Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : If we ever needed a bill before the Committee to show the mess we have in respect of climate change policy, then the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is it. This afternoon in Parliament I tabled New Zealand’s forestry planting figures and they show an appalling track record from this Government. What we know is that for the first time in 50 years New Zealand has net deforestation—that is, in 2005, for the first time under the stewardship of the last 12 Prime Ministers, we had net deforestation. More trees had been cut down in New Zealand than had been planted. This trend has occurred in each and every year that this Government has been in office. We have gone from having an average of 60,000 hectares of new forest right through the 1990s, to a period during which there has been a complete collapse in the numbers of trees planted. I note that the Minister of Forestry is in the Chamber. I would like to know from him why his Government has presided over such a plummet in confidence in the forestry sector. If we look across the Tasman to Australia, we see substantial planting of new forests—tens of thousands of hectares’ worth. While Australia’s graph is going up, New Zealand’s is going down.

That should worry every New Zealander, for three reasons. The first is that forests absorb carbon. It is one of the best contributions we can make to solving the problem of climate change. The reason New Zealand is in such a pickle over the Kyoto Protocol is the collapse in the planting of trees. The second reason is this: we have huge areas—about 800,000 hectares—of highly eroding hill country, for which our best hope is to plant trees. We know from the recent Manawatū floods the consequence of the huge soil erosion that occurs when we do not bind those soils with sensible forestry. The third reason we should be concerned about those plummets in the levels of our forestry is our economy. The forestry industry is New Zealand’s fourth-biggest export earner, and there is a collapse in confidence in that industry. That is bad news for jobs; that is bad news for exports.

In this bill the Government states that it will give recognition for indigenous forest plantings that are permanent forest sinks. I say to the Committee that that is a good thing, but it is a very small contributor to solving the overall problem. What is particularly bizarre about this bill is that the Government is saying it will give carbon recognition only if the forest is useless. If people want to harvest the trees, then they will be denied any recognition for the carbon absorption done by those trees. If there was ever a dumb policy, this is it. It is like saying that we want people to plant trees as long as they are not planted for any useful reason. Well, that, to National, seems quite bizarre.

So National supports the proper recognition of indigenous forests, but if people believe that that is an answer to New Zealand’s appalling greenhouse gas emission figures, then they are kidding themselves. We need a far more substantive package than this one. What appals me is that when National challenged the Prime Minister on her conference speech, she said that New Zealand would become carbon neutral. Well, what a fantasy! We have a set of figures from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi taking place right now that show that New Zealand is doing worse on greenhouse gas emissions than almost any other country. I have heard the Prime Minister and the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues bag George Bush and the United States. They have been damning of John Howard and the Australian Government. Well, let us look at the figures. New Zealand’s emissions, according to the figures released today, have gone up by far more than emissions in the United States and Australia have.

DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) : I am delighted to take a call on Part 1 of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. It sets out the amendments that the Government seeks to make to the principal Act, in order that our country can face the most significant challenge of our time, which the Opposition is finally waking up to.

It is very interesting to follow Dr Nick Smith’s contribution, because in recent times he has talked about wanting to take a great bipartisan stand on this issue. Was that speech not a great example of bipartisanship? He criticised every initiative the Government has taken to date, he criticised the personalities of the Ministers involved, he said the Government was not doing enough, and he bagged our own country in relation to the United States and Australia—and this is the great example we have today of bipartisanship! This is a very interesting way for the National Party to behave.

It was interesting that Nick Smith said that the National Party, despite all these things, would be supporting Part 1. He started off by saying that National wanted to be bipartisan, he bagged all of Part 1, then he got to the end of his speech and said National would support the bill because he was now a Bluegreen.

It was interesting to note that when the bill was read for the first time in the House the putative leader of the National Party, John Key, said, with regard to the clauses in Part 1, that he was rising on behalf of the National Party “to give the good news to the people of New Zealand—that is, the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is a load of rubbish and the National Party will not be supporting it, for very, very good reasons indeed.” John Key, the member for Helensville, who is prancing around at the moment and getting ready to take over the National Party leadership, came to the House and said National would be opposing Part 1 because it was a load of rubbish.

Then the expert on rubbish, Dr Smith, criticised the Government’s policies, said he wanted to be bipartisan, then said he would vote in support of Part 1. It is pretty clear that the National Party’s approach on climate change is all over the place.

The clauses we are implementing in Part 1 came under direct attack by the National Party during the election campaign. National members went around belittling climate change by linking it to only the Kyoto agreement. They made jokes about Kyoto the whole time. They ridiculed and made puerile and infantile remarks about the so-called “fart tax”, which was a scientific research response to try to cope with the fact that half of our emissions happen to come from animals—which is obviously not the animals’ fault, but we have to try to do what we can in our own country.

Once that topic was dropped, National members went around saying they also opposed the carbon tax. So every single climate change initiative that has come before Parliament has been opposed by the National Party. It has ridiculed these initiatives and said the problems do not exist. But all of a sudden a few National members saw a movie made by Al Gore, and now they are great converts to the theory of climate change. I am sure that such thinkers and luminaries as Mark Blumsky went to the late screening at Rialto, came out as absolute converts to the theory of climate change, and said we have to do something about it.

I pick up on one point that Dr Smith made when he was demeaning our country in relation to Australia and the United States. The fact is that New Zealand’s emissions are lower, in total, than in those two countries, and on a per person basis, and on a per unit of GDP basis. New Zealand’s emissions are lower. Why the National Party persists in trying to criticise us in relation to the two countries of the developed world who have not signed the Kyoto Protocol is an absolute mystery to me. The reality is that even if we were not implementing the changes in this bill—and I am glad we are implementing clauses 3 to 29 of Part 1—New Zealand has a much better chance of meeting our 1990 emission levels than Australia does. This country is doing very well in regard to our response to climate change, and I pick up on the member’s points on forestry—

Eric Roy: Oh, baloney!

DARREN HUGHES: The member for Invercargill has not proposed one single climate change response policy. He has opposed all the things the Labour Government has wanted to do. National put out a brochure in the last couple of weeks, and it wants to be congratulated on being the great thinkers on climate change. Where has National been? National members have been absolutely nowhere on these issues, apart from opposing them and making jokes out of them. But all of a sudden they have decided that something should be done, even though they are not quite sure what.

R Doug Woolerton: They have only just got Ian Ewen-Street on board; give them a chance.

DARREN HUGHES: The great success of Ian Ewen-Street, he having gone from defecting and scabbing on the Green Party to going over to the Nats, is that he has managed to put out a brochure about climate change. National members want us to congratulate them and say they have now invented environmental awareness. According to National Party members we do not need Part 1, because they are now the guardians—the kaitiaki. Those members cannot use Māori words, so that is a slight difficulty, but if they did use Māori words they would be the kaitiaki of the environment.

This is just an absolute joke. There are also references in Part 1 to the permanent forest sinks initiative, which the Minister will no doubt want to comment on as we move through the debate on Part 1. But I thought it would be useful to put on record that the Government and parties that have been awake to these issues for a long time will be supporting Part 1 of the bill, and will do so with pride.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) : The National Party, in the context of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, has every right to question the sincerity of the Government’s statements about New Zealand becoming a carbon neutral country. Helen Clark made some grand statements in a speech to the Labour Party conference, and we have put the motivation behind, and the sincerity of, those remarks to the test. Here are a few simple facts.

Despite the fact that the Labour Government made a substantial show of signing the Kyoto Protocol, New Zealand has had the biggest increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the OECD—not the second-biggest increase, nor a bit bigger increase than that of Australia or the UK; in fact, the rate of our increase in carbon dioxide emissions is three times that of Australia and twice that of the US. That is why we are questioning Helen Clark’s motivation in suddenly signing up to an unachievable emissions target—New Zealand has the biggest single increase in emissions of carbon dioxide in the OECD.

Helen Clark has also overseen the biggest fall in energy from renewable sources in the OECD in the last 7 years. It now appears that if Labour has a policy to achieve something, the opposite of that happens. Labour had a policy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions or to hold them to their 1990 levels, yet those emissions went up faster than the rate of increase in any other country. It had an energy policy aimed at focusing on renewable energy, and it got exactly the opposite result of that. It is not that Labour had no chance to make decisions that would have made a difference. The Labour Government turned down the Dobson dam proposal, which would have been a source of significant renewable energy. Instead it built an oil-fired power station, funded by the Government and decided on by the Government, at Whirinaki. Those were exactly the wrong decisions to make.

I know that the Greens are sitting here asking themselves the same questions that National is asking, because Labour has now tried to shackle the Greens to Labour’s greenhouse emissions policies and Jeanette Fitzsimons must know that the chances of that approach coming to anything meaningful are zero. When we look at the track record of this Government, we see that if it has an environmental policy to do with climate change, the opposite happens of what it sets out to achieve.

National is supporting this bill, because it is one of the very few initiatives that make some sense, but it has come as too little, too late. It is a very, very small measure—too little, too late—and has come after Helen Clark has managed to achieve something that no other New Zealand Government has managed to achieve in my lifetime, which is that more trees have been chopped down than were planted. No one else has achieved that. But the forestry industry has been telling this Government, for the last 7 years, that its policies would have that effect. So that is another one. The Labour Party set out with a policy to encourage carbon sinks, and ended up with less afforestation than any other country in the OECD. The problem with these shortcomings in the policy is that they are such major shortcomings that people do not believe they are shortcomings. People cannot believe that a Government that professes to have any kind of environmental target could have made such a bad job of achieving it. But that is exactly what the Labour Party has achieved.

I tell the member for Otaki that the document that National has put out on environmental policy is attracting the attention of every single opinion leader and activist on the environment in New Zealand. People are showing up on wet, cold Tuesday nights in empty church halls to talk about it, because they have had enough of going along to Labour Government - funded talkfests where Labour members go on and go with the latest fashionable words from the Ministry for the Environment, yet nothing happens. That is why they are going along to Nick Smith’s public meetings all over the country, in their hundreds. They know that National’s environmental policy is a sincere and practical policy.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) : Firstly, I thank sincerely the National Party for its indication that it will support this bill, and also the other parties, including the Greens, the Māori Party, and United Future, that have been staunch throughout the passage of this bill that it is worthwhile legislation to adopt. It is surprising that this support from National was not shown earlier, because the bill is substantially unchanged from the form in which it went to the Commerce Committee. A few amendments were made by the committee and we agree they are sensible. The Government is promoting a Supplementary Order Paper, which will be considered at this stage, but essentially the bill is unchanged.

I will respond to a couple of comments made by the Hon Bill English that were, with respect, exaggerations. He said that the greenhouse gas emissions growth in New Zealand is higher than in any other OECD country. I am reading from figure 4 of the latest United Nations advanced version on national greenhouse gas inventory data for the period 1990-2004. In respect of greenhouse gas emissions, without land-use change-related emissions, it shows that Australia’s emissions increased at a higher rate than New Zealand’s; and that was the same for Ireland, Canada, and Portugal—

Eric Roy: Gross or percentage terms?

Hon DAVID PARKER: In percentage terms and, as well, in gross terms. Mr English’s assertion was, with respect, incorrect. In terms of New Zealand’s increases in emissions, it is true that our emissions have grown since 1990 and we need to do better to reduce our emissions. It is also true that Government policies around wind power have brought forward wind power development in a way that would not have otherwise occurred, and but for that successful policy, New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions would be higher.

It is also true that forest planting rates have decreased. What is not true is to say that they have decreased most under our watch. The greatest decreases in rates of planting occurred during the period of the previous National Government. This is not a good thing, but it would not be fair to blame National for that. It is a consequence of the changing economics of forestry compared with competing land uses, so that the relative value of the land that could have been put into forestry was higher for farmers to use for other agricultural purposes. So they did.

Having said that, it is true that we want to encourage more afforestation, because, of course, trees have the joint benefit of sequestering carbon and avoiding increases in agricultural emissions that occur if the land is used for agricultural purposes. The Government agrees there is a desirability to encourage more afforestation, and this bill is an important step in that process by devolving carbon credits to permanent forest sinks, so that those landowners have the benefit of the carbon credits that can accrue from the sequestration of carbon in those forests—be they exotic or indigenous forest.

ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) : I am excited about having an opportunity to participate in the debate on the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, and I say we do note the changes to the bill that took place in the Commerce Committee. In concert with my colleagues Nick Smith and Bill English, I want to affirm National’s position. We consider this bill to be too late and too little. But National is supporting it, because we see climate change as an issue that we have no option but to be involved with addressing.

I will digress for a minute. In September I was travelling in the United States—a privately funded trip, looking at national park management and a few other things—and when going through Colorado I saw a billboard on the end of a barn. I thought it was quite stark and startling. It was just a few lines, and if I can remember it, it went something like this:

Remember me as Dustbowl Dick

To mechanize, I missed no trick

Burning hedges, felling trees

I bared the landscape by degrees

And thus I earned both cash and fame

Until the mighty whirlwind came.

One fatal blow and I was bust

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I thought to myself: “Labour Party!”. At a time when we should have been planting trees to sequester carbon, that verse typifies exactly what was happening.

It was the intention that trees would be planted. But I say to the Minister that it takes more than talking about the need to plant trees—one has to actually do things. I pick up some of the elements of what the Minister said about changing land uses, competing values, and all of those things. That is why it is so important that we get the detail right and that the messages are correct. When I saw that verse on the end of the shed, I thought of Landcorp—the Government’s own farmer and the biggest farmer in New Zealand—purchasing 25,000 hectares of forest land, cutting the trees down, and converting the land to dairying. I thought about the sorts of mixed messages this Government is giving.

If the Government is really serious about doing things that are not just placebos—actually doing things that will work—it needs to make some hard decisions and give some very, very clear indications of what it wants, by making the hard decisions for its own organisations. It is absolutely important that we get everything right around forestry. We support the fact that there will be opportunities for individuals to own credits. That is one element of it. But if forestry is to compete with other land uses and we are to see land planted in trees in New Zealand, then a number of other things have to happen in the infrastructural line.

I am aware of at least three large wood processors that are looking at securing an opportunity to process logs in New Zealand. One of the reasons why tree planting has reduced is simply that the returns are not there. On the one hand there is a recognition that we need to increase the value of forestry so that it competes with other land uses, yet on the other hand the three major processors that I am aware of will not sign up in New Zealand. That is because of the difficulty, under the Resource Management Act, in getting their factories set up, and because they cannot secure the long-term electric power contracts they need in order to commit themselves to operating here. Planting trees is one thing, but actually dealing realistically with sustainable electricity is another very, very important element. This Government has presided over not only the reduction in tree planting but also the non-matching of the electricity needs of the sector with the supply by sustainable means—and I am referring specifically to the Dobson and Project Aqua hydroelectricity projects.

It is a matter of fact and a matter of record that we have not kept pace with need. If we want landowners to plant trees, they simply have to have the opportunity to match the returns from forestry with those created by other land uses. That is critical. Just passing this bill will not fix the problem. A number of other elements come into the equation. Trees are important as a means of sequestering carbon. That bit of information has been around since I first started to get interested in the subject in the late 1980s. The member for Otaki says I have had a change of heart, but I say that in my own particular case this issue has concerned me for almost 20 years. [Interruption] Well, that is what I say. But I am part of the problem. I was planting trees on a regular basis, and I stopped doing so. I stopped planting trees for all sorts of reasons.

Hon Parekura Horomia: You’ve made too much money!

ERIC ROY: No, I have not sold any trees yet. I planted them for a whole lot of other reasons.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central) : I rise to strongly support this Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. In supporting it, I say that I strongly disagree with the National members’ versions of what we have done. Eric Roy said that climate change is an issue that we have no option but to be involved with. What johnny-come-latelys and jill-come-latelys—not in Mr Roy’s individual case, but as regards the National Party as a whole. National’s policy is really a climate change makeover. It is consistent with the Bluegreens’ deliberate makeover to attract green votes since green issues have become the fashion. National members are the fair-weather friends of climate change.

Let me give some examples from the speeches we heard today. Dr Nick Smith attacked Government members for their work to lower New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. He said: “You’re not doing enough! You should be out there doing this, this, and this!”. Dr Smith does not recognise that it is a step-by-step process. National belatedly supported the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative, which does two things: firstly, it makes sure that trees get planted; and, secondly, it ensures that those trees are planted in areas prone to erosion. That is the thing about environmental politics. One is never curing one thing by itself; one is actually hitting a number of different issues at the same time.

Then Bill English spoke, misquoting and getting the facts wrong—as was ably pointed out by the Minister in the chair, David Parker—about our growth in emissions and how it compares with that of other countries. It is very interesting to note that the growth in emissions that is occurring, or is about to, in middle European States is very much to do with the change in energy production in those States. Emissions went down when those changes occurred, but they are now growing again because of those States’ growing economies.

With that comes the issue of transport. Again, here is something interesting. I have been listening to Dr Smith talk about the Bluegreens’ document, and he never mentions public transport. He never mentions investment in rail. His Government, of course, sold New Zealand Rail and took away from us the ability to make sure all our freight did not go by road. National members do not mention that. There they go again, saying that we must lower our emissions, but they look only at certain parts—the very thing they accuse the Government of.

The other thing that National members go on about all the time—which really gets my goat—is Project Aqua. What they say about Project Aqua goes against the people in that particular valley. They say to valley residents that they must give up their rights to irrigation for viticulture, to the life in the river, and to a whole lot of other aspects that that water can be used for, because the value of that water is only in providing hydroelectric power. What this Government did—and what I was responsible for—was to make sure there was an interrogative process that valued the conservation of the river, the use of irrigation, and the lowering of the amount of water that could be taken out in places like the Hakataramea. We actually looked after the river. If we had gone down the line of creating hydroelectric power regardless of anything else, then we would have solved one wrong to create another. One does not do that in environmental policy. One actually tries to manage the entire planet, not play off one section against another.

My last point—in terms of National members saying that the Government does not back up its words—is to remind members about Lake Taupō. That lake will be in decline unless we do something about the land use around it. The forestry people who have said that they are not planting and need to plant are the same people who came to me as Minister and asked for so many millions of dollars—it was a high number—to compensate them for not shifting the land use from forests, which they wanted to cut down, to dairying. Dairying would make them more money, they said, but the Government did not want dairying around the Lake Taupō catchment. Sometimes I doubt whether the credentials of these people are green, or even blue-green. Sometimes their credentials relate not to whether they ought to plant trees but to whether they ought to make money. The people who are complaining now that the economics are not right for them to go into forestry are the same people who asked for money—money that was to be used for other purposes—to turn forestry land in the catchment around Lake Taupō into dairy farms.

The last comment I make around the issue of what we are doing is that we have been backing up our words. We have invested $81 million in managing the Taupō area in order to make it feasible to plant trees and to make other use of the land. That same walking of the talk, which National denies we have done, allowed us to encourage wind energy in New Zealand.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) : I think members should pause for a moment to acknowledge a rare moment of consensus, where virtually every party in the House is supporting an initiative to reduce climate change emissions. I feel the need particularly to draw attention to it because anyone who is listening on the radio would easily believe that the House was totally at loggerheads. We have heard nothing but the language of attack and denigration across the Chamber, so perhaps it needs pointing out to listeners out there that the House is in agreement that the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative in this Climate Change Response Amendment Bill ought to go ahead.

The Greens particularly support the initiative because it does, as Marian Hobbs said, address a number of environmental issues at the same time. Not only does it have the potential to increase our carbon storage; it has the potential to reduce erosion from steep hill country, to reduce flooding, to improve water quality downstream, and to provide more habitat for native species, particularly when native species are planted in those permanent forests. But I have also to agree with Eric Roy’s concern, and ask whether we are perhaps taking one step forward with this bill, and five steps backwards with the work that the Government’s own State-owned enterprise Landcorp is doing in converting existing forests to livestock farming in the central North Island.

This morning I attended the Federated Farmers conference, where I was invited to speak on Charlie Pederson’s latest initiative on farmers and water quality. The Minister of Agriculture and the Prime Minister were there, as well. One of the questions they were asked by one of the farmers was: “Why is it then, if climate change is so important, that we’re allowing a State agency to clear forest and replace it with livestock farming, where not only do you lose the carbon sink in the forest, but you create the extra carbon emissions from the methane from the animals, and nitrogen runoff at the same time?”. The Minister of Agriculture replied: “Landcorp is not making the policy decision. It doesn’t own the land. It’s simply carrying this out on contract for somebody else, and this is its core business.”

So we have a Government agency whose core business is converting forests to farmland. I have to admit that it sounds a little bit like: “Well, Your Honour, I didn’t commission the assassination, I didn’t pay for it, I simply carried it out on contract.” I do not think His Honour would be very impressed with that kind of excuse. We have to take a whole-of-Government approach to climate change issues, otherwise all the good work that goes into an initiative like the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative can be undone, at least in terms of the carbon storage, very quickly by another arm of Government removing forests and increasing livestock farming.

If the forest is on the wrong land and that land ought to be used for farming, then let that conversion be accompanied by an obligation to increase forest areas somewhere else on more suitable land. We cannot simply leave this to the market in the day when log prices are low and dairy prices are high. We will never get on top of our climate change emissions unless we intervene in that process that is happening.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) : We will support this Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. In fact, it is the only initiative from the Government on climate change that remotely makes any sense, but still, as we have observed, the bill needs some change through the Committee stage.

