The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The House is in Committee on the Appropriation (2002/03 Financial Review) Bill. The new Standing Orders—

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. My understanding is that we are taking the Finance votes first. That was the advice from the Clerk’s Office because of the nature of the Standing Order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): That is correct. The new Standing Orders provide that the financial review debate will be held in Committee stage, which is different, and the debate now is organised into three distinct parts. It commences with the debate on the Crown’s financial statements as reported on by the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Once that debate is disposed of, the Committee debates individual financial reviews of departments and Offices of Parliament, as reported on by the select committees. There is a list of the financial reviews available for debate, at the Table.

The question is that the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the annual financial statements of the Crown for the year ended 30 June 2003 be noted.

JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—National) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek clarification, because this is a little different from what was signalled originally. Is it correct that, following the debate on the Minister of Finance’s votes, we will be moving on to the Prime Minister’s and the Speaker’s votes?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The Speaker’s votes first.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) : My understanding is that we will proceed to the Speaker’s votes—I understand that no members will be speaking on those—to the Prime Minister’s votes, and then on down in terms of the order of ranking in Cabinet. [Interruption] It is always an interesting one, and I think it is one that members were not entirely prepared for. Perhaps if I could take leave that we deal with the financial statement debate as if it were actually the debate on the financial reviews on my own votes, because I think that is probably what members have prepared for at this point. Perhaps members will be more aware next year of the nature of the Standing Order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Is there any objection to that course? Leave is granted for that.

JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) : The Crown accounts have proven to be in a very solid state of affairs. Last year the Crown produced an operating balance excluding revaluations and accounting changes in the order of NZ$5.6 billion. That is the number the Minister of Finance himself demanded that this House recognise as the change of net worth as he became the Minister—$5.6 billion was the operating balance excluding revaluations and accounting changes number.

I want to reflect for a moment, if I may, on what that means. For the last 10 years—from 1993 to 2003—the New Zealand economy has grown about 2.3 percent on a per capita basis. So for every man, woman, and child, our economy has grown about 2.3 percent. That is a vast improvement on the per capita growth rate some time before that, where it was well under 1 percent and nearly 0.5 percent. That needs to move to 4.1 percent, if New Zealand is to move into the top half of the OECD.

I refer, as part of Vote Finance, to the reports from Treasury, which outline issues for economic growth in the next 12 months and beyond. This is the very kind of research that the Minister of Finance, through Vote Treasury, pays for. He pays to get that advice from his own department. That advice tells the people of New Zealand that Treasury is worried that New Zealand cannot achieve an economic growth rate anywhere near 4.1 percent over the next 10 years—nor, in fact, anywhere near 2.3 percent over the next 10 years. The Government will no longer talk about when New Zealand can move back into the top half of the OECD, because it cannot define that time in terms of the Treasury document I have in front of me.

Interestingly enough, one of the first things in the document is its advice to the Minister of Finance in the area of taxation. It told the Minister that a lowering of the top rate of personal tax would be one of the fastest ways to grow the economy.

Dr Wayne Mapp: Did they do that?

JOHN KEY: The Government certainly did not. The first move it made when it came into office was to increase the rate of personal taxation. Did it need to, when the country is now babysitting the largest surplus it has had in 50 years? The Minister can get to his feet if he wants to and argue about the cash position—I say to the Minister that we all understand the cash position—but there is a $5.6 billion operating balance excluding revaluations and accounting charges.

When the National Party told the country last week that a National Government would reduce the level of company taxation, the Minister was somewhat scathing about that. He told the public that that would deliver a benefit only to offshore companies. So he too must have been absolutely stunned yesterday when his own, virtually Government-owned corporation Air New Zealand—the Government owning 87 percent—came to the Stock Exchange and told the people of New Zealand that the company now has a tax liability of $107 million. Why does it have that liability? Because it had chosen to base its own aircraft leasing operation in a jurisdiction where tax rates are lower at the company level. What an embarrassment to the Minister of Finance that a company of which he effectively owns 87 percent sends money to a jurisdiction where company tax rates are low—and he had the audacity to tell the people of New Zealand that the Government would do nothing for corporate taxation. What an embarrassing day it was yesterday.

I want to turn for a second to the area of trade, and talk just for a moment about the advice on trade that Treasury officials gave the Minister of Finance in the meeting they had on Wednesday, 8 October. Treasury officials told the Minister that the Doha round could provide significant one-off benefits, but that if the breakdown continued, then bilateral arrangements would be significantly important. The report next told us that New Zealand should lean on Australia’s Treasurer, Peter Costello, to try to help us get a free-trade arrangement with the US, because our Government has made such a botch-up of it that it cannot get one itself. We will go cap in hand across the Tasman to Australia, and we will beg for help on a free-trade arrangement, because this Government made such a botch-up along the way. That is the sort of advice we are getting from the Minister of Finance’s own Treasury.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : I want to know when we will hear from the “great debater”.

Dail Jones: Who is that?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The person who challenged the Government to go on the Holmes show tonight, but who, I have just been told, when challenged himself, would not front tonight. I said to the “great debater” that I would see him on the show tonight about his track record—him and me—and that we would go back over his history. I want to know when the “great debater” will debate.

John Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. These debates are about the Crown’s accounts, etc. They are nothing to do with who can or cannot debate, and the member should come back to the matter for debate.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I have just got going!

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member needs to come back to the point.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I have just heard from the associate—

Hon Member: The deputy.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS:—deputy is he? Deputy what?—who talked about the current aspiration to be in the top half of the OECD. He talked about the need for a 4 percent growth rate, and then forgot to tell us that last Wednesday the National Party announced its brilliant economic policy, comprised of one thing alone: to reduce company tax from 33c to 30c. Somehow, it will all go right.

He forgot to mention that this leader of theirs, the “great debater”—who will not debate, who will not front the Chamber, who appears 1 day in 3, who goes around stirring up apathy in the coffee bars, Rotary clubs, and tired audiences of this country—was a big supporter, back in 1997, of the Labour Party’s then Minister of Finance, Roger Douglas. Dr Brash said at the time of the proposed Kaimai by-election—because in the end there was not one, but he was mooted as a candidate—that he thought it would have been very difficult for him to get up with a straight face and denounce what the Government was doing.

In short, Dr Brash’s solution for this country is the same appalling medicine, but only more. He will shortly come out and make a comparison, as he endeavoured to do on the day of the leaders’ debate, between Australia’s growth of 35 percent more in real terms than ours since 1984, whilst denying that he was one of the key architects and supporters of the economic experiments that saw this country become—as the respected publication, The Economist of London, stated in 2001—the first country to head to the Third World from the First World. He and his colleagues are responsible for that.

I thought we would have heard from the “great debater” today, not from some new chap who is a more recent MP than he is. Dr Brash had TVNZ and the Holmes show trying to construct an image that he wanted to debate anyone, when I know for a fact now that that was never the case. So my question to the National Party is: why is it not here today debating this very important portfolio, of all portfolios? It cannot even front, and that is outrageous.

Where, may I ask, are the journalists—who are out there now with all this hype—who seem to make it their inevitable mission that New Zealand First, and myself in particular, have to make them look ridiculous every election night? They go out there and smash all their forecasts, demonstrating the old English saying that the malady of the ignorant is to be ignorant without knowing it. Why are they not here today, or do they know that the “great debater” is not going to debate? Unbelievable!

Rt Hon Helen Clark: We’re all waiting.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Of course we are all waiting. Where is the press gallery? Well, it does not matter any more either, apparently—we just go with those polls. Let me tell members about polls. It is one thing to say: “We agree with you.”; it is something entirely different to say: “We are going to vote for you.” As the months unfold and we hear more and more of this blistering economic theory that will turn this country upside down—that will see the privatisation of health and educational institutions; that will see whatever State assets we have sold; that will see us become international global, and at the behest of any international investor, with all barriers removed; that will have us hearing that when we are 65, it is too early for superannuation, and that it will come at 68, then at 70; when we hear what they did last time when Shipley was leader—then we will see a different poll.

In the next 18 months we will have the chance to elucidate that, but here is the point today: where, oh where is that wonderful “great debater”—the new messiah of the National Party? He, apparently, is the person who fills halls with inspiration and drives women—and hardened men too—to tears, but where is he? Well, if ever I saw a stuffed-shirt affair, I saw it today.

ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) : Unlike the previous speaker, I intend to address the financial review—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I hope not.

ROD DONALD: I am sorry but I tell Mr Peters he will dead bored; he may as well go now. The period covered by this review marks the “end of the golden weather” for this Government—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. It is totally inappropriate for the Green associate leader, or whatever he is, to talk about someone being a dead boy, particularly when the polls say that that member is finished.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): That is a debatable point.

ROD DONALD: Thanks for nothing. In Dr Cullen’s opening remarks to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, he made much of the Budget surplus being well ahead of the forecast—never mind that the surplus is built on the back of 30 percent of our children growing up in poverty. Yes, it is good to see that the Government intends to take steps to address that indictment, through its foreshadowed Future Directions package in this year’s Budget, but $500 million will be nowhere near enough to lift those children out of poverty, place them in safe healthy homes, and ensure that their parents have sufficient income to give them the material well-being and quality of life they deserve.

The golden weather is over, because one of the main issues we debated during the financial review—I am talking about New Zealand’s overvalued dollar—is still far too high in the currency markets. During a hearing last November Dr Cullen said the value of the dollar was likely to correct itself in the near future. What is more, he said that he had tools available to reduce the dollar to more normal levels. What has happened since? The dollar has continued to climb, and it was only when the Reserve Bank took its initiative and said it wanted to take an active role in the foreign exchange market that the dollar ended its climb. Good on the bank for doing that, good on the Government for supporting its initiative, and good on Dr Cullen, I suspect, for giving it some gentle encouragement.

But the Reserve Bank’s intervention will not be nearly enough. It will only ever knock a couple of cents off the top of the dollar. It does not address the fundamental structural problems of the New Zealand economy; that is the Minister of Finance’s responsibility. Other than trying to talk the dollar down, he is not taking the problem seriously.

I agree with Dr Cullen’s statement at the hearing that the quickest way to get the dollar down to realistic levels would be if the Green vote went up to 20 percent.

John Key: That’s a long way from Sunday night.

ROD DONALD: Unfortunately, particularly given Sunday night’s poll, I cannot see that happening in the short term, but I tell the member that I do see it happening. What Dr Cullen should be doing is taking up my suggestion to investigate a capital gains tax on all but the family home. He conceded that it might help, but he did not take it seriously then; I suggest he does, now. If the Government wants to avoid having its revenue fall because profitable companies start recording losses instead of paying taxes, due to the crippling effect of the dollar, if the Government wants to avoid companies laying off staff and its having to pay more unemployment benefits because of the high dollar, if the Government wants to encourage investment in the productive sector instead of in property speculation, and if the Government wants to recover some of the company tax revenue it will lose, then it needs to look into a capital gains tax.

During the financial review I also raised the issue of the poor performance of the Government Superannuation Fund, and asked some questions around the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. The Minister conceded that the last 2 or 3 years have been extremely bad years. In fact, he went on to say that if the next 20 years were that bad for equities, we would all be in “deep pooh”, whatever we do.

John Key: That’s correct, actually.

ROD DONALD: Well, in the Green Party’s view, unless the Government stops gambling on the casino economy and investing New Zealand capital in overseas companies, thus strengthening their economies against ours, then we will be “in the pooh”, big time. The Minister shakes his head, but I draw his attention to the Government Actuary’s report, which came out only today, on the Government Superannuation Fund. In the year before Dr Cullen took it out of Government bonds and started gambling it overseas, it made an after-tax return of 5 percent. In the first year on the overseas sharemarket, it made an after-tax return of 0.02 percent. In the 2003 year, the one we are reviewing, it made an after-tax return of 1.03 percent—nowhere near the 2.5 percent above Government bonds that the Minister predicted the fund would make.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Unfair market.

ROD DONALD: Well, the market is exactly the point. Why gamble on the market when there is a safe return in Government bonds? That is what the Government did not do—it did not keep it in Government bonds. What is the Government doing with the New Zealand Superannuation Fund? It is splashing that money around overseas, as well.

GORDON COPELAND (United Future) : I would like to pick up on a few matters related to Treasury and the financial statements of the New Zealand Government in the 2002-03 financial review. The first of those concerns Air New Zealand. The Finance and Expenditure Committee was advised by the Minister that the airline is likely to need substantial investment over the medium to long term. That being the case, I suggest that at the time a request is formally lodged by the airline for new capital injection, the Government seriously consider selling down part of its stake in the airline to mum and dad investors of New Zealand. That could include the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, should it wish to take up that option.

My second point relates to the recent announcement by the Reserve Bank of its impending approach to the House for a capital injection aimed at both strengthening its balance sheet and enabling it, in tightly circumscribed conditions, to intervene in the foreign exchange market. I have an open mind with regard to those proposals, and look forward to receiving briefings and details in due course. I will view any such requests against the background of my desire to ensure that we continue to build New Zealand’s exporting capacity.

For the rest, I want to spend a few minutes talking about the Government’s fiscal management and the way in which it interacts with the growth of the New Zealand economy. Since we undertook the review, the Government has announced its intention to proceed with a family assistance package in this year’s Budget, which, when fully implemented, will cost around $1 billion per annum. For Rod Donald’s information, it has gone up from the $500 million we were talking about at the time of the review to the new figure of $1 billion—double the amount. The Reserve Bank is relaxed about that fiscal stimulus and believes that it will act as a stabiliser, given that economic growth is forecast to decline during the 2004-06 period. Indeed, if it were not for the stimulus that will be provided by that package, it is likely that we would be looking at a hard landing for the economy, with a rapid decline in economic activity, the emergence of growing unemployment, and many other negative results.

However, United Future believes that two further immediate steps could be taken. The first of those is the cancellation of GST on rates. That would cost around $250 million to $300 million—money that would then remain in the pockets of all New Zealand property owners, be they residential or commercial. Sometimes the shape of fiscal stimulus is every bit as important as its quantum. It seems to us that no GST on rates is an idea whose time has come. Consider the benefit it would give all property owners, including farmers who have been hit hard both by the rise and rise of the New Zealand dollar and by adverse weather conditions.

Similarly, United Future seeks a tax rebate for those many New Zealanders who regularly give time to voluntary work in New Zealand. When we think about it, we can see that efficient and effective work undertaken by volunteers is the ultimate in productivity—the very thing that our economy so desperately needs. Accordingly, we will continue to call on the Government to give those two ideas further in-depth consideration.

For those who are a little bit confused about the effect of removing GST on rates, ratepayers would have money left in their pockets, as I have said. For those who are confused about the system, it could be done through a zero rating mechanism. That is the clear intention of the policy, which we are asking the Government to look at and to pursue. Indeed, as I have said, it would give every single property owner in this country an immediate lift in the amount of money that is left in his or her pocket. It is the kind of fiscal stimulus that is affordable for the country at this point in time and that would act as a stabiliser, thus giving us a softer landing for the undoubted downturn that our economy is going to experience as we go through the next couple of years.

I think it is important in this debate—given that we are looking at the whole question of the Government’s balance sheet—to give consideration to those kinds of points and to bring them solidly to the attention of the Minister of Finance. I will conclude with those few remarks and save the Committee a few moments.

JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) : I want to go back to the document that I quoted in my earlier speech, Issues for Economic Growth: the Next 12 Months and Beyond, a document that the National Party managed to get under the Official Information Act. Contained in that document are a number of statements that the Minister of Finance would not like to be made known in the public arena. I say that because, in the Crown accounts, the Government has allocated more spending over the next decade to fix the roading problems around New Zealand. At best, the Government’s effort could be described as pathetic—absolutely pathetic. There will be $500 million - odd over the course of about 10 years, and the rest of it will come from New Zealanders paying an increase in petrol tax—despite the fact that the Government is babysitting a huge surplus. I want to quote from this document, which was “in confidence” to the Minister of Finance: “The Auckland transport situation is critical.” It is absolutely critical. The report goes on to discuss not only the lack of funding, but also the complete disaster that the Resource Management Act is and why the situation cannot be fixed. The Minister would be well served to spend some time in Auckland and to go and talk to companies like Beca Carter Hollings and Ferner, which will tell him quite clearly that the Land Transport Management Act has completely failed to deliver a better solution.

I ask him to reflect on the actions of the Auckland Regional Council last Thursday when it decided to co-opt every councillor on the Auckland Regional Council on to the Auckland Regional Land Transport Committee, which meant there were another 15 councillors on the committee. There are now 32 people on the committee. It is a complete joke and if anybody thinks that we will fix Auckland’s transport problems with a lack of funding from a Minister who does not want to listen, with a Resource Management Act that is not designed to fix the problem, and with an Auckland Regional Council that simply wants to bog down the process, then he or she is frankly in la-la land. It is a great shame because the problem is costing Auckland over a billion dollars a year. The Minister should have been addressing it, but we know that he will not address it in any great way in Budget 2004 because he will be attempting to buy a few more votes.

