General Debates

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Sixty-eight percent of New Zealanders have now got the point, and they are wondering when the Government will get the point. A long time ago they gave up expecting that the Opposition would ever get the point, but most of them are Labour Party voters, and they still hope that their Government will get the point. Sixty-eight percent of New Zealanders do not want the moratorium on the release of genetically engineered crops and animals lifted in October. Sixty-eight percent of them say it is much too soon, and we do not know enough. What is more, 38 percent say they should be banned for good.

That is a poll from the New Zealand Herald. For 5 years the New Zealand Herald has been calling me a Luddite, and the Greens anti-science, because of the issues we have raised about genetic engineering. Suddenly, the New Zealand Herald has got the point, and its front page every day this week has been about the risks of genetic engineering to our economy, health, and environment.

The chief executive of the Royal Society of New Zealand, New Zealand’s premier science institution, has got the point. He states in the New Zealand Herald: “We can now tamper with creation. It is indeed exciting, awe-inspiring, and potentially terrifying.” That is the terror that this Government wants to impose on the rest of New Zealand.

Reports are that Tony Blair is getting the point. The London Independent reports that Tony Blair is dramatically scaling back his plans to open up UK farms to widespread planting of genetically modified crops. He is faced with unwavering public opposition, and two recent Government reports were highly embarrassing for the Blair Government. One stated that growing genetically engineered (GE) crops would provide no benefit to the economy, and the other that it would be impossible to grow some GE crops without contaminating organic products.

Our big export industries have got the point. “Export giants call for go slow on GM”, states the New Zealand Herald. Zespri, which presented to the select committee and adds $850 million a year and 25,000 jobs to the New Zealand economy, stated: “Our position is that no GMOs should be released into New Zealand until the risks of this are better understood.”

Many councils are starting to get the point. The New Zealand Herald also reports that a number of councils are looking at what legal avenues they have, in order to respond to the wishes of their citizens to keep GE crops and animals out of their areas.

The New Zealand Herald has been printing letters from readers. The letters are running at about ten to one in favour of keeping the moratorium in place. I will read some excerpts: “If two-thirds of our population is against GM, then the moratorium has to be extended. It’s as simple as that.”, writes one couple. “There is a very good reason insurance companies are refusing to insure experimental or commercial trials of GE crops.”, points out another. A grandmother writes: “My feelings are not based on hysteria or a fear of progress, but the many warnings coming from within the scientific community itself over many years.”

Here is one member of the scientific community, a New Zealander who reads the New Zealand Herald on the web, because he is currently running a GE laboratory in the United States. He writes: “We use and generate genetically engineered organisms (GEOs) in our research. Until phrases like ‘proceeding with caution’, ‘strict controls’, and ‘robust science’”—the Government phrases—“carry some specific meaning with respect to GEOs, lifting the GE moratorium in New Zealand defies logic, and appears to be nothing more than politics as usual.”

I would like to talk today about four or five things. I would like to talk about meetings outside the building. I would like to talk about what is causing Bill English’s headache. I want to talk about Chicken Licken. He was the one who kept on saying that the sky was falling in, and kept on running away. I want to talk about the Brownlee-Peters deal.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Mr Brownlee and Mr Peters.

The deal between Mr Brownlee and Mr Peters. I want to talk about the $50 a week cut to superannuation for married couples. And, if I have time, I want to get on to Rodney Hide and inappropriate income, but that might have to wait for another time. I want to ask which National Party members are not having meetings outside the building?

💬 Darren Hughes: Who with?

They are either with groups within their own party, or outside it. I stumbled across one yesterday. Someone else stumbled across another one last night. Three National Party members were plotting at lunchtime. They were hidden away in the Back-bencher Pub and Cafe.

💬 Darren Hughes: Who were they?

Mr Power, Mr Brownlee, but, most important, Murray McCully. Something is clearly going on there, and the new team is forming. But what did we get to counteract that last night? There seem to be two deals going down: Mr Brownlee and Mr Peters, and Mr Prebble and Mr English. What I want to ask is: which deal will be the winning deal? Will Mr Brownlee’s invitation to Mr Peters to lead the National Party be the one that wins, or will they convince Richard Prebble to go to the party that he has never been a member of—the National Party—and lead it, because they are looking for some leadership over there?

We could ask Mr Prebble whether the possibility of working more closely with the National Party was raised with him last night. He is not denying it, because we know that that was what they were up to. But what happened today? Bill English had a headache. Forty percent of National Party supporters say that he is the biggest obstacle to National’s re-election.

💬 Simon Power: That’s not right.

That is absolutely right. Forty percent of the people who were polled, who identify themselves as National supporters, said that Bill English was the biggest obstacle to National’s re-election. [Interruption] They say it is 50 percent now. I agree that the poll is a week or two old, so Simon Power says it might be up to 50 percent. Is that the cause of Bill English’s headache, or was it the dinner last night? I tend to say that having dinner with Richard Prebble would cause a headache for me, but for Bill English it could have been something else.