The Government needs to take some responsibility for the 7 years in which it has been the Government. Although the Government is very good at talking the talk just now, using its “get out of jail free” card to take the heat off some other issues, with regards to carbon neutrality, I think that in order for a country to have any confidence in this Government we need to have a look at its track record over the past 7 years on climate change. It is so easy to claim the moral high ground over climate change, and it is so easy to talk about people being johnny-come-latelys to the issue. But what I see happening in this Chamber, and what I think we need to do, is something more about climate change than just highfalutin words, which we have heard a lot of.

Let us have a look at what the Government has achieved on climate change policy in its past 7 years as the Government,.

Lindsay Tisch: Absolutely nothing.

JACQUI DEAN: Well, not quite nothing, because we signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. In the past 7 years we have signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol was going to save the world. There were lots of conferences about it, and it was going to save the world from our 0.4 percent of emissions, which is what New Zealand contributes to greenhouse gases. It was also going to make us a bundle. How much was signing up to Kyoto going to make us? It was $500 million. In fact, it was going to be fantastic. It was going to be New Zealand’s contribution to global warming. The problem is that the Government made a slight miscalculation and it turns out that instead of making a bundle and saving the world with the Kyoto Protocol, it is costing us a bundle. How much is it costing us?

Mark Blumsky: $500 million.

JACQUI DEAN: What? $500 million is what it has cost! Far from saving the world, far from saving our 0.4 percent of carbon emissions, it is costing us money and achieving nothing.

What else has the Government attempted to do in the 7 years it has been the Government? The Government brought in the carbon tax, which it figured out eventually was not going to work. Then the Government brought in the “fart tax”, which it figured out eventually was not going to work. But then we had the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy. How much did it take the Government to figure out that it was not going to work? That is right. It took the Government $100 million of taxpayers’ money to show that it was not going to work. So, for people who are listening, this is the Government’s track record, in its 7 years, on climate change policy because it is a world leader, or so it would have us think.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has described the Government as operating in a climate change vacuum. What was the Government’s response to that charge? Well, in the second reading of this bill Steve Chadwick, when challenged about a lack of climate change policy, said: “Just wait. It’s coming.” Well, it did. It came at the Labour Party conference, and it was the Prime Minister who said: “We are going to be carbon neutral.” Fantastic! I ask the Prime Minister how we will do that without ruining the economy of New Zealand.

OK, so what has National been doing? Because we have a full 2 years before the next election, and we know that we will be the next Government, we have produced A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand. Do members know what? It has been so well received that it is embarrassing. National knows where New Zealand should go with climate change policy. We know where we should go, and we have a policy. We have proposals for tradable emissions permits to manage New Zealand’s greenhouse emissions, and that is where we acknowledge we must take a longer-term view of the environment.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) : I must respond to the allegation that the only climate change - related initiative the Government has that makes any sense is the permanent forest sinks initiative. Until I heard that, I thought we had support from National for some of the other sensible measures we have under way, such as improvements to the building code so as to increase the energy efficiency of buildings. Another recent initiative is to incorporate a minimum mandatory percentage of biofuels to be incorporated in transport fuels, which is another very significant policy.

The policy the Greens are leading on, through Jeanette Fitzsimons, is solar hot water heating initiatives. Improvements to the national energy system through the rewriting of the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy, as well as the New Zealand Energy Strategy, will be out by the end of the year.

The other two points I would make are that once again there was exaggeration from the member who just took her seat. She made reference to the fact, with some pride, that they knocked over the so-called “fart tax”, and said that it was about $100 million. What a load of nonsense! It was never over $100 million. It was about a research levy so that the agricultural community could play its part in contributing to the research effort that is needed to find more efficient ways of agriculture that also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

R Doug Woolerton: She wouldn’t know that!

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, the member is quite right. The reality is that that research has been going on. It has been funded in part by the Government, and funded partly through the industry groups that have come to the table and recognised that there is a problem to be addressed.

The other remark I would make is in respect of the so-called cost of the Kyoto Protocol. It is not yet clear what New Zealand’s balance will be during the first commitment period of Kyoto.

Jacqui Dean: It might be more.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, I suppose that is possible. I am pretty confident it will be less than currently projected. The second point to make there is about the borax poured on the Kyoto Protocol by those members. The Kyoto Protocol remains the most effective international instrument to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This country is proud that it is part of the mainstream response in the world to reduce emissions. Yes, there is a moderate cost to reducing emissions, but that cost does not arise from the Kyoto Protocol. If members on the National Party benches actually think about it, they will be forced to acknowledge that it costs more to do something different tomorrow than it does to just continue what we did yesterday. Implicitly, at its most simple level, the climate change response requires us to reduce emissions. It requires us to, tomorrow, do something different from that which we did yesterday.

That does imply some cost. The cost arises from reducing emissions—from doing something different tomorrow from that which we did yesterday. It does not arise from the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol is but a way to measure that cost. The cost arises from doing something tomorrow in order to reduce emissions.

The final point to make in respect of that is the nickel and diming that we hear from National Party members, yet again today, on Kyoto. It shows they still have not got the most simple of messages that has been so clearly articulated by Sir Nicholas Stern in the last week. He is the former chief economist to the World Bank. He was commissioned by the United Kingdom Government to look at the costs of climate change—not the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but the costs of climate change if we do not reduce emissions.

He found what we all know intuitively: that the costs of not reducing greenhouse gas emissions are far higher than doing something about it. Those costs are potentially dire. They are measured not just in economic terms—and the economic costs would be very high and are scary—but perhaps even more concerning are the security issues that arise when one has millions of people on the move as a consequence of their not being able to live where they currently live because patterns of food production change or sea levels rise. They do not have to rise a lot in order to pollute aquifers, particularly in low-lying Pacific Islands; but also in other areas such as Bangladesh, a relatively low increase in sea level, a relatively small increase in sea level, can have a lot of people on the move. Sir Nicholas Stern has shown that the costs of not doing anything are far higher than the cost of responses.

MARK BLUMSKY (National) : While I have this opportunity, I thought I would draw this document to the attention of my colleague on the Government side of the House, the Hon Marian Hobbs. She raised this document in her speech and actually questioned whether transport was mentioned in it. Now that she has sat down, if she studies the document I am sure she will get some inspiration when she reads pages 5, 8, 9, and 25. The document will give her great inspiration and guidance on transport and associated benefits.

It is nice to have this chance to speak in support of Part 1 of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. What is interesting is that this bill came via the Commerce Committee, so I am therefore unaware of the quality, quantity, and content of the submissions that came through the select committee process, apart from having read the report back. However, I am on the Local Government and Environment Committee and have heard and read hundreds of submissions on a number of bills, and in particular on the Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill. Through the submissions made during that select committee process, I became aware of a very loud, clear message. It was not my message. It was a message from the hundreds of submissions we had on, in particular, the Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill.

The message that came from the submitters in a totally unanimous message was that the Government has not done a lot in the past with regard to climate change. Those are not my words; they are the words of hundreds of submitters to the select committee. Submitters said the Government could not be proud of its lack of activity on climate change, and asked when and where the Government was going to show some leadership on climate change. Again, those are not my words; they are the words of submitters on the Resource Management (Climate Protection) Amendment Bill. I am absolutely sure that if I had sat on the committee that considered the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill and had managed to trawl through the submissions on it, I would have had exactly the same message given to me on that bill.

In speaking to Part 1, I take this opportunity to congratulate my colleague Nick Smith on his recently released Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand. I tell members that his leadership and his proactive work in getting a comprehensive discussion document out for debate has, in fact, been the leadership that has forced the Government’s hand, with the Prime Minister, just recently, starting to preach from her throne about the importance of climate change in her vision for New Zealand. She said in her speech at the Labour Party’s annual conference that the climate change crisis requires comprehensive strategies. I thought the word “crisis” was an interesting one for her to use, so I thought I would take the chance to have a quiet look at the definition of the word “crisis”. The dictionary definition of that word states: “an unstable condition, as in political, social, or economic affairs involving an impending, abrupt, or decisive change”.

Well, the abrupt change that the Prime Minister was obviously referring to when she talked about the unstable condition that creates a crisis must have been the shift in the polls. That would be the crisis. All the polling has the Government falling further and further down in the popularity stakes. Action was needed and a new topic had to be found to talk about, so the Prime Minister chose the climate change debate as her new topic of the year. It cannot possibly be that climate change was the crisis, even though she was talking about climate change, because her Government has been in office for 7 years. If climate change had been the crisis, then her Government would undoubtedly have addressed it a lot more aggressively, with a much higher priority a lot earlier on, than it is doing now. As my colleagues on the Opposition side of the Chamber have alluded to, there is not a heck of a lot to show for the Labour Government’s 7 years in office.

NATHAN GUY (National) : It is good to take a call on the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill we have in front of us this afternoon. I think the important thing to realise is that the Government had signalled in the past that it would steal credits from landowners, and now this bill puts that right.

New Part 3B, “Mechanism allowing landowners to access value created by Kyoto Protocol of carbon sequestration on land through establishment of forest sink covenants”, is really important. I think the real crux of this issue is to encourage enough plantings to happen in New Zealand. When one looks at what has happened with our forestry plantings over the last year, we see that we were planting 8,000 hectares of Pinus radiata, but that that has dropped now to about 1,000 hectares. The forestry industry is up in arms. It does not know, from the signals this Government has been sending over the last couple of years, exactly where the Kyoto Protocol is heading around the trading of these credits. I believe this bill addresses that—thankfully—and that is a good thing.

The other day when I launched A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand on our family farm north of Levin, it was interesting to see the number of people who turned up in support of that document. In the debate this afternoon, I heard someone call this document a brochure. Actually, it is 30 pages of an extremely comprehensive—

Hon Member: That was “Mr Otaki”.

NATHAN GUY: Was it? It was the member from Otaki, who has the slimmest majority in the whole of New Zealand. It will be interesting for him that the publicity—

Darren Hughes: There were 20 people at your stupid meeting!

NATHAN GUY: There were actually 40 who turned up. This is the front page of the local paper, which the member from Otaki struggles to get on now, because we have neutralised it. This is the sort of publicity we get up in Horowhenua-Kapiti. People turned up because they wanted to engage in our blue-green vision for New Zealand and not be turned off by the failed policies of this Government over the last few years.

In particular, let us talk about the “fart tax”. I rallied with my rural neighbours when Mr Hodgson would not listen to what the rural community was saying. It was saying that under research and development, the rural community is already paying a commodity levy. People did not want to be taxed twice. Then this Government decided it would move on—not with a carrot, but by hitting people around with a big stick—with the carbon tax. Fortunately, some of the minority parties who decided to jump into bed with this Government managed to make them see reason, common sense prevailed, and that was dropped.

What is fundamentally important is that this legislation will signal to members of the rural community—particularly on areas of hill country prone to erosion—that if they plant a tree, they will own the carbon credits. The landowner will own the carbon credits instead of the Government stealing them. So I think that is fundamentally a good thing. Some of the nursery growers who turned up on our property the other day were concerned about the signal that this Government is sending. They are unsure whether to grow seedlings of Pinus radiata, move into more poplar poles, or get into more natives.

Darren Hughes: How many of the 20 said that? Four of the 20, or three of the 20?

NATHAN GUY: The fundamental thing is that the member for Otaki has the slimmest majority in the whole of New Zealand. That is what he needs to learn. So although the Government side of the House can spout on, the climate has changed in Otaki, and the growing emissions under this Government’s watch has gone up four times faster than in the United States.

We have heard the Stern report that the Minister has just talked about, and the findings coming out of Nairobi at the moment. But in essence, people want to have less stick and more carrot. People need to be led with these changes and the changes need to be long term. People do not want Governments to say: “You shall do this, you need to do that.”; people need encouragement. That is why National’s A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand signals pretty boldly—with $1 billion over a 10 year time frame—how it will sort out the environmental practices where this Government, I believe, has been negligent.

• The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 67 in the name of the Hon David Parker to Part 1 be agreed to.
• Amendments agreed to.
• Part 1 as amended agreed to.

ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) : Part 2 of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is the part that makes some amendments to a number of Acts, particularly the Forests Act 1949, and inserts some new provisions. One outlines just what a forest sink covenant is, and the regulating powers in relation to that. So this part is perhaps a little more technical, but National is again going to support this particular part because, again, it moves us into a position where we have a mechanism whereby ownership can be recognised individually. We see that as a crucial part of moving forward.

I will reflect on the relationship of this part to the bill as a whole. The bill is a Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. Principally it deals with issues surrounding forestry and carbon sinks. It is interesting to note in this debate this afternoon, in the Committee stage of this bill, that most of the contributions from the Government side—and there have not been many of them—have criticised National. Government members have not stood up and said: “This is our bill. We are proud of it. This is the blueprint that will take us forward because …”. We have not had that.

When I addressed Part 1, I made the point that this has to be more comprehensive than just dealing with the forest issue. Climate change is a complex issue, and if this is the Government’s response to the issue, I have to say that it is missing out. We have had the Minister, the Hon David Parker, say a little bit about working with the Greens, and we have talked about the sequestration through forestry in these carbon sinks. Well, it is much more complex than that. Can we just talk a little bit about the part that carbon sinks will play. It is good that the legislation identifies and has an interpretation of what carbon sinks are, how they are set up, the regulating powers, and all of that. It is good to have those outlined so that we have some understanding about that. But in reality, when our country is the worst-performing country in the OECD—

Hon David Parker: It’s not.

ERIC ROY: It is very close to it, I say to the Minister. He might say it is not, but today in Nairobi a paper was tabled that stated that it was. Let us not get into the semantics of whether we are the worst or the second-worst; we are bad; our performance is bad in terms of proportionality of the greenhouse gases we emit. We have to look at New Zealand as a land mass and ask whether carbon sinks are the future. Yes, they are part of it, but what part will they play? We have very little land now that can actually be identified as probably being a preferable forest option. Yes, there are probably a couple of hundred thousand acres in the Manawatū–Wanganui area that need to be set aside into forestry, and maybe there is a wee bit up the East Coast. But when we are performing so badly, we could plant the whole of New Zealand out in trees, and the sequestration of that might bring us to our 1990 levels, which is what we promised to do under Kyoto.

But when we have the total land mass of New Zealand in trees, what do we do then? For a start, what do we do for exports? So, yes, trees are important and we need to encourage people to plant trees for all sorts of reasons besides the sequestration. But simply to present us with this bill as a blueprint for the way forward is very, very short of the other things that need to take place.

I note that in some of the debate we have had around this, speakers have said that trees are important. Yet we have had a number of Government speakers stand up to say that agriculture is the evil and causes about 50 percent of the greenhouse gases produced in New Zealand. Is it? I invite the Minister to take a call and explain to us why sequestration into trees that are consumed is good, but sequestration of carbon into grass that is consumed is bad and causes huge problems out there in terms of New Zealand’s profile in the world as a greenhouse gas emitter. It seems to me that we cannot rely on the science with trees and then discredit it on the grass, because the trees, by and large, are consumed—

DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) : I seek leave of the Committee to table an extract from the Horowhenua-Kapiti Chronicle of Friday, 3 November, which reports that 20 people attended the National Party environmental policy launch, not 40 people as claimed by Mr Guy in his speech.

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

JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) : I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, which makes amendments to certain other Acts of Parliament that are affected by this bill. They are the Forests Act of 1949, the Land Transfer Act of 1952, and various other Acts. This bill, and this part of the bill, deals with issues to do with forestry, carbon sequestration, and carbon sinks.

It is interesting to note—if I talk about forestry for a moment—that throughout the 1990s in New Zealand an average of 60,000 hectares of new forests were planted each year. Actually, I remember it very well, particularly the Kāingaroa Forest in the middle of the North Island, which was in full planting mode earlier than that but was in full production in the 1990s—if my memory serves me right. Forestry was a big industry with a lot of confidence, and a big export earner for New Zealand. What do we have now, after 7 years of this Labour Government? We have close to zero forest plantings. That is not exactly a fine record for the Government in terms of affecting climate change.

Why should we care about the amount of forest being planted? Well, I think there are several reasons that we should care about the level of forestry investment. The most obvious reason is that forests are the greatest absorbers of carbon, and planting forests is the best thing we can do for climate change in New Zealand. I think we must always remember—and I think the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues has quite forgotten—that we did not create the problem of climate change in the world, as we produce only 0.4 percent of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions, and we are certainly not the answer to the problem. However, we can make a contribution to solving it, which we are all doing by supporting this bill. And National does support this bill, but with some amendments, because we believe that environment policy should last for longer than the term of any Government.

I reflect that Nick Smith wrote to the Minister back in January this year—am I right, or was it December last year—offering a bipartisan approach on the issue of climate change. National members have not had an answer to that letter, but here we stand in the Chamber today, supporting the Minister’s bill on climate change. At least National is prepared to work in a bipartisan way on climate change.

Why else should we care about forestry planting in New Zealand? We should care because vast areas of eroding hill country, mostly in the North Island, desperately need to be planted in trees. But we need incentives to plant forests on that eroding land. Why else should we care? We should care because the forest industry is our fourth-biggest export industry. Well, it was, until the current Government’s policies shut down the forest export industry, and caused a huge loss of confidence within that industry.

This Climate Change Response Amendment Bill goes part of the way—and we do support it—but it must be said that climate change response is a little more complicated than sequestering carbon in forestry. Carbon sequestration is very important, but is that it for the Government’s climate change policy? The Prime Minister last week, in her “get out of jail free” card conference speech tried to turn the agenda from some of the unpalatable issues that Labour has been faced with, and talked about carbon neutrality, which is a very worthy aim—very, very highfalutin. How are we going to do it, though, when all we have on the books is a Climate Change Response Amendment Bill that deals with carbon sequestration? We know that it goes part of the way, and we support it, but, gee, I say to the Minister that there has to be an awful lot more from him. Has he read National’s A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand? I can tell him that it is very good, and it has been so well received that it has actually been embarrassing. You know, it is very embarrassing, because—

Eric Roy: Printed on recycled paper.

JACQUI DEAN: Yes, with natural vegetable dye inks. People would think that this party came from the greener end of the spectrum. Well, in fact we do. National takes the environment very, very seriously. I myself was a member of—and some of the older members in this Committee will remember it—Ecology Action.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) : It is very interesting to listen to the debate that is taking place in the Chamber at the moment, and I acknowledge the comments from the Greens about this Parliament being a Parliament that agrees with things. However, this is also a very good opportunity to rub the Government’s nose in it, around the saying “Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.”

R Doug Woolerton: Where did you learn that?

COLIN KING: I tell the member that I did not learn it from listening to him.

The Kyoto Protocol has been around for a long time, in the sense that it was there and it was waiting to be progressed and developed. When we in the National Party said that we would wait until our trading partners signed it, so that we would not totally disadvantage ourselves, that was very wise. When we look at the bill we see that today we have another change—a change for the better—whereby those who have the opportunity to commit to supporting and developing carbon sinks will be able to do so. There was a rush to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol and, if I remember matters, the Minister’s comment at the time was that National would burn a $200 million cheque. Again, Minister Hodgson was wrong, and in actual fact the countries that have not signed up to it—in particular, our neighbour Australia—have been more successful over the ensuing years than this tired Labour Government has been.

Let us go back to the “fart tax”, because at that time I was on the board of Meat and Wool New Zealand. It was very interesting to try to get the message through to the then Minister, Pete Hodgson, that all the science was being done. But that was not the angle he was coming from; he saw that measure as a chance for him to win the debate in the public arena, to be able to screw farmers for a second time, and to be seen to be the one who was doing the utmost to live up to our Kyoto obligations. The Government was not only proposing to rob people of the credits for forestry but was going to reinvent the research and development work on ruminant controls and methane emissions.

Jacqui Dean: Poor cows.

COLIN KING: Poor cows and poor farmers! Farmers struggle under the burdens of the Resource Management Act and all the other regulations that this Government puts up. So it is good to see that, at the end of it all, a bit of common sense is starting to show through.

There were 7 long years of nothing. It is interesting to see the Minister scribbling away there with his pen. He will take me to task on that, but he must be prepared to, because at the end of the day when we look at Project Aqua—again—from the rural perspective, we see that the Government did not have in place the necessary framework so that we could work through to a logical, a coherent, and an acceptable situation. I reiterate the saying “Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.”

We have 8 million cattle and 40 million sheep in New Zealand, and when we look at the issues around climate change, we see that, effectively, they concern agriculture in the south, and industry, cars, and electricity generation in the north. We cannot have a one-size-fits-all solution, and on that basis, when I look at our recent release A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member needs to come back to Part 2.

COLIN KING: I tell members that it took a fair amount of consideration for the Government to appreciate just how important the forestry side of it all is. This part amends the Forests Act by inserting new Part 3B, which talks about carbon sequestration. That is quite significant, because Marlborough has a very interesting group of primary producers who are hugely concerned about the failure of the Government’s policy in terms of promoting agriculture and forestry. Some areas in that region do erode quite noticeably. On that basis we need to reinforce the issues around climate change.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) : I will respond to a few of the statements that have been made today—

R Doug Woolerton: You’ll be going for a week!