Before people become a little too excited, I want to highlight one simple issue. Last week the Minister came down to the Chamber and told people that hard-working families in New Zealand, on the latest OECD measurement, would be improving from ninth to third position, because he would be delivering $2,000 per household—or those were the numbers we backed out, and he agreed with the Dominion Post journalist. What he forgot to tell the people of New Zealand was that he would not be delivering that until 2008. If Gordon Copeland in United Future thinks that the Minister is about to deliver anything really good for hard-working families in New Zealand, then he needs to have a look in the Crown accounts and see exactly how much has been allocated in Budget 2004. The Prime Minister shakes her head, but the truth is that there will be very little indeed. Money will come, but it will come later on down the track, and that is despite the fact that since this Government has been in office, it has put up no fewer than 15 taxes and has raised the amount of tax taken from hard-working families and businesses by a billion dollars a year.

That is the truth of it. This Government knows how to put up taxes, it knows how to slow the entrepreneurial spirit, and it knows how to spend other people’s money, but what it does not know how to do is how to grow the economy. That is why we are no longer allowed to talk about when New Zealand will be back in the top half of the OECD. That is why John Whitehead at Treasury has had to break into print in Issues for Economic Growth: the Next 12 Months and Beyond. That is why that document cannot define when we will be back in the top half of the OECD—because we will not be back. There are pages and pages and pages about the problems with Government policy—everything from infrastructure to energy to taxation. Pick one and it is in here, but not one of those issues is being addressed by this Government. It will set up another working productivity group and it will put a little more money into the growth and innovation framework, but around its ears the economy is imploding.

The Minister went to a slap-up Labour Party function a couple of weeks ago, on Saturday night, and told the people there: “We’re in for some bad times, because if you think the polls are bad now, they will get worse. The economy is slowing down and there is nothing we can do about it because our policies will not deliver a higher standard of living for New Zealand. If you want that, vote National.”

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) : I will deal briefly with some of the points that have been raised. In response to Mr Copeland, no, the Government will not be removing GST on rates. I am afraid that local authorities are strengthening the argument for GST being on rates by moving more and more towards specific charges, rather than property-related rates as they used to have. I remind him that Mr Dunne probably made the crucial swing vote to impose GST on rates in 1984-85 in a Labour caucus decision that had a margin of one. I also point out to him that we would not be raising any capital for Air New Zealand by selling shares to mum and dad shareholders. It is only if new shares are issued that new capital will be raised. Mixing up the shareholders does not raise the capital for the company.

In response to Mr Donald, no, we are not imposing a capital gains tax. As for his response about playing on the market, I come back to the essential point: if the member really believes that over the next 30 or 40 years all international equities markets will collapse, then we can forget all our plans about anything over that period of time. In relation to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, contrary to what Ms Clifton said in the Listener some 2 or 3 weeks ago—I have no idea where she gets her information from on these kinds of matters—when she said that we lost lots of money on the superannuation fund, in fact, in the first quarter that the superannuation fund went to market last year, it significantly outperformed any benchmark measure that can be put forward. We made money out of that deal. On the Government Superannuation Fund,we lost money on markets, as everybody else did, including the member—except, of course, for that famously subsidised property scheme that the Green Party runs as part of its so-called superannuation policy.

Now I will turn to Mr Key. He tells us that we do not know how to grow the economy. That is funny because in the last year we outgrew Australia, the United States, Europe, and Japan. I ask him to name me any other year when New Zealand has managed to do that in recent decades.

This country, under this Government, has been growing faster than the OECD average in almost every year it has been in office. The member can do the cute sums about reaching the top half within the next period of time, but I invite him to do the same sums on his own leader’s promise to pass Australia by 2010, given the rate of economic growth in Australia, which was a lot more than 4 percent per capita growth—and he nods his head in agreement. Australia has been outperforming the OECD almost every year for the last decade or more.

We also learnt about the National Party’s fiscal policy. On the one hand the National Party said, in response to Mr Copeland, that one could not afford to take GST off local authority rates—$1 million amongst 253 authorities—but, on the other hand, on anything else one could spend what one liked. Mr Key’s policy is that even when the economy is growing fast, one should still be borrowing to pay for tax cuts. At least it is no longer tax cuts for the rich. It is only a year or two since Dr Brash told us that the key to growth was to lower the top tax rate.

Dr Wayne Mapp: Yes.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: “Yes.”, says Dr Mapp. Dr Brash said that unless the top tax rate is lowered, there would be no growth, and last week he said: “Oh, wait, no cut in top tax rate; we’re going to cut the company tax rate and the lower tax rate, even though we don’t believe that’s any good.”—indeed, even though National believes that cutting the bottom tax rate will lower growth. That is the National Party’s view of economics, but, because of the politics, Dr Brash said that National would not lower the top tax rate. So much for U-turns within Parliament! At least when some of us change any position, we are in the Chamber to defend it. Dr Brash is a phantom figure around this place these days. He is never here to tell us what the National view is.

Gerry Brownlee: He’s out there talking to the people.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: He is out there talking to both people at once, we are told by the deputy leader of the National Party—a man who is disappointed in life because he sits there with a dagger in his hand but never has Dr Brash’s back next to him to stick it in. Probably why Dr Brash is never sitting there is that it would be far too unsafe for him to do so with Mr Brownlee next to him pondering his own potential future.

This Government has got growth up to near-record levels in terms of comparison with other OECD countries, unemployment is down to the lowest figure since 1987, we have strongly growing household income growth, we have particularly large reductions in unemployment amongst Māori and Pacific peoples, and we have, still, despite the problems of the dollar, high levels of consumer confidence. We are seeing a growing New Zealand economy, a growing future for this country, and a strong, prudent fiscal management.

• Reports noted.

JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—National) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. As the Prime Minister is here in the chair, I just wonder whether, rather than being specific and taking time going through each report, we just say we are doing all the Prime Minister’s areas, then members can speak, I am sure—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I am not reading them all out; I am reading out only the ones members wish to speak to, as indicated. The whips have indicated which ones.

JOHN CARTER: No one took the call, but I wonder whether it is sensible to do that, then members can take a call as they want.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Yes. Is there a call? There is a call.

Hon MATT ROBSON (Progressive) : The report on the Security Intelligence Service is an important one. There is not a country in the world that does not look towards its security and try to have a service or an organisation that will deal with that aspect of its life. I do not believe there is any argument in this Parliament about the need to have a body that is able to detect whether the security and safety of New Zealand is sound and is able to take proper steps to follow up on any wrongdoing or problems in respect of our country’s security.

However, I want to point to a problem that has emerged with the case of Ahmed Zaoui—that is, the lack of safeguards we have to ensure that an organisation such as the Security Intelligence Service, and the related organisations, being the Customs Service, the New Zealand Police, and the Immigration Service, which work with them—all of which have a considerable amount of power and discretion—are used to protect the democratic rights, not just of anybody who comes from outside but of people inside New Zealand. I believe that the case of Ahmed Zaoui is one that we as a Parliament—not just the Government—need to look at very carefully, not just in terms of whether we have a predisposition to believe that the particular individual, Dr Zaoui, is guilty of any wrongdoing, either abroad or, possibly, in New Zealand, but of whether we have used the right methods to determine that. I would say that at the present time we have a very serious problem, because it appears that there was a predetermination not to hear his case but to avoid the facts of it, and that at a very high level in the departments of the Security Intelligence Service up to the director, in the Customs Service, in the Immigration Service, and in the Police an attempt was made to railroad him out of the country before we heard what his case was about.

The events—from the time Dr Zaoui came to the airport and was questioned by a Customs officer, some 15 hours after he had arrived, in a language he did not understand, and had a document fabricated to suggest he belonged to an organisation he does not belong to, to when the police took that document and falsified the material pertinent to whether he should be detained in a corrections system, through to when the Immigration Service ensured that the first hearing he had was only a few days after he arrived, without proper representation and in a very short time, and to holding him in solitary confinement in a corrections institution against the procedures that the Department of Corrections itself set up, and I know that as a former Minister of Corrections—all predetermined to ensure that his case was not heard.

Therefore, the New Zealand public and the standards it expects—that any accusation of wrongdoing will be investigated thoroughly, and that the person so accused will have adequate opportunity to defend himself—went by the by. We put an enormous number of resources into these organisations, and I think we are in the situation where the head of the Security Intelligence Service, the chief executive of the Immigration Service, right up to Assistant Commissioner Jon White in the New Zealand Police, have acted wrongly and improperly in the case of Dr Zaoui. But, because they have acted wrongly in that case, that affects all of us. Either we have a rule of law that applies to all people and use it or we subvert that rule of law.

The other point about Dr Zaoui is that as soon as he arrived in New Zealand and applied for refugee status, he was acting lawfully. He was applying under our law and under international law to ask for his case to be heard. We have not acted properly, or, I would be so bold to say, lawfully. With the report of the Security Intelligence Service, it is incumbent upon us to look at whether the money is being used properly, to ask for a review as a Parliament—and the Prime Minister has stated that will be the case—particularly in terms of the processes, which I take to mean the questions of natural justice, and that we take that seriously and institute such a review.

Lastly, the Crown is in a difficult position, because in all the legal proceedings in Dr Zaoui’s case, the hearings have found in favour of Dr Zaoui. The thorough review of his case by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, comprising over 200 pages, came down to say that this man is a refugee and should be given refugee status in New Zealand. It was severely critical of the Customs Service and the Immigration Service, and of the Security Intelligence Service, as well.

• Report noted.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : I want to talk about the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, an office that has some $15 million a year available to it, a substantial amount of which is for the provision of free and frank advice of an impartial nature to the Prime Minister. That raises a number of questions about the advice that the Prime Minister has received in recent days, particularly about the seabed and foreshore issue, and the credibility of the department itself has also taken a very severe knock during the year because of the way in which the head of that department, Mr Prebble, chose deliberately to remove, from the public arena, official information relating to the “corngate” affair.

I would like the Prime Minister to take a call to tell us the nature of the discussion with Mr Prebble, once it was clear that this department had been caught. Further, I think it is important that the Prime Minister tell us whether she knew, at the time of his withholding of that official information, that it was in existence. These are two simple questions that have not been dealt with over the past 12 months. There have been so many things on the radar screen that little incidents like this tend to drop off and be forgotten, and this is the appropriate time to have those issues discussed.

If we cannot get those sorts of answers, then all we can conclude is that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is a highly politicised body that might be better known as the “Department of Propaganda” or the “Department of Political Management”.

I want to turn for a moment to the advice that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet may or may not have been giving the Prime Minister on the seabed and foreshore issue. It seems the Government has had a range of positions. The initial advice coming after the Court of Appeal decision was: “Don’t panic. We’re about to legislate for Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore.” We then had a period where clearly that was unacceptable to the Labour members of the caucus known as the “Māori caucus”, and some other form of advice had to be given to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

We would like to know whether the next lot of advice was part of a transition of advice, part of a stream of advice, or was it separate, because in that advice Dr Cullen seems to have been the person sent out on the attack. He made a speech to the Chapman Tripp business dinner earlier this year, where he picked up on some of the comments made by Dr Don Brash. He made the very strong statement that the Treaty of Waitangi made it untenable for the Crown to assert Crown ownership. He went on to suggest that his Government, in wanting to recognise customary rights, would come up with some form of dual title. He felt that much of the alarm that was being expressed by New Zealanders was of little point, because the Government had this so well strapped down there would be no real ongoing problem.

We now know that the advice to Dr Cullen was wrong—advice presumably via the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, because the advice is available on strategic political matters to all Ministers in the Government. The advice was completely “off”, compared with the public’s view of the issue. That raises a question about how that department gets its information, and how it assesses what a public view is at any given time.

It would seem to me that we have now had a third shift in the Government’s thinking where we are talking about dual management of seabed and foreshore being in Crown title, except we are told by Margaret Wilson that it is not title, as we might ordinarily understand it; it is something new and quite different, or as my colleague Dr Mapp would advise us, it is perhaps best deciphered as life, but not life as we know it.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : It is remarkable that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is there to give strategic advice to the Prime Minister, who, I guess, has built something of a reputation in this country of always being close to the pulse of the nation and understanding the mood of the nation. Clearly, her political instincts have abandoned her and she cannot look to her department to bail her out. If this is strategic advice, then it must come from satellites and not from the people of New Zealand. The people have given a clear message that they want Crown title. That is apparently not what the Government thought in December last year, although it is what it thought in July last year. Maybe the advice the Prime Minister should take is the advice she gave herself back in July, without reference to this incredibly highly paid group of individuals in her department—that is, her own instincts to go for Crown ownership. However, she was rolled by her own caucus.

In August her department allocated $369,000 for the management, although better called “mismanagement” and the administration, better called “maladministration” of this project, and a further $116,000 appropriated to fund the Ministry of Māori Development. Ten huis were held up and down the country, costing $131,000. The Government has boldly claimed that was a saving out of $180,000. It came up with this oxymoron, this so-called “dual title public domain” that the Prime Minister proudly proclaimed would meet the needs of New Zealanders.

John Key: Why doesn’t she go on Holmes and tell the people?

Dr WAYNE MAPP: Yes, why does she not explain to the people why public domain is so much better than Crown title because—

Rt Hon Helen Clark: Because she is in the House.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: Will the Prime Minister take a call to explain to the public of New Zealand why she has done another flip-flop and returned to the concept of Crown title, where she was back in July last year, and why that is now so much superior to public domain, which seems to be part of the documents of 17 December?

It seems to us, and to the people of New Zealand, that this Government is struggling to catch up. It adopts one position after another. The Associate Minister of Justice said today: “Spare me any more questions. I just want to get rid of this. Thank goodness the legislation is going to come into the House—soon.” But we have questions for the Prime Minister. Will this legislation really be Crown title as we understand it, or will it be some sort of new variation with still this idea of dual title, which has been paid for to the tune of $369,000 for this highly paid, high-powered advice, or will it be in some form of co-management, as envisaged by the Minister of Māori Affairs? What does Tariana Turia have to say about this? We know that this Prime Minister prides herself on having complete control of her caucus, on the ability to marshal votes, yet one would have to conclude that in the last few weeks, and the public has seen that, clearly, the Prime Minister has completely lost control of this issue.

The $369,000 of expenditure has essentially amounted to nought. In fact, she should have stuck to her own advice to herself, not needing reference to her department, and simply legislated for Crown title.

These are serious questions. The Prime Minister is required to answer to this Committee why she has had so many different positions, understandings, new views, revised views, and old views on this issue.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) : I would like to comment on the points that members have made across the two votes that have been discussed in the last few minutes. On the question of the Security Intelligence Service and Mr Zaoui’s case, let me just tell the Hon Matt Robson that I do not think any member of this Committee could seriously mount a case for saying that Mr Zaoui has not had his legal rights protected in this country. Indeed, his legal bills and costs will probably be far greater than for just about anybody who has approached legal aid. He has been through a full Refugee Status Appeals Authority process, and he has full representation for the review of the security risk certificate. In other words, all the protections of New Zealand law are available to him.

But the fact remains that a security risk certificate is extant, and as long as it is extant the very clear advice the Government has had is that there is no option but to detain him in a penal institution. Whichever way one looks at it the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, where some have suggested he be sent, is not a penal institution; nor is the option of home detention open under the law as it is written. I look forward, when this case is over, to a full review of the legal processes around the processing of a case where a security risk certificate is issued, because I do not think the time lines have been satisfactory. I think we need to look at where they can be streamlined. No doubt in due course that may result in proposed changes to legislation, which a select committee can then have a good look at.

I come to matters that other members have raised this afternoon. I note the issue Mr Brownlee raised around what papers should have been released by Dr Prebble when I called for all papers to be released. It is a matter of record, of course, that I was not told that all papers had not been released. As I did not personally check the many hundreds of pages that went out I could not have known that at the time. The select committee that did the financial review acknowledged that Dr Prebble had acknowledged that his judgment could have been better in that case. I leave the matter to rest there, and look forward with interest to the select committee report.

The final issue raised was around foreshore and seabed. It would be desirable for the Opposition to realise that this does raise complex issues. In this country we are used to dealing with grievances in this area under a treaty claims process. This one came out of left field as an aboriginal title issue, and it is clear that it has significantly raised expectations in Māoridom. Many in Māoridom have asserted that they own those areas, and always have. The strong international legal advice that the Government has and that was in the opinion by Dr Paul McHugh, which went to the Waitangi Tribunal, was that nowhere where the English common law is recognised have courts awarded exclusive possession of areas like foreshore and seabed to indigenous people. That has not happened. While the courts may find under the common law that there is, indeed, entitlement to a bundle of rights, the strong international precedents suggest that that bundle of rights would fall short of exclusive possession.

So we have a dichotomy between expectations that are common in quite a lot of areas in Māoridom, and what the common law would actually award, and what the expectations of most New Zealanders are. I think I speak for most New Zealanders in saying that we see these areas as part of our birthright, and we want that strongly asserted. That is why, from day one, the Government has said that the rights of the New Zealand public to access these areas freely, and enjoy them, must be upheld. Of course we also want to see that Māori customary rights are upheld, and that is why it is appropriate that a new statutory framework is put in place.