I was going to draw some parallels between Bill English and Chicken Licken—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: No.

But of course I will not, Mr Speaker. I could not do that. As kids we were all told about the people who said that the sky would fall in, and who kept on running away.

💬 John Key: Kentucky Fried Chicken.

There was too much of that in my past, that is for sure. I bet it was not Kentucky Fried Chicken with Richard Prebble and Bill English last night— [Interruption] Well, that might be Mr Brownlee’s approach. What I want the next National Party speaker to tell us is why National wants to cut the married couple’s pension by $50 a week. It has refused to sign up—

💬 John Key: That party would cut it by $200 a week.

John Key—from the right—says he wants it cut by $200 a week. That is the approach from the rich boy from Auckland, but where is Bill English?

I will continue the theme outlined by the previous speaker and talk about meetings that are occurring all around New Zealand, to which Labour Party politicians will not front up. It is a tired, pathetic, invisible man that we now have as the Minister of Agriculture in New Zealand. Where is the Minister of Agriculture when farmers want the flatulence tax explained to them? Jim Sutton will announce his retirement from New Zealand politics in the near future as a sad, broken man who can no longer defend the policies of the Labour Government. I want to know what that Minister will be remembered for.

💬 Jill Pettis: A good deal.

A lot? I think that is true. I do not often agree with Jill Pettis, but that Minister will be remembered as the man who brought in the flatulence tax, and was then not prepared to attend any of the meetings to defend it. That Minister will be remembered as the person who brought in the exit grant through the 1980s, when the last Labour Government sent thousands of farmers to the wall. That is how the Minister of Agriculture, Jim Sutton, will be remembered.

Where was Jim Sutton when 1,500 people marched down the main street of Invercargill? Where was the Minister of Agriculture when that meeting took place last Saturday? He was sitting in Wellington, cowering in his office, hoping that he did not have to answer any of the difficult questions. Where will the Minister of Agriculture be next Thursday when thousands of farmers descend on Wellington to stand in front of Parliament? Will the Minister of Agriculture front up to them? I guarantee that he will not be there. At that meeting, the farmers of New Zealand will be saying: “Come and explain the flatulence tax.” The Greens will not front, and United Future, which is currently supporting the Government, probably will not front either. [Interruption] Jill Pettis certainly will not front, and I know that the Minister of Agriculture will not front. They are running scared.

I want to know why the Minister of Agriculture said in the House on 22 July this year that the farmers can afford to pay the tax, because, on average, they earn over $106,000 a year. What an envious line! “Tough luck, cockies, you can afford to pay, so stop whingeing.” That is what he said when he went to the Federated Farmers conference in Auckland, which just goes to explain the envy politics of this Labour Government. I have a message for Mr Sutton, and for every other member of the Labour Party: if the farmers are whingeing, they have every right to whinge. They have had 18 new taxes in 4 years; the flatulence tax is just the latest of the ridiculous taxes to be heaped on that sector.

The Labour Government is actually here because of the farmers. The buoyancy of the last few years has been because of the backbone provided by our agricultural sector. What has Labour done for it? It has heaped more taxes on it. If Mr Sutton had been prepared to front up at that meeting, or had sent any other Minister to front up, he would have heard the farmers saying enough is enough. The Government should stop heaping ridiculous taxes on to the agricultural sector, particularly when it is under economic pressure because of declining returns. Mr Sutton should stop running away and start fronting up and representing the concerns of farmers. The farmers deserve an explanation, because enough is enough.

The National Party had 2 days in Christchurch last week—which I think is a perfectly acceptable use of adjournment time—so that its members could get together, strategise, and think about how they could improve their performance in the House and in the polls. What do we get after they spent 2 days away together? They put David Carter up as their speaker in the general debate. Well, that was a worthwhile couple of days to work that one out.

There is nothing that this once-proud National Party can do to lift its performance. Why? Simply because it has not one jot of credibility, either inside its party or outside its party. National’s own leader cannot drag himself out of the margin of error—and that is just within his own caucus. Everyone knows he is not up to it, and everyone knows that his heart is not in it. We are happy to support him as the Leader of the Opposition.

The National Party cannot position itself on the political spectrum because it does not know where it belongs any more. It has no leadership and the talk has started again. We have heard Mr Mallard tell us about those meetings and we know about them happening all the time. We know that approaches are being made, so who is being approached? I can tell the House that not one single member of the brat pack has been approached by anyone in the National Party caucus. In fact, caucus members are so disgusted with the appalling behaviour of Roger Sowry, Tony Ryall, and Nick Smith that they are looking again more widely, and they are looking over the fence. They are not staying within their own caucus to make those approaches. Mr English may have been mending fences with the ACT party last night because he had failed to back up Murray McCully when that member made overtures at a regional ACT party conference, or maybe Mr English was just getting some advice on how to earn an independent salary, which one does not have to disclose when one is a back-bench MP. I think Mr Hide was at that meal, and I am sure that he would have been able to give very good advice on that particular subject.

