General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I rise to take a call on the issue of fracking. I want to talk about fracking and Taranaki, I want to talk about the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s investigation into fracking, and I want to talk about why the Government needs to put in place right now a nationwide moratorium on fracking.

Only several hours ago the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment announced she was upgrading from a scoping report to a full-blown investigation into the subject of hydraulic fracturing in New Zealand. The Green Party welcomes this announcement. We believe that it highlights the risks that fracking poses to New Zealand communities, to New Zealand farms, and to New Zealand waterways, and it highlights why, until the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment can assure New Zealanders that this controversial and risky practice is safe, this Government should implement a nationwide moratorium on fracking. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the practice of pumping large, ginormous quantities of water, sand, and other toxic chemicals down a well, and sometimes horizontally, with the purpose of fracturing the rock to get the oil and the gas. It is right that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has launched an investigation. It is appropriate. It is needed.

Yet when it comes to fracking, we see that this Government has its head in the sand on the issue. It has been blinded to the concerns of everyday Kiwis, farmers, and communities in Taranaki. It has been blinded by the misguided approach to economic development that this Government is adopting. When it comes to the plan for the country, this Government’s only response is cut it, drill it, mine it, sell it. Those are the only ideas this Government has for the environment and for our economy, to try to lift our kids out of poverty and to deliver prosperity.

I asked Minister Heatley a few weeks ago what it would take to justify a moratorium on fracking in New Zealand. I asked the Minister: “Would it take Kiwis getting sick?”, and he said no. I asked: “Would it take communities calling for an investigation?”. We have seen five councils across the country in only 6 months call for moratoria at the national level, and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council calling for an investigation. I asked the Minister what it would take to justify a moratorium on fracking. What about water contamination?

The Government likes to point to two things. It points to opponents of fracking as extremists. What we are talking about is farmers. We are talking about everyday Kiwis in some of our small towns across the country. We are talking about our regional councils. We are also talking about the allegations that fracking is being well regulated and conducted safely in New Zealand. On this point Minister Heatley is misleading the country, and he is misleading the House, because what we have seen in Taranaki is a series of well blowouts. What we have seen is toxic chemicals, including benzene, ethylene, xylene—the controversial BTEX chemicals featured in the film Gasland—enter the environment and contaminate the water table. We have seen numerous consents being breached. This is why we need an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, because the way that fracking has been conducted has put Kiwis’ health at risk. The water contamination has exceeded Ministry for the Environment safe levels. The water we have seen come out of this deplorable, risky, controversial practice of fracking is not even fit for irrigation or stock use.

In the last week we have seen a new report released by the Colorado Public School of Health showing that residents near fracking wells were more likely to experience serious health problems—even cancer. We have seen reports from Blackpool, from Switzerland, and from Ohio linking increased seismicity, or earthquakes, to the practice of pumping huge quantities of fluid down to where active fault lines already exist. In seismic Canterbury, in seismic New Zealand, this is a significant concern and the reason why so many of our councils are calling for a moratorium.

This is my challenge to the Labour Party, because the Labour Party is calling for an investigation but there it stops. It acknowledges the concerns but it refuses to call for a moratorium. This is what Kiwis need, this is what we need, to have trust in the safety of our regulations, the safety of our oil and drilling operations in New Zealand. Of the 10 countries that have fracked in their history, seven have either full or state-level moratoria on fracking. The Government cannot dismiss this. The investigation should act as a catalyst for this Government to wake up, to do the right thing, to be responsible, to show Kiwis that their health interest, their water interest, and their safety interest are paramount, not just the interests of the oil and gas industry. What we know from fracking is that we are going to see hardly any jobs, hardly any profits, and hardly any royalties, and the profits are going to go offshore. The Government needs to do the right thing and call for a moratorium.

Here we are with Labour in its fourth year of Opposition and with its third leader, and it still does not get it. It still does not understand where New Zealand’s values are at. No lessons, quite frankly, have been learnt. The faux horror at welfare reforms that we have been hearing from Labour members—the mock shame, the distress that we heard yesterday very meekly from the Opposition—quite frankly says to me that they have no idea where New Zealanders’ values are at when it comes to welfare and their expectations of a Government in that area.