Hon DAVID PARKER: That is right. Correcting some of the errors that have been mentioned in the few speeches we have heard from the National Party on just this part will take some time.

First of all, Eric Roy said that the Labour members of the Committee had said that agriculture is the evil supplier of 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. I have been here during the whole debate, and that has not been said. It is true that agriculture does account for 50 percent of New Zealand’s emissions, but that does not make it evil. I have never said that; neither has this Government. It does mean that progress is needed in the agricultural sector, as it is in other sectors.

The second point I would make is about the repeated claims to environmental responsibility on the part of the National Party. The self-praise its members heap upon A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand can be judged from the statement made by the last speaker when he once again attacked the Resource Management Act. That Act is the central piece of legislation that protects environmental sustainability in New Zealand. People cannot say they are in favour of environmental sustainability when they attack that Act.

This part of the bill, in terms of the contribution it will make to sustainability, encourages the afforestation of areas of land, especially those that are of marginal value and prone to erosion. The benefits from the afforestation of those areas include improved water quality as a consequence of reduced erosion. This bill will make a difference. All parties in this Chamber, it now appears, agree that this is sensible legislation, and I think that is progress. It is one step along the difficult road that New Zealand and the world have to take in order to remediate greenhouse gas emissions.

In terms of the suggestion made by the member that New Zealand did not create the problem, although it is true that we did not create the problem on our own, we have created it more than most countries. New Zealand’s rate of emissions on a per capita basis is higher than most countries’ rate. We cannot fix the problem on our own, but we should be part of the fix. How are we part of the fix? This bill is an example of that. It will see increased afforestation through the measures regarding permanent forest sinks that will sequester carbon and therefore reduce the world’s problems relating to greenhouse gas emissions.

MARK BLUMSKY (National) : I will follow on from the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues and just say there is some real merit in what the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is doing in establishing the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative. We should applaud that initiative as a whole, as members are doing today.

Part 2 relates specifically to setting up the development of the tools that will allow landowners to access the value of the carbon sequestration on land by the establishment of the forest sink covenants. I referred to the Hansard debate on the second reading of this bill, and I will quote from Jeanette Fitzsimons’ speech, in which she said: “I have met a number of forestry companies that are just waiting for this bill to go through in order to take up the commercial opportunities that it offers. Some of them want to plant native production forests with continuous canopy; that is something that we badly need.” When we get signals like that because of the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative, then that has to be good. As the Minister alluded to, the ability to plant farmland and countryside that is prone to dramatic devastation caused by erosion or flooding is encouraging in terms of starting to put that right.

One of the good things about getting involved in these debates in Parliament is that one actually does a little bit of reading and learns something. I have to say that I did not know a lot about carbon sequestering. I now know a hell of a lot more, and I thought I would share with the Committee how highly effective forestry is in delivering on that. When we read the figures, we realise how important it is that we move forward on this and arrest the decline in forestry by planting a lot more trees. For example, I did not know that a cubic metre of wood contains 250 kilograms of carbon, while a cubic metre of air contains 0.17 grams of carbon. That means that a cubic metre of wood contains the same amount of carbon as 1.4 million cubic metres of air.

Rodney Hide: Are you sure?

MARK BLUMSKY: I suggest to the member that we have to be pretty happy that the trees are doing their job. Photosynthesis and the trees’ ability to lay down wood, which is cellulose and lignin, act as a powerful concentrator of carbon from the atmosphere in a fixed form. That has to be good for New Zealand, for sure. So now that we understand the power of a tree to suck so much carbon out of the air, we have to be very concerned that our afforestation rates, which historically were very powerful—up to 40,000 hectares a year—have fallen sharply over the last 5 years. In 1994 we had 100,000 hectares and last year we had 6,000 hectares. We do have to be concerned at that impact, and National therefore—as the Committee is doing—fully supports this initiative in setting up the sink.

The Commerce Committee received a submission from the Farm Forestry Association; it talked about the three possible drivers for decreasing plantation rates. Two of them, I thought, were quite relevant: that future returns on plantings are not sufficient to encourage planting, and that new investors who might have established new forests may have been discouraged by negative press regarding the forestry industry. I suggest that this bill is putting forward positive press. It is encouraging plantation opportunities within the forestry industry so that the sector can move forward, and we have to be very pleased with that.

So I am supportive, as is the rest of this side of the Committee, of what this bill is doing. As I have alluded, Part 2 is the mechanism that gives the opportunity for the sink to be established. We have to be pleased, understanding as we do—and as I have just shared with my colleagues here—the power of a tree and how much carbon it can take out of the air.

• The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 67 in the name of the Hon David Parker to Part 2 be agreed to.
• Amendments agreed to.
• Part 2 as amended agreed to.

ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) : As this debate draws to a conclusion in terms of the Committee stage, it is probably fitting to note that about now, at Flemington in Melbourne, horses are lining up and the nations of Australia and New Zealand may well not be listening to this debate. The matter we are debating is absolutely crucial in respect of our future responsibilities on this planet, and we do take those seriously.

I want to address an issue we have raised a couple of times, which is that this legislation is really very narrow. Firstly, in looking at the title and commencement clauses, I say to the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, that the process continues to give us mixed messages. This bill went to the Commerce Committee some considerable time ago. It was rushed relatively quickly through the select committee, then it sat on the Order Paper for 15 months. I have to ask, if this is a crucial piece of business that the Government wants to enact, why the lethargy in the process? I will be very interested in the response of the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, as to why the bill has been sitting on the Order Paper for so long.

I also commend the Minister for saying that agriculture was not evil. We know that it is not evil, but the Minister did not respond to the point I raised about the scientific element of that argument. As my colleague Mark Blumsky said, if photosynthesis locks up carbon in trees, why does it not work with other plant material, such as grass? The science around where one gets the 49 percent figure for good farming activity in New Zealand is an issue that is degrading us in the eyes of the world. Whenever Labour members say that we are the worst contributors in the world in terms of agriculture, and that the figure is 49 percent or 50 percent, I want them to get to the science behind that comment to find out exactly where those figures come from, because I cannot find them. I have challenged officials at the select committee and I have challenged the Minister before on those figures. I have challenged anybody who makes that statement and asked them to give us the detail and the science of where those figures come from. I look forward to the Minister’s response to that in a minute, and I may want to respond again, depending on how he responds, as it is an important point.

Our team on this side of the Chamber has been clear that, yes, we support this, but it is a minuscule element of what we need to do to address the problem. We do not support the Kyoto Protocol in its current form, but that does not mean to say that as a party we are not concerned about climate change. We do not support Kyoto because we do not see it fixing the problem. I will address that point quickly because I do not want it to be misunderstood.

The 1990 model of category 1 countries will make so little difference to climate change that it is virtually immeasurable. It may make a 2 percent to 4 percent difference in delaying the 100-year result—that is about what the scientists say. But in actual fact it will not do that, because those countries that are category 2 and category 3 continue to grow at an astronomical rate. When I read that in China alone a new thermal power station is commissioned every week, and in the last decade it has commissioned, I think, 14 aluminium smelters, then one has to say: “Well, hang on, if we and the countries in category 1 tidy up our act, we actually are not solving the problem.”

So this is not about a placebo. This is not about saying: “Yeah, we really care about planet Earth, and climate change is real so we will just sign up to something that is not going to work.” It is actually much more important than that. Yes, it is about us taking our responsibility, and being engaged in a process that will mitigate the problem—that will actually solve it. Carbon sequestration in trees is a very, very small part of that. While we may have a semantic debate over the figures that are produced today in Nairobi about whether New Zealand is the worst, nearly the worst, or even halfway down, our response has been to rely on thermal electricity when we have sustainables that we could be advancing. I commend the Minister as we have done some stuff on wind turbines, but it is minuscule in terms of our power needs.

I have just a few more points. I raised earlier in the debate the point that if we are going to rely on carbon sinks, then it is more than just fixing up the registry about who owns the carbon. I am not planting trees simply because the returns are not there; the returns are not there because the processing is not there; the processors are not there because of the Resource Management Act and because no processor can now get a long-term contract on electricity. Those are issues that we have to address. We have to address the electricity issue in a sustainable way, and if we really believe that sequestration and trees are the answer, then we have to deal with those.

This bill falls short of doing that. Maybe it is not the vehicle to fix those things, but I say to the Minister that I want to hear how he will address those things as well, because they are crucial.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) : The member who just took his seat, Mr Roy, asked why it has taken so long to pass this legislation. The answer is that it is because it has taken time to build a consensus. It has taken time to build a consensus not just in this Parliament but outside of it. This legislation was ridiculed by his party when it was first called. It was ridiculed at first reading. It was ridiculed by his party at the Commerce Committee. It is substantially unchanged. It has always been very good legislation since it was first promoted by the Hon Pete Hodgson. He was ridiculed for his support of it. The member’s party still ridicules Kyoto, despite its being the most effective policy instrument that there is yet in the world to moderate greenhouse gas emissions.

The reason that this legislation has taken time to progress is that it was necessary to build a consensus outside of this place, outside of Parliament, in New Zealand. Through our own efforts, but also with the assistance of a bit of luck and the likes of An Inconvenient Truth raising people’s consciousness of climate change issues, that consensus within the community has now been reached. As a consequence of that, we are seeing support for this bill that did not exist before, from parties such as the member’s. The only thing that has changed in the intervening period is not this legislation—

Eric Roy: It’s changed quite a bit.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No it has not; it is public support. It is public awareness that the issue of climate change is serious and that the very large number of small steps that need to be taken to address climate change ought to be taken, and this is one of them.

MARK BLUMSKY (National) : It is nice to have this opportunity to follow the Minister in the chair, the Hon David Parker, because I think it is important to put a little bit of fact around the lovely story he was telling us. I have here the Government bill that was reported back from the Commerce Committee. I want to put on record the view of Opposition members on the Commerce Committee. The Opposition members’ view was from New Zealand First, New Zealand National, and ACT New Zealand, and they stated: “Opposition members oppose this bill on the grounds that New Zealand should not be implementing the Kyoto Protocol ahead of our major trading partners.”

That is exactly the reason for the position that was taken by members on this side of the Chamber during the select committee process. So for the Minister to make up a wonderful story with assumptions and presumptions that it was a lot more than that is wrong. It is important to note that our opposition was based on the fact that there was a discussion about writing cheques to Russia, which Kyoto would have enabled, and on the fact that our major trading partners were not signing up, and, therefore, why should we?

I think the Committee is very clear from our talking on the title that we are very supportive of the bill and the work it is trying to do. I think there is some embarrassment from the Government—or there bloody well should be—about the fact that the bill entered the House in 2005 and it is nearly 2007. It is a tragedy that half of the members who sat on that committee are not here now to be part of this process. I suggest that we need urgent action for sure, but at least we are getting there now, and that is important.

National supports the bill. We believe that it provides a sensible system of tradable emission permits, which is important for New Zealand and where we will need to go in the future.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) : National does support this Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, and I note that my colleague Mark Blumsky has just clarified National’s position throughout the select committee consideration of this bill. I think it is worth restating that although this bill goes some way towards addressing climate change, climate change response is a little more complicated than sequestering carbon through forestry plantation.

It is also worth noting again that in the 1990s we had something like 60,000 hectares of forest planting per annum and a robust export industry for forestry, yet in this Government’s tenure of 7 long years, forestry planting has dwindled to practically nothing. So I think it is worth noting that sequestration is very important, but I would ask whether that is it for the Government’s policy on climate change—a bill that was regarded to be so unimportant that it sat at the bottom of the Order Paper for 15 long months, and that for its select committee process had four members who are no longer in Parliament. We have to wonder how urgently this Government actually views climate change.

The Prime Minister talks about carbon neutrality because, of course, climate change is terribly fashionable at the moment. It is also terribly convenient for the Government because it thinks it gives it an opportunity to “get out of jail” and to get out of some tight political corners of its own making. But I think the Government’s own record on climate over the past 7 years shows that it is tracking backwards in dealing with climate change issues. Although I have mentioned that the amount of forestry planting being done has gone backwards, there are also some other indicators of this Government’s poor record on climate change.

Although the Minister in the chair, David Parker, has some lofty words about how we have some consensus, I also note that Nick Smith, National’s environment spokesman and an excellent colleague of mine, wrote to the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues, offering to work in a more consensual manner. So far he is still waiting for a reply—some 7, 8, or 9 months after he wrote the letter. National recognises that climate change policy needs to last longer than the term of any Government, which is why we are supporting this bill. It is the only initiative from the Government that remotely makes any sense. Of course, as has been mentioned several times throughout this debate—but I think it is worth mentioning again—there is also National’s excellent blue-green vision for the future, which has been embarrassingly well received in meetings up and down the country.

Eric Roy: They mentioned it at their conference.

JACQUI DEAN: It was mentioned at the Labour Party conference—well, there we are. National’s A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand environment discussion paper featured largely at the Labour Party conference, at which the Prime Minister talked about carbon neutrality.

So let us look at the Government’s record, because talk is fine but we should really look at the record. In the time of this Government—7 years—we have had a threefold increase in power produced from coal. I say to the Minister that I am looking forward to seeing a policy for the generation of energy, as is much of the generating sector in New Zealand. It is interesting, is it not, that when the Minister was a local MP, he not only blocked Project Aqua but sat very firmly on the fence of Project Aqua. During the last 7 years we have had the Government blocking the Hobson hydro power scheme—a renewable power scheme—over on the West Coast. At the same time we have had the Marsden B refinery go from petrol to coal, which is a mighty step backwards and is a record that would be hard to be proud of. And, of course, the Government has commissioned the Whirinaki power plant, which is an oil-fired power plant.

Last week I was at a lunch in Ōāmaru, my home town, at Gillies foundry. Gillies foundry has been a major manufacturing company in Ōāmaru for probably a number of years—up to a hundred, I suspect. At the relaunch of this company, which the Minister of Energy attended, the manager of the new Gillies manufacturing plant commented that it had a bright future in manufacturing for irrigation and other initiatives. The company’s main concern was competition with China, and that concern was several fold. One concern was that China could produce manufactured items such as pipes, valves, and various other items much more cheaply and could import them into New Zealand cheaper than the factory in Ōāmaru could produce them. The manager’s major concern with competition with China was that China is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol. I would love the Minister to tell the Committee how the Kyoto Protocol can be a good policy for the future of New Zealand when we are having to compete and trade with non - Kyoto Protocol signatory partners.

Our commitment to climate change needs to be more than carbon sequestration. We support this bill—with amendment—because it makes some sensible changes on carbon sequestration, but we must also make an honest attempt to reduce carbon emissions. Sequestering carbon emissions through forestry is fine, but we must make an honest attempt to reduce carbon emissions, and I do not see anything in the Government’s plans to address that issue. However, it is addressed in National’s blue-green vision for the future.

The answer to reducing carbon emissions does not lie in clobbering farmers. It does not lie in clobbering our export industries. I say to the Minister that we need to remember that we are, in fact, global citizens. We cannot shut ourselves off from the rest of the world and smugly think that carbon neutrality will do the deal, because it will not. I would like to know how the Government plans for us to aim for carbon neutrality without stuffing up our economy, because I fear that that is what it means. Thank you, Mr Chairperson.

• Clause 1 agreed to.
• Clause 2 agreed to.
• Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : I rise to support the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Bill this afternoon. I do so particularly because I have consulted with the wine industry in parts of my electorate, and also with the industry more generally though its high-level bodies, and it is clear that there is broad-based support for the bulk of this bill. There is just one area where we would part company with the Government on the proposals being promoted by the Minister in respect of this bill, and that is essentially around the mechanism that drives the process. The bill proposes that a Registrar of Registered Geographical Indications is appointed by the Minister and that this person be a public servant—a member of the Ministry of Economic Development. The committee would then have, as proposed by this bill, two additional people. One is the Surveyor-General and one is the Registrar of Registered Geographical Indications. Neither of those two people have the slightest competence to determine the geographic locale of a particular wine, because a wine—if we listen to people in the industry—has something called character. The character of a wine is dependent on soil type, on climate, on the winemaker, on the process used to make the wine—on a whole lot of factors, none of which are about putting lines on maps or determining place names.

Minister Tizard, through her Supplementary Order Paper, is proposing the option of one person from the wine industry being appointed to the committee. But the National Party will propose that the bill be amended, particularly clauses 36, 51, and 52, to allow a registrar to be appointed We have no problem if that person is a bureaucrat, but the industry must nominate the other two members of the committee, so that those members are known to have competence in the issues being discussed by the committee. We are asking that those amendments be made. I have tabled a Supplementary Order Paper.

Basically, the National Party supports this legislation in its general sense, but it does not agree that the process should be run by bureaucrats. We view this bill as a make-work scheme designed by bureaucrats and put forward by a Labour Minister, for no particular purpose. The bill specifically excludes competent people from being employed to make decisions on behalf of the industry. This is very, very poor public policy that we want to change.

I will reserve the right to come back and discuss the detail of these issues in due course, but I am just setting out that, yes, we support the bill, it is important for the industry, but we do not support the mechanism that is being proposed. I hope we will have support from other parties in this House. If we do not get that support, I serve notice now that were the Government to change, the changes proposed in my Supplementary Order Paper would be brought in by a National-led Government.

TIM GROSER (National) : Like my colleague John Hayes I rise to support the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Bill, but also to raise the question that my colleague has just introduced. I will talk a little bit about Part 1 and the ultimate purpose of the bill, in the first instance.

I appreciate, in the unlikely event that a large number of New Zealanders are listening to this debate, that the term “geographical indications” must seem almost incomprehensible. But this bill is quite an important part of the policy infrastructure that this country needs in order to advance an objective that is probably held in common by all the parties in this Chamber. That objective is to move away from commoditisation, to move up the value-added chain, to apply the knowledge of New Zealand entrepreneurs, and to secure it through intellectual property rights that are modern, up to date, and in keeping with our long-term strategic interests.

In the more distant past many of us have struggled to come to grips with this issue, but it has suddenly come to the top of the agenda as the years have ticked by. Although many people would have been familiar with intellectual property law, such as copyright, in respect of our creative industries, and would have understood the concept of patents in respect of our industrial intellectual property rights, few people, until a few years ago, would have quite understood the significance of adequate intellectual property law around the fabulous products that come out of New Zealand’s extraordinary resource base, including, in this case, the wine industry. If members want to look at the growing evolution of understanding in New Zealand, they have merely to look at another agricultural industry and the difference in the history of the Hayward variety of kiwifruit compared with the Gold variety. New Zealand scientists and farmers, and the industries that support them, developed this fruit, originally from China, into the Hayward, and did not take adequate intellectual property protection. The rest is history, and members know what happened and how that diminished our resource base as a consequence.

But we learnt a lesson. The industry has found a very novel way of protecting its intellectual property rights in this new variety of Gold kiwifruit. We can see the difference, particularly in the Japanese market, when we ensure that we protect our intellectual property rights and protect the commitment of our New Zealand people who put their hard work into these resource-based industries. This is an area of considerable importance to this country’s future. It is very important as we move up the value-added chain, and it is entirely appropriate that we should be looking to strengthen our intellectual property law in this way.

This initiative originated in the Uruguay round, in the context of negotiations over intellectual property law that lasted 7 years. Those negotiations became a very, very large part of the overall deal. This was not foreseen at the start of the negotiations; it was something that sprang up on negotiators as the years ticked by. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs agreement), which is part of the body of World Trade Organization law, emerged from these negotiations. It is an incorporation of almost ancient intellectual property laws going back over a century, but it also contains some more novel provisions.

This bill actually implements the obligations and principles behind negotiations that were completed 12 years ago. One might ask why the negotiations took so long. The answer is that a negotiation was foreshadowed in the context of article 24 of the TRIPs agreement; it foreshadowed further negotiation on the establishment of a registrar for geographical indications for wines and spirits. Wines and spirits were picked out by the European Union, partly for political reasons, as requiring what was called a higher order of protection. The negotiation of that registrar, which I spent hundreds of hours in Geneva on, in another capacity, has gone absolutely nowhere. It is locked in a very obscure and complex procedural wrangle.

Frankly, it is right for this Parliament, given the ambiguity over the future of that negotiation, to get on and do the right thing. So, yes, this legislation to put in place our obligations and the principles of an agreement made in 1994 has been a long time in coming, but we might as well do it.

R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) : New Zealand First supports the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Bill. We see items of this nature as necessary evils; we see them as barriers to our trade that are put up by the European community and others. Having said that, and accepting that we have to play by their rules when it comes to exporting into their countries, I say that we need to take advantage of the barriers if we are to have them in place, and we need to make sure they work for us. I am pleased to see that in some ways this bill goes towards doing that.