Other members of the National Party caucus have been looking jealously at the recent poll rating, which can perhaps appropriately be described as a rogue poll given its subject, namely, one Winston Peters. Certainly, National Party back-benchers are so appalled at where their once-proud party sits in the polls they are currying favour with Winston Peters so that they can at least get themselves into the headlines. But I think Mr Peters should be exposed for the incompetent, bumbling fool he has become. The media have dubbed him the “MP for Courtenay Place”, and late nights are taking a toll on him. Members should look at his behaviour over the Refugee Council. He was invited to speak at the Refugee Council’s annual general meeting. He assumed he was the only one asked to speak, agreed to attend, and then found out that I was going to be there and did not even have the gumption to front. The bottom line is that he is made a fool of in this House, over and over again.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that a gracious providence intervened and the bell went, but the Minister did not sit down. It does not get better in the retelling.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I made a mistake. The bell should not have gone.

That member has made an absolute fool of himself in Parliament by raising questions about immigration matters that go nowhere. He puts out press statements, but, to use his own favourite expression, he produces not one single shred of evidence in support of anything he raises in this Parliament on immigration matters. Yesterday he tabled a letter in the House that, apparently, was evidence to back up a press statement. Every single element of that press statement was wrong. The individual concerned had been removed from New Zealand 9 days before Mr Peters even put out the press statement. He had been in jail since April, so he was never “lost to the system”; he was not missing. There was no cover-up, but that member just tries to get a headline. The bottom line is that it is really sad the National Party is sidling up to such a hopeless case.

I would like to start my comments in the general debate by thanking Federated Farmers and all the other Opposition political parties for their campaign against this ridiculous, stupid flatulence tax that has turned New Zealand into an international laughing stock. I ask the media of this country how it is that that stupid tax has appeared as many times in The Times of London and in the New York Times as it has in the Waikato Times. How has that come about? It has turned us into an international laughing stock.

I come back to some of the comments made by the Hon Trevor Mallard in his hopeless contribution. I ask him why he and the Cabinet did not listen to Jim Sutton when he said that the tax is a stupid tax and that we should not proceed with it. Why did you roll the Minister of Agriculture?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member must not bring me into debate.

The poor Minister of Agriculture has been rolled on that, and so have all his cohorts in that Cabinet. The Minister of Agriculture said: “Farmers can’t do anything about these emissions, given current technology, so taxing them would be a pointless exercise.” That is what the Minister of Agriculture stated in the Southland Times on 2 May 2002. Today the Minister of Research, Science and Technology, the Hon Pete Hodgson, said in the House that if farmers were to fund this research themselves, then the matter would not be proceeded with. I ask Mr Hodgson what he thinks the $100 million the dairy industry is putting into research and development this year alone is being spent on. He should take some time, meet with ViaLactica Biosciences (NZ), and find out what money is being spent on. Three million alone is being spent on ruminant efficiency.

The Minister over there has been ruminating about a whole lot of stuff and contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions overwhelmingly—in fact, much more than our livestock around the country—but the facts are that industry is funding research into ruminant efficiency. What has that research shown so far? It has shown that there is as a high chance of increasing methane emissions from ruminant animals by improving their efficiency as there is of reducing methane emissions. There is as high a chance of that as there is of reducing it. I ask the Minister, given his comments in the House, whether he will front up at the meetings and back away from this stupid tax. It is a simple question to answer. Will he back down—yes or no? So far, there is no indication he will. It is a question of who it was within the Cabinet, given that it was not the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of Research, Science and Technology, who came up with that stupid idea. Who was it?

💬 Hon David Carter: Heather Simpson.

It would have to be someone as high up as Heather Simpson.

💬 Simon Power: Rick Barker.

No, no, it would have to be somebody who is above the Cabinet—that must be Heather Simpson—who would come up with such a brain-dead notion as putting a levy on flatulence when, so far, the science from Ruakura and other reputable science and research and development institutions around the country has stated that the research those institutions have done shows there is as much as a 40 percent chance that the measurement of methane is wrong. I ask where that nonsensical idea is coming from. Will that Minister, or any Minister from the Cabinet, front up at the protest that will take place here on 4 September and explain this stupid notion to the farmers—yes or no? It is a simple question to answer, and nobody will respond to it. There has not yet been a Labour member at the meetings around the country that I have attended, and I have attended a large number. There has not been one, either a Minister or a member. I would like to know where they have fronted up. They tell me they have. They are honourable members, so they will have fronted up somewhere. I am just not sure where. They have not been at any of the meetings I have been at.

💬 Opposition Member: Just get Jill Pettis.

That would be most helpful. That would certainly add to the flatulence.