We have had two oral questions from the Opposition on welfare this year—yes, two questions. That is exactly how important Labour members think the biggest reforms are for this country. Yesterday we had Grant Robertson calling National’s welfare reforms a “culture of blame”. Let us be really clear: Labour’s record is simply one of shame when it comes to welfare, dependency, and beneficiaries in this country.

Let us be quite frank: in the time of the 2000s, of labour shortages, we did see the number on the unemployment benefit drop down. Where did they go? We saw the number of those on the sickness benefit go up by 51 percent—51 percent. And during that same time the number on the invalids benefit went up by more than 47 percent. Simply moving people from the unemployment benefit and on to the sickness benefit and the invalids benefit is not actually helping people to move forward in this country, and it is as simple as that. The excuses we heard from Labour at that time as to why we had a burgeoning number of people on the invalids benefit in particular was that that was what was happening internationally. It was all because of what was happening and Labour could not help it. Well, let me be quite clear: under National the number on the invalids benefit, in what, as we know, has been the worst recession the world has seen since World War II, has gone up by 0.3 percent—0.3 percent.

To give a little bit of context around that, let us be quite frank. Remember that in the 2000s, when Labour was in Government, it moved people from the unemployment benefit on to the invalids benefit, where they would not be work tested. Labour members were simply not looking there—simply not looking there—because that was too hard to deal with. That is what we heard from Labour. We saw that number burgeoning by over 50 percent.

Under National, it simply has not gone up, and that is an indication of good policy and good management—good policy and good management. If one cares about people—if one cares about people—one will be actually putting the right kind of policy and the right kind of support around them to move them into work and make a key difference in those people’s lives. Shoving them on to the invalids benefit, ignoring them, spending no money on them, and not even acknowledging that they are most likely to be on that benefit for the longest time is, quite frankly, disgraceful and is a culture of shame that the Labour Party lives by.

Let us just deal with some of those facts. We are constantly hearing about how numbers have been bouncing around. I will tell you one thing: the numbers on the unemployment benefit may be higher than anyone in this country would want to see but they are the true, honest, transparent numbers, which is not what we saw under Labour. Simply shoving people from one benefit to another so they do not have to be work tested is shameful. We will stand up. We will know, as better managers of the welfare system, that putting the right policies in place to back them is absolutely the right thing to do, and will fundamentally make a change in those people’s lives.

We hear constantly from the Opposition that it does not like our youth reforms. Well, we are going to back young people. We are going to back them into work. We will put the support around them that they so desperately need and did not get under Labour.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Just before I call the honourable member, over recent years this applause has become a tradition in this House, but, for goodness’ sake, do we have to have stamping as well? I say to members to please be a little more reasonable.

The only place young people in New Zealand are being backed by that Minister for Social Development is into a corner—into a corner where they cannot get jobs. That Minister came into this House and talked about a culture of shame. This is from a Minister who could be giving advice to Judith Collins about privacy concerns because she is the person who leaked people’s details into the media. She is the person who played politics with people’s lives. And this Minister is the person who has pulled the ladder up behind her. This is the Minister who benefited from the training incentive allowance and pulled the ladder up behind her so that other people could not get the opportunities she got. I admire Ms Bennett for getting her life back in order and using the training incentive allowance to do it; she should just let other people have the same opportunities that she has had.

I want to change tack for a moment and say that I have just returned from the funeral of Sir Paul Callaghan. I want to put on the record of this House my admiration for him and for his contribution to New Zealand as a scientist, as a public person who stood up for what he believed New Zealand could be, as somebody who dreamt big about New Zealand, and as somebody who contributed as an entrepreneur, an academic, a scientist, a conservationist, and, overall, as we heard today at his funeral, a wonderful human being. On behalf of the Labour Party I wish him and his family all the best.