I welcome the fact that the Opposition has chosen to raise these issues today. I have been making the point in recent days that the forum that is provided, at enormous expense by the New Zealand taxpayer, to debate issues like this with me as Prime Minister, or any Prime Minister, is right here in this Parliament—not Mr Holmes trying to make himself important. I welcome the fact that the deputy leader of the National Party is one who fronts up and has a go. Good on him. I welcome that. But there are others who prefer to cut and run to television studios and not face this House. All I say is that the taxpayers of New Zealand pay a lot of money for us to debate issues here.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : After the Prime Minister’s little comment in that contribution to the Committee, suggesting that she was all for a debate on this particular issue, perhaps now, for the sixth time, I could seek leave for there to be a debate on the seabed and foreshore issue in the House tomorrow, immediately after question time.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member knows that he cannot seek leave during the Committee of the whole House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : We have heard quite an extraordinary contribution from the Prime Minister, and I really want to challenge her, and her Ministers, as to just what the Government’s policy is with regard to the foreshore and seabed. I make the point to the Prime Minister that the people in my own electorate of Nelson have been holding out for 9 long months to get some idea of the Government’s policy. We met with the Leader of the Opposition, Don Brash, and the Mayor of Tasman District, who said that the lack of decisive leadership from this Prime Minister is costing our community $45 million a year. I have listened over the last 9 months to six different positions in respect of the foreshore and seabed. Every time the House comes back after a recess, the Prime Minister has changed her mind. We started with the position, which National reaffirmed, that the foreshore and seabed should be in Crown ownership. We have gone right around the paddock over the last 9 months, back to that position.

Gerry Brownlee: Have we, though?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Gerry Brownlee quite properly asks whether that is the position. Perhaps the Prime Minister, because she is so keen to openly debate these issues in the Chamber, could debate this question: will the Government vest the foreshore and the seabed in the Crown? The silence is deafening. She challenges us to come down to the Chamber and have the debate here, yet Government members will not engage in it. Can the Minister of Local Government, or can the Minister of Health, answer this question: is the Government going to vest the foreshore and seabed with the Crown? [Interruption] Well, the Minister of Health does not know the answer to that, either.

I say, given the Prime Minister has provided such a level of indecision for 9 months, it is no wonder that her Government is toast—it is no wonder, at all. The people of New Zealand are demanding firm leadership, and they are getting none of it from the Prime Minister.

Dr Wayne Mapp: They used to!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: They used to say that they believed what the Prime Minister said—that they believed in her. She said that the Government would vest the foreshore and the seabed with the Crown, but that has not come to be. So I ask the Prime Minister this question again, seeing that I have her attention and because she challenges us to raise these issues in the Chamber: will the foreshore and the seabed—

Hon Chris Carter: Where is your leader?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Just because the Prime Minister chose to show up during the Committee stage for the first time in the last 12 months—

Gerry Brownlee: It is her first speech for the year!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It just shows how effective the Opposition has been that finally the Prime Minister has decided to show up in the Chamber. So I ask her a very simple question: is it Government policy that the foreshore and seabed will be vested with the Crown?

Jill Pettis: Wait and see.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We have been waiting to see for 9 months.

I ask the Prime Minister when the legislation will come before us. I remember that last June, when the decision first came out from the Court of Appeal, we were told there would be legislation within the next couple of months, then the next couple of months, and then the next couple of months.

So I ask the Prime Minister today when we will see the bill.

Mark Peck: When will the member be deputy leader?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Is that not interesting! Mr Peck does not want to answer the real questions; he wants to divert attention from them. So I ask the Prime Minister this: when will we see the foreshore and seabed legislation?

Jill Pettis: Soon.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We had “Soon” last July. We had “Soon” in November. We had “Soon” in the Prime Minister’s address, and it is still “Soon”. That is not good enough. It is not good enough because people all over New Zealand are sitting back with their investments, sitting back with uncertainty and adding to the racial tension in our country, because the Prime Minister—

Government Members: That’s rich!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I say to Government members that they should show the courage of their convictions and state their position clearly to the people. The very day that the Court of Appeal decision came out, National knew where it stood. On the very first day National said we needed to have certainty, and the foreshore and seabed should be vested with the Crown. Despite all the resources of all the Crown agencies—the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and all the other departments—9 months later this Government is still riddled with indecision.

I simply say to the Prime Minister that if she does not have the capacity to govern, she should do as she says—let us bring it on. Let us see the Prime Minister front up on the Holmes programme to debate with Don Brash and answer this question: what is the Government’s policy on the foreshore and seabed?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) : Why do the National members not bring on their leader? What an extraordinary situation this is! Here we have, before the Committee today, the financial review debate on the Prime Minister’s department and votes. We are told that the Leader of the Opposition is desperate to debate with the Prime Minister. Where is he? I again pay a compliment to the deputy leader of the National Party, Mr Brownlee, who is prepared to front up.

John Carter: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. It is out of order to refer to the absence of any member from the Chamber. The Prime Minister should desist from doing so.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member is correct. It is a Speaker’s ruling not to refer to the absence of members.

Hon Chris Carter: Condemned by their own point of order!

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Condemned by their own point of order—that is, indeed, a fair point. It is an extraordinary situation, when we have these departments open for scrutiny in the financial review debate today, that the firing is done by the bombastic deputy leader of the National Party. He is very capable too, I may add, but is not a particularly serious deputy leader. [Interruption] Well, National has had so many deputy leaders that I can hardly remember which members have stood up to be deputy leader. In fact, I am not sure whether the Hon Nick Smith ever made a speech in the House as deputy leader. He went so quickly that he never even had a pay cheque, probably.

What I want to say to the Committee today is that the Government began with the position that the foreshore and seabed is the birthright of every New Zealander. That was the position at the beginning; it will be the position at the end. It has also been very clear that on issues like this we must endeavour to reconcile the interests of the whole public with customary rights, and we will do that. Some people may not care about customary rights. We do recognise that the common law internationally would recognise such rights, and we would not want our country to be out of step on that. So we will go for a solution that upholds both sets of interests. We think they are complementary. They are not in competition; they can be reconciled. We are interested in a country that endeavours to bring about not only reconciliation for past wrongs but also a present and a future that bring Kiwis together, and does not drive them apart. We are not interested in the sorts of politics that split New Zealand down the middle. We want a future where people go forward together. The basis of what will be presented to the House in the form of legislation, which those members will just have to wait for, will be those principles.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : Three simple questions were asked of the Prime Minister by Nick Smith—three simple questions that could have been answered by the Prime Minister but were avoided by her. The first question was: will there be Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore—yes or no? The answer was that we should wait and see, because the Government does not know—it has no idea—and maybe it will know tomorrow or next week, but not just now. The second question was: when will we see the legislation? The answer was that the Prime Minister does not know—perhaps tomorrow or next week, but soon. And when she was asked why she will not debate with the leader of the National Party, Don Brash, in a public forum, what did we get? We had the cowering little excuse that she wants to debate with him here in the Chamber. No fewer than six times there have been requests for leave for a snap debate on the very issue of the seabed and foreshore, and the Prime Minister has instructed the troops on every occasion not to let her get into the situation of debating that tangle with Don Brash.

Now we have the crazy idea from the Prime Minister that Don Brash should be here this afternoon with about maybe 10,000 or 11,000 people, if we are lucky, listening to the radio broadcast of this debate, whereas—

Rt Hon Helen Clark: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I think it would be useful if the deputy leader of the National Party could clarify whether he is trying to speak long enough to get Dr Brash to appear here in the Chamber. Is that the purpose of his speech?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): That is not a point of order.

GERRY BROWNLEE: Is that coming off my time?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): No, the member will be given time for it.

GERRY BROWNLEE: I want to know what the Chair will do about a frivolous point of order like that from the Prime Minister. That shows what a terrible state the Government is in. Dr Brash is right now—let us not refer to his absence from the Chamber in any particular way—making himself available to be on the Holmes show tonight to discuss, in front of over a million New Zealanders, this particular issue. The Government knows, and the Prime Minister knows, that the Prime Minister cannot be there to appear on because New Zealanders do not want to hear these answers: “I don’t know. I can’t see when it is going to happen—maybe soon, at some time in the future.”

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I feel that this entire speech is out of order because Mr Brownlee is constantly indicating the absence of his leader from the Chamber in his speech, and that is out of order.

GERRY BROWNLEE: Speaking to the point of order, I point out that I said Dr Brash was making himself available to be on the Holmes show this evening.

Hon Annette King: He’s not here.

GERRY BROWNLEE: I know the difference—we live in a technological age. Mind you, we would not expect the Labour Party to know that. It is not necessary for Don Brash to be anywhere other than within the precincts of Parliament.[Interruption] The point is—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Order! Has the member finished speaking to the point of order?

GERRY BROWNLEE: I have now, yes.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Would the member please continue with his speech.

GERRY BROWNLEE: How many times are we going to have to put up speakers this afternoon before the Prime Minister decides to give the Committee some answers? We know that the Prime Minister does not want to get cornered by Paul Holmes or to get into a head-to-head debate with Dr Don Brash. We know that the Prime Minister says she is prepared to debate the matter here in the Chamber, but when she came down here this afternoon and the questions were put to her, what did we get? She said she did not know, and could not tell us. That is just unacceptable. I can only assume there are people up on the seventh floor of the Beehive now, people from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, who are ripping their hair out, knowing what option No. 7 will be for the Prime Minister. They know what option No. 7 will be for the Prime Minister. It is a very simple thing. She must tell the country whether the foreshore and seabed of this nation are to remain in Crown ownership.

Hon Annette King: Hear, hear!

GERRY BROWNLEE: Is that right?

Hon Annette King: Of course it will!

GERRY BROWNLEE: Annette King has just said that that is what is to happen.

I want to know whether Mahara Okeroa or Tariana Turia will take a call this afternoon and tell us they agree with that position. How about Dover Samuels, John Tamihere, or any of the rest of them? Some of them I cannot remember. There is a “Miha Ritinui” and a “Dave Horeore”. Where do they stand on this stuff?

Those are simple questions, and the Opposition will keep asking them until the Prime Minister is prepared to answer them. Why can we not have simple answers? Why can we not have a public debate about this matter? Why is the Prime Minister so fearful of going on State television with Don Brash? It seems to me that it may that the Government has a little bit of “poll-itis”. The great spin machine from the seventh floor has let Government members down.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : Today we have the extraordinary situation where the Prime Minister has actually turned up in the House. I have been in this House so many times on a Tuesday afternoon and this is the first time in 5 years that I can remember on a Tuesday afternoon when the Prime Minister has chosen to front up. Why has the Prime Minister chosen to front up today in the House? The reason is her weak excuse for not fronting with Don Brash on the Holmes programme. Why does the Prime Minister want to front up in the House, rather than on the show? She has probably only 50-odd cheerleaders for the Labour Party—the only 50 she can find. She was quite happy to give a sermon in the Christchurch Cathedral. She was quite happy to do that. She thought the Christchurch Cathedral was quite an appropriate forum to lecture on politics, but she was not prepared to front up on the programme. Why?

Will she answer why she thought it was appropriate to give a sermon in the Christchurch Cathedral, but was not prepared to front up on State-owned television? I will tell members why. As my colleague says, we can smell the poultry from here. The Prime Minister does not want to front on the Holmes show. She does not want to have a neutral chair. She would much rather be in the House where she has a Labour Party MP chairing the debate, than have Paul Holmes. She does not want to have to—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will be seated. That is not—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: She has suddenly got all pricklish about the Standing Orders.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I withdraw and apologise. Have you left the Labour Party?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will now leave the House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I am sorry?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will now leave the House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I will recall the Speaker. I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Please be seated. I have ruled. The member commented on my ruling. The member will now leave the House. I have ruled. The member will leave the House now please.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Please be seated. The member will leave the House. An instruction has been given.

• Hon Dr Nick Smith withdrew from the Chamber.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : I move, That the Speaker be recalled.

• Motion agreed to, and House resumed

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Mr Speaker, you were recalled by the House, because I had given a ruling on a member Dr Nick Smith. I asked him to leave the House. I asked him to withdraw and apologise, which he did. He then commented on my ruling. I then asked him to leave the House. You have been recalled to rule on that matter.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : Loosely, that is the situation. In the course of the debate Dr Smith made a comment for which he was required to withdraw and apologise. He withdrew and apologised for that remark. Rather than question the decision by the Chair of the Committee, he asked a question that, I would say, was no more than a debating point, and in fact, a statement of fact. What he said was “Is the member no longer a member of the Labour Party?”. I have looked at pages 17 and 18 of Speakers’ Rulings, which relate generally to criticism of the Speaker. I cannot see anything there to suggest that this was a criticism of the Chairperson. The member complied immediately with the requirement to withdraw and apologise for the remark. That is consistent with Speaker’s ruling 17/6. In continuing a speech, as it happens, it is quite frequent that comments are made that are of a debating nature. While it is not appropriate to bring the Speaker into the debate, I do not believe for one minute that that is what Dr Nick Smith was doing.

Perhaps it is not coincidental that this incident occurred during what has been quite a spirited debate and a much-anticipated debate also, and I would suggest that there has been a degree of oversensitivity on the part of the Chair. The conduct for this afternoon has been perfectly civil and inside the Standing Orders. Again, I cite that Dr Smith complied with Speaker’s ruling 17/6 immediately, and in no way was his comment intended, nor do I believe it could be construed to be, as any sort of attack or, for that matter, reflection upon the Chair.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) : Speaker’s ruling 17/6 states: “It is out of order for a member to suggest that the Speaker is defending the Government—such a statement must be withdrawn unreservedly;”. In the course of the Hon Dr Nick Smith’s speech he said, in relation to me, that I preferred to be here where I have a member of my own party in the Chair. That to me, without question, was a statement that the Chair was biased. The Chair then asked Dr Smith to withdraw and apologise, as the Speaker’s ruling precedent suggests that he should, and should do so unreservedly. He eventually rose, withdrew, and apologised, and then as he sat down called out to the Chair: “Aren’t you still a member of the Labour Party?”, thus compounding the offence of alleging that the Chair was biased. I put it that the Chair behaved quite properly in then asking him to leave the Chamber—it was at that point that the Opposition objected and asked for you to be recalled—and I suggest that her ruling should be upheld.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : I put it to you strongly that in asking that question Dr Smith, who as it happens was instructed by the Chair to resume his speech, and made that comment at the beginning of his speech, was simply making a debating point.

Mr SPEAKER: Did he say, “Aren’t you still …”?

GERRY BROWNLEE: He did—I believe the Hansard will show that—to the Chair of the Committee, and began to carry on with his speech. While it is important that Parliament does have a degree of decorum, it is also important that we do not hide behind the Standing Orders to prevent robust debate, and that we do not stifle the reasonable opinions of members of Parliament because they may or may not comply completely with the absolute letter of . Dr Smith acted as he should have, according to Speaker’s ruling 17/6. Because he did so, that should be the end of the matter. The comment on which the Chair of the Committee has hung the decision to remove him from the Chamber is, to say the least, spurious.

Mr SPEAKER: I am just about ready to rule, but I will hear Dr Cullen because I heard two from the Opposition.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) : The defence that has been offered by the member is that Dr Smith’s remarks were in the form of debating material. That argument must fall at the first hurdle, since the comment was aimed at the person in the Chair, and the person in the Chair cannot be part of the debate. The debate is between the members opposite and the members on this side of the Chamber, and the Chair is impartial between those two sides. So that defence fails immediately. By making that comment, clearly the member cast doubt on whether his previous withdrawal and apology had been unreserved, as is required by Speakers’ Rulings.

Mr SPEAKER: One point I agree with Mr Brownlee about is that robust debate is permitted in this Parliament, and we have it. We have a very robust democracy. But that is not the issue here. Dr Smith’s retort to the Chairperson is the point. A withdrawal must be a simple withdrawal without qualification. The member qualified his withdrawal. That is highly disorderly. I certainly uphold the ruling of the Deputy Chair.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Before you vacate the Chair I wonder whether you could give the House, particularly the Opposition, some advice on what Speakers’ rulings 17/4 and 17/5 mean and entail.

Mr SPEAKER: Of course, one of them goes back to 1960, the other goes back to 1931: “It is out of order for a member to suggest the Speaker is defending the Government—such a statement must be withdrawn unreservedly;”. Speaker’s ruling 17/4: “The Speaker’s ruling may be challenged only by a direct motion with notice.” That means that a motion can be put down about a decision that was made, on the Order Paper. It is perfectly in order for anyone to do that. That goes back to 1891. Speaker’s ruling 17/5: “The Speaker’s ruling may only be challenged on a motion of which notice has been given. Such notice cannot be accepted immediately after the ruling has been given. It must be given at the appropriate time.” That means the motion can be put down with notice.

I just want to make the point that this matter has taken a bit of time out of this debate. I tried to ensure that would not be the case. I am disappointed that that has been the case. Of course, it is the minor parties that are disadvantaged as a result. I declare the House in Committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2002/03) Financial Review Bill.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : It was really quite amusing to listen to the debate, in my office, and to find that we have two older parties responsible for the debacle on the Treaty of Waitangi and the industry and the mess since 1984, in particular, claiming on the one hand to be innocent of it, where National is concerned, and to be constructive, where the Labour Party is concerned. I cannot stand by as a former National Party member, having warned them, when I was in that caucus until 1992, about exactly the kinds of mistakes they were about and making, to have them come along here and paint themselves as pure as the driven snow on this issue. Who gave Doug Graham a knighthood?