I want to put in some facts, which is unusual for this debate. In October 2001 the National Party was polling at around 33 percent. The National Party was so desperately worried about its future that it decided to dump Jenny Shipley and replace her with Bill English. It saw the future of that great party on a slide. It was slipping from being a major party to being a minor party. The facts are all bad even now, and getting worse. In July 2002 Bill English was seen by 44 percent of respondents as being a capable leader. In August 2003 he was seen by just 27 percent as being a capable leader. To the question “Would he be good in a crisis?”, in 2002, 41 percent said “Yes.” In 2003 that figure went down to 31 percent. The National Party leader has slipped on every figure—and it is little wonder. Did we see him get up in the House today and hear him ask a pointed question? No, we did not. Did we see him get up in the House today and take the spear to the Government? We did not. There is a complete absence of leadership in the National Party.

I have a great deal of respect for the Opposition. The Government deserves a good Opposition. I am prepared to put the offices of Work and Income New Zealand to work to assist the National Party. I am prepared to have them advertise a position—a vacant leadership position in the National Party, because Mr English would like to get out of it. But no one is prepared to take the job. No one wants the hot potato. No one wants to have on his or her CV: “Led the National Party from ‘leading the Opposition’ to ‘number three in the Opposition’.” Everybody has been asked to be the leader of the National Party, but no one will take the job. That is what all the meetings are about. Trevor Mallard has got it wrong; it is a question of who will take over from Bill English, because he wants out.

The first requirement we would have in the list of job qualifications is that the person will be able to read a speech. He or she does not need to be able to give a speech, just to read a speech, because that will be better than what we have currently. The Leader of the Opposition will need to have the quality of being able to ask a question. There will be no need to be able to answer a question—National will be in Opposition for a long time, so there will be no requirement for the leader to be able to answer a question. The leader will also have to be prepared to spend a lengthy time in Opposition. He or she will not need to have any policy skills—that will not be required for the National Party—and will also have to be able to take a joke, because there are lots of those around them. He or she will not need to be able to run an electorate office, because the current leader does not run an electorate office. The new leader will not have to worry about that but will have to have the personal quality of being able suffer fools gladly, because he or she will be surrounded by them.

The other thing is that the new leader will have to have a good constitution for wining and dining, because the current one does not. I understand there was a meeting of seven people last night—four had steaks, one had fish, and two had venison. And the new Leader of the Opposition will not have to worry about paying the bills, because I am well advised that the current one does not. So there are no worries about this, at all. It is a very good little job and I am prepared to help the National Party Opposition with that, because the Government does deserve a good Leader of the Opposition.

But if it is bad enough for the National Party now, with its lack of leadership, it will be even worse for National Party members when they go on the hustings, because we find, yet again, the deep abiding hatred that the National Party has for its senior citizens. The reports show quite clearly that when the National Party cut superannuation the last time, from 65 percent down to 62.5 percent, it actually had intentions of cutting the floor of superannuation to just 50 percent. That represents a cut of over $50 per week to every superannuitant.

These people here have no heart for our elderly; they have no heart at all for the people who built the schools, made the roads, and built the hospitals. As far as National Party members are concerned, once people are over 65, they are on the scrap heap. They do not care, because we all know that the National Party thinks: “We’re wealthy; we can take care of ourselves.” The National Party’s position on superannuation is absolutely disgraceful. Members opposite said some time ago that they would sign up for the first part of the superannuation deal—guaranteeing 65 percent at 65 years of age. What do we have in the House today, but a chiselling escape from that by their spokesperson on this issue, Don Brash, who said: “Well, the Government’s scheme is only going to pay for one dollar in seven.”

One has to wonder whether the Labour Party remembers who put the surtax on, who brought in asset testing against the elderly, and who removed the elderly as a priority from hospital waiting lists. The Labour Party did that. Mr Mallard well knows—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Who promised to take the surtax off?

I promised to take the surtax off, and we did. There is nothing like listening to a dog with a cleft palate. It is like some fullback waiting for a high ball—“Arc, arc, Mark!”—and he would not know what is going on. Mr Mallard knows full well that I did not dine with Gerry Brownlee last night, and his colleagues all know it. So why would he say it, unless he is a “you know what”? I cannot use the word, but someone who says something he demonstrably and palpably knows not to be true, is a “you know what”.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to make it clear that I did not indicate that Gerry Brownlee was eating with Winston Peters last night. That was the other dinner last night.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not a point of order.

Today I asked the Minister of Immigration a question. She said she knew nothing. There is nothing surprising about that. Then I sought leave to ask a further question and the Minister of Finance—of all people—denied me leave. He did not want to know. The story that I am talking about is a fraud on the New Zealand Government that has been perpetrated by immigrant operators and foreign fly-by-nighters. The loss to New Zealand revenue amounts to an acknowledged $10 million per annum by the Inland Revenue Department in Wellington, but the local Inland Revenue Department assessment is that the loss is at about $30 million per annum. I will explain how it happens. There are about 50 million trays of kiwifruit—I am not talking about squash and all the other orchard apples, I am talking about just kiwifruit—being harvested in 2003. The labour costs for picking and pruning are $2 a tray. That is $100 million in labour alone. At the February 2003 fruitgrowers association meeting, Andrew Fenton, chairman of the board of Satara, and the Bay of Plenty fruitgrowers’ representative on the New Zealand Fruitgrowers Federation, reported to those gentlemen and women that at a meeting of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers Federation the Inland Revenue Department had made a presentation, during which it admitted that 70 percent of contractors operating within the Bay of Plenty area were not paying or accounting for GST, PAYE, or accident compensation.