We will not be supporting the amendments put up by the National Party, for two reasons. Firstly, we are satisfied that the registrar can tap into relevant expertise as he or she sees fit. We have sought clarification on that point from the Government, and we have been satisfied as to the extent that they can do that. Secondly, and this is somewhat personal, I have always wondered why industry groups would join in with the Government in a registering situation or in a judicial situation. It is a healthy tension, and a rightful one, for industry groups to have their say, then stand aside from the judicial body or the registrar or whatever it may be, so they can more fairly, more transparently, and more vehemently put their case. If they lock themselves into a situation like this, then I believe that actually weakens their case and they will have a hard job if they find that things are not working in their favour. That is a personal view formed through bitter experience in a practical farming sense over many, many years. I have never been a trade negotiator, nor do I aspire to be one, but I have always believed that people who advocate on behalf of their members—growers, in most cases—should reserve the right to challenge any decision made by the Government. I suggest to them that if they were to have a decent talk to their lawyers, their lawyers would probably advise them that that is the better way to go. It reminds me of the old story: stay outside the tent and preserve one’s integrity, and fire shots at those within.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) : It is a pleasure to stand and speak to the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Bill, and speaking as the member for Kaikoura, which encompasses that beautiful area of Marlborough that grows 60 percent of New Zealand’s grapes, I see this bill as highly important. I also pay tribute to the maturity that has developed over a number of years within the industry, and I pay tribute to how that maturity has taken a great step forward on the world stage. At a time when Australia is pulling out grape vines, we are still maintaining very high prices for our product on export in those countries of the world that can afford to pay it.

It is significant to note that we are moving in Marlborough to an area of some 20,000 hectares, which will be achieved in the near future. There are, say, 70 outstanding brands in that region. However, what we are finding is increased pressure from multinationals as we go forward. They do a good job, but they too want to see that we maintain the unique natures of those geographical indications that are reflected in the soil types. I am told that our soil types in New Zealand are young, as opposed to those European wines such as those grown in Bordeaux, Champagne and suchlike, or Chianti. It is so very important that we maintain their integrity, and do not allow that to be affected by the fact that we are being bought out by some very large operators, one of which is Pernod Ricard, which owns 30 brands of wine and which draws on 5,900 hectares of grapes within the Marlborough region. When I spoke about 15 months ago to the general manager of Montana, which is one of the company’s brands in this country, the manager said the company was still importing more sauvignon blanc than it was purchasing in Marlborough. Therein lies the risk: we have to have in place good solid international regulations around what can be called a Marlborough sauvignon blanc. So I would put back to the member from New Zealand First that we are not dealing in cooperative models like Fonterra or PPCS and meat companies. We are actually dealing with a product that could easily and subtly be watered down with product from outside.

It is quite significant that when one looks throughout New Zealand, one sees that we have some outstanding regions. We have the Martinborough area in the Wairarapa where John Hayes represents the National Party—he is a very good member indeed. We have Waipara in North Canterbury and we have Marlborough. We have Central Otago, the Hawke’s Bay, and Nelson. These regions are all uniquely different. They specialise in different grapes; what grows remarkably well in the Hawke’s Bay does not do quite so well in Marlborough, and on that basis we have to protect the entrepreneurship and investment of those viticulturists.

It is appropriate, then, that we see that the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is entered into. On that basis we should adhere to it not only for the integrity wrapped around the 85 percent factor but from the point of view that those people who continue to invest in viticulture in New Zealand, which will continue to grow, can have the certainty that where they buy they can guarantee that if that name is held up with integrity around those international agreements, their investments will be future-proofed.

I wish the bill all the very best, as we are prepared to support it, but I strongly recommend that members look at giving the responsibility to the industry of being able to set up those particular geographical indications boundaries. Industry members are the ones who know the very intricacies of the wine industry and as such we should welcome their expertise onside, so that they know from the inside just what is going on. If we do not allow them that, then there will be every chance of diluting those brands and allowing them to drift off into insignificance, and those who have changed from one land use—like pastoral farming—into the viticulture industry will lose those returns.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : I want to address some comments made by my parliamentary colleague from the New Zealand First Party Doug Woolerton. One of the problems we face in this country is that the bureaucrats have taken over the business of governance from this House. They can do that because a number of political colleagues in the House do not do their homework. I believe that the Minister who introduced the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Bill, Judith Tizard, did not understand a word she was saying, and Doug Woolerton from New Zealand First clearly did not understand what he was talking about. He has not read the bill. We heard that he is a farmer and has done various other things, and that he has an understanding of Federated Farmers, but that is totally irrelevant to this bill.

We are debating Part 1, which contains the purpose clause—clause 3. Paragraph (a) of clause 3 states that the purposes of the Act are to “contribute to the development and continual growth of, and innovation in, the wine and spirits industries in New Zealand by providing a suitable legal framework for the registration of geographical indications;”. I ask Doug Woolerton how that requires decisions by the Government. The man completely misunderstands the bill. I do not believe he has read it. Under paragraph (b) the purposes are to provide “a sound trading and marketing environment that facilitates, rather than creates barriers to, the trade in wine and spirits;”. I ask Mr Roberts—

Colin King: Woolerton.

JOHN HAYES: —Doug Woolerton, I am sorry. I got the name wrong. That is what happens when one is dealing with insignificance. I ask him how paragraphs (a) and (b) of clause 3 are relevant to the Surveyor-General putting lines on the map. How are they relevant to the man who runs the national naming process in this country giving names to places? Neither has any relevance to determining the character of a wine. As I said before, the character of a wine comes from the soils, the climate, the winemaker, and a whole lot of things. We need to allow the industry to find competent people to make decisions about geographic indications. This bill specifically precludes that from happening.

This bill will allow bureaucrats to run this process on behalf of our industry. I believe that far too many bureaucrats are running this country and that they are well out of political control, because people, like Mr Woolerton, do not do their homework and understand the dimensions of legislation that is being put forward. The bureaucrats are running this process, not the House. The House should be doing it. I ask all members to understand very carefully what is going on here and to make sensible decisions. If they do not, they are damaging our industry, and if they are damaging our industry, they are damaging our economy, and if they are damaging our economy, they are damaging every individual in this country, because we will not be earning the money we need to compete globally. Doug Woolerton was absolutely wrong in his comments. He did not understand anything of what he was saying. He has not read the bill.

I draw members’ attention to Part 1, “Preliminary provisions”, and, in particular, to clause 4, which states: “international agreement means any bilateral or multilateral treaty, convention, or agreement to which New Zealand is a party,”. This is why we are passing this bill—for international reasons. It has nothing to do with the Government decisions that Mr Woolerton is talking about. He has not read this bill. [Interruption] Mr Chair, could you please call that man to order? Thank you, Mr Chair.

I move on to other interpretations in clause 4. I notice quite a big provision on the term “working day” that describes the working week and all sorts of other irrelevancies. This bill has been designed by bureaucrats who have nothing better to do with their day than to invent work for themselves at a cost to the taxpayer. This is very, very disturbing. We need legislation here that will focus and sharpen our economy and that will move this country ahead. We see the same sort of thing happening, for example, in the health industry. An army of bureaucrats has been recruited in the health industry to get rid of waiting lists for hospitals.

• Part 1 agreed to.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : I point out to members that the Green Party has moved an amendment to Part 2. It is an amendment to Supplementary Order Paper 66 in the name of the Hon Judith Tizard. The essence of our amendment is to give the industry representation on committees that may be set up to discuss boundaries and indicators. The present amendment contained in Supplementary Order Paper 66, in the name of the Hon Judith Tizard, is an amendment to clause 52(2) and adds the following paragraph: “(c) 1 or more persons who, in the Registrar’s opinion, have appropriate knowledge of the wine or spirits industry, as the case may be.” It became quite clear at the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee that the industry has a huge knowledge of indicators and boundaries. It is a pretty well-organised industry with two organisations, New Zealand Winegrowers and, on the spirits side, the Distilled Spirits Association of New Zealand. Those organisations were concerned at the way the bill was constructed; they said it did not allow the experience of the industry to have full play in the decisions of a committee set up to consider the registration of a geographical indication, the alteration of a registered geographical indication, or the removal of a registered geographical indication from the register.

Under clause 52, the Registrar can appoint a committee and its members. At the present time the committee must include the Surveyor-General or a representative of the Surveyor-General and a member of the New Zealand Geographic Board who is not the Surveyor-General. The Registrar can then appoint another person as appropriate, including a representative of the wine or spirits industry in New Zealand. But there is no requirement to have on any such committee anyone from the wine or spirits industry in New Zealand. So in response to the very good presentations from New Zealand Winegrowers and the Distilled Spirits Association of New Zealand, the Green Party thought it worthwhile to come forward with an amendment, because the Supplementary Order Paper as it stands refers just to someone who has appropriate knowledge of the wine and spirits industry. The person may not even be from the industry or be a member of an industry organisation; he or she just needs to have appropriate knowledge. I think that is a bit vague.

To make it more specific, our proposed amendment, which is on the Table, is to omit paragraph (c) from the Supplementary Order Paper amendment and substitute a new paragraph (c): “1 or more persons from New Zealand Winegrowers or the Distilled Spirits Association of New Zealand or another organisation representing wine and spirits producers.” I think that covers the field and guarantees that there will be on each committee someone from the wine and spirits industry, not just some individual who happens to have a vineyard. There will be someone from an industry organisation. The two organisations specified in the bill are the main organisations, but another organisation may form that deserves some representation on the committee. So it is just a simple amendment to cover that point about industry representation, and the Green Party hopes that it will meet with the support of others in the Committee.

TIM GROSER (National) : I will take just a brief call on this issue, following on from my colleague Mr Hayes. Under the principle that it sometimes takes a thief to catch a thief, I have to say that Mr Hayes and I, who have worked as officials for probably rather more time than we would care to admit, are extremely conscious of the times and occasions when we really need the expertise of an official, and the times and occasions when there are severe limitations in relying just on officials. So on the basis of that old principle we have been surprised, right through the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee process, that there has actually been a fundamental resistance on the part of the Government to the industry’s perspective on this.

Let me explain to the Committee the reality that I see coming through this, instead of using abstract terms. What will happen is that the Ministry of Economic Development will appoint as the registrar, if the legislation goes through in its current form, an extremely bright young intellectual property lawyer, whom it will have recruited at some recent point. That person will, because he or she will be extremely well informed about the policy frameworks, know his or her way right around the World Intellectual Property Organization legislation, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and all the other relevant conventions, and have a very clear view, from his or her academic training, as to what is required.

When it comes to the rather subjective nature of what is terroir, which is a word I think we use in English now to indicate the characteristics of wine, he or she will have only as much experience as he or she will have acquired at the University of Otago—it may be rather more than at other universities—through the consumption of wine up till that point. To make decisions here is not just a matter of applying the cadastral boundaries drawn up by the Surveyor-General; it requires deep knowledge of the industry and of the very subjective characteristics that make up the raw ingredients in a decision on what constitutes a geographical indication.

So this young person will be beavering away, working very hard and very earnestly on this, and trying to comprehend the very subjective information coming from industry, from the people who have been years in the business. That person will then be promoted within the department—this is the reality. I have heard this complaint about the official process 100 times from the industry—not necessarily in this context or in the context of the Ministry of Economic Development, but right across the board of Government—when a person with high levels of expertise and deep background is needed. That person will then move up in his or her career path within the ministry, or A J Park will recruit him or her at twice the salary, because intellectual property lawyers are very handsomely remunerated in the private sector. Then the industry has to start again, essentially by educating some other bright young thing.

How much better it would be if we could just understand the reality that this requires deep knowledge of the industry. It is not something that can be purely and simply acquired from studying intellectual property law at any of New Zealand’s excellent law faculties. It is something whereby one requires a deep involvement and some sympathy.

This proposal put forward by my colleague Mr Hayes to try to centre the process on the people with the expertise is simply common sense. It has been utterly mystifying to me why, in the course of putting this bill forward—and the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has worked in very good spirit—there has been such resistance. One always had the feeling that the resistance was not from the elected representatives of the Government, but from their fronting up for the officials who had a particularly sharp view about wanting to control the process. So I urge the Committee to consider quite carefully the human and other issues involved in this, and to support my colleague.

ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) : I did not intend to take a call, but I have been persuaded to do so by my colleague’s argument. There are some very good things about this bill and some things that have missed the mark, so first I will just say what is good. It is good that New Zealand now has a wine industry that has come of age, so we want to protect our identity. Members will recall that in the 1960s New Zealand wine was a joke around the world. We used to see it featured on various television programmes made in the UK as some kind of mistake, or as something that certainly did not have the prestige that it has today. So it is good that the wine industry has come of age. The wine that comes out of New Zealand is synonymous with quality and with quite a few specialty areas. A number of New Zealand wines, such as sauvignon blanc and pinot noir, can stand up anywhere in the world, and the good thing about New Zealand is that it has a diverse climate that allows it to produce a great variety of boutique wines. That is good.

But I am concerned about the process of registering geographical indications. I think that the comment from my colleague Mr Groser as to how this process will function hits upon the issue. It seems to me that we are setting up a bureaucracy in the wine industry that is not mirrored in other areas where there is an appellation strategy—that is, a naming, branding strategy—where we hand it to the industry and say that it is the industry’s responsibility. Maybe—and I do not know much about this area—an international geographical indication, which is what Part 2 provides for, needs the kind of protection provided by an Act of Parliament. I do not know that, but I accept it may be the case. However, I do not accept that we have to create a registrar, a registry, and a whole lot of laws around that. I believe it is the industry’s responsibility to determine how it wants to do that and how it wants to progress.

At various times we have had illustrations of how this Labour Government has created myriads of increased bureaucratic offices around the capital. I forget how many more tennis court - sized office spaces there are, but the number is significant. And here it seems that we are setting up another bureaucracy. That rings a few alarm bells for me. As I read through Part 2 and saw precisely what it does, I became more and more convinced that this is something we should do in the same way that we have done with regard to the dairy industry and its branding, or to the branding of any other sector, and say it is the industry’s responsibility to set the system up.

In one of my other roles in Parliament, I sit on the Regulations Review Committee. When I reached the end of Part 2, I saw in clause 55 a whole raft of regulation-making powers, and that just made me quiver with concern. Clause 55 states: “The Governor-General may from time to time, by Order in Council, make regulations …”. Set out are 11 different subclauses, prescribing the areas that the regulations can be set up for. I can see that there are not really a great deal of checks and balances in that. We are setting up a registrar and giving that official the power to co-opt and appoint people on to his or her own committee, and then they will draft regulations as they deem fit, without having any responsibility back to the industry, as far as I can determine, in terms of Part 2. I invite the Minister or anybody else who is promoting this bill to show me how that process works. I ask to be shown the responsibility the registrar has to the industry—the consultation process, and the authority that the registrar has to operate on the industry’s behalf. It is Parliament that is giving authority to the registrar, not the industry. Not only are we doing that but the registrar is going to keep the registry surrounding geographical indications—

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : I would particularly like to thank Keith Locke for his constructive suggestion and his amendment. The problem with it is that if it were adopted it would still leave control with bureaucrats. Sure, there would be slightly better defined industry representation, but I have talked to industry representatives about this issue and asked them who are the sorts of people they would put up. They have named people such as professors at Auckland University, and people who are outside the day-to-day administration of the industry—and I hope Doug Woolerton is listening to that comment, because it is not about the industry necessarily appointing people from within the industry; it is about the industry appointing recognised experts in the field.

I say to Mr Locke that I particularly feel that his suggestion, while constructive, does not go far enough. If we are going to amend the bill, and the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper, we have to begin further back down the track. What we need to do is create a geographic indications committee that will sit on all applications except for geographic indicators registered under an international agreement. We suggest that the committee comprise three members, but it could take advice if needed. Where the application involved a wine geographic indicator, two members of the committee must be nominated by the New Zealand wine industry; that is, if my recommendations are accepted. The committee is the authoritative decision-making body—not the registrar. The registrar does what he is told by the committee, and its decisions are registered by the registrar, who does not participate in the decision-making process, because he is incompetent. He has no competence whatever to get involved in the decision.

What I am suggesting is absolutely in line with the process being used in other jurisdictions, such as Australia, but it still respects the fact that the process is being operated through the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand.

The proposed amendments set out on my Supplementary Order Paper suggest omitting clause 36. The power to seek advice needs to be transferred to the committee if it is already making a decision. We have to omit from clause 51(1) the words “may, if the Registrar thinks fit”, and substitute the word “must”. This makes it compulsory for the committee to consider all geographical indication amendments or approvals.

The third suggestion is to omit from clause 51(2) the words “to advise the Registrar on issues relating to the boundaries and the use of a place name as a geographical indication”, and substitute the words “to decide on the matters relating to the registration of a geographical indication or the alteration or removal of a registered geographical indication”. This changes the function of the committee, from an advisory body to a decision-making body.

Then I think we have to add a new clause 51(3), “Notwithstanding (1) and (2), it is not necessary for the Registrar to establish a geographical indications committee for the registration of geographical indications in accordance with regulations made under section 55(k), or for the alteration or removal of geographical indications registered in accordance with regulations made under section 55(k).” This means the full committee is not required where foreign geographical indications are being registered, pursuant to an international agreement, and that will save the committee a heck of a lot of unnecessary work.

We will omit clause 52(1), which is unnecessary given that the number and composition of the committee is now fixed. The registrar already has the power to establish the committee, under clause 51(1). Then I think we omit clause 52(2), and substitute: “Each committee must consist of 3 persons appointed by the Registrar having knowledge or experience of the issues relevant to the application.” This clause picks up Mr Locke’s suggestion and also the Minister’s tentative move in this direction. It removes the mandate for the Surveyor-General and the New Zealand Geographic Board to sit on the committee, and it creates a fixed committee that takes into account all the relevant issues.

Then, I think, one has to omit clauses 52(3) and 52(3A) on Supplementary Order Paper 66 and substitute them with new clause 52(3) that states: “When the decision in section 52(1) relates to a geographical indication for wine, two of the members appointed to the committee must be nominated by the national industry organisation for the New Zealand wine industry.” The spirits industry, while relevant, is not actually relevant at the moment, because we do not produce spirits in New Zealand; those that did produce here have now been sold to an offshore buyer. This will allow the wine industry to nominate appropriate committee members, as the wine industry is the best place to judge who the appropriate members would be. No equivalent mechanism is suggested for the spirits industry, because, as I have said, there are no New Zealand geographical indications currently in use.

Then, I think, one omits clause 54(4)—a casting vote is not needed if the committee has only three members. Then we add a new subclause (6) to clause 54: “If the committee thinks it necessary, the committee may obtain advice on, and may consult about, any matter relating to—”, and the handwritten amendment lists the suggestions.

These are very constructive suggestions. I have consulted widely with the industry, and the suggestions are made to put the responsibility for administering this legislation on to the same basis as applies with our near neighbour, Australia, and it allows the industry to drive this, and not the bureaucrats who have no qualifications or experience in deciding what the character of a wine is and what a boundary for a wine area should be. This is a matter of considerable importance to my Wairarapa electorate, because we have areas such as Bideford, Gladstone, Martinborough, and further north into Hawke’s Bay growing wine in often small areas. This bill is very, very important to these people, but the one thing that strikes me, having moved from the bureaucracy in Wellington to the Wairarapa, is that our bureaucrats in Wellington do not understand the needs of our communities beyond the boundaries of Wellington.

This is a very big problem, and this is why I also urge colleagues in all parties to support the proposals I am putting up. It is very important that we allow the industry to drive this issue, and not bureaucrats in Wellington who are highly priced and highly paid, but are out to make work to keep themselves in gainful employment. The Surveyor-General has no expertise in this area, neither does the man who puts names on maps. We must put this process into the hands of our industry, and I serve notice again to this Committee that if it does not support this move, the next National-led Government will institute these changes forthwith, week 1, when the Government changes.

• The question was put that the following amendment in the name of John Hayes to clause 36 be agreed to:

to omit this clause.

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) : I move, That the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill was referred to the Social Services Committee for consideration and was reported back to the House with no commentary or amendments. The implementation of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Regulations from 1 July 2005 highlighted inconsistencies and anomalies in the legislation. The principle underpinning this bill is that all people requiring long-term residential care will be treated fairly. There are no major changes to current practice for long-term residential care for older people. The purpose of this bill is to address the anomalies in Part 4 of the Social Security Act 1964 so that the Government’s policy in relation to long-term residential care for older people can be fully implemented.

The Government promotes a legislative and fiscal environment that encourages aged residential care services that enhance the lives of older people. This includes fair treatment if an older person is assessed as needing long-term residential care indefinitely. Clarification in this bill of the maximum contribution means that all older people in an aged residential care facility that has a contract with a district health board for Government funding will pay the same price in that region for the same basic packages of services set out in the contract. Providers can offer, and people can agree to pay for, extra services over and above that basic package of contracted residential care services; nothing in this bill changes that.

Other changes to the Social Security Act 1964 included in this bill are a redefinition to ensure that overseas private pensions and annuities are treated the same as New Zealand private pensions and annuities when older people are being financially means-assessed for eligibility for the residential care subsidy, and clarification of eligibility for disability allowance for people in community residential care services and aged-related care.

The Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill has a number of minor, technical amendments, including the insertion of a purpose and overview section in Part 4 of the Act, to aid understanding of the long-term residential care provision; the increase of the income-from-assets exemption for couples with one partner in care, so that they are not disadvantaged compared with single people or couples with both partners in care; and a provision that people who are exempt from asset-testing, such as people subject to compulsory treatment orders or who have been deinstitutionalised from long-stay psychopaedic or psychiatric hospitals, are able to retain a weekly personal allowance.