Ron Mark: National.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: And why?

Hon Brian Donnelly: Because he supported them.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That is right. The Gerry Brownlee thesis that he puts out over the radio, and the National Party caucus thesis, is: “Oh, we have a new leader now. So it all is OK. We can exonerate ourselves from the absolute and total mess that we helped to construct.” I am sorry, it does not work that way. In any respectable Western democracy, policy is about the record—the voting record, the political record—and they will not get away with the kind of display that thus far they have been allowed by the New Zealand media to get away with. Who started Aotearoa Television?

Ron Mark: The National Party.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The National Party. Who put all the money behind it? The National Party. Who passed the Te Ture Whenua Māori Act, so critical to this issue right now, in 1993? Why, the National Party! Everywhere we look it has its fingerprints and DNA all over it. But where is the great debater? We know that the Holmes show does not start until 7 o’clock. One can still catch a plane and easily make the show. So where has he been since question time today? The excuse National Party members gave is—I am not saying he is not here.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): No. We have had several points of order on this, this afternoon. The member knows well that he cannot refer to the absence of members.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh no, but I am not saying that. I am asking when we will hear him in this debate. I am not saying he is not here. I am asking when will we hear the great debater, this new messiah, on these great issues, that he speaks to the Rotary clubs about, but apparently this old institution that goes back hundreds of years, which we are blessed to be members of, cannot hear his wisdom? The Holmes show, we know, is not prepared to force him to debate against me tonight—because I made the offer. I did. I said: “Well, if the Prime Minister is too busy, I am certainly not. I will be there and will talk to you about his track record.” But the show said “No”. The show has been involved in collusion with the National Party twice this year.

Rt Hon Helen Clark: That’s right.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh yes. On the issue of the meal at the Kermadec I had a phone call that night from one Brent Fraser researching for the Holmes show. But he had made a mistake, and he hit the wrong button. He thought he was talking to David Carter, and he launched into a tirade about how well they were doing—he and David Carter. The only thing was, he made the phone call to the wrong man—me. I listened to all this, and I said: “I’m sorry Brent, you have rung the wrong man, and I am coming for you.” We now know that when Don Brash claimed to have cancelled all of his appointments, yesterday, so that he could take part in the debate, he knew there would be no debate. Still, out goes his press statement, and the gullible media of this country fall for it. If Don Brash were so keen to debate, he would be debating in this Chamber right now. But he wins all his fights by 100 yards. He cannot run fast enough.

Let me tell members this: one cannot see him for dust and small pebbles. The Holmes show will not save him, because there is a thing called leadership in politics and I have never seen a Western leader last any degree of time if he or she cannot front in Parliament at the debates and cannot do the stump, as they say in old-fashioned parlance. One cannot be by the media made a silk purse if one is a sow’s ear. They can carry on showing their ignorance, but it will not be a successful strategy—and there is no way Richard Long could keep this up. I mean he will have lost whatever hair he has on his head now.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Mr Brownlee, you have had—[Interruption] I was just going to remind Mr Brownlee that a member can only call twice in this debate, and he has spoken twice.

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Madam Chair. I seek leave to give one extra speech to Don Brash if he wishes to stand and take it now.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member cannot seek leave for another member. The member knows that perfectly well.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : This is the time for the Prime Minister to account. She was asked three simple questions by Dr Nick Smith, which were repeated by Gerry Brownlee. Did she get up and answer them? No. She simply refuses to answer the simplest of all possible questions. Will there be Crown title? It is a pretty easy thing to say “yes” or “no” to. When will the legislation be introduced—soon, next week, tomorrow, next year, next month? One would at least think that Government members could answer that. Indeed, why will the Prime Minister not appear on the Holmes show? She is here only because she knows that Dr Brash is on the show.

These questions can be expanded on. Will there be unreserved Crown ownership? We hear the Prime Minister say these are complicated issues, but she cannot tell them how they are complicated, or why she abandoned “public domain”. Apparently, it is going to Crown ownership, but when asked the direct question: “Will there be Crown ownership?”, she does not answer it. Also, she does not answer this question: “Will that Crown ownership be shared with Māori customary title?” Margaret Wilson said: “Everyone knows in this country that there is Māori customary title from one end of the country to the other.” Why can the Prime Minister not get up and say whether that is true? The Government’s only refuge is: “Wait and see.”

How long will we have to wait to find out what that is, and will it be true that that customary title amounts to co-management? That is what the Hon Parekura Horomia thinks. He thinks—and presumably the Māori votes in the Labour caucus have been obtained on this basis—that there will be co-management. I say to the Prime Minister that she has the opportunity right now to answer those questions. The Prime Minister is sitting in the chair; she needs to take the call and answer those questions. Will there be Crown ownership? When will the legislation be introduced? Will that Crown ownership be shared with Māori customary title? Will it amount to co-management? That is what the nation wants to hear.

If the Prime Minister is wondering why poll ratings for the Labour Party are declining, it is because the Government has not been able to answer those questions. One would think that when the Prime Minister is sitting in the chair, she would take the call and answer those questions. Even if she does not take the call, one would at least think that she would appear in front of at least a million television viewers tonight and answer those simple questions. We on this side of the Chamber say to the Prime Minister that she should go to the Holmes show tonight, debate the issues, and talk to the citizens of New Zealand. They deserve answers. A million people will be watching tonight, and the Prime Minister has the choice of whether to appear.

As the deputy leader of the National Party has quite rightly said, those million citizens—those million voters—will be watching Don Brash tonight, and there will be an empty chair. That empty chair will have the words “Prime Minister” on it. She is the absent person who is not willing to debate, and who will not get up even in this debate and answer the simple, straightforward questions: will there be Crown ownership, will it be shared with Māori, will Māori have co-management of the entire estate, and when will the legislation be introduced? Those issues are surely straightforward and able to be answered. After all, if the Government can say that this legislation will be introduced pretty soon, it must know the answers right now. Surely, this is the opportunity to answer them.

It is all very well for Mr Winston Peters to go on about people speaking, but he himself is proving to be in a—

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : It is all very well for Winston Peters to go on about it, because he would be the only member of this Parliament, excepting my colleagues, who has a clean record on this issue. I am the only one.

Dr Wayne Mapp: Absolute nonsense.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, we will not have that doctor from the academic circles of Auckland University come now and tell us his policy is different. That will not wash. We know what that party’s record is. If one looks at the Hansard, the parliamentary debates, and the legislation, it is all there. Today, 73 percent of New Zealand wants a debate on this issue. Back in Orewa on 23 January this year, Dr Brash said he wanted a debate, giving the identical speech, on the same platform, that Jim Bolger made on 27 January 1990.

Ron Mark: Orewa 2.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Orewa Mark 2. Dr Mapp says that it is ancient history. Oh, I see. So the past is of no consequence, particularly if it has an “h” word all over it! In Orewa, Dr Brash said he had been asking questions about the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and could not get an answer. Well, my challenge to the media is for them to do some work. They should show me his questions—show me one.

Ron Mark: Not one.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Not one. But he made the claim, anyway. Oh, no! He reminds me of Chauncey Gardiner in that movie Being There. For a while he was very popular. He became the President’s adviser by making statements like: “If you plant it, Mr President, and you water it, it will grow.” For a while he got away with it, until people realised that it was a whole lot of nothingness—like saying: “I’m going to fix up the treaty.”

That is what I have demanded—so has my party, and we do something about it in our party. We are for one franchise. There is the evidence. Where is that party’s evidence? Those members say they are for one franchise, but where is the evidence that they mean to do anything about it? It is all talk. As John Wayne would say: “It’s one thing to walk out of a saloon and steal a man’s horse, but it is a entirely something else to try to keep on it all the way out of town.” That is what will happen. They will not get away with it.

Why does the National Party not attempt for the first time for a long time to put the country first? The mass majority of New Zealanders want a debate. In fact, the National Party’s so-called voters in this last poll were split 50:50 in favour of a debate. The amusing thing was that the polls showed that just above half of the respondents—and barely that—supported Don Brash as the leader. Curious that. Could people be supporting Gerry Brownlee? I do not know. Could they be supporting Nick Smith? I do not know. But it is really quite alarming for National when it tries to reconcile that figure.

Dr Wayne Mapp: Irrelevance.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I will tell Dr Mapp what is relevant about it. How about we put the National Party’s record and my party’s record on the line? National members know what the consequence will be, do they not? They will be exposed for things called hypocrisy and cant, and they will not get away with it. I asked who passed the Te Ture Whenua Māori Act.

Darren Hughes: National did.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Of course it did. Do National members want to own up to it? No. Here they are hurling abuse at the Labour Party, and that would be right were it not for the fact that they have—and had—the identical policy. When we asked today what National’s policy was now, they did not have one.

Gerry Brownlee: Yes, we have.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, they have not. I heard Mr Brownlee say on 3ZB that the Waitangi Tribunal had no legal standing, and I thought that was alarming. He does not even understand that—

Gerry Brownlee: How big is the audience though, if he is listening?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I was on the show. I thought it was alarming that the leadership of the National Party did not understand such a simple thing as that—it is not voluntary for the Government to follow the State-owned enterprise legislation on the Treaty of Waitangi and the tribunal—it is mandatory. If that is not a legal standing, then what is? That is the kind of thing National is getting away with.

My challenge to the New Zealand media is to stop pack-hunting and getting excited, and to think long-term about how ridiculous it will look on election night 2005 when we say to them: “Sorry boys and girls, we told you so—again.”, and to get out of our face, because we do not want to tell them what will happen tomorrow.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) : This Prime Minister scuttled down from her office, high above in the Beehive, to broadcast to five listeners, when the Leader of the Opposition will be talking to hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders tonight. The Prime Minister of New Zealand is in the Chamber only because Dr Brash is not participating in this debate. As Mrs Rich said, this is a momentous day in Parliament, because for the first time in memory the Prime Minister did not use a set-piece, written speech in a debate.

I think the Prime Minister is not on the Holmes show tonight because she fears the phone-in from the public. The Prime Minister will not debate Dr Brash on television, but she was happy to pick up the phone and demand to be put on air with Don Brash and Linda Clark 2 weeks ago. []

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I refer members to Speakers’ rulings 56/1. They might like to have a look at them. Interjections are to be rare and reasonable. If members wish to make a speech, they can do so next time.

Hon TONY RYALL: The Prime Minister may fear the phone-in on the Holmes show, but she did not fear debating Don Brash when she rang up Radio New Zealand’s Linda Clark show and demanded to put on air. Instead, this Prime Minister came down to the Chamber and appeared so forlorn about what has happened with Television New Zealand. This Prime Minister is so contrived that she is the only person I know who can cry out of one eye.

I ask the Government to answer three questions. I ask the Prime Minister whether there will be Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore in this country, unreserved and unfettered by any restrictions or other titles—yes or no? I ask when the legislation will come before Parliament, and when will we get the opportunity to debate it? Thirdly, when will the Prime Minister debate Dr Brash on public television? She was happy to debate Dr Brash on Linda Clark’s show. She was happy to pick up the phone and demand to be put through to that show, though it was not a debate—but when will she be prepared to debate Don Brash on the Holmes show?

When will she come to rural New Zealand and debate the great comment that she never supported the closure of rural schools? How stupid does the Prime Minister think the people of New Zealand are, that she can say she never supported the closure of rural schools? Does anybody in New Zealand accept that from the Prime Minister? No. Does anybody in New Zealand seriously believe that the Prime Minister was never consulted about the closure of rural schools? No one accepts that.

So this Prime Minister came down to the Chamber and asked when the Leader of the Opposition would debate—knowing that the Leader of the Opposition would not be participating in this debate. That was when she came down. She then tried to say that fronting up to Parliament in a debate—and for the first time in some years not using a set-piece speech from which she could read—somehow indicated that she was providing leadership for this country.

She has had opportunity after opportunity in this debate to answer simple questions about the most burning issue of her term in Parliament. She has the opportunity to bring this country—which is riven by division because of the Government’s separatist policies—together, and she chooses not to. She could start this country down the road to a better future if she would tell New Zealanders when unfettered, unreserved, and unattached Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore will happen.

Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) : It would be wonderful if the Prime Minister would take this opportunity today to tell New Zealanders what she has so far avoided telling them, which is whether the legislation that she proposes to introduce will put the seabed and foreshore in Crown ownership. Why will the Prime Minister not just stand up in this debating chamber and tell New Zealanders whether her Government will introduce legislation that will guarantee that the Crown has ownership of the seabed and foreshore? I say to the Prime Minister that that is pretty simple; it is not asking too much. For a Prime Minister who spent 4 years swanning around the country, telling everybody that she is the most modest Prime Minister she knows, that she is a victim of her own success, that she is in control of everything, that she makes the hard decisions, and that she fronts up when no one else will, why will she not do it today? Where is she today on these issues? Let us hear from the Prime Minister, who came out of a press conference and said: “Bring it on, I am ready for the debate.” Let her stand in the Chamber today and tell us, quite simply, what her Government’s policy is on the seabed and foreshore issue.

I say to the Prime Minister that it is not as if this issue has just snuck up on her. This issue has been exercising New Zealanders’ minds for over 6 months, and the Prime Minister has done nothing other than poll. She has polled on the issue every week for 6 months, and she cannot get an answer. It requires a leadership decision—and she will not give it. This is a Prime Minister who is driven totally by the polls. That was so when she was Minister of Housing. She was a Minister who, as David Lange once said, was tinder-dry and poll-driven. What the polls said was what made her roll Mike Moore, in the end. Before that, the polls told her to be involved in the rolling of Geoffrey Palmer. Now, the polls will not tell her what to do on the seabed and foreshore issue, so she is doing nothing. She shows no leadership at all. I say to the Prime Minister that New Zealand wants some leadership, rather than her spinning herself into some sort of cocoon so that she cannot move at all.

I also say to her today that we want to know when we will be seeing this legislation. Why will she not stand up in the Chamber—even if she cannot say she can guarantee that the seabed and foreshore will be in Crown ownership—and say there will be legislation—

Jill Pettis: At least the Prime Minister is in the Chamber.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: The senior Government whip rasps away that at least the Prime Minister—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I say to members that although the member is making a rather robust speech, I would like to hear what he has to say.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: The senior Government whip rasps away that at least the Prime Minister is here. I say to the senior Government whip that we have gone back and checked, and this Prime Minister has spoken less in the House than any previous New Zealand Prime Minister. Such is her arrogance, such is her importance, that she does not have to bother with mere drudgery; such is her importance that she does not have to come down and speak in Parliament. In fact, people on our side of the Chamber have done the research, and Mike Moore spoke more in 3 months as Prime Minister than that Prime Minister has done in 4½ years. That is the difference between the last two Labour Prime Ministers.

Darren Hughes: Rubbish.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: The junior Government whip says that is rubbish. I ask how many times the Prime Minister has spoken on legislation in the House since the last election.

Mark Peck: Lots and lots and lots and lots.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: How many? Give me a number.

Darren Hughes: More than Mike Moore.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: I tell the junior Government whip that the Prime Minister has spoken once, on a Security Intelligence Service bill, a bill that no one else can speak about—apart from Keith Locke. The Prime Minister has spoken once on legislation since the last election.

I also want to know why we do not have a timetable from this Prime Minister on the seabed and foreshore legislation. This Prime Minister has more staff than any previous Prime Minister. Gone is the exercise of “We are going to be a frugal Government.” She has more staff and a bigger executive than any Prime Minister of this country has ever had. Most Labour members are reliant upon her for grace and favour in this Chamber—Mr Peck excluded, and we can understand that. But, that aside, this Prime Minister has more advisers in her department, yet she says nothing and does nothing. She graces us with her presence here today, and I wonder whether she—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

Hon ROGER SOWRY: I wonder whether the Prime Minister—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I say to members that Mr Sowry is making a hard-hitting speech, and some interjections can be expected, but not so many as to drown out the member speaking. The Chair will not allow a member to be drowned out.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: I wonder whether the Prime Minister will grace us with her views today, or whether she will take the opportunity to front up to the leader of the National Party, Don Brash, and debate with him. Why is she so terrified of debating with Don Brash? Why is she so worried about that? Why is she in such a frenzy that she sees conspiracy theories, with Television New Zealand reporters and junior press secretaries all scheming to put her up against Don Brash, and with her whole political career being ruined by such a debate? What is she so afraid of? Why does she not simply front up in the chair, in front of the rest of New Zealand, and debate the issues with the Leader of the Opposition? Why is she so worried about it? She has time to paint pictures for charity and to do all sorts of other good deeds. She has time to travel the world—looking for her next job—but she will not front up for 20 minutes on Television New Zealand and debate with the Leader of the Opposition.