💬 Dail Jones: Good gosh!

Of course—good gosh! The Minister of Finance does not want to know about it. It also said that the money involved was in excess of $10 million in that simple assessment for 2002, but the local Inland Revenue Department says that it is more like $30 million. If we assess those 50 million trays at $2 a tray, and 70 percent of the contractors operating are not paying it, then we know what is going on. We have foreigners ripping our revenue off. We have foreigners who are causing a significant loss of revenue, and the Minister of Immigration, even though Inland Revenue Department knows about it, is so inconsequential, so hopeless, that she is not even consulted.

💬 Jill Pettis: Oh Winston, stop telling tall stories.

It must be market day—the fishwife is out again.

💬 Jill Pettis: I’m stone sober.

Well, there is no sign of that—no sign whatsoever.

💬 Ron Mark: Next thing she’ll be saying she’s sensible.

Yes, exactly. Next she will be saying she is sensible and sane. I ask this Government why it has done nothing about it. It works like this. The orchardist contracts with the contractor for $10,000—this is as an example. Then the contractor gets two subcontractors in, both of whom are foreigners, and they contract half of that contract, less the GST, $8,000 or $4,000 each. The contractor invoices the orchard for $10,000. Then—and I will call them Mr and Mrs Singh, or Mr Singh and his brother, because it is usually the Singhs who are doing it in the Bay of Plenty—they invoice the contractor for $4,000 each. Then they have a second and third invoice system; they then write invoices from and to themselves. They write the cheques and get the cash, and GST, PAYE, and accident compensation is all lost as it goes down the line, except in the first $2,000 of GST. That is it—a very simple scam, widely known by the Inland Revenue Department to be operating. This Government has done nothing about it, whilst it is out penalising farmers with the fart tax, and it will introduce a happy tax or a happy bill that says: “If you are not happy, you need more holidays.”

Bill English is being squeezed into a number of issues that he really does not want to be involved in. What I found really sad on Saturday as I watched him in the march in Invercargill was that it was almost as though it was the last march of a man on his way out.

💬 Simon Power: Give his office a ring.

Well, I will tell the member about the office in a minute. What was really sad for Mr English was that there was no enthusiasm for him. The person who got the most response at the rally was Gerry Eckhoff, because he had the fortitude to get up and say: “We will repeal Kyoto.” What National Party members have done in being squeezed into these issues is paint themselves into a corner whereby if they do not repeal Kyoto, they will have let their voters down again. What was fascinating at the rally—[Interruption] I was actually there. David Carter chose to ignore that, because I made two points at that rally. One is that Kyoto is here to stay, and the second point is that not only is it here to stay but no other Government will get rid of it. The people at the rally wanted to know whether National would get rid of it, and Mr English fudged. After Mr English got up and said: “David Carter’s doing some work as to whether or not we can get out.”—and what do we think about that; he has given it to the brains trust!—a gentleman in the crowd said: “What’s your timetable, Bill, what’s your timetable?”, and he said: “December.” If it had not been for the fact that I was there, Mr English would have got a grilling on that point, but they knew they could not grill Mr English because I was there. What was even worse for Mr English was that he was not asked for an interview after the rally. The only two people asked for an interview after the rally were myself and Peter Dunne. Nobody else was asked for an interview after the rally, which means that the National Party’s position was totally without any particular imperative at all.

I have a question for the National Party. I want the next National Party speaker to stand up and tell us why it is that Nick Smith, Sandra Goudie, and Tony Ryall are charging $10 a head for their meeting at Edgecumbe on Friday? They are charging $10 a head for people to come to their flatulence tax meeting. We are not even charging that much for a sheep. Where is the integrity in that? That is what I want to know. They are using farmers to boost their coffers by charging $10 a head. Worse than that, though, is the fact that only those who agree with them will turn up to the meeting. I am going back to Invercargill on Friday for another meeting with the farmers on this matter. Pete Hodgson is coming, as well. We will put 400 chairs out, and we have asked the president of Federated Farmers to front up and chair the meeting, and I am sure he will.

Mr English is in a terrible position. It is a sad day indeed when the staff in his office get very upset by a phone call from somebody asking how to get hold of him. I can understand the fact that his office workers, who are only part time, get upset when they get a phone call from people looking for him because he is not there.

