. But where there is child abuse, we want it to be notified. So by encouraging the debate on and zero tolerance for child abuse, we actually increase the pressure on notifications. Our responsibility is to make sure that we are there when it counts—that when the phone rings, we have a total system in place to deliver services that are able to ensure our children are safe, that they are in strong families that are free from abuse, neglect, and offending, and that those families can contribute positively to the wider community.

Since we reported last year on the estimates, I have seen a tremendous lift in the confidence and the competence of the department, driven and supported by the baseline review, and I am certainly very proud to be its Minister.

• Vote agreed to.

GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) : Vote Lands is a very important vote for the farming community, and especially for the farming community of the South Island. Increasingly, concern is being expressed right throughout the South Island over tenure review. An appropriation of $56.83 million is being set aside for tenure review, yet the process has virtually stalled. A few high-profile properties have gone through the process, but by far and away the majority have not, and they will not, despite what the Minister for Land Information says. The whole issue is really about the clearances of the South Island high country, something that is akin to the clearances of Scotland that took place back in the 1790s right through to the 1840s and 1850s. In such cases, landlords decided they had a more appropriate use for the highlands of Scotland, and they cleared the peasants from the land. That is no different from what this Government is doing right now.

Many of us from that area thought the process could be quite reasonable—a bit like the Resource Management Act. It had some real benefits and some real promise. In fact, the reality is that the whole process has been captured by the green lobby, the recreational lobby, and the conservation lobby, and it is designed purely to turn so much of the South Island high country into a recreational park. Members of the Committee, and ladies and gentlemen listening to the debate, should have a guess who that is for. We all know that New Zealand’s leading tramper is the Prime Minister, and she does not want to have to ask—

Rodney Hide: Are you calling the Prime Minister a tramp?

GERRARD ECKHOFF: I am certainly calling her a tramper. The Prime Minister and her coterie of friends do not want to have to ask permission of farmers or runholders—it does not really matter which—to enter their properties and enjoy the great vistas and everything else that goes along with that particular experience. There can be no question about that.

But I say that the money being spent is not the Department of Conservation’s money or the Minister’s money; it is the taxpayers’ money, and it is being spent in an entirely inappropriate way. We have witnessed, in relatively recent times, $10 million being paid for just one property—Birchwood Station in the Ahuriri. That has, effectively, driven up the market. For any New Zealander who wants to buy land anywhere in New Zealand at, typically, about $600 a stock unit—it may be $500, it may be $700, but it is around that figure—it has driven up the value of those sorts of properties to $1,200 a stock unit. It has effectively doubled the price to the average New Zealander.

So who can purchase this land? Probably, now, only the wealthy foreigner who comes in. Even those people do not understand that they are in for a double whammy, because the Overseas Investment Commission is now going to whack those individuals who have a pastoral lease. When they enter the tenure review process, the commission will tell them that if they want to buy freehold land in this country, they must go through the process again. That is completely and utterly wrong, and I ask the Minister what he will do about it.

The other question I ask the Minister is whether he intends, through his department, to purchase 10 more properties with that $56 million - odd, and if so, where the money will come from for the nuts and bolts—for the other properties that the Department of Conservation wants to ensure go into the conservation estate, but that he will not purchase outright. Where will the money actually come from? I ask the Minister to break down that $56 million and tell us.

Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister for Land Information) : That speech was totally without context, and I just want to give a bit of context to it. There are 304 leasehold properties in the high country, which cover 2 million square hectares of Kiwi land. It is leasehold estate, not freehold estate. In 1998 the then National Government, with the support of the ACT party—of which that member was a member—passed the Crown Pastoral Land Act. It set a consensus-related negotiation process that either party could walk away from—and they do. We have papers coming through the Cabinet process now. We have a whole negotiation and consultation process for the high-country farmers. They are fully informed as to how we are bringing certainty and definition to this process.

The member raised the issue of the Overseas Investment Commission. Dr Michael Cullen has just recently released this Government’s review of the Overseas Investment Commission. We are, out of the 40 OECD countries, one of the fifth most regulated countries with regard to foreign direct investment in our land. We acknowledge the high-country estate as being of significant value, not just to high-country farmers but also to every Kiwi. It is iconic. It is of the utmost, highest cultural, social, and political value to Kiwis, and New Zealanders want it retained in the public estate.

I conclude by acknowledging the work that the Government is conducting in the high country, with consultation. We do understand that generations of families have worked the area. We do understand their strong commitment, to the extent of our even acknowledging that they have a cultural attachment to the high country. The ACT party, when it comes to Māori-related issues, does not want to hear anything about cultural attachment, but we as a Government of the people of all communities even acknowledge that high-country farmers do have a spiritual and cultural attachment to that estate. When the boot is on the other foot the ACT party challenges Māori having the same right.