I have released Supplementary Order Paper 37, which addresses issues around the backdating of eligibility for the residential care subsidy, the payment of disability allowance, and two minor technical amendments. Included in this Supplementary Order Paper is good news for those who will apply for a residential care subsidy. Cabinet has approved the extension of the current backdating period of eligibility for a residential care subsidy. Residential care subsidies will now be backdated for up to a maximum of 90 days rather than 28 days. This is a very positive change that makes a fairer policy for what proved to be an impractical period of time for people to apply for a residential care subsidy.

The Supplementary Order Paper also enables people with disabilities living in community residential services such as IDEA group homes, who apply for a disability allowance within 12 months of the 2006 Budget, to receive payment from that date—that is, from 18 May 2006—or the date they become eligible to receive it, whichever is the later. This means they will receive their full entitlements even if they take some time to apply. Two minor technical amendments included in the Supplementary Order Paper are a change to when the date of repeal of the regulation making the 1 July 2006 consumer price index adjustment to the income-from-assets exemption will take effect, and the date that the bill will take effect has been altered to the day after the bill gains the Royal assent. The Social Security (Long-Term Residential Care) Amendment Bill promotes fairness for older people in New Zealand. It clarifies Government policy so that it can be easily understood and applied.

There is one last matter. I am aware that the National Party has indicated that it is introducing a Supplementary Order Paper. It asks that an additional amendment be made to the bill to ensure that couples residing together in a retirement village under an occupation right agreement—a “licence to occupy”; sometimes known as an LTO—can stay together when one has been assessed as needing care. The Government also believes that couples should be able to stay together as long as it is possible and safe. There seems to be agreement across the House about that. That is the aim of the Government’s older people strategy. The issue has also been raised directly with me by New Zealand First and United Future, and I want to thank all those parties for their constructive approaches to finding a solution.

The entire purpose of this amendment bill is to ensure that older New Zealanders are treated fairly. If they are eligible for a subsidy, then they should receive it. If they are receiving the same care package, they should pay the same price, and if someone with an occupation right agreement is assessed as needing rest home level care, which is provided at their place, then the Government should pay for that, and the owner of the facility should not be paid twice. National’s amendment, perhaps unwittingly, allows for that double-up payment to occur. Nothing in the amended bill stands in the way of willing parties to find a solution to this problem. The Government expects parties to work together to find a solution, and some providers and district health boards have already done just that. Residential care providers will need to address the way in which they write their residential village occupation rights agreements, and district health boards will need to address this issue in their age-related residential care contracts.

I thank the Social Services Committee for its consideration of the seven submissions on this bill, and for returning it to the House unchanged.

PAULA BENNETT (National) : There is quite a clear reason why this bill is coming back to the House unchanged. That is purely because a mistake was made by the Government in the deliberations on the bill at the Social Services Committee, where Government members did not have the votes to make the changes they had proposed. The Minister left that piece of information out. But when it came to voting at the select committee, there were very shocked faces on the other side of the table as Government members saw themselves being without the numbers. In fact, one Labour member was heard to exclaim: “But I thought we had the numbers to make the changes.” Alas, Government members had not counted correctly.

I would also like to pick up on something with regard to the amendment, because the Minister made a very interesting observation when he said he was in agreement that everyone was on the same side in what we were trying to accomplish, in terms of wanting to keep older people living together as long as possible. He said that was favourable and no one could disagree with that. We heard submissions at the select committee, and we also heard from advisers and those sorts of people. We kept asking questions, and I suppose that from the National Party’s perspective our concern was that those questions were not answered sufficiently to allay our fears. Those fears were around the ability of providers to actually talk to each other and to district health boards, and then to address the needs of those elderly people who want to stay in their homes.

It is not a straightforward and an uncomplicated formula to try to come up with how those people are paid, how it all works out, and how couples can be kept together. But it was certainly said to us, time and time again, that if an elderly couple was in a home in a residential care village and one of them perhaps needed more care than he or she was currently receiving, that person would have to move out of that dwelling—even though it may be attached to the rest home—and into a room in the rest home, purely in order to get that care. That seemed quite ironic, when someone could be just crossing the road, or leaving one building and walking in another door in order to be able to have that care provided. People may not be at the extreme end of the care continuum; they may be only in the middle of it. But if they are assessed as needing more care than they have been receiving, they have to move out of their home. That applies in the case of elderly people who have moved into residential care properties in order to get that sort of assistance and that home. But in order to be eligible for the payment, effectively the couple would have to separate and the person requiring care would have to go into the rest home. That is what we took umbrage at. That situation is definitely where Dr Hutchinson’s amendment comes from; that is the whole philosophy behind it.

I also want to talk about the parts of this legislation that I think address stuff that needs to be addressed. The issue was about people receiving a disability allowance on the same basis, really, as other people in the community, and how we can help them with that. We certainly heard stories about those with disabilities requiring assistance, or being in residential care and not being able to get hearing aid batteries or having problems when they needed specialist dental care or primary health care. Providers pay for some things, but there are a number of things that they just do not cover. That really struck a chord with me, because I started to think about choice, which is quite a strong value that the National Party stands by. We believe that choice is an important part of all consumers’ ability to ensure that their particular needs and wants are met, and that consumers of residential care, of course, should be no different from other consumers. They should have choice, as well. So we note that through some amendments in this bill, we are giving people some finance that is their own money, which they can then spend in their own way. That gives them a choice about the sorts of services they can perhaps receive—and not only services but consumer goods, as we say. It struck me time and time again that that was positive and definitely needed to be done.

It used to be presumed that all personal health costs and similar items of a personal nature were excluded, because those costs were being met by the residential support subsidy. But of course that just was not happening. The sole discretionary income of a disabled person in care is $45 per week, and I do not think, in anyone’s terms, that that is a lot of money or will cover much of what such a person will need. Because of the lack of access to a disability allowance, a lot of those people were ending up going for a special benefit. They had to prove that they definitely needed something, and they had to go to Work and Income to try to get a special benefit or something to help them. We heard from the parents of disabled twins who were intellectually handicapped about how those parents were trying to have the twins’ needs met in that situation.

It was also interesting—and this struck me closely because it affects women—to note that women comprise nearly 70 percent of all the adults in residential care. Four percent of New Zealand’s estimated 743,800 disabled people lived in residential facilities in 2001. Those figures are from the last statistics I could find. The bulk of those people were aged 65 years and older; only 8 percent were between the ages of 16 and 65.

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

TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou te Whare. There is a whakataukī that I think will assist this House in understanding the issues associated with the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill: He whiringa takitahi ka hunahuna. He whiringa ngātahi, ka raranga, ka mau. If you plait the strands one strand at a time, the ends will fray and fragment. If you weave them together, they will hold. In this bill the Government’s policy goals for long-term residential care are being realised. Changes are made to the Social Security Act 1964 to amend the income and asset-testing regime for older people. But those changes on their own will be insufficient to enhance the well-being of our elderly people if the package is not supported with additional measures. As a nation, we must accord value and respect to our senior citizens. Promoting health and well-being throughout the life stages is an important strategy for improving the health of the older population.

The Māori Party comes to this bill aware that the Māori population is ageing faster than the population as a whole. Statistics New Zealand’s expectation is that there will be eight times as many Māori aged over 65 in 2051 as there are now—that is, 129,000 people. We also know that although the majority of Māori over 65 years remain in whānau homes, 2 percent of that population is currently in rest homes and 3 percent is in long-term hospital care, so the issues are becoming increasingly relevant. The demographics indicate that there will be an increased need for culturally appropriate residential care to meet the needs of Māori. Indeed, befitting the wisdom and strategic outlook of the late Sir Hugh Kāwharu, one of the consequences of the return of Takaparawhau Park—including Bastion Point—that emerged from the 1991 Orakei Act was that Ngāti Whātua established a retirement village and rest home as part of their long-term strategy. It was a strategy that maximised commercial opportunity and incentives, to create a sustainable capital base for future descendants, but it was also a strategy that took into account the increasing numbers of older Māori, including those of Ngāti Whātua descent.

A recent study of some 468 residential care facilities published in the New Zealand Medical Association’s journal describes the evolving needs of our ageing Māori. The study by Liz Kiata, Ngaire Kerse, and Robyn Dixon identified that although Māori are highly represented amongst the workforce, the number of elders in long-term residential care is more variable. Over 50 percent of the facilities in Northland, Waikato, and Hawke’s Bay had Māori residents. But other centres suggest that there may still be problems regarding the way that facilities respond to cultural concepts of elder care, which act as barriers. This issue will become more pertinent as the Māori population ages, and as the “middle” generation attempts to juggle caring for tamariki and mokopuna, with caring for elderly whānau members.

How does this bill address the growing need for the care of our kaumātua? The bill ensures that those requiring long-term residential care in a facility that has a contract with a district health board will pay no more than the maximum contribution for care, whether or not they are subsidised. In essence, the Māori Party supports the changes to the means-testing policies, because that is consistent with our desire to care for our pakeke—a commitment to manaakitanga. But we were, however, very interested in the arguments presented to the Social Services Committee by Susan St John, who believed that the opportunity to consider the appropriate funding of long-term care has been lost. It was Ms St John’s contention that there is not enough transparency in the discussions regarding the funding of long-term care. She suggested that without a proper consultative process and serious effort to define the upstream effects of the ageing of the baby-boomer generation, the policy will be a fragmented one. Weaving only one strand at a time makes the policy changes vulnerable to pressure from other factors.

Susan St John also raised the issue that the aggressive use of trusts to evade asset testing has been ignored in this legislation. As such, the incentive for the affluent to set up trusts and obscure their wealth still remains. The submission from Susan St John stated that in a society where students are laden with student debt and child poverty is rampant, the partial removal of asset testing poses huge intergenerational equity questions. And I want today to warmly congratulate Susan St John and the Child Poverty Action Group on the historic decision by the High Court yesterday, asserting the right of that group to act on behalf of children affected by discriminatory Government policies. The Māori Party supports the work that the Child Poverty Action Group has done in raising the issue of the worsened inequalities for a whole generation of children. And we believe that the analysis Susan St John lay in front of the select committee for this bill has also been very useful.

Another set of issues that came to the select committee, from Althorp Private Hospital, also bears further discussion. It was concerned that the cost to the Government of raising the asset-testing threshold would be at the expense of funding the provision of services and care to elderly people. And in the study I referred to earlier, the researchers concluded that the turnover of the residential care workforce suggests that the industry continues to be under threat from staffing shortages. The study found that the majority of facilities—indeed, 63 percent of all those studied—employed Māori health-care workers, while 15 percent, 70 in number, had Māori enrolled and registered nurses on their staff. Of even more interest was the fact that one-quarter of all facilities surveyed stated that they had employees who were speakers of te reo Māori as their first language, yet staff turnover was 22 percent annually. Reasons for staff dissatisfaction included low rates of pay, no involvement in care planning, and low job security.

Poor funding for quality rest home care for the elderly will inevitably restrict the opportunity for older New Zealanders to be given the attention they require in a timely and an effective manner. Issues regarding the retention of staff, an inability to provide culturally responsive care, a refusal to give due attention to the vexed issue of trusts, and a lack of consultation are all strands that threaten the strength and viability of the proposals contained in this bill.

The roles played by kaumātua in community decision-making and in the intergenerational transfer of language, knowledge, and culture are essential to our well-being as whānau, hapū, and iwi. Kaumātua play a strong role in formal leadership, whether in tribal strategic planning or in “leading from the back” through the guidance that continues to sustain marae, hui, and other institutions. To attain the status of kaumātua is to hold a respected position within the Māori community. In the current climate in which New Zealanders are living longer than previously, we must make every possible effort to ensure that increased longevity is matched by improved health status and enhanced well-being.

The Māori Party will support the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill in the understanding that the bill does contribute to supporting the long-term prospects of our aged. But we were disappointed that the select committee chose to overlook the opportunity provided by the wealth of submissions to address some of the issues that I have raised tonight. In particular, we remain interested in the notion of a royal commission of inquiry into long-term care proposed by Susan St John and believe that to be an idea that may benefit from further discussion in this House. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou.

• Debate interrupted.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) : I rise on behalf of the National Party to speak on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill. I am a member of the Social Services Committee; in fact, I am the deputy chair. As such, I was part of the process of listening to the people who came to the select committee to submit in relation to this bill.

When we look at the bill presented to us in the House tonight we see, sadly, that something is missing—that is, there is no report from the Social Services Committee on this bill. Absolutely no amendments whatsoever are contained in this bill. There is a reason for that, which is that the Government did not turn up in sufficient numbers to get its own bill through the select committee. So after all the submissions from submitters, after all the hours we spent on the bill, and after all the discussions, the Government could not turn up in sufficient numbers to put through its own bill, and that is an indication of a Government in crisis. The Government’s coalition and supporting parties turned up, but the Government did not turn up. Those parties did their bit, they did as they were told, yet Government members did not turn up. Rather, to be utterly correct, they turned up and then went away. They did not turn up for the vote. But the most amazing thing is that the chair of the select committee—the person who actually controls the agenda—is a Government member. So the Government has lost control of its own chairperson.

Unfortunately, that means that in front of us tonight is a bill in its original form, as presented to the House for its very first reading. But today is its second reading; we will have to wait until the Committee stage to debate the changes the select committee agreed to make—actually, it did not agree to make; it wanted to make—which the Government will very soon be trying to push through on a Supplementary Order Paper.

I commend to the House the Supplementary Order Paper to come in the name of my colleague Dr Paul Hutchison. One of National’s concerns about this bill is addressed by Dr Paul Hutchison’s amendment. His amendment would allow elderly people with up to $150,000 worth of assets to purchase an apartment within a rest home and still retain their subsidy. Previously they unfairly lost the subsidy if they used their assets or money to purchase an apartment. Dr Hutchison has taken the stance of improving a bill that in one case in particular National does not agree with.

The issue in the bill that we find so absolutely obnoxious, apart from the point addressed by Dr Paul Hutchison’s Supplementary Order Paper, is that the bill says to rest home residents that even if they want to pay more for a service, they cannot do so. In fact, it states that if a person in a rest home has been assessed as being in need of care, that person cannot pay more for the service than that amount the Government has decreed. That might sound fine to people who feel that nobody should be able to rise above whatever they think the lowest common denominator is, but it means that people who build rest homes or facilities for the aged, and for those who cannot live either in their own homes or with their families, will not be able to afford to build those facilities in areas where property values are higher than in other areas. It is as simple as that. At the end of the day a rest home is a business. Yes, it is a provider of services for vulnerable members of the community, but at the end of the day it is also a business. If we wish to ghettoise our elderly, then this is exactly the sort of bill to pass. There are many good parts of the bill, but this main part, this utter disregard for the ability of the elderly to contract for services in their own right, is an imposition on those people. It says they cannot live in areas they wish to live in, they cannot pay for services they wish to pay for, and that, in fact, they must have, and pay for, the lowest common denominator.

What we find so offensive with this provision is not so much that that is what it says, but that it also says that even if the elderly person is paying his or her own way—even if it is someone who has said “I don’t want a cent from the State. I have more of my own money.”—and even if that person is assessed in a medical sense, then instantly his or her ability to contract for services, which should be able to be provided at the rate he or she wants, has been affected. That is treating the elderly who wish to pay their own way as though they are mere children. They are not mere children, and that is the provision we on this side of the House find so utterly distasteful—that some bureaucratic body down in Wellington should tell our elderly people, who wish to and can afford to pay for themselves in their old age, what they can have and what they can pay for. [Interruption] It is, in effect, as Dr Paul Hutchison has just said, communism. It is absolutely distasteful to our elderly.

We received submission after submission from people who objected to that sort of imposition. We heard from rest home people who said that, frankly, it means they cannot afford to have rest homes and provision for the elderly in suburbs where the price of land might be high, because who could afford to have them? Rest homes will be ghettoised if this stupid provision prevails. National members see no problem with raising the asset level for means testing. We understand that absolutely, and we think it is only fair in light of the inflation that has occurred in this area under this Government.

But when we say to the elderly that we will treat them like children—that even if they are paying their own way we will treat them as though they are little children who cannot make up their own minds—that is an absolute breach of human rights. I am astonished that other parties in this House think it is OK to treat elderly people like that. We are all for saying to people that if the State is paying their way, the State should have a say in what is provided for them. But if the State is not paying their way, what in the world does the State have to do with telling them what they can get?

The way around this will be that the elderly who do not wish to live in particular areas, and who do not wish to be told what they can and cannot pay for, will revert to serviced apartments instead. That will not help the elderly. It will mean that they will not have the same regulations or the same ability to have certain products and services that rest homes can provide. It will affect elderly people’s choice. Why is it that we think it is all right to treat our elderly people like that? In the National Party we do not think that. National agrees with certain provisions of this bill, but not with that particular one, or with the issue that Dr Hutchison’s Supplementary Order Paper will deal with. Those two concerns are absolute sticking points.

I have to say that when we have a bill presented like the one we have today, from a select committee that is controlled by the Government and its minor parties, with not one scrap of the work of the select committee and its amendments included, and with no commentary whatsoever, we have yet again another piece of evidence that this Government cannot get the numbers, even in its own caucus.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) : On behalf of New Zealand First I rise to support the second reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill. We understand that the amendments in this bill address a number of anomalies in the Social Security Act. I must say at the outset that New Zealand First does not have a member on the Social Services Committee, so we did not participate in the select committee process. We are looking forward to ensuring that the changes discussed in the Supplementary Order Paper that the select committee worked on during the select committee process are implemented and discussed widely during the Committee stage as they appear to be sound additions to the bill.

In New Zealand First we recognise that the treatment of our seniors sends a clear signal of our status as a developed nation. We must have high-quality, affordable care available for all older New Zealanders when they require this and, of course, everyone needs some certainty about how much money they will need to contribute to their care. In New Zealand First we are adamant that retired couples must be able to grow old together, with all of their due entitlements. So we were very pleased to hear from the Minister prior to the dinner break that couples residing together in a retirement village under an occupation right agreement, or a “licence to occupy” agreement, are able to stay together when one partner has been assessed as needing care. Any separation of couples at this time in their lives—or at any time in their lives, actually—is totally unacceptable and quite ridiculous.

New Zealand First wants to ensure that if a senior citizen is eligible for a subsidy, then that person should receive it, and if that person is receiving the same care package, then he or she should pay the same price. If someone with an occupation right agreement is assessed as needing rest home level care that is provided at that person’s place, then the Government should pay for that care, and the owner of the facility should not be paid twice for the accommodation component.

Currently, there are examples of district health boards and providers negotiating fair solutions to this situation, and we believe that this can happen right across the country. The amended bill allows willing parties to find a solution to this problem, and it is fair to say that the Government expects them to work together to come up with a solution. This means, really, that residential care providers will need to address the way in which they write their retirement village occupation right agreements, and district health boards will need to address this issue in their age-related residential care contracts. So we were quite pleased that we were able to work with the Government to resolve this matter and reach a fair and equitable solution, and we will be monitoring this situation very closely to ensure that it follows through on these undertakings.

This bill, as the Minister has also said, allows those exempt from a financial means assessment—that is, asset testing—to retain a personal allowance. The bill clarifies that any person who is needs-assessed as requiring long-term residential care indefinitely in a rest home or hospital that has a contract with a district health board will pay no more than the maximum contribution for the services set out in the district health board provider contract for services, whether or not that person is subsidised.

The bill clarifies that if the cost of the contracted care services provided to a resident who is assessed as requiring care exceeds the maximum contribution, then the funder is liable to pay the difference. The bill also makes it clear that even if people have assets worth more than $150,000, they will pay no more than the maximum contribution for their care. However, after listening to previous speakers in the first reading debate, it is fair to say that those people who have worked and saved towards this period of their lives may wish to have some additional comfort factors, including some that they may have already had in their own home, that can be provided in a residential care facility and that they will want to pay for and have. This issue does need to be considered. So we look forward to the Committee stage of this bill in order to have this issue discussed further.

We understand that there are approximately 28,000 people currently in aged residential care who will be affected by this bill. Many of us in this House are only too aware that the cost of residential care very quickly erodes the savings many people have worked for and carefully put away for their senior years. We have all had people visit our electorate offices and discuss this issue at length, as they believe the exemption provides some challenges, and I know that work on this issue is progressing.

The annual clothing allowance that people are entitled to retain when they are in care is another issue being raised as a concern. Basically, this allowance is insufficient when laundries at rest homes cannot adequately care for clothing. Woollen clothing in particular suffers when it is washed in a washing machine with very hot water—as it must be—and then put through a dryer. Quite often it is impossible to wear that singlet or that cardigan and, of course, those clothes never ever look the same again. They definitely look tatty, and that is not the way many people would wish their elderly relatives to look. We know that clothing is often lost, never to be seen again, and it is becoming extremely challenging to ensure that the basic clothing allowance is adequate for any wardrobe. This area will need to be addressed again in the short term, I am absolutely sure. It is very challenging for people to have to make the annual allowance of $255 stretch far enough for sufficient clothing for a winter and a summer wardrobe—and, of course, to cope with replacement and lost items.