He cannot be found in Clutha-Southland. He is nowhere around. My office deals with his constituents’ complaints. I want to say one thing that is really important: anybody who suggests that my secretary harasses anybody is in cloud cuckoo land. People in this complex would be absolutely amazed at any suggestion that my parliamentary secretary could harass even a flea. I want to say one other thing: I will continue to ring Bill English’s office every time a constituent of mine wants to get hold of him, because I am sick and tired of doing his work. If it is a crime to ring his office so that his constituents can get help, then I am guilty. If the police are going to waste their time going through my parliamentary phone bills to check whether I have rung him, I will tell them not to bother. I do ring his office, and they may as well grow up and understand that because it is time that that leader over there did something. Mr English should simply give up. He has had his day. It is time now that he is replaced by someone who can do the job.

It is patently obvious why no one noticed Mr Peck at the last flatulence tax meeting. With that sort of unmitigated conglomeration, one can understand the situation. But he was a member of a party that, 4 years ago, brought out a credit card that said: “no new taxes”. I have here a little bit of paper that demonstrates that this Government—

💬 Mark Peck: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave of the House to table an email showing that the National Party is holding a meeting in Edgecumbe for which it is charging $10 a head for people to attend.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is not good form in this debate.

💬 Mark Peck: Point of order! I am seeking to table a document.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is not common courtesy—

💬 Mark Peck: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am seeking to table a document. I have sought leave to do that.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member has put the case. I will now ask: is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think that Mr Peck has been around long enough—though I cannot be certain how long he will remain from hereon in—to know full well that if a member wants to table a document, it is done at the end of the member’s own speech, or at the end of the next speaker’s speech—but one does not interrupt that speaker. It is patently unfair, ill mannered, and unbecoming of him.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member for his contribution; he is perfectly right. I know that the planet Mars is close to Earth today, and that Mars is the god of war, but that should not mar our proceedings in this House. I ask for courtesy and for an understanding of the Standing Orders.

The Rt Hon Winston Peters is absolutely right. Mr Peck is unfair, ill mannered, and inappropriate in the point of order he made. That is typical of his party, which 4 years ago came out with a credit card that said: “no new taxes”. I have here a piece of paper that describes Labour’s 18 new taxes, and, over and above those, seven proposed new taxes. One of them, of course, just happens to be that absolutely, utterly inane flatulence tax. What did that party say about that flatulence tax several years ago? Let us have a look at what the Hon Pete Hodgson said about that tax on 16 November 2001. He said: “I can offer you a personal viewpoint, which is that to tax cattle and sheep in that way is a remarkably stupid thing to do. It’s precisely the wrong policy approach.” Well, on that particular instance, we agree with the Hon Pete Hodgson. But what did he then say on 30 April 2002? He said: “Today the Government announced that there will be no tax or levy on farming emissions of nitrous oxide or methane. We have completely rejected that option.” Was the Hon Pete Hodgson telling the truth when he said that Labour had completely rejected that option? It is just the same as the situation with Labour’s credit card. What did his mate the Hon Damien O’Connor say? On 14 September 2002 he said: “The Government’s decision to exempt the agricultural sector from emissions charges is a clear signal that we have the well-being of our farmers and citizens at heart.”

The Government might say that it has the well-being of our farmers and citizens at heart, but let us have a look at what the ministry’s own website has to say about the well-being of the citizens of New Zealand. According to the Labour Government’s climate change website, tax revenue will be collected from individual New Zealanders through—from 2007—6 percent petrol price increases, 12 percent diesel price increases, 9 percent electricity price increases, 8 percent gas price increases, and, to top it all off, 19 percent coal price increases. That is what this Labour Government is perpetrating on ordinary New Zealanders. What does the National Bank estimate? It estimates that, by initiating greenhouse taxes and exposing New Zealand to world trade with countries not hobbled by similar restrictions, the Government has committed the country to a decrease in economic growth by as much as 1 percent a year. So here we have Damien O’Connor gaily saying that Labour has the well-being of our farmers and citizens at heart. Can we believe that? We obviously cannot.

The Hon Pete Hodgson may say that signing up to the Kyoto Protocol is a no-brainer, given the carbon credits, but what is unique about the way that this Labour Government signed up? The Labour Government is the only Government in the world that has said it will nationalise carbon credits. The Labour Government is the only Government in the southern hemisphere whose country will be significantly adversely affected by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. The National Bank, on the Government’s own website, has estimated a 1 percent effect on economic growth. The Labour Government is the only Government of the only country in the history of personkind, if not the universe, to introduce this inane tax.

I would like to address the issue of landlords’ rights, yet again. Steve Maharey has made some noises of late, and he has picked up some of the recommendations that I floated a little while ago. Some of those things included the ability of the courts to use Government-held address information to trace tenancy tribunal order debtors, new processes for Work and Income to help beneficiary tenants to meet rent arrears, and the investigation of improved access to tenancy tribunal decisions. Those are small steps, but they are in the right direction. The Minister has taken legislation that has no teeth at all, and he has given it ill-fitting dentures, instead. But that is merely a start. One of the things that has to be looked at is the simple fact that enforcement does not go to the core of the problem, which is the injustice of the legislation that landlords have to operate under. I think that the Minister has to get real, work with landlords—be like a landlord himself—and realise the kind of strain and pressure that is put on them when trying to do something that is a lawful activity: putting roofs over the heads of New Zealanders where Governments simply cannot do so, and they fail to meet the need.