I also wanted to make one other point very carefully and clearly to Mr Gerry Eckhoff. This Government provides certainty and definition. This Government provides clear decision-making. That member abstained on voting for the leadership of his own party. He could not make up his own mind, and what did he get? He got “Shrek Jnr” for leader.

That answers the questions raised by that honourable member and I would like to conclude there.

• Vote agreed to.

EDWIN PERRY (NZ First) : I begin by congratulating the Minister of Conservation on his achievement at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission. The commission endorsed the Minister’s resolution requiring commercial whalers to reduce the suffering of whales they kill. Every step in that direction is a victory and the Minister deserves our acknowledgment of the work he did there.

But I would like to discuss conservation closer to home. The Department of Conservation aims to create a network of parks and reserves in the high country and it is holding tenure review negotiations with more than half the country’s 304 pastoral lessees. In the latest Budget, around $79 million was set aside to fund the process. This included $18 million over 4 years for the administration of the new conservation lands. The Government clearly envisages the high country as a tussock theme park.

However, I would like to raise a few questions that the taxpayers will eventually want answered by the Minister. For example, once the initial administration fund has been spent, how will the Department of Conservation maintain these huge areas of land? One matter that I want to bring to his attention is weed control. For the small acreage that we farm in the Wairarapa, the cost of controlling weeds is astronomical over a year. When we look at the large blocks of land that will come under the Minister’s administration, I have some concerns with regard to that area.

For anyone with a vision of flocks of sheep being replaced by flocks of tourists, I have a word to the wise. Tourists can be like overseas students—here this year and gone the next. They are not a 100 percent reliable source of long-term funds. The loss of income from the loss of the huge blocks of land that the Government has purchased is $33 million with regard to the wool cheque for merino flocks, which equates to approximately 750,000 merinos. That is a loss not only to the farmer but to the community for the rest of people’s lives.

In February this year the Department of Conservation admitted that it controlled stoats on little more than 2 percent of the land within national parks, and possums on as little as 12 percent. That is not exactly confidence-inspiring when we consider that the department wants to control another 1.3 million hectares. There are also the department’s existing responsibilities—for example, preservation of our national bird. At this point I thank the Minister for letting me visit the kiwi-breeding programme up north. With kiwis dying at the rate of 10 a day, kākāpō in intensive care, and kea now described as being under threat by predators, there is plenty of work to be done in this area and the money needs to be made available.

There are sanctuaries that the Department of Conservation should be assisting, such as the excellent Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington, which is working hard to preserve wildlife without any financial input. I know that the Minister has spent some money on the Mount Bruce sanctuary, but it is now having to go out and publicly fund-raise to keep the programmes going. I would like the Minister to have a look at that, because I do not think it will work long-term for the breeding programmes that he has already established at Mount Bruce. There is even a rumour that any financial help from the Government will be made contestable, which I have just touched on. As well as doing the department’s job, the sanctuary will now have to bid for whatever assistance is available.

Then there is additional expenditure. The Department of Conservation will become liable in the future should the Marine Reserves Bill become law. Policing that law will be the department’s responsibility, but, again, we have no indication of likely costs. I say to Māoridom that it should be more concerned about that bill, under which 20 percent of the coast will be locked up. This year there were warm fuzzy pre-Budget announcements from the department about the establishment of two island sanctuaries at a cost of $7 million. That initiative makes better sense than having a Government department become a landowner and a tourism promoter on a very big scale.

I say to the Minister that it is time that the taxpayers were given figures for the public fund. The department will need to maintain its extra responsibilities. Anything less than full disclosure is grossly irresponsible.

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) : I thank the New Zealand First list member Edwin Perry for his very positive comments about my recent work at the International Whaling Commission promoting the New Zealand position on our commitment to conservation of marine mammals, particularly whales, but also dolphins, dugongs, and other marine mammal species that are under threat internationally. I am proud to say that New Zealand is the staunchest country on conservation at the International Whaling Commission. It is something that has been unique not just under this Government but under the previous Government, as well. It is something we can be very proud of. We are recognised as world leaders in our commitment to conservation and the preservation of endangered species.