We are pleased to see that this bill now treats New Zealand and overseas private pensions and annuities equitably. This means that in both cases only 50 percent of a private pension or an annuity is to be included as income in a means assessment. Previously, 100 percent of overseas private pensions were treated as income. The treatment of overseas private pensions as income in that assessment is unfair and it is good to see that this anomaly has now been amended.

So New Zealand First supports this bill. With an ageing population, it is absolutely essential that we ensure those requiring long-term residential care have the best possible care and some certainty about the costs of that care. Thank you.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : This Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill, as even its most avid supporters I think will agree, is simply aimed at fixing up some of the confusions and anomalies discovered after the passage of the parent Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Act in 2004. The Green Party has no problem with continuing to support the key goals of this amendment to the amendment Act. The changes made here are, on the whole, technical ones, and the low number of submissions from the public to the Social Services Committee—only eight altogether—seems to indicate that this bill overall does not deal with matters of intense controversy or matters of deep immediate concern for most New Zealanders. However, we are also aware that a huge number of people are in fact affected, or are potentially affected, by the provisions of this bill.

First of all, we are pleased in particular that this bill does clarify that people with disabilities who are living in community residential services and who are receiving a residential support subsidy are also eligible for the disability allowance. Secondly, we are also completely behind the extension of the current backdating period for a residential care subsidy, from 28 days to 90 days. As several submitters pointed out at the select committee, there are a number of circumstances in which the 28-day rule does not allow for the realities of someone’s situation to be taken into account. Thirdly, we are also pleased that the bill enables the continuation of a personal allowance, and that clause 12 restores the discretion that was perhaps inadvertently removed by the 2004 legislation in terms of how the ministry deals with cases where people are found to have deprived themselves of assets and income, directly or indirectly, prior to their means assessment.

I will now turn briefly to the matter that has been raised tonight by other speakers before me: the situation of people in “licence to occupy” units who become eligible for subsidised rest home care. Dr Paul Hutchison from the National Party will be putting forward an amendment attempting to deal with this during the Committee stage of the bill, and Green Party members have been having serious discussions of our own about whether to support Dr Hutchison’s Supplementary Order Paper and/or to find other ways of making progress on this issue. Like many in this House, Green Party members feel it is unacceptable that one partner of a couple who becomes injured, ill, or impaired to the point that that person needs full care services, and who is otherwise eligible under the income and asset testing regime, should not be able to stay with his or her partner in a “licence to occupy” unit or apartment rather than being forced to move to another part of a residential complex. There seems to be an inflexibility on the part of both the district health boards and, in some cases, the providers, in trying to work through this situation.

I have been stunned to find that as part of the district health boards’ standard Age Related Residential Care Services Agreement, clause A14.1 states outright: “To avoid doubt you must not be party to any other arrangement (for example, a licence-to-occupy or similar arrangement) that results in you effectively receiving payment, benefit, … to a Subsidised Resident …”, and so on. I would have thought that the Government, as part of its “ageing in place” strategy, should be doing everything it could to encourage people to stay in their own homes for as long as possible, rather than the district health boards having a national policy of forcing people apart, should they still be fortunate enough to be a couple.

It was heartening to hear the Minister of Health say earlier tonight that he was interested in calling on residential care providers and district health boards to address this issue—in the case of the providers, how they write their occupation right agreements, and in the case of the district health boards, how they write their residential care contracts. But I am unsure as to how forceful the Minister’s message will be without legislative backing. It is not that the Green Party wants to see providers double-dipping in any way; it is just that we cannot see why someone who would be eligible for the residential care subsidy anyway, and who happens to live in an appropriate level apartment or unit as part of an existing complex—profit or non-profit—should not be able to receive the subsidy without having to move into another part of the complex without his or her partner.

However, having said this, I point out that we have some reservations about the National Party’s amendment. Although we sympathise with the amendment’s intent, we feel unsure about whether it will achieve its goals in its current form. I am keen to discuss the amendment further with Dr Hutchison and other colleagues, in the hope that we may find a clear, sensible way through this problem, without allowing inadvertent double-dipping or other unintended consequences.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) : Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill. I must say it is good to hear that the Green Party is taking seriously this amendment, which is an outstanding example of how the Labour Government has, once again, failed the elderly of New Zealand. This may be a small incident, but it was very important for an elderly couple who had been living together for 57 years, to age together. This was so important for them that their daughter bought them an apartment—they had no assets themselves—worth $150,000, next to a rest home. But due to the Labour Government’s policies, and to one of the 21 district health boards that it has unnecessarily imposed on the New Zealand public, this elderly couple was prevented from receiving the subsidy that the wife was legitimately assessed for.

It is an utterly deplorable situation when the Labour Government, which talks so often about ageing together, and which talks with such largesse about its care for the elderly, does not worry about the details when it comes to an elderly couple such as this one. It is no coincidence that this bill has no commentary. That is because the Labour members of the Social Services Committee failed to turn up to a select committee meeting on the bill that was very important to the elderly. It has taken a very good amendment from the National Party, in my name, to put right the situation that this elderly couple suffered in, in order to ensure that they could stay in the apartment they had bought. The extraordinary thing about this situation is that, fortunately, their daughter had enough money to be able to support them, even though they did not have the subsidy. But many dozens, if not hundreds, of elderly couples in New Zealand will be in a similar situation and will not be able to afford that luxury.

I was very glad to hear the Green Party constructively suggesting that it will, if not support the amendment, at least work with National to ensure that this flagrant anomaly that was created by the Labour Government is indeed sorted out.

I also remind the House that this Labour Government also ignored the PricewaterhouseCoopers report of 2000. The aged-care sector has been chronically underfunded. One would have hoped that in a time of reasonable economic growth the Labour Government would respond to its own report, but it totally ignored it. Even worse is that an incident like the one that concerns this couple was sorted out in the House just a couple of months ago, with the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill. In that instance, a 90-year-old pensioner, who was living alone while his wife who had Alzheimer’s was in a residential care unit, was denied the living alone allowance for a superannuitant because of this Labour Government’s rules. The Hon Dr Nick Smith took the case—

Russell Fairbrother: Talk about the bill.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: This subject is absolutely about the bill, because this was the second time within a few months that the Labour Government had failed the elderly. In this particular instance, the very good constituent member Nick Smith took the case to the Labour Government, which denied it not once but twice. Then he took the case to the Human Rights Commissioner, who said that this elderly man ought to be given the living alone allowance. What did Dr Cullen say to that? He said that the amendment would increase the Crown’s total operating expenses and total Crown operating revenues by approximately $600,000, and therefore he was not prepared to put it through. That is how mean-spirited he was. Members can put that in the context of the election bribes that the Labour Government passed only a year ago—$1.5 billion for the Working for Families package, and $1 billion for the interest-free student loans. I remind the House of the other lengths the Government went to—passing retrospective legislation to ease its members’ consciences for using taxpayers’ money for a corrupt practice. That is how far Labour members go, but, on the other hand, they forget the elderly of New Zealand.

I have to acknowledge that since the select committee got together, with National’s support, some useful improvements have been made to this bill, one of which was the extension of the 28-day rule to 90 days. Thank goodness for the support and care of the National Opposition, to ensure that the elderly, who clearly cannot be rushed into making their residential care arrangements in 28 days, are now given 90 days to make this arrangement. That is a very useful amendment.

But National opposes this bill for a very fundamental reason, and that is that the socialist Labour Government is imposing a cap on the amount that elderly pay for long-term residential care, even if they do not receive a subsidy from the Government but pay the money themselves. The Labour Government is interfering with basic freedoms that most New Zealanders would hope to enjoy. In fact, this is a gross infringement on personal rights, and it is a classic case of the grey, communistic, union-inspired ethos of the modern Labour Party—that is exactly what it is. This bill does not represent the third way; it is back to the grey, communistic ethos of what the union-inspired Labour Government is all about. This is Labour at its worst, trying to create the Animal Farm for the elderly, where everybody is the same; and it is disgraceful.

Putting a cap on private individuals who have had a needs-assessment for long-term residential care, but who pay their own way, is as undemocratic and impractical as it is stupid. These changes reduce consumer choice, build inflexibility into the system, and allow Crown entities to intrude into a private law arrangement. I am sure that if Mr Fairbrother really thinks about it, he will know that it is not a good thing for any modern Government to impose on the elderly of its country. Setting a cap on what private individuals can pay will reduce the scope of options available to senior New Zealanders, as providers will not take on the risk of building and developing certain types of facilities in a capped market. It ignores the partnership funding approach that Labour so often talks about, yet cannot quite get around to putting into practice.

National opposes this bill, on the one hand because it infringes the freedom of choice for elderly New Zealanders, and on the other hand because Labour has shown, once again, when it comes to practical detail, that it does not think carefully about the repercussions on elderly New Zealanders. Only 2 months ago the Government was too mean to pay an elderly man, whose wife had Alzheimer’s disease, a disability allowance. Today, the Government is too mean to allow an elderly couple to stay in an apartment together. I do hope it will see reason and support my amendment to allow that elderly couple to age together.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) : Having listened to the last contribution and the one before it, by Ms Judith Collins, I feel it incumbent—

Lindsay Tisch: Great speeches.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: I have not started yet, but I thank Mr Tisch very much. I will continue to entertain him, and try to educate him and lead him to the light.

I must say what happened in the Social Services Committee—both matters alluded to by Ms Collins, and that was all of her speech because she had not read the bill. She had not read it at the select committee, either, and that was why National took a smart trick. Nor did Dr Hutchison seem to understand the bill, because at the select committee, when those members had an opportunity to have a commentary brought forward to this House, articulating their concerns, based on fact, based on reason, a clear exposition to the world for an all-time record in this House, they took the most slight opportunity to eschew that chance. They took the first opportunity to give themselves a miss—

Lindsay Tisch: You weren’t there.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: I was there. Perhaps if the member had been sitting in the chair he would have seen over the top of the table. He must have been standing and could not see me.

If National Party members were serious about their laments in this House today they would have taken the time to allow the select committee to bring forward a report that would have articulated any cogent and coherent concerns. But, lacking any such concerns in the report, they took that rather shifty opportunity when a temporary member on the committee—because of proper commitments of Government members—was distracted. As soon as the chair realised this and sought the leave of the committee to delay the vote until the member came back, Dr Hutchison and Judith Collins leapt into the breach and thought: “We can shaft the older people in this country; we can deny them any factual basis for this bill; and we can take a petty approach to caring for older people.” So the older people in this country were once again delivered a huge disservice by people who stand up in this House shedding crocodile tears, but have no logic.

What the National Party does not like about this bill is the simple, fundamental truth that underlies it. Labour, as National knows, is committed to families, young and old. Labour, as National knows, believes in fair treatment and dignity for our senior citizens. That is why National pulled that swifty in the committee. That is why those members took advantage of the mistake of a fleetingly temporary member, to try to exploit the chance to deny posterity a record of the select committee hearings. That was a cheap shot, I have to say.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Are you going to support the amendment?

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: No, I do not need to because the maximum contribution is agreed on by the funders and providers. Under this bill it is the same for all needs-assessed residents in a region. It is region based, so all long-term residential care providers in a region have consistency. That means the older people who need to go into long-term residential care know that whatever provider there is, whether or not from a rapacious right-winger or one from a very community-minded operator, the cost is the same because the region sets the standards, regardless of the type of care needed—rest home; in the case of Dr Hutchison, dementia; continuing hospital; or specialist hospital care. So regardless of the type of care needed, for one region it is the same cost for all those who have to take advantage of our long-term residential care provisions.

So this is Labour exercising its commitment to families. This is Labour providing treatment and dignity for our senior citizens. This bill also—

John Hayes: Overtaxing everyone else.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: Listen to the trite rubbish that comes out from Arbor Motel! This is the man who runs out clichés instead of argument; the man who sticks his hair up with a hairdryer in the morning, so he can stand above his colleagues. This bill differentiates between those who receive disability road services and claim disability allowances, and those who receive age-related care. This difference is needed because of the different contracting arrangements.

I was going to talk about some of the more detailed provisions of the bill in the time left available, given the misrepresentation to this House of the actions of the select committee—and listeners to Parliament and readers of Hansard will understand—that reflects on the integrity of the submissions from Dr Hutchison and Judith Collins. The integrity of what they said can be measured against the accuracy of their reflection of the select committee trick they played. It behoves me only to go back to basic principles. The bill is not introducing new policy. It clarifies existing Government policy. It makes sure that all older people in long-term residential care are treated fairly. That is the rub, is it not, I say to Dr Hutchison—that all old people in long-term residential care are treated fairly.

The clarifications in this bill are designed to remove any ambiguity about Government policy and avoid varying interpretations or legal challenge. We want to get the facts on the floor, and this bill does that. One of the elementary facts, which has been distorted by speakers on the other side, is this thing about no ability of disparate pricing. There is nothing in this bill that prevents an older person from agreeing to pay extra for additional services they have agreed to receive, over and above those set out in the Government contract. That is a fundamental truth of this bill. It flies in the face of the assertions made by those of the National Party who seem not bothered to have read the bill, and pulled fast tricks to prevent a report from the select committee being filed in this Parliament for posterity. I will repeat that. There is nothing in this bill that prevents an older person from agreeing to pay extra for additional services he or she has agreed to receive, over and above those set out in the Government contract.

What must also be pointed out to members opposite is that the maximum contribution policy provides certainty and fairness for vulnerable older people in our society. Who can quibble at that? Who can dare deny that fact? Who is failing to address that part of the bill in the submission to the National Party? The maximum contribution policy provides that certainty and fairness. I belong to a party that respects the older generation and wants to provide those people with the very best in their old age.

This bill also ensures realistic adjustments, in line with changes to the rest home contract price. Those changes usually occur, as Dr Hutchison may know, when district health boards and providers review the contract for long-term residential care. Those adjustments are reflected equitably in this bill. As I draw to the end of my contribution to the second reading, I say that I look forward to the chance in the Committee stage to elaborate further on the detail of the bill. I think that we must go back—but not for Mr Tisch, who seems to have trouble listening, as well as standing. The Government’s policy on long-term residential care is that if an older person is assessed as needing long-term residential care indefinitely, there will be a limit on what that person pays to receive a basic package of services from an aged residential care facility that has a contract with a district health board. This limited amount is referred to as the maximum contribution and applies to the services set out in the district health board provider contract.

This bill makes two changes to the Act: a clarification of eligibility for disability allowance in residential care; and a redefinition to ensure that overseas private pensions and annuities are treated the same as New Zealand private pensions and annuities, thus removing the inequity whereby overseas private pension recipients have to pay 100 percent of that. There are nine key points to the bill, and I wish that time would allow me to deal with those in a proper and fulsome manner. What I will say is that I will return during the Committee stage to re-emphasise those nine points.

As I finish my second reading speech, I will restate a fundamental fact: this Government is committed to families young and old. It believes in fair treatment and dignity for our senior citizens. This bill continues to make progress on both fronts. It provides certainty for all. It provides dignity for our older citizens. It provides equity and fairness—concepts that are foreign to the National Party.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) : I came to the House tonight in readiness for the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill, but I have to say that Dr Hutchison has moved me to take a short call on this Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill. Although I am well accustomed to the rampant—I cannot use the word that begins with “h”, I will not use it; I cannot even refer to it, so I apologise for even implying the word—I simply could not remain seated having observed the crocodile tears and listened to the mock concern for the elderly from that man, Dr Hutchison. He came to the House, I think genuinely, relatively recently.

Hon Member: He came elderly, of course.

Hon MARK BURTON: He came elderly, but I thought he also came with some genuine concern for the elderly. I have to say that, in contrast to this Government’s commitment to essentially establishing fair treatment and dignity for our senior citizens, we have observed yet again from the Tory benches not only crocodile tears but also, I think, the ideological nonsense that drives so much of the mean-spirited nastiness that would be visited upon New Zealand if ever, in the distant future, New Zealanders were foolish enough to allow those members near the Treasury benches.

The party opposite is the party that, despite those crocodile tears about the poor elderly, in 1999 legislated to reach into the pockets of pensioners and take out $38,000 a week, in my electorate alone, from their pensions. That is what it would have cost the people whom that member opposite claims to be so concerned about. Every week, $38,000 would have gone from the pockets and purses of pensioners in my electorate—that is their ability to buy a loaf of bread—and into the coffers of the National Party. That was National’s care for the dignity of the elderly. So Dr Hutchison should not come to this House and pretend to have concern for the elderly. He should not come to this House and dare to use words like corruption when attacking the provisions for fair treatment of the elderly that this Government is ensuring are provided.

Similarly, the member deviated from the bill and talked about student loans. It was a great piece of Tory lateral thinking. The relief of student debt—which is something clearly beneficial, clearly positive, and clearly good for the well-being not only of our individual students but of our community as a whole—was attacked as being some sort of bribe, because National had to try to discredit it. I say to the member opposite that Labour will not apologise for taking care in legislation of the needs and well-being of the elderly. We will not apologise for taking care, by relieving student debt, of the needs of young people who are struggling because of National Party indifference and poor decisions in the 1990s.

I observed on television yet another example. I thought I had seen it all until I saw Nick Smith, with crocodile tears coming down his face, standing next to a poor constituent. I did feel some empathy for the woman—who, I understand, was self-employed—who was on the news with her member of Parliament, Dr Nick Smith, crying and lamenting at the poor condition she found herself in. It appeared that she did not qualify for parental leave support when she was having a child. That member’s party voted against that provision applying to every single New Zealand parent, yet Dr Smith had the absolute gall to go on nationwide television and pretend some sort of sympathy.

I say to members opposite that it will not do. They can come into this House and ramble on about corruption, but the truth will out, and the truth is that this Government is about the people’s business. This Government is about looking after and caring for the interests of New Zealanders. Those members opposite have nothing more on their minds than cheap, nasty slogans and the juggling of who sits in that vacant seat on the front bench. I wish them all well. It will not make any difference because they will be shuffling the deckchairs on that side of the House for a very, very long time.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) : I move, That the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill has been closely examined by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. I start by sincerely congratulating the committee on its very careful consideration of both the bill and the detailed public submissions on it. I inform the House that the committee’s amendments are supported by the Government, and I genuinely believe they will enhance the effectiveness of the legislation.

The committee received submissions from a number of human rights non-governmental organisations and practitioners, Crown entities with a human rights focus, and a range of other community groups. These submissions represented a range of views about the domestic implementation of international treaties and measures to prevent torture and ill-treatment in places of detention in New Zealand. I was pleased to note that all of the submissions supported this Government’s initiative to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. To have unanimous support in submissions for anything is relatively unusual in this jurisdiction.

This is a significant bill for New Zealand, as it will enable this country to comply with its obligations under the optional protocol. I am pleased to let the House know that the optional protocol entered into force on 22 June this year, after gaining the requisite number of ratifications. The optional protocol is the culmination of over two decades of work by the United Nations and others, and it establishes a unique monitoring system for preventing torture and ill-treatment in places of detention.

The bill enables New Zealand to comply with the optional protocol. Upon the enactment of the protocol, New Zealand will be in a position to ratify it. The bill is another illustration of this Government’s leadership in international human rights, and affirms New Zealand as a country that is committed to ensuring that the worst human rights abuses are prevented wherever they are found around the world.

The optional protocol provides for a two-tiered approach to the prevention of torture, and the bill gives effect to that approach. The first tier is the international visiting body—a subcommittee of the United Nations Committee against Torture. The bill enables the subcommittee to visit places of detention in New Zealand and exercise its powers and functions as set out in the optional protocol. The second tier consists of a system of regular visits undertaken by national bodies to places of detention. Those bodies are called national preventive mechanisms. New Zealand already has the requisite independent visiting bodies such as the Ombudsman and the Police Complaints Authority. Those existing bodies enable compliance with the optional protocol in a cost-effective manner. The nominated institutions have been identified because they already possess the capability to inspect and monitor the treatment of persons detained in New Zealand.

I now turn to the committee’s recommended amendments. As noted earlier, the Government supports all of the committee’s recommendations. As I said, I am confident that the amendments will improve the operation and functionality of the legislation. The amendments generally serve to clarify the provisions in the bill as introduced, and some of them are of a technical nature. There are also some amendments of substance that I will briefly address.

The committee has recommended that the bill make it clear that domestic institutions appointed as national preventive mechanisms carry out existing powers and functions when acting under this bill. This will ensure that these institutions enjoy the full array of their powers when acting to prevent torture under the bill. The committee has also recommended that a new clause be inserted into the bill that provides national preventive mechanisms with the same protections, privileges, and immunities that they enjoy in relation to the exercise of their powers and functions under other legislation. This is an important amendment because it will ensure, in accordance with the optional protocol, that national preventive mechanisms are able to exercise their powers in a fearless manner to prevent torture.

An improvement to the reporting requirements of the national preventive mechanisms has also been proposed by the committee. The amendment requires national preventive mechanisms that are officers of Parliament to report directly to the House of Representatives instead of to the responsible Minister. This change, of course, preserves the constitutional status of officers of Parliament, such as the Ombudsman. I think this move is highly desirable.