One of the things that the Minister has done is to look at the ability to track tenancy tribunal decisions through the Ministry of Social Development in situations where landlords have previously been left chasing shadows, because of virtually unenforceable tenancy tribunal orders. But bad tenants are by no means always beneficiaries. There needs to be a look at how that can actually enforce responsibility. I am less enthusiastic about some of the other aspects, such as the plan to ensure that tenants are not evicted by covering rent arrears through Work and Income.

💬 Simon Power: What!

That is right. The problem is that that will do nothing to make those tenants any more responsible. It is a start, but all that it will do is to ensure that the money flows through to the landlords. That needs to be looked at and protected. But it will not make the tenants responsible, it will not make it easier to break up the tenancy agreement, and it will not be easier to get rid of bad tenants. That is the problem. Landlords are still left in limbo, whereby they have bad tenants whose rents are paid for through tax, but they are unable to effect any change in who is living under the roofs that they have provided through hard-earned, tax-paid, income. That simply is not fair.

The bottom line is that Steve Maharey has addressed enforcement and information sharing—which is good—but not the substantive inequalities that are present in the Residential Tenancies Act. Nor has he taken the opportunity to do so in the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. The bill does very little to address any of the issues other than that of boarding houses, which is a very small component of the problem. I would like to ask him whether he will consider making further changes to the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill to include wilful abandonment of a property as an offence, and to remove the maximum limit on bond payments of 4 weeks, so that it could be the subject of negotiation instead, and could reflect the perceived risk of damage. If not, I ask him why not? It seems eminently reasonable to me that if someone has a saleable commodity, such as a roof over a person’s head—no different to any other product that is out there in the marketplace—it should be subject to negotiation between the purveyor and the purchaser of the product. There is no reason to assume that an unequal relationship exists there.

If members look at the Act, they will see it specifies what tenants must do, but there is no provision of offences if the conditions are breached. Meanwhile, sections 12, 17, 18, 19, 23, 27, 29, 30, 48, and 137, contain offences against the landlord, with fines or—members should get this—imprisonment provisions. There should be an equivalent set of obligations and penalties on both tenants and landlords. There is nothing in the Act that allows tenants to be thrown into jail if they wilfully damage a rental property or if the rent arrears fall well and truly behind. Nothing in the Act provides for any of that, at all. That is, quite simply, not fair. We are talking about 230,000 privately owned and operated rental housing units in this country. The average value of them is about $180,000 each. That is a sizeable investment for most New Zealanders. These are not necessarily big industries that can accommodate such infringements and absorb such losses.

I say at the outset that the ACT party is the only party in Parliament that says unequivocally, at this time, that it will withdraw New Zealand’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. The previous National Government should not have signed it in 1997, and the Labour Government should not have ratified it last year. In 1997 it was clear that the Kyoto Protocol was failing, but by 2002, when it was ratified, it was clear that it was fundamentally flawed. It will never work. It is not in effect yet. If Russia does not sign the Kyoto Protocol it will not come into effect, but it will certainly damage the New Zealand economy. We have the spectre of farmers all over the country finally realising how nonsensical the Kyoto Protocol is. We are the laughing stock of the world. Members should go into the websites, and read the foreign magazines. They are laughing like drains at New Zealand for implementing a “fart tax”. That is ridiculous, but it is what this Government has done.

I want to reveal a bigger issue here today. It is a scandal, a scam, and a distortion.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Is the member talking about Rodney Hide’s income?

Mr Mallard and his Cabinet are responsible for this scam. I will run it by the House now. The scam is that this Government stripped away the carbon credits from the forest industry of New Zealand. If we were to have an economic instrument to make the Kyoto Protocol work, then we had to leave the incentives where they were. Since that property right was confiscated—nationalised by this Government—there have been virtually no new forests planted in this country. Investment in forestry has dried up. Should we be surprised at that? The Government stripped away those carbon credits and—I assure members that this is how nutty the Kyoto Protocol is—the carbon credits are actually worth more than the wood. It works out at $20,000 a hectare of carbon credit value—a nominal value stripped away and confiscated by the Government.

But what did the Government do? This is the scandal, and I ask Government members to pay attention to this. In May the Government gave carbon credits to Meridian Energy, a State-owned enterprise that the Government owns—a major generator. Why did it give Meridian Energy carbon credits? It was to invest in the Te Apiti wind farm in the Tararuas. Why was that? It was because wind farms cannot foot it. At a baseload pricing of about 10c to 12c they are not economic, so they can be effective only if they are subsidised. That is nonsense in itself, but the Government did that. It appropriated the property rights from the forestry sector on the one hand, and on the other hand gave them to Meridian Energy, its own State-owned enterprise that it owns.