The member raised a number of issues and questions about how much work we were doing funding the protection of our indigenous biodiversity species—iconic species like the kiwi, the kakapo, the kea, and others. We can always do more, but I am proud to say that since this Government came into power in 1999 the budget for the Department of Conservation has increased by 40 percent. We have recognised that there are specific problems with some bird species. I have set up Operation Ark, which is an intervention programme. It is an emergency response programme to bird species that are endangered, such as the orange fronted kākāriki, whio or blue duck, and yellowhead. We have identified all of those species as being under particular risk. We have a special $600,000 fund—Operation Ark—as an emergency response programme. At the same time we are funding extensively kiwi recovery. The Ōkārito sanctuary, for example, which I know that a number of members have visited, is a very good example of the really intensive pest control management programmes that the Department of Conservation is setting up and running.

The member asked what we were doing about weed control. The Department of Conservation spends $10 million on weed control, which is more than any other agency or individual in the country. We manage one-third of the land area of our country. Much of that does not need weed control on it. It is mountains, glaciers, and quite thick indigenous forest. There is not a weed problem there. However, in areas that are undergoing restoration or recovery, there is a weed problem. I remind members that the Department of Conservation spends $10 million, and it has budgeted another $18 million for the management of lands that will be passing into the department’s management through the 10-year review process.

Earlier, my colleague John Tamihere spoke of the 10-year review process. He reminded the House, and I will reinforce that, that the 10-year review is an entirely voluntary process. The 304 properties that could enter the process—and some two-thirds of them have done so—do that at their own initiation. They can withdraw at any time. I am very sceptical and cynical about some of the claims Opposition parties have made in this House about how the land 10-year review process is a sort of land grab. It is not at all. It is entirely at farmers’ instigation. The farmer can at any time withdraw from it.

We have also had some comments about the purchase of strategic properties. Of course, approximately half of the land that goes through the 10-year review process will enter into Department of Conservation management. What do we do with that? The Government has signalled its intention that it will have a network of parks and reserves through the high country of the South Island. That is a sensible way to deal with that sensitive natural environment, with its unique biodiversity. It has great tourism opportunities. The previous speaker spoke about tourism in a sort of cynical way. I remind members that tourism has now replaced dairying as our largest source of foreign revenue. We have visits to the conservation estate. Last year there were 28 million individual visits. This year there have already been 33 million visits to the conservation estate. Tourists come to New Zealand for its natural environment. They do not come here to go to the casino or just meet lovely New Zealanders. They come to New Zealand because of its natural environment.

The Department of Conservation, in its management of that one-third of our land area, looks after that natural environment. It is the custodian of our greatest economic asset. This land is not locked-up land; it is protected land. It is land that offers not only vast potential in biodiversity protection and recreational opportunities—33 million visits to national parks this year alone—but also enormous economic opportunity through tourism. That opportunity for tourism is something that I am really keen to develop. I meet with my colleague Mark Burton, the Minister of Tourism, every 6 weeks or so, so that we can synchronise better the synergy between conservation and tourism.

As Minister of Conservation my statutory duty is to be an advocate for the biodiversity of our country. I have to make sure that we will not compromise that through any activity, and that includes tourism. However, I do recognise that tourism, now our primary source of foreign exchange, is an incredibly important industry to New Zealand. I want more tourists and more New Zealanders to be able to enjoy our natural environment. However, we have to also balance that with protection. So working with the Minister of Tourism every 6 weeks or so we will look to develop new tourism opportunities in the conservation estate, and, at the same time, provide adequate protection for the integrity of that estate.

The previous speaker raised the question of marine reserves. He made a statement that the Government wanted to lock up 20 percent of our coastal area. That is not true. The aim, as stated in the Labour Party’s policy programme, both for the 1999 election and the 2002 election, is that it seeks to protect 10 percent of our marine area. The marine area of New Zealand is the third-largest in the world. It is 15 times larger than our land area. It is approximately the size of the continent of Australia. It is a vast, vast area. We seek to protect 10 percent of it. We do not seek to have it in marine reserves only. We seek to have a variety of protections. They might be marine mammal sanctuaries and areas for recreational fishing only. Of course, the core of that protection, just like in our national parks, will be no-take areas—marine reserves. We currently have 17. We are lagging far behind the ambitious programme of our Australian neighbours to protect their marine environment. For example, just recently the Australian Government made one-third of the Great Barrier Reef—a natural ecosystem that stretches over 7,000 kilometres—into a vast marine reserve and a no-take area. That has been a fantastic achievement by the Australian Government in protecting its natural environment.