The committee has further recommended that other national preventive mechanisms continue to report to the responsible Minister, but it has added a requirement that the Minister must present a copy of that report to the House of Representatives. This amendment will, I believe, ensure dialogue between the national preventive mechanisms, the executive, and Parliament, and will result in greater accountability throughout the reporting process whilst maintaining consistency with the existing reporting requirements. This amendment is a significant improvement to the arrangements as proposed in the original bill.

The committee has recommended that the confidentiality provisions in the bill be amended to expressly provide that information about an identifiable individual cannot be disclosed without that person’s express consent. I commend this change because it will ensure that appropriate protection is provided to personal information. Again, that is desirable.

In conclusion, I again thank all of the members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for making valuable contributions that have resulted in useful improvements to this bill. This process is a good example of the value of constructive select committee engagement. As I reach the end of my remarks, I again thank all the people who took the time and effort to make submissions to the committee. I think they, too, contributed to the improvement of this bill.

The bill is an illustration of New Zealand’s strong and ongoing commitment to the protection and promotion of international human rights. This bill provides an example to all countries of how to ensure compliance with the optional protocol, with the goal of preventing torture. I commend the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill to the House.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) : I am pleased to take a call on the second reading of the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill. In June 1987 the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment entered into force. An optional protocol was added, known as the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which was adopted by a vote in the United Nations General Assembly on 18 December 2002 and signed by New Zealand on 24 September 2003. This bill implements the optional protocol to that convention, and of course it is no surprise that New Zealand was foremost among those countries involved in the development of the protocol in the first place, and among the group of countries that are foremost in designing bills to implement the provisions of the protocol.

The protocol provides further measures to achieve the purposes of the convention, and its objective is to establish a system of regular visits by international and national bodies to places where people are deprived of their liberty, in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. These things, I suppose, seem somewhat strange to us, sitting as we do in a wonderful country like New Zealand, a great little democracy, where the rule of law is observed. Generally speaking we have provisions in the law already to ensure that New Zealanders, or those people who are detained in certain places in our country, are generally accommodated or catered for.

The bill’s three key provisions establish a subcommittee of the existing United Nations Committee against Torture to regularly visit places where people are deprived of their liberty, and to make recommendations to the Government concerning the protection of such persons. A provision also enables the subcommittee to exercise New Zealand’s functions and powers as set out in the protocol. The subcommittee is permitted to visit any place under the Crown’s jurisdiction, and to have unrestricted access to such information as is necessary for the proper performance of its functions.

At the second level, as the Minister has already traversed, the protocol requires each State party or Government to have, at the domestic level, at least one visiting body for the prevention of torture, and the functions of that body, known as the national preventive mechanism, are basically set out to examine the conditions of detention applying to those detainees in places of detention. The body is also required to provide at least a written report to the Minister of Justice each year on the exercise of its functions. The third level sets up the central national preventive mechanism, with accompanying responsibilities.

As I said earlier in this discussion, what we are doing here tonight is extremely important, obviously, and National supports the ratification of the protocol. It is proper that as a democracy observing the rule of law, we implement the provisions. We need to remind ourselves that we have an enviable record on human rights, because it is not the case in a number of other States and countries in the world. We are a leader in human rights, and as a colleague of mine, Dr Richard Worth, said in the first reading regarding the issues relating to the right not to be tortured, that right is “one of the core, non-derivable human rights”, and it is therefore of the highest priority.

Just before I go to some of the points that National members made in the first reading, I tell members that the Minister has traversed the changes that were recommended in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. It is helpful, obviously, that submissions to the committee were in favour of the bill. As the Minister said, there were a number of submissions. Basically we considered a wide range of issues, including the general implementation of the protocol; the role, competence, and independence of national preventive mechanisms; and ministerial discretion to appoint national preventive mechanisms.

Just in relation to that last issue, I tell members there was some concern amongst submitters that national preventive mechanisms are not designated or established by this bill—I am sure our colleague from the Green Party will have a comment to make on that—they are appointed by the Minister. The majority of the committee, however, are confident that the national preventive mechanisms measures contained in the bill are consistent with the optional protocol, which does not require those mechanisms to be appointed by statute. We do recommend, though, in line with developments since the protocol was introduced, that a new section be amended to provide that the Minister designate national preventive mechanisms no later than 1 year after the optional protocol is ratified by New Zealand.

The other important point that was also referred to by the Minister concerns the reporting requirements. The committee looked at those requirements, which have been improved to ensure greater accountability and transparency. That is important, especially to a democracy like ours. As I indicated earlier, our country is foremost in human rights. We have taken steps of our own accord to make sure that the kinds of abuses that are seen in other places around the world are certainly never going to be seen in our country. The optional protocol, and the bill that we now bring forward to implement it, sets that as a certainty.

My colleague Richard Worth, together with Simon Power in the first reading, made some comments that I think are worth repeating. The first was around the fact that National was concerned—and we still remain concerned—that United Nations committees, from our point of view in looking at them from a distance and from our democratic position, do not always seem to focus on the most pressing of human rights violations. We would hate to see any UN bureaucracy set up in New Zealand when perhaps resources, such as they might be—and perhaps my colleague Tim Groser will have something to say about that—might dictate that the main focus of such a committee should be on those countries and States in the world where matters of torture and cruelty to people in places of detention really do exist. As I say, New Zealand is a leader on human rights, and although the committee is entitled to come here when it wants, I would like to think that proper focus is put where it is absolutely needed.

In closing, I tell the House it is proper that New Zealand ratifies the protocol. We, along with other like-minded nations, act as a role model. The persuasive element in our signing up to the protocol is very important, and that we do so acts as a beacon for those countries who do not observe human rights and such protocols. It is the kind of standard that we, as a democratic nation in the international community, expect for all citizens of the international community.

DIANNE YATES (Labour) : I just remind people that we are talking about the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill and the report back on it from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. The introduction to the commentary on the bill states: “The Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill confirms New Zealand’s commitment to the protection and promotion of fundamental human rights by providing a regime that enables New Zealand to comply with its obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.” As the Minister has said, this optional protocol entered into force on 22 June 2006.

I thank the select committee for the work it has done on this bill. The bill has gone through the usual treaty-making process, whereby it was referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, which has the authority then to defer those treaties that are not relevant to it to other select committees. In this case, the treaty was totally within the ambit of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and was dealt with by that committee.

The committee worked very, very well, and I thank the member opposite for the comments she has just made. Because we in New Zealand become part of this optional protocol, because we are a democratic country, and because, hopefully, we will not experience cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment in our country, let us not fool ourselves that those things will not continue to happen in the world. But as a member opposite said, we are, by signing up to this agreement, setting an example and making it clear to other countries that this is how the matter should be dealt with; also that those countries that are democratic, open, and transparent, deplore such treatment of citizens of any other country, or of New Zealand citizens should they be in any other country. I think those points made by the member opposite were particularly relevant. It is also important in that they show how our committee has worked together. I do not think anyone in New Zealand would agree that torture and other cruel and degrading treatment is acceptable.

We also want to thank the 23 submitters on the bill who were concerned about the national preventive mechanisms. They wanted to make sure that the processes we have in New Zealand conform not only with the schedules to the bill but also with New Zealand protocols—that they are transparent so we have national preventive mechanisms and inspection processes that are transparent. Where appropriate, as has been mentioned by the Minister, the people involved should report to Parliament, should that be part of their normal processes, or otherwise to the Minister, and their reports should all be tabled in Parliament. It should be transparent and open. That was one thing the submitters agreed on and pointed out to the committee, and their views were taken on board.

I point out that the national preventive mechanisms are dealt with in a generalised way within the bill and that there are powers of the Minister within that. But the Green member wanted the organisations to be specifically mentioned in the bill. There are difficulties with that, of course, because organisations can change. We did not want to have to come back and change the legislation if an organisation ceased to exist or was no longer functioning in that particular way. So the committee as a whole thought that the clauses around the national preventive mechanisms, as we adjusted them, were adequate and would serve the purpose.

There was some discussion about the health and disability services, and the committee asked questions about whether the national preventive mechanism should come under the Health and Disability Commissioner. It was agreed that it should be with the Office of the Ombudsmen and that the Ombudsman’s reporting processes should continue as at present. Those were matters that the select committee looked at in a fairly detailed way in order to come up with its final conclusions.

As we have said, there were discussions about visits by the national preventive mechanisms, and the Minister has pointed out that we were also especially concerned about the definition of a place of detention. We wanted to know, too, that a place of detention—and I thank the member opposite who has just spoken, because she was the person who asked about this and had the matter clarified—refers to both public and private facilities, whether we should have both in New Zealand, whether a place of detention in New Zealand is not only one that is within New Zealand territory but also one that is under the jurisdiction of New Zealand, and that the latter, whether public or private, would be open for inspection by the national preventive mechanism people. That was clarified, and it was an example of a select committee working together to bring about the ratification to allow New Zealand to join in with this treaty.

As I said, this was one of the areas where we parliamentarians in New Zealand were in agreement. It was, perhaps, one of the easiest treaties we have had to deal with, because, as I have said before, I do not think anyone in New Zealand thinks torture is a good idea. We dealt with how the select committee goes about the processes, the processes within New Zealand, and the protocols on how we treat people in prisons, police cells, and within medical institutions. It is always good for a country such as ours to examine its own processes, because we often make assumptions that New Zealand is almost above other countries in what we do—and it is that, because we are constantly vigilant. We constantly look at ourselves in the light of international benchmarks, and this process has been one way of us doing that.

Some of the submissions were on areas not covered by the bill, such as around health and other issues, but they are matters we constantly have to look at within a democracy. Democracies do not just exist; they have to be carefully maintained and monitored. We have to constantly make sure that we are transparent, that our processes are transparent, and that our public institutions are transparent.

Once again, I thank the select committee for the hard work that has gone into this bill and into other treaty-making processes. It is good to have on our select committee people who have experience not only as politicians but also in terms of negotiating such treaties, and who know in more detail how they come about through the actual processes. Once again, a big thank you to everyone who has been involved. We look forward to the smooth passage of this legislation through the House.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : Mr Deputy Speaker—

Hon Member: He’s nimble, that John!

JOHN HAYES: Yes, he is nimble. He is nimble, just like those glib phrases that came from Dianne Yates, the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, whom all those people out in New Zealand have just been listening to—one would have thought that this House had been doing something really important. I stand here tonight in support of the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill because, along with my colleagues in the National Party, I have a total abhorrence of acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. We also have an abhorrence of people who talk a load of nonsense.

As we were thinking about whether to support this legislation, we decided it was really important for New Zealand to support international mechanisms such as the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in proscribing violations of human rights.

Very early on in the life of our Parliament, and early in the experience of people like myself and my colleague Tim Groser, the select committee looked at those issues. Looking back, I feel that the Government should have encouraged our select committee to look rather more deeply at the issues that were being considered under this legislation. Among them, we should have looked at the adequacy of existing mechanisms here in New Zealand in relation to the prohibition of torture. We should have looked to the experience of other parts of the world, for example, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. We should have considered whether the United Nations actually had the capacity to examine and look at the sort of programme that is being recommended under this legislation. We should have looked at our own leadership role in relation to human rights. None of these areas were traversed under the leadership of the Labour Government.

We really have to recognise that there are now 134 State parties signed up to this treaty. It is worth also making the point that New Zealand complies with all of the obligations under the convention. So in that sense, we, as a country smaller than Sydney, need to be much more focused in what we do, on what is actually relevant in our community, and we should be standing here legislating only where there is a need for New Zealand to legislate. This was not addressed in any way by our Labour-led select committee.

I also draw to the attention of the House and the public of New Zealand the fact that Amnesty International has not, in any way, reported systemic torture being perpetrated here in New Zealand. So one really wonders why we are engaging the time of the House and the select committee process essentially to sign up to something that should not be in the first level of the concerns of this Parliament. We need to think about New Zealanders offshore. We have New Zealanders in a number of overseas prisons. Some of those will be European prisons and they will be beneficiaries of high levels of protection not available to other New Zealand prisoners overseas, for example, in a range of countries that have not signed up to this arrangement, or that have questionable practices for people under State care.

We should have looked also at the issue of the cost of establishing, in the United Nations’ framework, what we are doing here. We are talking well over $2 million a year to implement this programme. That probably represents less than 0.1 percent of the United Nations’ regular budget, but I think we should have been concerned at the select committee level that significant United Nations resources would be expended in the operation of this legislation that we are about to pass. Has the select committee, or the Labour Government, looked at increasing our contribution to the United Nations to cover this extra activity? No. So in a situation now where there are 134 State parties belonging to this convention, we have to think about the cost of travel to each of those 134 countries by international bureaucrats.

We have to look at the effectiveness of those visits, and we have to work out where people are being deprived of their liberty. And although there are some people who I can see deserve to be deprived of their liberty, it is not actually happening in New Zealand. In a situation where United Nations human rights committees are already overburdened with work, including investigating quite serious allegations about human rights, for example in Burma, China, or Iran, one really has to wonder a little about the resource aspect of setting up a body that can go and look at any institution it likes, in any country, regardless of whether there is any serious concern. That is what the Labour Government is signing us up to. It does not have to be a serious concern. These international bureaucrats are on a great travel gravy train at our collective expense.

I think the Government really has to focus on the matter that United Nations treaty bodies are generally considered to be under-resourced, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister what plans he has to increase New Zealand’s financial contributions to these committees, so that we can see they properly do the work that we are now in the process of signing them up to. I think that if we do not do that—if we as a country do not make significantly more and greater contributions to the United Nations—we will divert funds away from other UN human rights programmes, and that would be a huge disadvantage to the global community.

I think that in this process it is also very difficult to think about how one expects the inspection regime to operate in a thorough, detailed, and able way in each State party at the same time. It cannot be done, so we will have, then, to have more subcommittees doing the work, more people employed, and more bureaucrats. I think we—

Hon Georgina te Heuheu: It’s a bureaucratic world.

JOHN HAYES: It is a very bureaucratic world, but international bureaucrats cost about five times more than our local bureaucrats—and they are already very, very expensive.

Although some submitters came and said that they thought it was important that New Zealand signed up to this, so that we send a clear message to the international community that New Zealand remains a leading nation in the advancement of human rights, it is also worth thinking about what exactly New Zealand wants to do, and what sorts of positive messages it wants to send. One thing that a small country like our own, of a little over 4 million people—as I say, smaller than Sydney—should do is to send positive messages by doing, and by focusing our energy and limited resources on only productive exercises. I think we need to adopt this as an overall approach to engagement with the UN treaty body system, and I look to leadership from the Minister on ways of helping to make UN reform far more productive than has been the case hitherto.

This is an issue that I think goes right to the relationship between the United Nations and New Zealand, and it does not go to the underlying principle of this convention. I think we also have to keep in mind that the people who will be doing this inspection are not from democratically elected Governments, as our own people are; they are international civil servants. I think no scope was considered by the Labour administration to ensure that members of that international group worked within their mandate, and I do not think the Labour-led Government has made any effort to ensure that the UN system is reducing its duplication and improving coordination between its various elements that are engaged in this human rights area. I hope that we will see the Government committing far greater resources to the UN, so that these issues can be sorted out. If we are going to decide that this is an area in which our country has to work, then we have to be seen globally to be paying for it.

I personally, after some reflection, have some reservations, then, about signing up to this arrangement, but I think that because New Zealand would want to demonstrate its commitment to proscribing and preventing torture, we should go ahead and do it. But we should be doing it in a way that is far more supportive of the United Nations, and I expect to see this Government contributing a greater amount of money to the UN to enable this committee to do its job thoroughly. Thank you.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : The Green Party will be supporting the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill. It is important in order to prevent torture that there are proper, independent inspection regimes in all detention facilities in New Zealand, as specified in the optional protocol of the convention against torture, which this legislation will allow us to ratify.

The biggest debate around this bill has been about how to make the inspection bodies—the national preventive mechanisms and the central preventive mechanism—truly independent of the State. It is disappointing to the Green Party that a critical element of independence from the Government—that is, from the executive branch—is not contained in this bill. Members may notice that in the report back from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee there are some minority comments from myself, as the Green member on the committee, in that respect.

We were concerned that the Minister, a member of the executive branch of Government, has the power to designate the national preventive mechanisms and the central preventive mechanism, and, if and when he or she wishes, to revoke those designations. That is not true independence. If we refer to the submission from the Human Rights Foundation to the select committee, we see that the foundation refers to the Paris principles that govern national human rights institutions. The Human Rights Foundation says that national institutions that are not set up completely independently will not be accepted as national human rights institutions—be they institutions in the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions or elsewhere. In terms of those criteria, the granting of the right of the executive to get rid of those institutions cuts them out from being truly independent.

In order to have true independence, the Greens say it is a requirement that designating and revoking be done by Parliament, not by the executive. I think it is easy enough to achieve that, and the Green Party will move an amendment in the Committee stage of the bill to, firstly, remove the right of the Minister to designate those mechanisms and to revoke them and, secondly, to give Parliament that right by listing the mechanisms in this particular bill.

Already, some of the potential national preventive mechanisms are listed in the bill—that is, an Ombudsman, the Police Complaints Authority, and the Children’s Commissioner—and it is clearly envisaged, from the discussions around this bill, that we will be able to add to those the Judge Advocate General, because he or she is clearly envisaged to be the national preventive mechanism for the Defence Force. There may of course be changes, as referred to by the previous speaker, in those mechanisms. For example, the Police Complaints Authority may give way to an improved, independent police complaints authority if the bill currently before Parliament is proceeded with. But it is easy enough, if there is a legislative change to the Police Complaints Authority—because there can be an amending clause—to change the title of the national preventive mechanism for the police in this legislation, the Crimes of Torture Amendment Act, as it will be at that time.

There is certainly no practical reason why we should not give Parliament, rather than the executive, full control over the designation, and the revocation of designation, of preventive mechanisms. I think there is a good reason for us here in New Zealand, as people in a strong democracy, to set a good example to the world in terms of the full independence of these mechanisms from the executive branch of Government. We are setting an example to other countries that have signed the optional protocol where the executive arm is much more overbearing than it is here, where there is less real democracy and less real recognition of human rights than there are here, and where dissidents have been mistreated in custody, either currently or in the recent past. I speak of countries like Azerbaijan, Cambodia, and Turkey, which have signed the optional protocol. I think we need to set an example in the upholding of what I mentioned before—the Paris principles—in terms of the independence of human rights institutions such as the preventive mechanisms.

The Human Rights Foundation’s submission outlines the Paris principles as being the legal independence and operational autonomy of the institution. We see that in our Human Rights Commission here in New Zealand and in the independence in the process of appointing members to bodies like that. There should be staffing autonomy—that is, the institution should be able to appoint its staff free of executive interference—and financial autonomy, which is improved if there is a relationship to Parliament rather than to the executive branch. That is the case with some of the human rights mechanisms such as the Office of the Ombudsmen.

I will now go over the powers granted to the national preventive mechanisms. One of the important ones is the right of access to any facility of detention. The bill, quite rightly, states in section 27 of new Part 2, added by clause 6—as amended by the select committee—that these mechanisms have the right “to examine, at regular intervals and at any other times the National Preventive Mechanism may decide,—”. I think that is important, because as we have seen, particularly overseas, if some warning is given of an impending visit from the Red Cross, or whoever else it might be, the repressive regime that controls a detention institution will move out those prisoners who may complain that they have been tortured, or it will threaten prisoners well in advance of the visit, so that they are too intimidated to say anything critical to the visiting party. Although it is the task of these preventive mechanisms to deal not with individual complaints in terms of their rectification but rather with systemic abuse, free access at any time is important in order for the national preventive mechanisms to achieve that.

We see an access problem even in one of the longer-standing democracies in the world that some people look up to—the United States, which has its congressional elections tomorrow. In terms of its Guantanamo Bay facility, it has prevented access from independent UN bodies. So we can see the importance of insisting on access. Of course, as part of the bill’s provisions, it is required that the Government or the people who control detention facilities give the preventive mechanisms all the information on the number of detainees, the conditions, and so on. Those who control the facilities are not allowed to hide anything.

Another important provision is that there be a full power of open recommendation from the national preventive mechanisms. Under this legislation, any report given to the Government must simultaneously be given to Parliament and must be made public in short order. That is so nothing can be hidden. There is a right to issue recommendations and an obligation to try to rectify the situation and to report to the subcommittee on the convention against torture so it can take action if necessary, as it did in relation to the torture engaged in under the behavioural management regime in our prisons. In that case a High Court judge granted five of those prisoners $130,000 in compensation. The UN Committee against Torture was condemnatory of that regime and asked the Government to inform it as to what it was doing in respect of the cruel and degrading treatment that had taken place in those prisons.

We are not immune from problems to do with torture. It has taken place in New Zealand, as the UN Committee against Torture verified. So I think it is important that we implement the provisions of the optional protocol.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) : Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa i te Whare. The reality of people who have suffered the fate of systematic and brutal murder, slaughter, human rights abuse, physical and mental oppression, dispossession, and extermination—the crimes of torture—is readily available through reading the histories of colonisation. In fact, in my maiden speech to this House I referred to the crime of torture enacted amongst the people of Te Whakatōhea in the mid-1860s, following the murder of the missionary Carl Sylvius Völkner. This House will recall that Völkner had been implicated in the passing on of information to Governor Grey about the movements of Māori in the New Zealand Wars. In the weeks after his death, British troops stormed Ōpōtiki and captured four Māori, including an esteemed chief of Whakatōhea, Mokomoko. The four men were arrested, condemned, and executed for the murder of Völkner. Not satisfied with these four deaths, the Government also mounted a harsh assault on Whakatōhea, confiscating their best arable land, destroying their shipping and stores. The basis of an effective economy was ruined.