Why not? I suspect it is because she has met her match. This is a Prime Minister who is used to people opening doors, driving her everywhere, and kowtowing to her, and suddenly she has found someone who will stand up to her. The Labour caucus does not stand up to her—oh no—and finally she has found someone who stands up to her. So what does she do? She does what she does best—she hides. This is a Prime Minister who is so bold in a situation she controls, but is absolutely determined not to go into one she does not.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) : What an Opposition in disarray we have seen this afternoon! What a National Party in disarray! All 11 speeches that it is entitled to in this debate have been wasted in trying to defend a leader who cannot foot it in Parliament. I feel sorry for those timid little National back-benchers who sat all morning getting their speeches on other subjects ready. We were told they wanted to debate social development, they wanted to debate education, they wanted to debate Māori affairs issues, they wanted to debate the labour portfolio, and they wanted to debate the agriculture portfolio, but they have used all their calls trying to defend a leader who cannot foot it in Parliament. We have a lot of reviews yet to go in this financial review debate. We will have the pleasure of hearing another five speeches from the Greens on these subjects, three speeches from United Future, four from New Zealand First, one from the Progressives, and four from ACT, because the National Party has nothing to say about social development, nothing to say about education, nothing to say about the Māori affairs reviews, and nothing to say about labour or agriculture. It does not have its priorities right.

What a panic the chief Opposition whip was in when he came to the Chamber and saw that National members had blown the game plan! They had thrown their speeches away, and what a panic there was over there on the Opposition benches! There will be one winner of that debate on television tonight, and it will be The Simpsons. At least they are genuinely funny and not a sad joke. And Homer will beat Don Brash any day of the week—Homer will win tonight. What a poor, sad, bitter and twisted little crowd those members were today!

All I can say is that we have a Government in this country that sets out to uphold the rights of all New Zealanders, and when we are presented with a complex issue, like the Court of Appeal decision on the foreshore and seabed, we do not set out to have a winner-takes-all approach. We set out to ensure that all New Zealanders can have their rights upheld. I have not yet heard a convincing speech from the National Party that it intends to have customary rights recognised at all. Yet, as the leader of New Zealand First would remind us if he were able to take another call, the fisheries legislation that the National Government introduced in the 1990s provided for customary fishing rights. If National members recognise one set of customary rights, why do they stop there? Why do they say it applies only to fish? Why do they not say it applies to other areas in the marine area? They have been very silent. All they have ever moaned about in this Chamber is who has the fee simple title. They do not want to concede today the rights they conceded early in the 1990s.

This Government has set out, with the support and interest of other parties, to see how two peoples’ rights can be reconciled and upheld. I say again that it is part of the birthright of every New Zealander to know that those special places—the foreshore and seabed—are there for New Zealanders to access when they want to access them. That is the absolute bottom line. I look forward to that legislation coming into the House.

Gerry Brownlee: When?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: It will come when it is ready, and it will meet the needs of New Zealanders to have those special areas available for all of us for all times. But it will also recognise that Māori have customary rights in this area—as National itself recognised more than a decade ago, but which it finds convenient not to recognise at this time. Today we have seen a National Party in disarray, a strategy blown, and a leader who cannot front—it is a hopeless outfit.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) : I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It is not common for these debates to be given a score, but tonight I think it is fair to say that this one was 49-39. Well done, National!

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, that is not a point of order. I say to members that I will not tolerate frivolous points of order or interjections that are designed to break up a speech. That is out of order.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : The Committee being the master of its own destiny, I seek leave for this debate on the financial review of the Prime Minister’s office to be extended by one speech, to enable Don Brash to make a speech—if anybody can find him.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member is a member of long standing, and he knows full well that he cannot seek leave on behalf of someone else.

• Report noted.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : As usual there are a number of critical issues arising from the financial review of the Ministry of Social Development, and I simply do not have time to go into all of them here. However, one of these is the ongoing problem around third-tier benefits, and in particular the seeming ongoing inability of Work and Income across the country to implement the supposed nationally applied edict that staff “ensure clients receive their full and correct entitlement”. In his comment to the Social Services Committee this time around, the chief executive explained that the ministry was still striving to achieve more geographical evenness in terms of the special benefit, and that the budget for the total expenditure was not capped.

It is good news that we have a Government that acknowledges the problem, and a chief executive officer who is committed to overcoming it, but what is not so great is that tens of thousands of beneficiaries continue to miss out on what they are entitled to. All the statistics I have seen continue to show a massive regional variation in how the special benefit is applied, with very low rates proportionately in places as diverse as Te Awamutu, Dargaville, Taihape, Marton, and Timaru.

I also note the Gisborne special-benefit impact initiative that was carried out by a number of beneficiary advocacy groups in the Tairawhiti region late last year. People queued up literally for days to get assistance with applying for their benefits. As with similar, previous exercises in Rotorua and Hawke’s Bay, the department suddenly and once again found its way clear to pay a whole lot more to people in terms of their full entitlements.

I congratulate the beneficiary groups on their extraordinary commitment in travelling to the East Coast from all over the country to help local people simply get what they are entitled to, but they should not have to do that. I believe that if the Ministry of Social Development is serious about implementing its avowed commitment to paying income support at the rates the Government itself sets, there needs to be a lot more done to support and train all its staff to make that happen where it counts—at every front desk in every office around the country, every single day.

The second area I will touch on quickly today is the Jobs Jolt policy, which was developed by the Ministry of Social Development during the period of the financial review. Numerous measures were included in this package, and one of them was the introduction of work testing for unemployed people aged 55 to 59 years. The reason given for this extraordinary step was that this group of people “may become impoverished” and “confront significant barriers to employment”. Both of these factors are all too true, but I would seriously question whether imposing the same work-testing requirements on 55 to 59-year-olds as are placed on unemployed 18-year-olds is actually the solution. If the Government had chosen all the services of the department in terms of vocational guidance and support, benefits could have been offered without the imposition of work testing.

On top of this, of course, so-called limited employment locations or remote areas—more colloquially referred to as no-go zones—have been introduced. It is interesting to note that in its report to the financial review committee, the department states that ancestral links to certain areas are considered. This refers to the question of whether tangata whenua who are living in, or returning to, their papakāinga districts should be treated the same as all other unemployed beneficiaries. Subsequent to the completion of this review, Minister Maharey has made it clear in the House that in that situation tangata whenua will not be treated differently from others. Like a number of groups around the country, I would welcome a clarifying statement from the Minister on this matter in the not too distant future.

I also continue to question the necessity of identifying 259 limited employment locations at all, when the department already has many means at its disposal—including what it calls intensive case management—to make sure that everyone on the unemployment benefit is meeting all the department’s work-testing requirements. I would much rather see the department focus on the good work it does in helping people into sustainable employment than engaging in a very odd kind of social and economic engineering that only serves to tar 259 separate localities as being somehow economically hopeless.

JUDY TURNER (United Future) : The Government’s willingness to get it right when it comes to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services is certainly reflected in the additional amount of funding given to this essential service. However, with the number of notifications increasing at a rate of 15 percent per year, with the recent 40 percent increase in what seems like a community response to the Coral Burrows case, and with the very concerning findings of the baseline review, United Future believes that more needs to happen than merely funding.

The preventive side of work is as much a statutory requirement as the child protection work, yet if the department’s social workers are drowning in the high number of notifications and are tied up responding to the most critical cases, this fence at the top of the cliff continues to fall into disrepair. The baseline review puts the priority function of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services as preventing recurrence of abuse, but when 99 percent of the 4,595 unallocated cases as at 31 January this year are at the bottom two criticality levels, it is clear that the department’s function of preventing first occurrence of abuse is just not happening in a timely way.

As volume takes precedence over quality, cases rated as low urgency wait and situations deteriorate, re-notifications occur, and the rating goes up. Meanwhile, non-governmental organisations, including voluntary agencies that are well equipped to respond with the necessary help and interventions, are powerless to do so. The public perception of the department deteriorates to the point that in some areas agencies like schools, mental health specialists, and general practitioners are reluctant or unwilling to make notifications because they no longer trust the department to act in a timely or appropriate manner. This poor public perception is very discouraging for everyone who works for, or relies on, the department in some way, and it is making it harder to recruit and retain experienced staff.

For every Coral Burrows or James Whakaruru there are dozens of children who are waiting for their cases to be reviewed so that they can be returned to the safe care of their families. Parents who have complied to the letter with every demand the department has made to facilitate the return of their children are yet left waiting, literally for years, for someone to have enough time on his or her schedule to review their case. In the middle of this crisis are a band of largely competent social workers who are frustrated by the workload, and by the fact that they are dealing with serious cases that are second and third notifications that could, and should, have been addressed in the first instance.

The pressure that has placed on workers has seen a 15.8 percent turnover in staff. In fact, on six sites, staff turnover has been as high as 25 percent. These figures must also thwart the Government’s intention to have a fully registered social-work staff in the next 5 to 6 years. United Future agrees that more social workers are needed, but the fear we have is that all that will happen is that the urgent will be better managed and families needing minimal but essential help will have to wait until they become critical before getting attention.

We are also concerned about the potential reduction in non-departmental output class funding as the department reviews which contracts with community agencies doing preventive work will be renewed. If preventive work gets cut down, is that not simply the department shooting itself in the foot? More and more demand for services will result.

The problem is not particular to New Zealand. Other countries are struggling with resourcing the agencies that deal with a large number of families where there are multiple notifications. United Future believes that much can be learnt from the very good work that overseas concerns are considering, and that we need to be always mindful of international examples if we want to be solutions-focused in this very important area.

We are concerned that the current culture of the department being responsible for parents’ failings needs to change. If New Zealand is to be the best place in the world to raise a family, we need to tidy up our work with families at risk, because we seem to be very hesitant at this stage to make that claim.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Acting Minister for Social Development and Employment) : I am sorry I was a little slow in rising to my feet, but I understood that the member was going to take a second call, and I was giving her the courtesy of allowing her to do that. But as she is not doing that, I am happy to take the call now.

It is my honour to be the Acting Minister for Social Development and Employment and to contribute to this debate in that capacity. I would like to make specific reference to three of the areas commented on in the 2002-03 financial review of the Ministry of Social Development by the Social Services Committee. Those are the Future Directions package, our intolerance of fraud, and jobs. I would like to take a further call later in the debate on the Department of Child, Youth and Families Services, directly in response to the member who has just resumed her seat, and to the issues raised in the review of that department by the Social Services Committee.

Firstly, in relation to Future Directions, this significant programme of work is a huge credit to Minister Steve Maharey and to the team within the Ministry of Social Development. I congratulate him and them on this major piece of work. It will significantly increase direct income-support and incentives for people to move from welfare benefits into paid employment, and it will make housing more affordable for low-income families and single adults. Never has there been a package that more strongly reflects the basic principles of my party, the Labour Party, and they are secure housing and a decent job. This is a great piece of work, and I look forward to others sharing the detail of it following the forthcoming Budget.

The second issue I want to comment on is our intolerance of fraud. Last year the Ministry of Social Development discovered that a $1.9 million fraud had been committed by one of its staff. That person was recently convicted of both benefit and departmental fraud, and was sentenced earlier this month to 5½ years in prison. The only point I want to make in this area is to give the highest commendation I can to the leadership given by both the Minister and the chief executive, Peter Hughes, in relation to our total intolerance of fraud of any kind. The report of Audit New Zealand, which looked at the Ministry of Social Development’s response to this fraud, described it as “exemplary”. Mr Chair, you and others in the Chamber will be familiar with the normal terms used by Audit New Zealand. It uses terms like “good”, “very good”, and “satisfactory”. They are appropriate terms; it is an auditor. But its specific response to the way that the Ministry of Social Development dealt with this fraud and showed its intolerance of fraud was to describe it as “exemplary”. I think that all of us in Parliament should place on the record our total support of its attitude towards that.

The final point I want to make is about jobs. I start by commending the Minister, Steve Maharey, for his work on issues relating to people who are on sickness and invalids benefits. I am frankly delighted at the support that is now actively being given by the Ministry of Social Development to people who have been ignored for far too long. Steve Maharey has ensured that the principles of the disability strategy are implemented in this critical area of obtaining work for people on sickness and invalids benefits, including supporting sustainable employment outcomes; personal client-profiling to identify needs and employment options; developing employment programmes tailored to address barriers to employment, and ways of removing those barriers; ensuring account management that focuses on supporting employer labour needs; matching client capability to the labour market; ensuring that we have early intervention and support for people; and providing services that broker social support for those for whom employment is not currently an option, particularly when that is due to ill health. That is the sort of support that people who have been on invalids and sickness benefits in the past have been waiting for, and I am delighted we have given people that positive response.

Unemployment, at 4.6 percent, is at one of the lowest levels in 16 years, and this rate ranks us sixth in the OECD. There are more people in work in our country than at any other time of our history. There are 176,000 more people in jobs since the election of a Labour-led Government. The number of long-term unemployed has dropped by 4,200 over the year in question. Our unemployment rate is below that of Australia, which is 5.6 percent, below that of the United States of America, which is 5.9 percent, and well below the OECD average of 7 percent. Our unemployment rate is below that of any of our major trading partners.

In relation to those two fundamental issues that I mentioned at the beginning of my previous contribution, I am very proud of what the Labour-led Government has done. We have provided support, both in practical and in financial terms, for people who want to have secure housing, and there is a huge initiative and move into the area of providingsupport to enablepeople to enter paid work—support of a kind that New Zealand has never seen in its history.

I will now move to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services and make a couple of points in relation to what I consider is very, very worthy and highly supportable work in the implementation of the baseline review. I am very proud of the leadership, the senior management team, and the staff throughout the country, who, despite the best attempts of Opposition parties to undermine them and destroy—

Mark Peck: Which ones?

Hon RUTH DYSON: I refer in particular to Katherine Rich and Muriel Newman, who do not seem to be taking a call in this debate in support of the department and its good work. Despite the very fine work of the staff, they are often not commended and valued. The Department of Child, Youth and Family Services does have a very difficult job, but for me as Minister it is also the most challenging but most satisfying work, because it gives us the opportunity to intervene and help in the lives of people who, without that help, would often be in not only sad but tragic situations. Our front-line staff in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services deliver that support every day, day in and day out, and, tragically, the only time they get recognised in the media, with very few exceptions, is when things go wrong. It is about time this House showed stronger support for the good work that the many staff of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services do, and gave them support for that good work while ensuring that we keep on track to improve the quality of their services, as well.

That is exactly what Russ Ballard, who is acting chief executive, the senior management team, and staff throughout the country are doing with regard to their implementation of the baseline review. In this Committee we all know what the baseline review found. We all read it, and we are very familiar with it. Most of us could quote it off by heart, so I will not go through it point by point, but I want to bring to the attention of the Committee, and in particular the members of the Social Services Committee, some of the key issues that have been completed and implemented since that baseline review was presented publicly.

The first is in relation to the package of initiatives under the governance heading. There is now the establishment of a clear governance structure for the implementation programme of the baseline review. That includes an internal steering committee, and an advisory group that includes central agency and key stakeholder representation—that is a point that was raised by the member who just resumed her seat, Judy Turner of United Future—ensuring that the department has better links with community organisations. I know that she will be supportive of the advisory committee’s role in that regard. We now have the establishment of a programme management office with very strong leadership to coordinate the implementation programme across the whole department. We now have the development of the implementation plan for the first phase of the programme. So the change in the department’s governance structures has given clear separation between the oversight of day-to-day management and the longer-term strategic issues—something that I know will be welcomed by the select committee.

I will now move on to the management issues. There has been a realignment of the senior management structure within the national office to provide greater clarity of accountability. There has been increased frequency of communication with staff through use of a new, Intranet-based newsletter, there have been salary and progression processes for social workers, and we have seen the completion of two funding draw-down requests, both of which have been approved.

I will briefly touch on some of the operation issues, which I know will also be of interest to the Committee. We have seen the development of the interim demand management strategy, which is now in its implementation phase. We have seen planning for implementing the increased expenditure for the convening of family group conferences and the development of those agreements. We have seen the recruitment and appointment of additional front-line staff, including 28 permanency workers. One of the criticisms of the baseline review was that not only did we put too much focus on quantity, but that it was often to the detriment of quality; the appointment of those permanency workers will certainly help with that. We have seen the development of a monitoring and reporting plan. We have seen the development of a comprehensive implementation plan for the remainder of the programme. We now have the review of the regional structures for both resources and support. We have seen the alignment of the national office structures. We have seen the recruitment of review and evaluation analysts. We have seen the development of a revised social worker workforce capability strategy, and a youth justice capability review. The non-departmental output class review is under way, looking at the range of services that are currently funded by the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services: should they be funded more appropriately through another department or agency, and is the widespread range that is currently funded through the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services undermining the ability of the department to have a clear focus on what should be its key outcomes? We have seen the development of demand forecasting models and the development of caseload management systems.

That is a huge amount of work for the department in just a few months. During that time it has seen an unprecedented increase in the number of notifications to the department. Sometimes it feels as if we are a little stuck between a rock and a hard place. We want people in our community to be totally intolerant of child abuse, we want people to ring for help, but if they do, we have to be able to ensure that we can give high-quality help, if it is required as a result of that phone call. Ensuring that the department moves along, that it is able to meet the demand that itsupport communities’ intolerance of child abuse, so that we know that our children will be safe, particularly in their own homes, is the hardest challenge for us.