Here is the scam in the scandal. What did Meridian Energy do with the property rights? Do members want to know? On 15 August Meridian Energy sold them to the Dutch Government. I have the papers here. The State-owned enterprise, Meridian Energy did that. The Government confiscated the property rights from the forestry owners earlier in May, encouraged Meridian Energy to invest in wind farms, subsidised it to do that, and then gave it the carbon credits, and what has Meridian Energy done with them? On 15 August the State-owned enterprise sold them to the Dutch Government. So the Government will get the money back as a State-owned enterprise dividend. That is theft. This Government has stolen a property right, thereby distorting the market and causing forestry investment to dry up, and Meridian Energy sold that right on to the Dutch Government. Did Harry have something to do with this, perhaps—the Harry who flies under two flags?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I draw the member’s attention to Speaker’s ruling 6/1 (Supplement). The member must not refer to members by their first names.

The Hon Mr Duynhoven is a Minister of this Government who has signed allegiance to the Dutch Government—and somehow this Government sold a property right, one that it had appropriated and stolen, to the Dutch Government. That is extraordinary. The Government will get the money back as a dividend from the State-owned enterprise. It is little wonder that the Government does not like the private sector to generate energy.

The point has already been made in this debate that this Government is introducing new taxes everywhere. This is another way that it can claw money for more State control, so that it can throw money at all its little pet social engineering programmes—Māori television—and everywhere else. The Government will grab money from the production sector, drive it into the ground, and give the money away to the non-productive sector.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of State): Here is a news flash for Ken Shirley: State-owned enterprises are, under the State-Owned Enterprises Act, run by boards. The boards have an independent right to run their companies, and they have a fiduciary duty to do so in the interests of those companies. That member was around in the last Labour Government, and he did not make the cut—that is why he is not a member of the Labour Party now—and that member knows what the State-Owned Enterprises Act is about. He is making a very long draw of the bow, to put it kindly.

Let us remember a couple of things about the Kyoto Protocol, because there has been a bit of talk about it in the general debate today. The first thing is that on all the mid-range projections of the carbon price, New Zealand will be a net winner. The value of the credits is bigger than the cost of the taxes—from memory, by about $200 million. Even for a National spokesperson on finance, that ought to be real money. It is certainly real money when compared with the $300 a farmer, on average, that the emissions levy will cost to build good research for our agricultural sector. That is not worth the cost of the tractor ride to the meeting, or the $10 it costs to pay the National Party’s emissions levy to get in the door.

But that is not the main point of today’s speech. That is a sideshow, and that is the problem with the National Party. It is always chasing sideshows. I am starting to feel sorry for Bill English. The problem is that he—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Self-inflicted last night; don’t feel sorry for him.

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: He is allowed a night off; he is a decent bloke, and he works reasonably hard. The problem is not that Bill English will fail to be a good leader of the National Party or a good future National Prime Minister. The problem is that he cannot be, for three simple reasons. Firstly, he has no spark, secondly, he has no strategy, and, thirdly, he has no coalition. Let me take those points in order.

Bill English has no spark, and that is obvious every day in question time when Winston Peters stands up and eclipses him like a solar eclipse. The shutters go down, a big shadow goes over Bill English, and nobody cares. Winston Peters may talk rubbish most of the time, but he does have the knack of doing it with some aplomb. He does have the gift of the gab. It is only when we actually listen to Winston Peters occasionally that we realise that what he says is complete hogwash. However, until then—and it is a sad, but true, fact that some 15 or 17 percent of the public have difficulty with the difference—Bill English is no place.

Was Bill English in the first general debate after National’s 2-day caucus? No, he was not. Has the public heard a good speech from Bill English this year? No, it has not. Who did the National Party front up with today? David Carter! Where is the great white hope of the National Party? There he is, sitting right in front of us—Mr Power. What have we heard from him? We have heard nothing from him, and do members know why that is? It is because he has the decency not to make Bill English’s problem worse.

Bill English has no spark and no strategy. As my colleague said, he is getting corralled into places where he does not want to be. Bill English is not a racist; he is a decent Southlander. He does not want to go on a campaign against Māori. Do members know why that is? He has the brains to know that within a decade, 1 in 3 voters will be Māori or Pacific Islander. OK, there is some stress around the foreshore issue in different parts of the country, but how many Māori will vote National? Very, very few of them will do that, and do members know why? It is because Bill English is caught between a rock and hard place and he is flip-flopping to prove it. He said there should be Government ownership of the foreshore, and Māori should go elsewhere. Winston Peters said the same thing. Where are Māori going? A couple of them will go to the Greens, but most of them will stick with Labour, because they know that Labour is holding the sensible middle ground on this issue. We will not overwrite customary rights, but we stop short of saying that they add up to exclusive title, because they have never done so in the whole history of New Zealand Aotearoa. Even before the Treaty of Waitangi, there was never exclusive title.

Bill English has no spark or strategy. He is caught by Don Brash, who is dragging National to the right, and he looks like he has no place to go.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.