Mokomoko had always denied his involvement and, indeed, was supported by the legal and historical research that followed. A grave miscarriage of justice occurred. Over a century later his whānau were able to exhume his remains from Mount Eden jail so they could be buried in his ancestral urupā. In June 1992 the descendants of Mokomoko were finally granted a full acquittal for him. His words at the scaffold, read in song, were remembered: “Violent shaking will not rouse me from my sleep. They treat me like a common thief. It is true that I embrace eternal sleep, for that is the lot of a man condemned to die.”

The condemnation that we bring to this House today against torture is undeniably influenced by experiences such as these. We come to this bill remembering the plea of Mokomoko not to have to die for a crime he did not commit. It is ironic that when we stand in this House in support of the optional protocol adopted by the UN General Assembly it is often implied that we are opposed to the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatments or punishments in far-off places, when scrutiny of our own situation might be very revealing. The use of execution, the application of the death penalty as a punishment for murder, was inherited along with other common law from England in 1893, alongside hard labour, flogging, and whipping. My research tells me that from 1842 until 1961, 54 people—one woman amongst them—were put to death in Aotearoa. The last person to be executed was Walter Bolton, who was hanged at Mount Eden Prison on 18 February 1957 for the murder of his wife. Today the stone walls and towers of Mount Eden Prison remind anyone who visits there of our own shameful history of human rights abuses. Our public libraries also contain records of executions that were free entertainment for a morbid crowd that would congregate above the Mount Eden stockade to witness the events.

Other legacies remain. There are 11 graves at Mount Eden Prison that forever remind prisoners of the tragic history of execution. Just over a decade ago, between 1991 and 1999, another 11 lives were lost—11 of 13 teenagers committed suicide in Mount Eden prison in that period. The question was asked at the time whether the actions of the past had ever been reconciled or whether that legacy remains as long as Mount Eden Prison stands.

I understand that the report on New Zealand prepared by the United Nations Committee against Torture in June 2004 expressed concern at the fact that juveniles are sometimes not separated from adult detainees and have been detained in cells owing to the shortage of Child, Youth and Family Services facilities. The hideous culture of Mount Eden Prison is clearly inappropriate if our young people are driven to suicide in adult prisons. The recent tragic death of Liam Ashley points to the pressing need to address the issue of juvenile safety raised by the United Nations Committee against Torture.

The committee’s report also expressed concern about the significant decrease in the proportion of asylum seekers who are immediately released, without restriction, into the community upon arrival, and the detention of several asylum seekers in remand prisons who are not separated from other detainees. This week marks 2 years of such detention for Thomas Yadegary, an Iranian who has been imprisoned without charge or trial in Auckland’s Mount Eden Prison. Thomas has lived in Aotearoa since 1993, and applied for refugee status. His application was declined. On 1 November 2004 he was taken into custody at Mount Eden Prison to await deportation. The Government has exerted pressure on Thomas to sign an agreement absolving the Minister of Corrections from any responsibility in the likelihood that Thomas is arrested, tortured, or killed on his return to Iran. Thomas has refused to do so, and, in effect, he remains a hostage in prison.

Last month Global Peace and Justice Auckland released a statement: “Thomas’ continuing incarceration is a travesty of natural justice and a disgraceful abuse of human rights. We have our own little Guantanamo Bay right here in the heart of Mount Eden.”

The Māori Party stands in this House to argue for consistency in the application of our human rights to restore our international reputation through compliance with international law. Yet, here under our very own eyes, is another incident where a person has been deprived of liberty, seemingly violating the human rights conventions in a way we are so quick to condemn in other countries. We all want to believe that the criminal justice system is reliable, fair, and infallible. Unfortunately there is a huge discrepancy between what we may wish to believe, and fact.

The UN committee also expressed a considerable concern about prolonged periods of solitary confinement, and the findings of the Ombudsman regarding investigations of alleged assaults by prison staff on inmates—in particular, the reluctance to address such allegations promptly, and the quality, impartiality, and credibility of investigations. The Māori Party has consistently raised our own concerns about these problems, and supports the focus that will come from increased monitoring by the United Nations of our prisons. This can only enhance the confidence of the public, and demonstrate transparency, if the United Nations subcommittee can provide rigorous advice that we will listen to.

Finally, the Māori Party, of course, wants to ensure that the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is applied not just at home but across the globe. No one in this House can deny the facts of the United Nations investigation into the treatment of prisoners at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, which revealed that it was effectively a torture camp where prisoners had no access to justice. The final report of the investigation undertaken by five UN experts accused the United States of practices that amount to torture, and demands that detainees either be allowed a fair trial or released. We were told that torture was a daily occurrence at the prison camp for terrorist suspects—suspects accused of having links to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime, or to al-Qaeda. Yet in this prison camp that is rife with terrorists, only a handful have been charged. The United Nations has shown the world that a prison exists outside normal international standards of justice. It is a prison where 490 men have been held for absolutely nothing; a prison that the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded must be shut down.

Mokomoko’s dying words were: “Tangohia mai te taura i taku kakī, kia waiata au i taku waiata.”—take the rope from my throat that I may sing my song. With this bill we hope that others may note that the rope should be taken from the throat of those in Guantanamo Bay, those seeking asylum in Aotearoa, and our own youth in prison on remand. We hope that the song that will be sung will be one of a justice system aimed at preventing crime before it occurs, wherever possible, and that is supporting people who are affected by crime. Whether it is murder, slaughter, or dispossession through the gallows, cannon, sword, legislation, or a prison camp is irrelevant in defining torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The key point is that we must continue to vigorously oppose all human rights abuses. We must condemn all acts of torture and we must build hope in restoring our international reputation as a land that values human rights and due access to justice. Kia ora tātou.

RON MARK (NZ First) : Well, is it not interesting; from listening to that speech from the Māori Party one would think that its members are the upholders of peace, justice, and human rights in this Parliament. I remind the honourable member that sometimes it helps if one comes to this House and speaks from the heart, from the shoulder, and from a depth of understanding of the issues, as opposed to standing up and reading a speech from a pre-prepared script. Something that the Māori Party members are becoming legendary for and known for is turning up to the House and speaking from a pre-prepared script written for them by some staffer back in the office, or maybe by their own hand. The fact is that if those members stand in this House and read from a pre-prepared script written for them, they need to remember that they will be adjudged on the sincerity of the arguments they put according to that. I know, as I travel around the country and attend various marae and meetings with iwi and hapū—and the honourable member Te Ururoa Flavell knows this more than anyone in this House—that most of our great Māori orators, both men and women, speak straight from the shoulder; they speak from the heart. They do not turn up with a written script that they rabbit through.

Te Ururoa Flavell: Point of order—

RON MARK: It had better be a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I take great offence at this.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Mark, that is uncalled for.

Te Ururoa Flavell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I might be wrong but I am standing to ask about the response from the member in his speech. I will apologise if it is out of order, but I have heard other members in this House interject on other speakers about coming to the point and talking on the bill as opposed to making comment on the speeches of individual members. I might be out of order; I just ask the question.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not a point of order, but you have asked a question. Mr Mark is quite entitled to bring into the opening part of his speech the member who spoke before him.

RON MARK: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank the honourable member. I have been here a decade and I do understand the Standing Orders.

It is an interesting piece of legislation. It is interesting that we have a Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill presented before the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, which is, as I have noted by going through the report, pretty equally balanced between the National Party and the Labour Party. I think the balance of power clearly rests with the Green Party in the vote of Keith Locke.

I do not think anybody in this House would oppose this bill. New Zealand First supports the passage of this bill. But in respect of some of the speeches made here this evening it is, I guess, timely that we do reflect on the issues of human rights abuses. I find it very rich that people would stand in this House and promote—indeed, reinforce—the principles espoused in this bill when they themselves did nothing to prevent the abuses that were happening in the New Zealand Department of Corrections. I point specifically to the instances relating to the operation of the emergency response unit otherwise known, infamously, as the “goon squad” in the New Zealand prisons. It is interesting that the previous speaker, the Māori Party member, should talk about what the views of the Māori Party were. I need to put it on the record that when I was raising issues in this House about the activities, the human rights abuses, and the failure of the State to live up to its responsibilities to investigate those abuses, the Māori Party co-leader Tariana Turia was the Associate Minister of Corrections. Indeed, she was in a position in Government at the Cabinet table to do something about that.

The honourable Te Ururoa Flavell needs to reflect on the history of his party. His party does not come to this House with a clean sheet and a clean napkin. It comes with a history. The honourable member Tariana Turia, the co-leader of the Māori Party, had an instrumental part in the cover-up and the denial of the charges levelled against the Department of Corrections in respect of human rights abuses that occurred in New Zealand prisons during the time that she was the Associate Minister of Corrections. Only New Zealand First stood firm on that issue, and it took New Zealand First 4 years to bring about a commission of inquiry that concluded what we all knew.

I take my hat off to a number of members in Labour. I point to the honourable Tim Barnett, who for many years fought with his party behind the scenes to help me make sure that there was an inquiry. But people like Tim are few and far between when it comes to standing up. It is one thing to stand in this House and talk grandly about human rights abuses and the need to stand up against these things, but it is another thing to do something about it. I am sick to the gut of hearing sanctimonious speeches from MPs postulating their new-found presence on the political spectrum of high and mighty and lauding to all and sundry how grandly they stand on these issues whilst condemning others. Get some time up, I say to the Māori Party.

And while I say that, let us talk about Mokomoko. Who pardoned him? Who? At a time when the Māori Party was but a twinkle in its dad’s eye, other people in this House were fighting that issue, such as the Rt Hon Winston Peters—and I will give credit to the National Party. The National Party also accepted that an injustice had been done. I tell the Māori Party that they should not come to this House preaching sanctimony; they should at least be genuine and generous enough to acknowledge the efforts of the National Party and New Zealand First in pardoning him.

Te Ururoa Flavell: Ran out of time.

RON MARK: Well, it took time, but many of us have been alive for only 50 years, not 150.

Te Ururoa Flavell: I ran out of time for my speech.

RON MARK: I know the member did, but he had plenty of time to make that point. It took three words. “I acknowledge the work” of other parties—maybe that is four.

We sometimes forget when we adopt a mantle and seek to campaign on issues that are dear to our hearts that we are not the people in the vanguard, and that people have come to this House and fought these issues before us—people like Tim Barnett, like those who made up the National Cabinet at the time of the National - New Zealand First coalition Government, and like the members of the law and order select committee at the time, such as Brian Neeson. I will put that name in the record, and I hope that the National members who sit here today, and who enjoy the salaries, the position, and the status that they have, remember Brian Neeson. He was the only man in the National caucus who stood up against the human rights abuses that were occurring in the Canterbury prisons at the time of the previous National Government.

We are pretty good around this place at beating our chests, standing up, and saying what we stand for. We are sadly lacking an ability to stand up and recognise those of us—cross-party—who have come before this House and put their political careers on the line by advocating for things that were unpopular and were not supported by our greater caucus numbers. I do not believe that there is a member in this House who does not support this bill. I do worry about the implications of some of the things that we think of in this House in respect of the safety and security of our Defence Force personnel deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world. But I do acknowledge the greater humanity that exists in this place and in the hearts of individuals in Parliament, cross-party. New Zealand First supports this bill, and we acknowledge, with respect, all other members of Parliament who likewise support this bill.

TIM GROSER (National) : I rise to support the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill. The debate has taken quite an interesting turn in the last couple of speeches, and I will come back to the question of my own views on abuses that have occurred in the past and I am sure will, unfortunately, occur in the future. But first of all I will look at the ultimate purpose of this bill, which starts with some type of consideration of its international origins. The international community learnt 60 years ago that the older concept of inhuman practices and human rights abuses being something that were outside the responsibility of the international community led to grave international problems in due course. This has created the bedrock of sentiment from which this optional protocol and a range of other international covenants, protocols, and agreements related to human rights come.

I personally have been a great supporter of multilateral approaches rather than relying on bilateral diplomacy, because I believe that, basically, they are far more effective in the long term. I am not sure whether Mr Ron Mark might have been a member of a parliamentary team that, when I was ambassador to Indonesia, went to Dili, but I went to Dili many years ago to represent New Zealand when East Timor was still under Indonesian control. Pursuant to my instructions from the Minister—and it was a National Government of the day—after 3 days, I think, looking around the place in Dili, I remember going to see one of the senior military people. I said to him, quite bluntly, that I thought what was going on there was just outrageous. He said to me, “Setuju” in Indonesian, meaning, basically, “I agree”.

I ask what better response one could have had about how completely hopeless it was, in the sense that all that would be recorded was a note in a file without any real consequential action. I think that the whole concept of concerted international pressure through multilateral diplomacy, which is what we are discussing tonight, is in the long term by far the best way to achieve what is really a work in progress, because this is a long-term process. Societies such as ours—and I note that we have just listened to the very interesting speaker from the Māori Party—did not arrive at the same standards of human rights observance overnight. It has taken us a long passage of time to get to where we are, and it will take many years for many countries to achieve what we would regard as even halfway reasonable standards. So I believe that there is a huge role here for international diplomacy.

I see that this optional protocol derives very directly from the original Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Article 2, which is set out in schedule 1 of the bill, puts the focus firmly on a cooperative relationship, if you like, between the international process on the one hand and the State that is a party to the convention on the other. That is the only way it can be. One cannot go from one extreme of saying that what happens within one’s borders is entirely one’s internal affairs, then lurch towards the other extreme of believing that the international community can simply ignore the governing authority. So there is a balance to be achieved between the two processes, and that is the foundation of the original political logic behind the convention.

Clearly, after 20 years of experience, members of the international community that are very active in the human rights arena, such as New Zealand, have reached a conclusion that further measures are required to make this convention more operationally effective—hence this optional protocol. The basic concepts of the protocol are very consistent with the original 1984 convention. It is, first of all, an issue of partnership—that issue of the international community working in conjunction with the State authorities. The protocol has an emphasis on prevention, and that is what the whole debate the House has had tonight over the incomprehensible term “national preventive mechanisms” is really all about. There is a very strong focus on the scope of this legislation being anything that is part of the territory of the party signing the optional protocol. So there is a strong level of consistency between the original convention and the optional protocol.

The committee has worked very hard on the over 20 submissions it received from a very active part of our community—and a very essential part of our democracy that exists here—just on the domestic implications. It was always going to be thus; after all, the purpose of the protocol is to establish within each of the parties that wish to take up the obligations of the protocol preventive mechanisms—in our case, within New Zealand—specific to the various places at which the possibility, at least, of cruel or inhuman treatment might arise. I accept that purpose, but I expressed several times during the select committee process, and I will repeat tonight, a certain air of unreality at times during the discussion. I was sitting there during the debate, and these very well-intentioned people—I would include the parliamentarians from all the parties on the committee—were looking in minute-detail terms at the national preventive mechanisms that would apply in different situations in New Zealand. I thought to myself: I just hope the good folk in Myanmar and Sudan are attaching the same degree of care to their analysis. I accept the logic of it, but that is the thought that keeps going through my mind. Of course, I have particularly in my head the Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People, Rudolfo Stavenhagen, on His Mission to New Zealand. Members will recall that amongst the spectacular idiocies of that report, which was certainly condemned by the National Party and Labour at the time, was the recommendation, after a mere 10 days of study in New Zealand, that we should introduce MMP at the local government level. There were also a series of extremely loosely informed opinions in the report.

At the end of the day, although the focus is necessarily domestic rather than international, I say that, frankly, this is not the main game. The main game is to enable us to sign this optional protocol in order to put us in a respectable position, which this amendment most certainly will, but to focus the real work of the committee yet to be established—whose terms of reference, criteria, and visiting cards have yet to be published—on the really bad guys. That is not to deny that in the past there have certainly been abuses of power by officials in this country over people who have been deprived of their liberty for whatever good—one hopes—reason, and we have just heard a very vigorous discussion between two members on this point. I regret to say that I am sure such abuses will continue in some form in the future—I hope they are few and far between. My point is very simple: I do not think we need the United Nations to help us sort this out. The normal democratic process and freedom of the press that we have in this country will eventually correct these most unfortunate lapses from what is otherwise a highly respectable record in this country.

My basic message tonight would be the same as it was during the select committee process. I fully support the bill. It is a sensible approach. We have the requisite level of independence attached to each future national preventive mechanism—whichever one is chosen by the Government of the day—and there is flexibility in that procedure. But the real focus of New Zealand should in fact be on the really bad guys. There are appalling human rights abuses. There is torture of the most incredible type taking place in country after country, not just in the two spectacular examples I mentioned of Darfur and Myanmar but in some other countries that for reasons of diplomatic protocol I do not care to mention in our Parliament. That is where the focus of our officials in New York should be. So, yes, people should make the usual speeches in the plenary about how the New Zealand authorities have discharged their responsibilities in a very effective way. But I ask the New Zealand officials who will be, in practice, at the sharp end of New Zealand’s efforts whether they could focus on the real problem facing the world on this issue.

JILL PETTIS (Labour) : It seems remarkable that in a country such as ours, which is a peaceful and effective democracy—and members in this House have only ever lived in peacetime—we should be discussing a bill such as the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill. But given the world in which we live, and given that we are a responsible member of the international community, I am pleased this bill is a reflection of New Zealand’s steadfast commitment to human rights, and of this nation’s abhorrence of torture.

I agree with what the previous speaker said, and of course we believe that the emphasis should be on the “bad guys”, but somebody has to commence a protocol before international pressure can be brought to bear. New Zealand has led many forms of international pressure that have brought about positive, democratic change in countries that had not experienced democracy—one person, one vote. With the support of New Zealand and other, kindred countries, such positive moves have often occurred. I am proud to have been involved in the select committee process, because it showed that New Zealand is continuing to provide leadership in important matters of international human rights. As I said before, this country was one of the first nations in the world to sign up to the optional protocol to the convention against torture, which was ratified on 22 June this year.

I want to touch briefly on an aspect that has not been covered by any other member this evening. It concerns the national preventive mechanism for health and disability services, because this is an important and, sometimes, sensitive area as well. The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee recommended that paragraph (d) of the definition of a national preventive mechanism in new section 16—in clause 6—be omitted. We felt that it was not appropriate that “persons designated by the Director-General under section 32 of the Health and Disability Services (Safety Act) 2001 to audit the provision of health care services:” be designated as national preventive mechanisms, because they are concerned with the safety and quality of health and disability services, rather than with human rights issues. The committee felt that for the purposes of health care, people may be legally detained in hospitals or care facilities, or subject to supervised care in the community, for reasons of their own or for public safety.

Accordingly, the committee felt it was important to designate an appropriate institution as a national preventive mechanism for health and disability services. It considered whether the Health and Disability Commissioner could be designated as a national preventive mechanism for monitoring the treatment of persons detained in health and disability facilities. The role of a national preventive mechanism is broadly consistent with the commissioner’s statutory mandate to promote and protect the rights of health and disability service consumers. However, for the commissioner to take on the role of a national preventive mechanism, the commissioner’s role would need to be extended to include powers of inspection and investigation. This would be, in effect, a significant extension, and would confuse the commissioner’s role as an advocate for patients’ rights. The committee also considered that the Office of the Ombudsmen should be designated as the national preventive mechanism in respect of persons detained in health and disability facilities.

One of the other aspects of the bill that is interesting concerns frequency of visits. The committee recommended that new section 27(a), in clause 6, be amended to read: “to examine, at regular intervals and at any other times the National Preventive Mechanism may decide,—”. The frequency and, perhaps, the irregularity of those visits will be key in ensuring that the proper conditions continue to prevail in a whole range of institutions.

As has been said earlier, the protocol establishes an international inspection team. Its visits will be important, as I have just alluded to, because they will act as a deterrent. The team will also be able to provide advice to local authorities. We know only too well that ill-treatment often stems from poor monitoring regimes. Regular inspections must take place in those countries that we have concerns about, such as the Sudan, where tragic incidents are occurring in Darfur, and Myanmar. That is the only way that New Zealand, as a member of the international community, will be able to help bring about more positive change.

I was disappointed to hear John Hayes’ comments. Mr Hayes sat on the committee that considered this bill. I thought it was a pity he did not ask the committee the same questions that he raised tonight. It reminds me of that saying: “It is no good being a hero without an audience.” Well, sometimes the hard questions have to be asked when there is not an audience, and I think it might have been more constructive if those questions had been asked while the officials and experts were in front of the committee, rather than his asking rhetorical questions on the debating floor of the House.

The mechanisms in this bill for reporting to Parliament have now been increased, and that can only be seen as a positive. I enjoyed participating in the committee’s consideration of this bill. As the chair of the committee, Dianne Yates, commented, it was a positive debate, and we always appreciate that manner of debate in the committee.

• Bill read a second time.