I asked the Australian Minister for the Environment, Dr Kemp, how he managed to achieve that, because we had such enormous resistance from selfish recreational fishers who kept saying: “Yes, OK, marine reserves might help to restore the biodiversity, but we are not having them in our favourite fishing spot.” I asked him how he achieved one-third of the Great Barrier Reef as a protected marine reserve. He said: “Because, Minister, tourism in Queensland is more important than fishing.” That might have been a cynical approach, but there was a powerful message that biodiversity is in itself intrinsically important, but it offers enormous tourism opportunities, too. The Australians recognise that by protecting that one-third of the Great Barrier Reef in marine reserve they are creating, protecting, and reinforcing an economic asset.

Sometimes I wonder about the attack by the ACT party in particular, but also National, on the Department of Conservation and its programme of protecting the natural environment; it is so short-sighted. If they really believed in economic progress and opportunity, they would be seeing the protected estate that we have, both terrestrial and marine, as an enormous economic asset. That is what it is. That is what brings millions of visitors to our country. It is what defines us as a people. It makes New Zealand a special place and it protects our unique biodiversity. What a fantastic package! All parties in this Parliament should be embracing the idea that protection and encouragement of our natural environment is the best investment we can make for future generations.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) : That was a very sad reflection from the Minister, because it shows this House that he is totally captured by his department. It has wrapped him in cotton wool and he comes here and dishes up that sort of nonsense. The basic folly of what he was saying is that he equates success with the amount of resource and control his department wields and the amount of money he spends, rather than the measures of outcomes and successes. He went on about iconic species, but look at the absolute failure that he is the steward of—and that is a sad thing.

I was taken with Mr Edwin Perry’s speech. He made some very valid points. The Minister did not respond to that at all. Mr Edwin Perry highlighted the concern that huge areas of rural New Zealand have with regard to the Department of Conservation. They live alongside the department. They have the dinkum oil, and the Department of Conservation is the neighbour from hell. The department uses taxpayers’ money, buys up vast tracts of land it cannot look after, has a whole bureaucracy supporting it—more taxpayers’ money—yet where are the weeds the greatest, and where are the pests the greatest? It is all on department land.

Just recently we saw his department gobble up Molesworth Station. Landcorp was doing a brilliant job. I am very familiar with Molesworth Station, going back many decades. We have turned that around. However, under the Department of Conservation we will see noxious weeds come back, and the broom and gorse come back down the river valleys. The pigs, the goats, and noxious animals have been the legacy of the department. Unfortunately, the Minister and his bureaucrats are so busy swanning off around the world to all of those UN conventions and conferences, signing up all sorts of protocols and world heritage nonsense that look good on paper, but the farmers and the rural landowners of this country know that out there the Department of Conservation is the neighbour from hell. It is not looking after the land. It is squandering and wasting resources, and all the Minister can say is how wonderful it is that his budget is getting bigger and bigger, and his estate is getting bigger and bigger.

I understand that $10 million has just been set aside as a contingency for the lahar on Mount Ruapehu. I can produce support for that. Is that not interesting? The Minister commissioned a report. He got an engineering report and also a report from the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Ltd that stated that the most cost-effective method of overcoming that potential hazard and problem—and it is a very real problem—was to do minor engineering work on the tephra rim and cut a channel.

This Minister said: “No, it would be spiritually offensive. We can’t send equipment and machines into the national park.”, and he tried to blame Māori. But it is not Māori, because it was Tūwharetoa who donated the Tongariro National Park, and Tūwharetoa do not oppose the engineering works on the crater rim. It is actually the Department of Conservation that thinks it might threaten our world heritage status if we take machinery up to the crater rim and avoid a potential disaster. The Minister knows that that is a ticking time bomb. The Minister said that he has overcome the problem and put up warning sirens. That is like saying that a smoke alarm will prevent a fire. At great cost to the taxpayer he has put all these warning sirens around Mount Ruapehu so that when it bursts the sirens will go off and say: “Hey, folks, you’ve got 2 or 3 hours before your property will be severely damaged.” We are also spending hundreds of thousands of dollars lifting the rail bridge across the Whangaehu River.

Hon Chris Carter: Two million!

Hon KEN SHIRLEY: The Minister advises that the figure is $2 million. We also have to upgrade road bridges across the Whangaehu River. There is also the risk that it will break out across the catchment boundary between the Tongariro River and write off a very substantial tourism industry in trout fishing. The Minister claims to be interested in tourism, yet he condones this incredible threat, and for absolute mantras and rhetoric he is not prepared to stand up to his department and see the logic and the overwhelming evidence that would say that we should go up and drain that crater lake. We have the technology to do it. The engineers tell us it is the most cost-effective and simple way to remove the hazard, yet the Minister leaves that hazard in place. Some reports are stating that that tephra rim could collapse later this year.

• Vote agreed to.