We have an extraordinarily competent bunch within the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. The staff work under immense pressure, and in my view they deserve recognition and valuing for the quality of the work they do and for the huge challenges they face in the future, and they deserve the support of everyone. I wish that somebody from the National Party had taken a call in support of the work that the staff are doing, but it seems that will not happen. Certainly, from the indications that I have had from both United Future and the Green Party, and probably from New Zealand First as well, I know that that hard work is not going unvalued or unrecognised, and we will continue to offer the staff of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services our support in the future.

• Reports noted.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) : The Government has been boasting proudly in recent times of its “tough on crime” approach. It has been telling the House about its ambition to increase the prison population by 20 percent over the next 7 years. It is a sad thing that that is the ambition of the Government for the country. It is a cause of shame for the Government and our country, rather than a source of pride.

I think the Government has made a mistake common to Governments, and it is a mistake that is often shared by the more extreme elements of the right wing of this House: it has the mistaken belief that putting more people in prison somehow means less crime, and that being tough on crime means locking people up for longer. I do not believe that the Government is naive, and I do not believe that, when the members of the Government think about it, they actually believe that putting people in prison is going to effectively reduce reoffending or offending. But somehow, collectively, they take that approach. They mistake being tough on criminals for being tough on crime. I have to say it is not the same thing, by any means. In fact, I do not think it is possible to argue that countries with a bigger prison population have less crime than countries with a small prison population; if anything, I suggest that the inverse would be the case. In fact, I believe that putting more people in prison is a backward step for this country and for this Government. As I say, it is nothing to boast about, but should be a cause of shame.

When we are looking at the financial performance of the Ministry of Justice, we should have an overriding concern that we often overlook in this House, and that is whether we are reducing offending or reoffending. The question is not how many people are in prison, or how long they have been put in prison for; the question is whether fewer people are reoffending under the present policies. That does not seem to be the case. We know that locking people in prison simply does not achieve that aim. It has often been said that prison is a university for crime. People go in for minor offences, unpaid fines, and the like; they come out with new-found expertise in burglary and assault. Of course, there are some people who do need to be locked up for the safety of the community; some people present a threat to the community, and they need to be kept out of circulation. That is why the Greens supported changes to the sentencing and parole legislation that focused on the safety of the community being the overriding concern when decisions on sentencing and parole are being made. But it is really important that members of this Committee remember that over 50 percent of the prison population is inside for minor, non-violent offences, and the idea that putting them in prison is somehow going to break them out of a life of crime is simply not borne out by the evidence.

Yet this Government is boasting that it intends to increase the prison population by 20 percent over the next 7 years. David Lange famously said that it was so expensive to keep people in prison for a year that it would be cheaper to keep them in the Hilton, and, what is more, they would not try to escape! He is absolutely right. We are not saying that people should not be in prisons; as I said, some people do need to be kept out of circulation. But we have to look at where we are spending the money. The Government has embarked on a prison-building programme, and in this country we seem to have an open chequebook for building prisons and locking people in prison. I hark back to the comments made by Judy Turner, of United Future, and Minister Ruth Dyson, who talked about support for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and the under-resourcing of its services. We need to be putting our money into early prevention and early intervention strategies—strategies that are about keeping people out of prison and out of a life of crime—rather than restricting resources at that level, in the certain knowledge that some of those people will end up in prison, and having an open chequebook for locking them up once they have committed offences and have left a raft of victims behind them. It is an absolutely back-to-front, upside-down way of approaching the issue. Prisons are simply a way for offenders to abdicate responsibility. People do their time, and they never have to take responsibility or make amends for what they have done.

The Green Party is supporting some of the initiatives of the Government that are a start in attempting to address these issues. We are supporting the initiatives on restorative justice, and we think the comments in the financial review report are extremely important.

• Report noted.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) : Our health system is in a state of crisis. We could say that it is ailing because, despite an increase in funding, more funding is required for patient care. Health is a critical investment in the people of New Zealand, and it is not really a balance sheet item. New Zealand First, and I would say every New Zealander, wants a properly funded and resourced health system. We need to move towards matching France’s expenditure of 10 percent of gross domestic product on the health of its citizens if we want to have a First World health system, and this is achievable. It is essential to provide people with certainty about their health care and to ensure timely access to quality services.

The health system in New Zealand has reached a crisis point with waiting lists longer than ever, and an increasing number of cancer patients being referred overseas for treatment rather than being treated in New Zealand. We have patients’ qualifications being tested by a pain-ranking system, and we have general practitioners fleeing for a variety of reasons.

In 1999 the Labour Government promised voters to cut waiting lists, yet every day we hear about patients who are waiting years for operations or are waiting months for a specialist appointment. Just recently it was reported that patients waiting for gallstone surgery had to suffer at least four severe attacks of pain and vomiting before they would be considered for surgery. This new type of pain-ranking system is outrageous, and obviously a last resort attempt by the health boards, with inadequate resources, to cope with the number of patients coming through. The bottom line is that patients need treatment, not the run-around.

As well as this we have recent reports stating that general practitioners are unhappy with their working conditions and that fewer than 30 percent think they will be practising in the next 4 years. This follows an increasing number of health professionals—nurses, and pharmacists—who are now leaving our shores. It is absolutely appalling. Our patients need treatment; they do not need the run-around. The district health board moves to reduce the waiting lists for all patients by referring them back to their general practitioners are an insult to the intelligence of New Zealanders who are increasingly being subjected to such tricks. Waiting lists need to be shortened as a result of patients being given operations and treatment rather than just being sent back to their general practitioners.

We do know that health boards are attempting to assist general practitioners by having personnel visit to discuss their patients. But we really must question as to whether it is more expensive to cull patients from the waiting lists in this way rather than treat the original problem. We were always taught that a stitch in time saves nine, and perhaps that is exactly the case with the health system. The bottom line is that we need a clinical, rather than a clerical, removal of patients from the waiting lists.

One of the areas that I also want to touch on is dental care for adolescents. It was very evident that one of the key concerns expressed by adolescents at the Children’s Rights Symposium in Wellington recently, and I know it will be a matter of concern to the Minister of Health too, was that many adolescents are no longer receiving any free dental care, despite the fact that it is available to teenagers. Parents who can afford to pay for dental care for their children do so, but an increasing number of teenagers miss out totally.

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

BARBARA STEWART: New Zealanders are concerned about their health care. They want certainty, and they want timely access to all services.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green) : I would like to talk about two issues in the health report: nursing, and effects on children’s health of foods high in sugar and fat, which the committee addressed itself to. Of course, that is highly relevant because only today the Hawke’s Bay study by paediatricians was released. It was a study of 9,000 young New Zealanders in the Hawke’s Bay, and it confirmed that the number of children in New Zealand who are obese has trebled over the last 11 years. We almost have to say that quickly because it is hard to believe. All the experts say: “What does that mean? That means that we will have an epidemic of a whole lot of chronic dietary-related diseases, and an epidemic of diabetes.”

People have described the situation as a health time-bomb, and so on and so forth. So given the enormous obesity epidemic and the way that it is increasing in New Zealand, what is the Government doing about it? Well, the Government has issued a strategy, a Healthy Eating - Healthy Action strategy. But while the strategy is very good on words, it is very short on action. In fact, we have strategies and studies coming out of our ears, but to date we have had almost no action.

When we look at the issue of schools, just as an example, surely we should not be selling or promoting unhealthy food in our schools. But what the report, unfortunately, had to acknowledge was that we have nothing even as simple as nutrition guidelines in place in our schools. We do not have any nationwide guidelines for all schools on promoting healthy food. We do not even have guidelines on, for example, the use of vending machines in schools. We know that vending machines that sell high-sugar drinks are basically normalising unhealthy food and encouraging our children to consume unhealthy fizzy drinks in our schools. Why on earth would we allow that? Why would our Government not take decisive leadership and action on this important issue and issue guidelines that all schools are required to follow, saying that schools may not have vending machines that sell fizzy high-sugar drinks? That is a very, very simple thing.

Another simple thing is the fact that most children’s nutrition education occurs while they are watching advertisements on television for unhealthy junk food. It is a very simple matter. The Government in 1999 said that it was going to look at eliminating the advertising of unhealthy foods during children’s programmes. What has it done? The Minister said today that the Government has no intention now of honouring that pledge it made in 1999 to eliminate the advertising of unhealthy food during children’s television. The fact of the matter is that there is no point in issuing strategies like Healthy Eating - Healthy Action if we are not going to do the most obvious, common-sense things to try to reduce the obesity epidemic, such as by improving the food our children eat and by encouraging them to understand what healthy food is.

In England there is the Food Standards Agency, which by contrast has issued far-reaching proposals on this issue. It is, for example, developing guidelines for the entire food industry, and is calling on the industry to reduce the amounts of fat, salt, and sugar in food products aimed at children. It is going to publish for consumers the results on any foods that do not meet its guidelines, so that people know immediately, from what is on the label, that a food is one that people should not be buying for their children.

Why are we not doing that? Where is the leadership on this issue? Why is the Government not meeting with manufacturers? Why is the Government not calling on manufacturers to do their bit—all of us have to do our bit, but that includes the manufacturers—to reduce the salt, sugar, and fat levels in food that they relentlessly target at children?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) : I thank the two members who have contributed to this evening’s debate on health. I think health is possibly the largest expenditure we have in Government. Currently, for 2003-04, it stands at $9.4 billion, up from something like $6.5 billion when National was last in power. There has been a huge increase in Vote Health under this Government. One would have thought that a vote as important as this would command one speech from the National Party. One would have thought that there would be one member of the National Party who would stand up tonight and put forward policy, argument, and debate on one of the big issues that any Government faces. There will be no debate from the National Party on health tonight. Why not? Because National members decided today to use all their speeches in what I think was a smokescreen to cover up for the fact that Don Brash was not going to take part in the debate in the Parliament today.

So having put all their speakers up to debate the Prime Minister’s department, they ensured that there were no members left to debate health, education, social welfare, or housing—the great issues of New Zealand. They were interested only in protecting their leader, who would not participate in the House of Representatives, where people who are elected to come and debate are paid to do that. He would prefer to be on the Holmes show, and grandstand on television, than allow one member, just one member, of his caucus to debate health. I say to Sue Kedgley and Barbara Stewart: “Thank you for your contribution.”

I will begin mine with the points raised by Sue Kedgley. I know Sue Kedgley’s commitment to issues of nutrition and diet, and her long-term interest in them. I share her interest. I do not share her approach to this issue. I believe that the only way we change behaviour is to work with communities and individuals to ensure we educate them. It is no good saying: “Thou shalt not eat French fries! Thou shalt not have sweets in thy pocket!” That approach does not work. What we have to do is ensure that parents are given the tools to be able to make those decisions.

I believe that what we are doing in New Zealand, and what we have to continue to do, is providing those tools to parents for them to make those decisions. After all, a poor old schoolteacher sitting in a classroom cannot have influence over everything a child eats. That starts in the home. What parents need in the home is the education, the tools, the information to be able to know what to put in the sandwiches and what to feed their children. They do not need to be judged or criticised; they need the tools to be able to do that.

So the first thing we need to do is to ensure that we have a proper strategic approach, and that is Healthy Eating - Healthy Action. We are one of the few countries in the world that has now got a strategy, and what is the World Health Organization saying? It is saying that every country needs to develop a strategic approach to healthy eating and healthy action. In fact, this topic is the topic of discussion at the World Health Assembly in Geneva this year. New Zealand will be able to go along and say that we have made huge progress in terms of identifying it as an issue, putting forward a strategic approach, but more than that, an implementation plan to help make sure we can improve the nutrition and eating habits and the action, the physical activity, of New Zealanders. The member Sue Kedgley praised the guidelines from the UK. What do guidelines do other than give guidance? They do not change anything, unless action is taken by the people we want to take action.

I now move to the comments made by Barbara Stewart. She recognised that there had been a huge increase in the vote and she said we needed to spend about 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to have enough expenditure for a good health system. It is not the amount of money that is spent, it is how it is spent, and I shall give a very good example. The United States of America has the highest expenditure of GDP of any country we know of. It spends over 14 percent of its GDP on health. The recent Commonwealth Fund survey of comparative health systems in the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand showed that the country with the best system, that came out as No. 1, as judged by the patients and not by the politicians or providers, was New Zealand. The country that came out last was the United States of America.

So it is not necessarily how much money is spent, but how that money is spent. New Zealand spends about 8.9 percent of GDP on health. Out of that we do remarkably well; we do extremely well.

I am particularly proud of the expenditure that has gone into mental health funding in New Zealand. For years the area of mental health did not receive the amount of funding it needed, nor the emphasis. I would like to share with the Parliament that in the 1997-98 financial year we spent $523.4 million on mental health. In 2003-04 we will spend $914 million. That is a huge increase of almost 100 percent in that short period of time. But still we need more. Still we need to do better in mental health. However, that shows the commitment to try to improve a very important part of health for New Zealanders.

One of the big changes has been in waiting times. Barbara Stewart raised the issue of people on waiting lists. She may not be aware, but in 1996-97, 86,620 New Zealanders were sitting on waiting lists. Many of them had been on them for years. They had never been reassessed. Many of them had already had operations, shifted to Australia, died, or no longer needed an operation. However, they were sitting on a waiting list with nothing happening to them. This Government said—as the previous Government had said—that people had to be assessed to see whether they needed operations, and then given certainty that they would have an operation. People needed certainty. They needed to be told that they would be booked for an operation and if they were not booked at that point they would have ongoing health management of their condition.

Before, no one cared what happened to those people; they were just on a list. I have had some very sad letters from people who said they were on a waiting list for 8 years, and never took a holiday, because they were worried that the letter might come to tell them that they would have an operation.

The member is correct. People want certainty. They want to know they will have an operation and that they will have it in a timely fashion. There was no list for first assessment until Labour brought one in. There was no waiting list for first assessment. It was the hidden list. Thousands of New Zealanders had never been assessed, but they were not put on a list. Now we do have a list for first assessment, and people are told they need to be seen within 6 months. That has taken a huge amount of work by clinicians and nurses, and a commitment by district health boards. It is not working properly yet, but it is so much better. I am committed to ensuring that we get it as best we can.

The member also mentioned dental care, and she is right. I am extremely interested in that. One of the problems we have had for many years is to ensure that adolescents do access free dental care. I know from my own experience over many years that when young people leave primary school they are very reluctant to sign up to ongoing dental care. The best way to address that is to put services where the kids are. If members want to see where there has been a big increase in enrolment, it is with services like Mighty Mouth, mobile health services and dental services that go into secondary schools and provide services where the adolescents are. We will see more of that, following the Ministry of Health’s review on the way dental services are provided. Also, we now have a new contract with dentists—one that pays them in a different way from the old service where they were considerably underfunded for many years.

STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) : It is wonderful to follow the Minister on her feet, and “on our feet” is the slogan that we need when we look at the issues of obesity, diabetes, and co-morbidity. The issue is not just about the food that people eat. It is about activity, and New Zealanders have become passive. But this Government is not passive. We are very proud to say that now 2.5 million New Zealanders—that is, over half of New Zealanders—are involved in primary health organisations. What does that mean? It means that those people are getting health care and access to their doctor, to the practice nurse, or to someone working in the practice who gives them sound health advice upfront, and they are getting it at a very low cost. In fact, we have even rolled forward by 1 year the access to primary health services for the over-65s. We thought we would be rolling that programme out until 2010. However, we brought it forward by 1 year, and we now have over half of New Zealand enrolled in getting cheaper access to doctors’ visits, which is absolutely fantastic. From July of last year under-18-year-olds could get cheap access to general practitioners, and because of that we will solve some of the problems early, rather than meeting the high end-cost of hospital care.

I have just returned from a visit to Australia, where we looked at the health systems there. I have to say that we beat ourselves up over the waiting times for surgery, over sending patients to Australia for oncology care, and over workforce shortages. We ain’t in half as much of a mess as Australia is with its Medicare process, which was slam dunked in the House in Australia last week. It was said that Medicare was not providing the systemic solutions it needed to improve the health-care status of the people of Australia. Australia has federal funding of doctors and nurses in the primary-care sector, and State funding of hospitals. No incentives are lined up to keep people healthy and well, and out of the high-cost hospital end. Australia talked about oncology services. As long as we fund families to go with cancer patients, it is a good thing that we are using the capacity of Australia and sending cancer patients there to get their care when they need it within the guidelines, rather than having them languish in wait for radiation and oncology services in New Zealand. We have to stop beating ourselves up about the access to oncology services.

Australia mentioned also that it has problems with its health workforce. It has huge problems over there, and asked us how we were managing to get more general practitioners into New Zealand and how we manage our workforce issues here. We are managing them because, after the failed market model, we now have a workforce strategy for developing new people to come into the workforce. We have more doctors training in medical schools. We are training more radiation oncologists; we have doubled that number from 16 to 38. We have 40 more medical students in place. That was all targeted when we came into Government in 1999, because for 9 years nothing had been done. It had been believed the market would look after the workforce. Well, the market did not look after it, and we inherited a deficit there. I am simply amazed that the Opposition is not here in the Chamber to speak to this issue today, as one of its supposedly key platform planks. The National Party is simply amazing!