We have heard a lot this week from the Government, from Ministers, and the first thing I want to get on the record, and get clear for Gerry Brownlee once and for all, is that Finnish is a language; it is not a product you put on wood. That is the most important thing Gerry Brownlee needs to learn today. It is a sad day when Gerry Brownlee’s contributions are the thing that is making the news for this Government, is it not? That is the best that this Government has been able to pull out this week. No wonder Gerry Brownlee is pleased to be leading the news for his comments about Finland, because otherwise it would be more and more of the conduct of this Government, which, frankly, is a tawdry tale.

Is that not best exemplified by Judith Collins and what has been going on with the emails sent to her office? The National Party must be a viper’s nest at the moment, must it not? We have got Michelle Boag, we have got Bronwyn Pullar, we have got Judith Collins, and we have got Nick Smith, who has suffered out of all of this. What we want to know on this side of the House is what happened to the email that Michelle Boag sent to the office. I am glad to hear today that there will be a forensic examination of the emails that have come into Judith Collins’ office. What I call on her to do today is to ensure that that examination is of all the emails—the emails in, the emails out—the text messages, all of the staff in her office, all portfolios, and all phone calls that went from that office. We know there are many National Party figures involved in this, with the mention of Simon Lusk’s name. That should mean a lot to, I think, about 17 of the MPs over there—the 17 MPs for whom Simon Lusk remains a close confidant. So we want to know about Simon Lusk’s phone calls to Judith Collins’ office.

What we really want is an assurance in this country that ministerial conduct is of a high standard. That is what John Key told us we were going to get when his Government came into place, yet time and time again we have seen low standards of conduct from this Government. I want to say, just briefly, before I come back to Ms Collins, that Murray McCully’s behaviour in the last few weeks towards his chief executive has been disgraceful. There is no doubt that change was needed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, but Mr McCully has washed his hands of that completely and dumped on his chief executive by sending to the media a letter that criticised reform proposals—reform proposals that exist only because Murray McCully wants to cut $40 million from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade budget. What is more, the chief executive cannot fight back in public. That kind of behaviour is disgraceful, but that is the standard of ministerial conduct that we are now seeing.

In the case of ACC I find it unbelievable that Judith Collins, the Minister, can say that only four people have seen that email and that two of them are in her office—she and one of her staff members—and that she has named the other two people as John Judge, the chair of ACC, and Ralph Stewart, the chief executive of ACC. This is, once again, dropping those people and saying: “If it isn’t me, it must be them.” There is another theory out there, of course: that Michelle Boag leaked her own email. I do not know how things go inside the National Party, but I guess that could be possible. But that is what is dominating the news headlines: Gerry Brownlee and Finland, and Judith Collins and ACC. What we should be hearing from the National Party is its plan for the economy—just one plan, not 120 points. But it does not have one.

It will be no surprise to this House that I am a one-eyed Cantabrian. In fact, all the local Christchurch MPs have been absolutely one-eyed in our focus on our city and how we can help it since 10 September. We have mourned the loss of our dead; we have mourned the loss of our beautiful city and many of our heritage buildings; and we have mourned the loss of our unique lifestyle and the normality that all of us had taken for granted pre-earthquake. But also we have come together to support each other. We have worked stoically, shoulder to shoulder, firstly to save people and places, then to fix stuff, and now to rebuild. I hasten to add that we have been supported all the way by the people of New Zealand, supported all the way by the international emergency and disaster organisations, and supported all the way by the New Zealand Government.

Rebuilding Christchurch is a strong focus of this John Key - National-led Government. Despite really tough times and really difficult decisions that have had to be made since September 2010, I think we have done a pretty good job. Getting the economy up and running was a big challenge, and the Government’s 4-week, 8-week, or even 12-week subsidy got many businesses through that time. I have been thanked continually for the last few months for saving people’s businesses. It has been fantastic to see how strong our economy has been, and how it is rebounding. We are actually pumping out of our port the biggest exports, at the highest level ever, and our unemployment rate is down. We are getting through the repair and the rebuild of residential Christchurch, although it has been agonisingly slow for some of our people as we have had continued aftershocks, which have meant that we have had to go back, reassess, and redo much of the good work that has been happening. Sometimes it seems to be two steps forward and one step back.