Another thing that Australia asked was how we had put an accident compensation system in place in New Zealand. Australia has to manage indemnity insurance, with obstetricians having insurance policies and paying over $100,000 a year just to manage medical risk.

The Australians asked how we had ever set up an accident compensation service in New Zealand. They wished they had one. They were really interested in the work Ruth Dyson was doing, with medical misadventure and medical injury being covered by accident compensation now. Why do we beat up on accident compensation all the time here? We are too narrow thinking. We have now a system in place.

Sue Kedgley asked what we are doing about obesity. I will tell members what we are doing. We did a review of the Auckland District Health Board. It is saying that now it is not debt ridden and debt burdened, it is starting to get on with tackling the health status of our Auckland community. That is most exciting. Initiatives are going on there with Sport and Recreation New Zealand, with general practitioners, with practice nurses, and with the school curriculum. That is how we will solve the obesity issue.

• Report noted.

IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) : I note that almost half the actual expenditure for the last financial year by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was for biosecurity services. I want to start by applauding the Minister—I feel quite weak at the knees, I am applauding the Minister—for the biosecurity strategy that was published in August last year. It is an excellent document. It gives us a scaffolding to take into account the increasing pressures on our biosecurity in the future. It is really good to have a framework for planning a risk management strategy.

I also want to give the ministry officials a bouquet. Theirs, after all, is a thankless task. It is an ongoing job where, if everything goes perfectly, nobody notices, but if something goes wrong, everybody notices. I know exactly how they feel—I used to be a party whip. I have noticed, and I am sure other people have noticed, that MAF Biosecurity by and large does an excellent job in a very difficult environment where things can always go wrong—well done!

At the top of my list of bouquets is the ministry’s move to 100 percent sea-container inspection. Sea-container inspection has been a gaping hole for many years. The 24 percent inspection rate that we had up until recently was diabolically bad. Only 14 percent of those were targeted inspections, and another 10 percent were random inspections. Given that we have in excess of 400,000 containers a year entering New Zealand, containers are a significant pathway for the incursion of pests.

However, with all the bouquets there must, inevitably, come some brickbats. The first of my brickbats this evening comes with regard to the accreditation process for inspectors of sea containers. The plan the ministry had was basically a good one. It was to accredit inspectors who would go to the devanning centres and the distribution warehouses, and inspect sea containers as they were opened. If the inspectors found something awry they were to notify the ministry, and it would swing into action—so far so good. The problem was the ministry did its accreditation by means of a multiple-choice questionnaire on the Internet. One of my researchers did the test in about 10 minutes, and he became an accredited sea-container inspector, without ever having seen a container and probably without knowing how to get into one, anyway. The inspection of sea containers is an enormously practical process, but there was not a single item of practicality in the test. It was such a simple test that there was a fully accredited inspector who turned out to be a Forest and Bird Protection Society member’s cat. So we have a cat that is an accredited inspector. I sincerely hope that some sanity has since prevailed.

The second brickbat I have concerns my old friend, the spraying of Foray 48B on the residents of Auckland and Hamilton in order to eradicate the painted apple moth and the Asian gypsy moth, respectively. My criticism takes two different streams. The first is that the ministry took so long to properly appreciate the severity of the painted apple moth infestation and the implications of it. For instance, it took ministry officials 2½ years to publish photos of the painted apple moth, so people knew what it looked like. It took 2½ years to restrict the movement of garden waste and other biological material. It also took 2½ years to set traps to delimit the infestation, and, worst of all, the ministry refused to let independent researchers have access to viable females in order to develop pheromones. I will not go into the details of that now, but there does seem to have been an element of personal jealousy in that process. To be honest, that is not good enough.

My second stream of my concern is with regard to the spending of $90 million on aerial spraying. In retrospect, I accept that the spraying seems to have been quite effective—leaving aside the need for it in the first place. The problem that I have has been the ministry’s attitude all the way through in respect of human health concerns related to the spraying, which has left a lot to be desired. Ministry officials have to bear in mind that the problem arose because of their inaction and delay in addressing the issue.

Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister of Agriculture) : I thank the member for his contribution. He should have asked that question a moment ago. He now asks where the National Party is. It is a question we have all been asking, and I am prepared to give him an answer.

Richard Worth: We are here.

Hon JIM SUTTON: There is one National member here. He has just woken up, so perhaps he will take the next call. Perhaps he may not do so, either. All the National Party has had to say about agriculture policy during the last year amounts to its official spokesperson criticising me for going off to the Cairns group meeting, when he presumably thought I should have been picking up drowned sheep in the lower North Island. I would like to know how many drowned sheep that member picked up. If he has picked up one, it would have been the most useful thing he has done all year. Even Federated Farmers bitterly criticised him for the foolish statement that we should not have been represented at the Cairns group meeting this year because there had been a flood in the lower North Island. That flood had been over for a week—or at least the rain had largely stopped for a week. But the National Party was more interested in scoring cheap little political points than it was in the interests of New Zealand agriculture.

I thank the member for his kind remarks in respect of the biosecurity strategy. They are well-deserved remarks. His kind words regarding MAF Biosecurity, which does a great job, frequently under very trying conditions, are well-deserved praise, and I have to applaud his wisdom in endorsing the move to 100 percent sea-container inspection. The member criticised the fact that a Forest and Bird Protection Society member’s cat was registered over the Internet as a final inspector of low-risk containers. He should not blame the cat; the cat did nothing wrong. But an idiot fraudulently misrepresented the cat and filled the questionnaire out as being from someone worthy of becoming an inspector. It took only 24 hours to catch out that stupid subterfuge. If that had been done by a real recipient of sea-freight containers, that recipient would have had to spend the next year getting its containers opened at someone else’s facility, and enduring the extra cost and extra delay arising from that. The system is largely self policing, and when people do not play the game and fraudulently misrepresent the situation, there is a price to pay. The price is that they cannot be inspectors any more. Their approved facility is no longer approved, their word will not be taken again, and any containers they import will be automatically judged to be high-risk containers, which have to be unpacked by expensive, qualified Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry quarantine personnel. So the member, in pointing out that foolish fraud by someone from the Forest and Bird Protection Society, has given me an opportunity to point out what happens to people who cheat with regard to the importation of sea-freight containers. I am grateful to the member for giving me that opportunity.

Finally, I do appreciate that the people who have been frequently sprayed, and whose suburbs and homes have been sprayed, with Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki spray to ensure that we can see off the threat to the New Zealand environment and economy posed by, first, the painted apple moth and, second, the Asian gypsy moth, have done their country a service by putting up with that. I know that it is trying and that their patience has been tested, but hopefully, we are near the end and we will not have to spray any more in Hamilton for the Asian gypsy moth. Hopefully, beyond May, we will not have to spray any more in Auckland for the painted apple moth. But we will keep monitoring the situation for some time to come, and if we have to we will spray again, because New Zealand needs to be kept free of those threats.

• Report noted.

DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) : This afternoon at question time the Minister of Education stood up and bragged about what he is doing for education and literacy standards. He equates throwing money at the problem with improving quality. Why did this Minister not tell us about this latest scandal of the bounty hunters programme? For people who are confused about what bounty hunters are, the Minister has been paying $8,207,000 to “community-based organisations” to sign preschoolers up at early childhood centres. The children are ticked off, and the organisations collect the money and go away—enrol children, collect the money, then go away. There is only one condition to be part of this programme: it has to be a Māori or Pacific Island child. How much do the organisations get? It worked out at $1,600 per child, and 5,275 children have been signed up. But there have been no checks on whether those people are double-dipping or triple-dipping, whether they are enrolling children at one centre and re-enrolling them at another centre. There have been no checks on how long children stay at those centres. I would like this Minister to stand up and answer these questions, which he has not been able to answer.

Hon Trevor Mallard: No one’s asked me.

DEBORAH CODDINGTON: For 8 months I have been asking parliamentary questions, and the Minister’s answers come back stating: “This information is not collected.” There are no exit interviews or checks done on what sort of added value there is. I ask the Minister who these community organisations are. Who are they?

Hon Trevor Mallard: This member used to have it.

DEBORAH CODDINGTON: Well, I have a list of them here, and I cannot read them all out. There are 50 community organisations that have been paid, 50 bounty hunters, with names like Te Puawaitangi Ltd, which was paid $400,000; Whare Akonga Learning Centre, $600,000; Manaaki Management Services, $202,000—phantom children—Teuila Consultancy, $200,000; Kokomuka Consultancy, $290,000; Waikato Raupatu Trustee Co., $560,000; Ngāi Tahu, $153,000; and Kōhanga Reo Trust, $810,000. How many more children were enrolled? By what percentage did participation go up? The Minister is raising his eyebrows. He knows the answer—1 percent. It went up 1 percent, after $8 million was spent.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Not true.

DEBORAH CODDINGTON: Well, if it is not true, the Minister has been misleading with the answers to his questions, because it is the Minister’s answers that say participation went up 1 percent. That does not even take account of population growth. If the natural growth in numbers of children enrolling at early childhood centres is taken into account, then the country is worse off after $8 million has been spent. Members can imagine what those families could have done with that $1,600 per child. For instance, imagine how many books parents could have bought for those children. Parents could probably have paid for their own private childcare, instead of having this Minister tax them, take money from them, then give it to those bounty hunters.

Another interesting name on this list of bounty hunters is Learning Media Ltd. It got $440,000—nearly $500,000. Learning Media is a Crown-owned publishing company. The chairman of this company, who also made himself the chief executive officer, was a corporate high-flyer called Don Sollitt. In 6 months he helped himself to $200,000 of taxpayers’ money in fees and expenses. What has this Minister done? He has sent him an invoice for $9,000, because it is too hard to get the money back. Not only did he do that but he overrode the board’s decision. It had made a resolution—it was minuted—as to how much Mr Sollitt was to be paid and how he was to be paid. Mr Sollitt went to the Minister and the Minister said: “That’s all right. I will see the board.” The Minister then organised for a different payment to be made. The board was so confused that it went to the Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit.

Hon Trevor Mallard: What? Rubbish! Go and say that outside the House.

DEBORAH CODDINGTON: It is in the transcript of the select committee. The board was so confused that it went to the Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit, and the unit confirmed that what the Minister had said stood. So this Mr Sollitt was able to get—

Government Member: The Minister doesn’t handle the money.

DEBORAH CODDINGTON: Well, who is running Learning Media—the board or the Minister? This is the same Minister who sacks boards of trustees without gazetting it. He is out of control, and he should resign.

BERNIE OGILVY (United Future) : I want to make reference in this review to the student loan scheme. This review states that the student loan scheme will expand and double by the year 2010 to some horrendous number—over $10 billion—so I thought it would be good if members could offer some suggestions on how we could reduce that figure. Quite honestly, if it continues into the future—as it is being continued with present and/or future students—it will be an insurmountable burden to our future generations and families.

United Future would like to retain the student loan scheme, but only in the context of using it for tuition fees. Borrowing money for the basic cost of living, which a lot of students have done, is something that we do not put up with in any other sector of our society. For instance, we do not allow, or expect, the unemployed to borrow to meet their cost of living; neither do we ask the sick to do so, yet somehow we have got into the kerfuffle of allowing students to do so, and therefore allowing the debt referred to in this review only to balloon out and expand.

Another thing that can be done to close down the bulging student loans scheme is to change the age of eligibility for allowances. Presently, as the Minister and all of us know, up until the age of 25, parental income is taken into account in assessing eligibility. This policy has been in place since 1992—some 12 years—and nothing has been done to allow for price inflation or any other thing of that order. To me, some elements of that policy seem quite unfair. One is that the allowance is based on the parental income threshold, whereas for other members of society, such as the unemployed, the allowance is based on their own, and not their parents’, income—even from the age of 18. Turning the scheme around and basing it on the student’s income would be a better form of reducing the bulging debt that is mounting up in the student sector.

Secondly, in the negative impact it has on women, the loan scheme impacts very strongly on our future society. For instance, compared with men it is more difficult for young women to get jobs and/or pay off their loans. United Future policy would be that when women have their first child, or when a child is born, for the next 12 months their loan would be interest-free. They would even be given some rebate on the loan for that period of raising that child.

For graduates who had trained in subjects that are in demand in the public sector—such as doctors and nurses, etc.—and were prepared to stay and work in New Zealand, United Future would look at a bonding scheme to allow a progressive wiping out of loan debts. That would be a very sensible, common-sense move to overcome something that really need not be loaded on to future generations.

Lastly, United Future suggests that a voluntary long-term solution would be to look at long-term savings schemes that are in existence and could be put into place for those who could afford, right now, to put money aside for their children’s tertiary education. When the time comes, those students would have saved in advance, through their parents or whomever else we wished to put into the scheme, and could spend their post-degree years earning money without having to pay off debt. We think that putting some of these suggestions into the equation would help dramatically the figures in this review.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) : Members would have noted that I took some time to get to my feet, because I was waiting for the Leader of the Opposition to speak. We were told that the major issue for the National Party is education, that it is interested in standards, and that education is a key issue. What did Dr Brash say? Did he get on his feet? There was not a word, not a whisper, not even a whimper from the Leader of the Opposition in this debate. Do members know why? He does not care. He does not care about education, he does not care about standards, and he especially does not care about literacy. One just has to read Dr Brash’s press statements to know that he does not care about literacy.

This is a Government that does care. This Government cares deeply about literacy issues, and that is why—

Rodney Hide: Tell that to Hagley Community College.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The member is talking about Hagley in a spirited way, and I want to deal with that issue now. The Ministry of Education made a mistake in approving a prayer room.

Rodney Hide: What about the Minister?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I have apologised to the school for the mistake the ministry made, and I have apologised to the school for the comments I made when I was not aware that a ministry official had made such a silly decision. I think the issue has just about gone away now. It was wrong.

Rodney Hide: The Minister got it wrong.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I got it absolutely wrong, because I would not have believed that ministry officials would make a decision to approve a prayer room—as they did.

Rodney Hide: They didn’t.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The member said they did not, but I have seen the letter, and they approved a prayer room. They were wrong; they should not have done that. It is not the sort of thing we do in our education system, which has a tradition of being secular. I think that fair points have been made around the country about not approving Christian prayer rooms, Hindu prayer rooms, synagogues, or other arrangements. It is not appropriate, it should not have happened, and I regret the fact that it did.

Let us get back to the important stuff now, and that is literacy. I think it is particularly interesting that people are coming from around the world to look at asTTle. When I mentioned asTTle earlier today, the Leader of the Opposition, who was in the Chamber, had not heard of it. He did not know what it was about. Someone who has talked about having national testing, and having a school certificate for 7-year-olds—as has just been abandoned in the UK as an absolutely useless exercise—might have looked at the things within New Zealand that people from around the world are coming to look at.

AsTTle has been developed between Auckland University and the Ministry of Education. It is a computer-based programme, and it has an assessment bank. Itcurrently runs from years 4 to 6, and will run from years 7 to 10 later in the year. At each level in English, literacy, and numeracy, there are 5,000 questions. It is a computer programme that randomly selects questions to be answered by kids. It gives parents and teachers incredibly good information about how their kids sit vis-à-vis other kids in their class, other kids in their school, and kids from around New Zealand.

More important, it shows where teachers’ strengths are—areas where they are doing well—by looking at their whole class results, and it shows areas where they are weak. It is then used for the professional development of teachers. Rather than being something that just tests the kids and leaves it there—the way a pencil and paper-type test does—asTTle then points the teacher in the direction of the next piece of work that students should do. It points the teacher to the Ministry of Education website, which has thousands of units of work on it, and shows the work that a kid with the strengths and weaknesses at this level should do next. Developed at this sort of level, this programme is used nowhere else in the world. People are coming from around the world to look at our literacy leadership.

We had carping comments from the ACT member earlier on. I accept that amongst the spending on promoting participation, some contracts were wrong. Where there were wrong claims, just about all of that money has been recovered. I hope we will get all of it back. Every single one of the contractors who made a claim that was not appropriate has been fired. Not one of them is there now. I think that is appropriate.

I found out about those problems in 2002. It is fair to say that there was a little bit of anxiety on the part of the ministry, which asked what it should do. It had a really important objective to promote participation in early childhood education, and there were people employed on contracts to do that who did not look as if they were shaping up. The ministry asked if it was to be politically correct. I said: “No. If there have been rip-offs, get the money back and don’t re-employ them.” I think that is vitally important, because approaches like that have to have integrity.

But is it not worth focusing on what has happened in New Zealand? I know that members opposite believe that we should not think of people as Māori or Pacific Islanders, but we know that Māori and Pacific Island participation rates in early childhood education have been much lower than for the population generally. As a result, that has flowed through to poorer performance in the early parts of primary school. It has flowed through to poorer literacy. It has flowed through to more truancy, more failure at secondary school, early leaving, fewer qualifications, and not as many jobs.

We all know that early childhood education is vital, and that we should be encouraging people into it. In the time I have been Minister, the participation rate in early childhood education for Māori children has increased by 3 percent. I think that is good—it is real progress. Better than that, since I have been Minister, the participation rate in preschool for Pacific Island children has increased by 7 percent. What we are doing is targeting the areas we think are important, in order to improve our education system and enable it to go forward.

Why do we want to do that? I am not the softest, most liberal, wussy, caring person, with a Liz Gordon approach to life, but I want to look at our future as New Zealanders. We have a population that is changing. I happen to think that people of my generation—the under 50-year-olds—have been targeted by Dr Brash for the superannuation cut. He will not have superannuation for us.I know that the only way people who went to school with me can have superannuation is if Māori and Pacific Island people who are currently in the education system and currently pre-schoolers are working. The only way they will work to their fullest potential is if they have good education, and high-quality early childhood education as a part of that.

It is worth saying right at the end that for the first time in 30 years—having been started in the previous financial year and completed in this one—we have two new State secondary schools. One is at Botany Downs and the other is at Alfriston. They are wonderful schools, and all members should have a look at them.

• Report noted.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : First, I see we have the “old” Minister of Transport in the chair. The rumour was that he could not get out of the chair quickly enough, so I am quite pleased to see him sitting there; the perception we have in New Zealand First is that he passed his colleague a hospital pass.

Transport is not a sexy issue. Politically it is not sexy, but it is probably one of the most important portfolios in existence, particularly right now. Every mode of our transport has been faced with some sort of problem. We have had problems with Air New Zealand in terms of air traffic, we have had problems with Tranz Rail in terms of railways, we have had problems with trucks in terms of road transport—particularly in Auckland—and we have had problems with shipping. There has been a shipping review, and I am waiting—more so than anybody else—for the Minister of Transport to give me an answer that is not “Soon”, when I ask when he is going to implement some policy. Now, of course, he can say to his colleague: “Tell the member from New Zealand First who keeps showing an interest in shipping, ‘Soon’. That is all he needs to know.”

Our shipping industry is in dire straits. This is an island nation and 99 percent, on a tonnage basis, of our exports and imports come and go by ship. For us to have no ships running internationally, and a coastal shipping service that is falling apart, is an absolute disgrace. So I say to the Minister with some sincerity that he should make that “Soon” soon.

Hon Paul Swain: Got the message.

PETER BROWN: The Minister in the chair has got the message. I want to spend part of my contribution tonight in talking about roading in this country. Transit says that its 10-year plan will cost something like $8 billion, as I recall, but Auckland says it needs $4 billion to $5 billion now. New Zealand First does not want to buy into the eastern highway debate, but through the Minister in the chair I will say to the Minister of Transport that we need an urgent injection of money into roading in this country. I do not subscribe one moment to the view of the Greens that if we have decent roads—roads that can do the job—we will get more and more traffic. That is a ridiculous argument in a country of 4 million people. We need roads to service our trucks, we need roads to service our private cars, and we need roads to service our public transport—particularly buses. Obviously, roads will not service the railways, although one has to admit that sometimes there is a little bit of concern at the way trains are reported to be running.

In Tauranga, late last year it was estimated, and figures were made public, that we needed $400 million to upgrade the roading network in that city. Earlier this year that $400 million became $700 million. If I were a betting man, I would say that roading costs in Tauranga will be $1 billion or more by the time we actually get around to doing something meaningful about it. We are talking big money.

New Zealand First believes, and we have believed for a long time, that the money the Government takes from the petrol motorist—that it siphons off into the consolidated account, the Crown account, or whatever the Government wants to call it—should go back into roading. The Minister is nodding; that is the first encouraging sign I have seen from this Government on this issue since I have been—

Hon Harry Duynhoven: That’s not true.

PETER BROWN: Harry is a much more pragmatic person—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member will use the Minister’s full name.

PETER BROWN: The Hon Harry Duynhoven is a very pragmatic person, and I know he shares the frustration I have—certainly, from time to time. Seriously, if right now we were given all the money the Government siphons off, I do not believe that that would do the job on its own. I believe we are getting very, very close now to having to borrow money to get our physical roading infrastructure up to scratch.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) : I want to take an opportunity to look at the transport area. It is really good that the previous Minister of Transport, the Hon Paul Swain, is the Minister in the chair, and I take the opportunity—as the member for Hamilton West, as a Waikato member of Parliament, and as a person who, as Deputy Mayor of Hamilton City a few years back, served on the regional land transport committee—to say that he and the Hon Mark Gosche have been two of the best transport Ministers we have had in this country.

Peter Brown: What have they done?

MARTIN GALLAGHER: Let me say what they have done, and in that member’s heart of hearts he will know it to be true. Through their leadership they have given us a real transport strategy, at long last. My frustration as a member of the Hamilton City Council regional land transport committee and as a former Deputy Mayor of Hamilton City—now the fourth largest population centre in New Zealand—was that we just wanted a comprehensive land transport strategy. Such a strategy is not about using public transport instead of the private motorcar, or cycling to work instead of driving to work. I know Mr Brown will agree with me that it is about an integrated transport strategy, and in his heart of hearts he knows this to be true.

It was absolutely wonderful when the report of that transport strategy was released in December 2002, with five clear objectives. Let me repeat them, because I think they need repeating. The first objective is assisting economic development, which is critically important for the Waikato region I represent. The second objective is assisting safety and personal security. We still have a horrendous road toll, but it is slowly, bit by bit, coming down, although it is still not as good as Scandinavia’s, or even that of some of the states in Australia. The third objective is improving access and mobility, which is a very important issue for our people. The fourth objective is protecting and promoting public health, and the final objective is ensuring environmental sustainability.

I also take the opportunity to wish the new Minister of Transport, the Hon Pete Hodgson, well. I look forward, as the member for Hamilton West, to working very, very closely with Pete Hodgson on an issue that I, as the local member, am passionate about. One of the key transport issues for my area is the ongoing progress of the Auckland to Cambridge expressway. The facts are there. After 4½ years of a Labour-led Government we are getting traction on the Auckland to Cambridge expressway. One needs only to drive from Hamilton to Auckland to see the earthworks and the progress on that. To that end, I do not think that the previous Minister of Transport, the Hon Paul Swain, will mind if I compliment the local staff of Transit New Zealand. In particular I single out Colin Knaggs, who is the senior officer of Transit in Hamilton. I believe he coined the term the “Waikato expressway”. I think it is pretty obvious in talking to the staff of Transit New Zealand—certainly in my area—that they share this vision of a comprehensive New Zealand transport strategy.

I also acknowledge that for the first time we are now getting traction on reducing traffic congestion in Auckland. We are getting traction on developing an integrated transport strategy in the nation’s largest city. Why does someone in the Waikato have a huge interest in Auckland sorting out its transport problems? I say with due humility what a shame it was that Greater Auckland did not listen to Sir Dove-Myer Robinson all those years ago, but at least now we are getting some momentum there. Quite frankly, if Auckland gets gridlocked and catches cold through transport gridlock, the Waikato economy catches cold, as well.

In terms of the road safety, roads are still a major killer in New Zealand compared with other countries. I listened with some interest earlier today to questions in the House to the Minister of Police about speeding tickets and speeding fines. Someone attempted to ask a question and initially the Speaker in his wisdom ruled it out of order, but upon reflection he allowed it. I believe it was from my good colleague Mahara Okeroa. It was a very insightful question that asked how people could stop receiving speeding fines. The answer is: do not speed—it is as simple as that. People should observe the rules of the road and save lives.

• Report noted.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) : I wish to raise the Attorney-General’s role, and the role of the Crown Law Office, in supervising charities. The Attorney-General has a duty to pursue corrupt charities. There are powers that are statutory, conferred by section 58 of the Charitable Trusts Act, but the Attorney-General’s role in supervising charities is a lot older than section 58. I will read from a leading case, which I am sure the Attorney-General has had reason to look at very recently—in fact, it is a case that she would have looked at in relation to the seabed and foreshore debacle. In that Privy Council decision the judges said: “It is the province of the Crown as parens patriae to enforce the execution of charitable trusts, and it has always been recognised as the duty of the law officers of the Crown to intervene for the purpose of protecting charities and affording advice and assistance to the Court in the administration of charitable trusts.”

I have a list of trusts that have been notorious in this country over the last 2 years. The trustees have patently abused their powers and they have not acted in accordance with the trusts. Some of them may have been criminal, but most of them probably have not, or, if they have been, the police have decided they have better things to do than to pursue the trustees’ criminality. But they are all cases in which this country would have been very much comforted to know that we had an Attorney-General supervising a Crown Law Office that was doing the duty of looking after charities.

There is a pattern in this Government of turning a Nelsonian blind eye to corruption. It is a pattern that we have seen, for example, when Dr Ross Armstrong got away with, perhaps, $140,000 that no one could explain. The recovery sought was a fraction—less than a tenth or a fifteenth—of that amount. A previous Minister in the chair saw Don Sollitt get away with sums for his private businesses and watched the board of that company look to recover only $7,000.

We have our own Minister in the chair at the moment, the Hon Margaret Wilson, who has taken a similar attitude to corrupt trusts. I am not aware of a single dollar that this Minister has pursued where the people in charge of trusts were effectively thieves. The message being sent by this Government, and by the Minister’s absolute inactivity in this area, is for fraudsters to use charitable trusts as the vehicles for their fraud.

In effect, by doing nothing the Minister is giving a Government message that we do not care if people abuse trusts. The Government is saying to fraudsters that it does not care if trusts steal or misuse assets from a named charity that are given for proper purposes. They can be confident that the Minister will do nothing.

Let me look at a couple of the examples from my list. People will remember less than a year ago the controversy about Te Hauora o te Tai Tokerau—commonly known as “THOTT”—in Northland. It was a trust set up for Māori health purposes where the chief executive, Jolene Grace, and the chairman of the trust, Luana Murray, at a time when the trust was failing after having used millions of dollars in money intended for Māori health, took off with family members on overseas travel—$23,000 on an overseas trip. When the auditors looked into it they found that something called Westpap Investments had taken $100,000, and it apparently disappeared—or perhaps $45,000 came back, so the trustee said, but no one ever found out. A set of gym equipment that would make the eyes water, that would make half the people listening to this debate salivate, and that was worth $20,000, was bought from a son, and the Attorney-General did nothing.

• Report noted.

MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) : We have been very weak in how we deal with gangs and criminal organisations in this country. They have grown from street gangs in the 1940s. The first started on Independence Day 1946 in a town called Hollister in the US. Eventually they spread their tentacles to New Zealand, and we are doing very little about it. The gangs have become well-structured and well-entrenched. They have bonds that in many cases replace those of the traditional family, which in many cases are dysfunctional. They are supported with the finances collected from illegal activities, such as prostitution, gambling, theft, and drugs.

The point, of course, is that we are not talking about a romanticised group of lovable leather and tattoo - clad rogues on steel horses; we are talking about criminal organisations whose tentacles of criminality are digging into our communities, taking our money, our sense of lawfulness, and our hope. These gangs have left a trail of despair and social destruction, and this Government, as others before it, has done diddly.

Our Minister of Justice was quoted in the Dominion Post in October last year as saying that changes were needed. What has happened? Absolutely nothing. We have a system where those who are making methamphetamines are reoffending while on bail because our justice system is so clogged up that there is at least a 2-year wait for trial. One of the reasons is that there is a huge, unrestrained increase in the supply of and the market for P.

We are not equipping our police to handle the problem. If we want the police to do the job, then we have to give them the tools to be able to do it. That is not what we are doing. We are pussyfooting around. We have heard talk about trying to do something about taking the proceeds of criminal activity, but it is not enough. We need, I believe, the Western Australian model of confiscation—confiscation on a civil basis without conviction. But all we get from the Minister is that he does not want to put such a system into place because of our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. While it is true that we would be going against that, the nonsense is that the Internal Revenue Service already has these powers. All that United Future is suggesting is to give these powers to the police to execute what they need to do to get rid of our criminal organisations and gangs once and for all. They should be able to take away the profits from those people who prey on us and who feed off us, destroying our communities, our families, and our children.

Unfortunately, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act seems to be standing in the way of this politically correct Government. Whose rights does it protect? It protects the offenders at the expense of the rest of us. We are the ones who end up suffering. The police want these powers. They want to be able to do the job they have been entrusted to do, but the Minister in the chair, the Hon George Hawkins, and the Minister of Justice are not giving them the ability to do that. That is part of the problem. We are pussyfooting around and we are not doing what we can to help the police do the job. We expect them to clean up our streets, but how can we?

Some people on the left whom we have heard from today suggested that it was cheaper to keep offenders in a Hilton rather than a jail. That is probably what the Greens really want. They want to close down the jails and put people in Hiltons, to give them a reason not to offend. What message would that give to the rest of the community, to those who are lawful? It would tell them that crime does pay. On that I kind of agree. Crime should pay, and it should pay and pay and pay. The best way to do that is to give the police the powers to confiscate criminals’ assets and the proceeds of crime. We will do that only if we start being tough and taking the steps that the Minister in the chair and the Minister of Justice are not willing to take. It is like telling a gardener to go and hoe a garden but denying him or her the tools to dig the earth. It is pointless and wasteful. We will end up in a situation where the police are out-numbered, out-gunned, and out-resourced by the very gangs they are supposed to be trying to restrain. It is pathetic. This Government should take a good, cold, hard look at itself and at what it is allowing gangs to do to communities and to our families and kids. It should wake up to the fact that these gangs do not play by the rules. Neither should we.

RON MARK (NZ First) : Sometimes it is very pleasing to work on the Law and Order Committee, and sometimes it is jolly frustrating. The reason I find so much of it to be frustrating is that we seem to be very long in the talk about what this Government is going to do about crime and about what Labour was going to do about crime when it was in Opposition. I have a wad of press releases about 4 inches thick stating what Mr Hawkins, Mr Goff, and Mr Mike Moore would do when they finally got to the Government benches. Well, 5 years down the line we are still dealing with the problems they promised they would resolve. No amount of shilly-shallying and wishy-washy arguments from the police will convince me that in some areas the police are simply not achieving the results we want them to achieve.

For example, in our review we discussed the improving trend in respect of burglary, but the bottom line is that over the last 12 months the burglary of dwellings was up by 4 percent. That is the bottom line. The bottom line is that whilst we sit and crow that another $6.8 million is being pumped into dealing with methamphetamine, the police asked for the establishment of four teams to deal with home laboratories and this Government gave them only three. Worse than that, the South Island has to share the same facility that Wellington and the lower North Island use—this on the back of the fact that with those scarce resources the police have cracked more methamphetamine laboratories than we would ever, in our worst nightmares, have feared possible. What does that say? It says that the police predictions were exactly correct.

The methamphetamine threat was portrayed well by the Police Association. The Government was told about it. The Commissioner of Police went to the Government and asked for the funding. The Government short-changed him, and then had the nerve to boast that it had increased the funding by $6.8 million. That sum was identified as not being enough to deal with methamphetamine, and on the back of the results we are seeing we now know it is not enough. No amount of crowing will disguise the facts that the police did not get the resources they need, that methamphetamine is a growing problem, that organised crime is behind it, and that the problem is threatening the very well-being of our youth and the safety of our communities.

Let us look at the interventions. There was a lot of talk from the Government about what it was going to do to intervene. Yes, some good things have been done. There are regulations going through to restrict the sales of pseudoephedrine. But New Zealand First warned this Government about immigrant crime. It warned that with regard to certain people of certain ethnicities, one could see a propensity of certain crimes being carried out by them. What have we seen? Well, hello now, surprise, surprise, the Customs Service people, doing a good job at the border, have seized hundreds of thousands of pills and drugs that form the base product for methamphetamine production. Again, there was a failure to heed the warnings, and I have to say to this Government that no amount of political correctness will avoid the fact that certain ethnicities need to be monitored for particular types of crime.

I have a simple question to ask all the Māori MPs in Labour: why do they sit there and allow Māori crime to be analysed, debated, and recorded in the most minute detail, whilst they let the Minister of Police and the Minister of Justice turn a blind eye to Asian crime, to Somali crime, and to the crimes committed by all the other ethnic groups that we now have coming to this country who have their own propensity to a particular crime fetish? Ignoring that will not make it go away—it is there. The discussions I have had on private trips to New South Wales confirm that there is a Lebanese crime problem. It does not go away because someone says that it is racist to talk about it. The police need to be steered into recording the details of what those people are doing. If Government members do not accept what I am saying, they should look at the figure for kidnappings, coercion, and extortion—a 600 percent increase in that one crime alone.

Dail Jones: How much?

RON MARK: A 600 percent increase, and the vast majority of that crime is committed by Chinese students or immigrants. Members should look at the gambling dens. There is a whole backlog of issues there that, if we do not get to grips with the downstream effects of the huge gambling debts being incurred by Asian New Zealanders, will come back to bite us when we see them recoup those losses or pay their loan sharks the massive interest they owe them by illicit means. How will that happen? By extortion, bribery, kidnapping, and that sort of thing. That is where we have to improve our interventions with regard to crime.

• Report noted.