But now, since last week, virtually everyone in Christchurch knows the zoning of their land, and they are somewhere along the road of repair or rebuild. Our institutions are up and running, and although they are facing enormous challenges, they are being really creative and innovative about how they manage them. And then, looking to the future, our schools, our tertiary training institutions, our hospitals, our medical centres, our churches, and our community organisations are all finding new and interesting ways to do stuff, to deliver new services, and to make our city stronger and better in the future. Yes, it has been tough, but we really feel that finally we are getting somewhere.

And last Saturday night the people of Canterbury and Christchurch did something new. The front page of the Christchurch Press said it all. It showed a waving frenzy of Crusaders flags and the headline: “Back in Crusader country”. I love the quotes, in the paper, from the Fraser family, who were among the 18,000 fans who turned up to the Crusaders-Cheetahs game. Mum Fraser summed it up by saying: “It’s lovely to have something to pull the city together other than a memorial service. It’s just fun, pure fun.” So thanks to 100 days of planning, of construction, of building, and thanks to hundreds of dedicated workers—some who even worked through the night—we could all come together in our new stadium and enjoy a particularly exciting game of rugby against the Cheetahs, and the Crusaders won. The Crusaders are back on their home turf, and to quote from the Fraser family again, and this time it was 8-year-old Damian: “I’m really really really really really glad.” Thank you.

It has been more than a year since the earthquakes. The Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery said that he was generally satisfied with progress in Christchurch, but in fact progress is very unsatisfactory and it needs to be a lot better.

People are voting with their feet. The Earthquake Commission says that of 100,000 homes to repair, only about 10,000 have been done. Commercial capital is taking flight. Profiteers are having a field day. Stress-related health problems are epidemic amongst red-zoners and orange-zoners. Winter, of course, is coming—another winter of discontent for the city. In the central business district, demolitions are to take up to another 2 years before they are finished, because the rate of demolition is painfully slow. Of 1,200 to demolish, there are still about one-half to go, and some of the biggest buildings are included.

It is difficult to see why progress cannot be faster. The Earthquake Commission has been too slow, as have the insurance companies and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. The commission had about half a million land and building claims, but only 41,500 full repairs have so far been attended to. There is a 20,000-person shortage of key tradespeople in the city.

Too little is being done and too late. Central city business owners need certainty. Capital is taking flight. Much good work is being done to develop a central city recovery plan, but when will it be done and who will pay for it? Additional Government financial support—say, over 5 years—is needed to provide a fund for grants and loans to encourage early rebuilding and for council public projects as per the central city plan.

But the red zone issues are the most serious. There have been winners and losers. In one block of maybe 100 houses in Kaiapoi there is no land or building damage, but they are still red-zoned. No insurance claim is possible; they want their land zoned green. The Government is forcing people out of undamaged homes, unnecessarily, but it does not know what to do if red-zoners refuse to leave, either. Rating values of 2008 in Kaiapoi are not enough to fund a new home, and there is commonly a gap of $50,000 to $100,000. People have no means to raise this. No mortgage is available for people on lower incomes.

A practical solution is needed. The Government should immediately establish a loan fund for people in the red zone, if they accept the Government’s offer but then find they are unable to fund the purchase of a replacement home. The Government should provide bridging finance of up to $100,000 for up to 10 years at zero interest, repayable upon sale or other disposition.

Retirement complexes also have some failed Government policy. Some occupiers have no interest in land, only an agreement to occupy. They get only a minimum sum, as per contract. New Zealand First calls on the Government to use its powers to ensure that the same 2007 value is given to these people as for the rest of the red zone, on the basis that the compensation be provided, firstly, by the complex owner under contract and then, secondly, by the Government to make up the balance. That is only fair.

In the orange zone the issue, as we know, is delay. There should have been no orange zone by now, but for some reason there still is. The excuses have worn thin, and leadership and action are needed now.

Insurance problems still abound. The Government’s policy seems to be “wait and hope”, but insurance cover is hard to get. Some insurance companies have departed, and people cannot find another insurer. New homeowners commonly cannot get insurance, either. The Government’s intervention is essential to ensure that cover is available to all. Insurance companies are taking an unconscionably long time at approving reinstatements, and they appear to me to be using delay as a tactic to encourage cash settlements because that is cheaper.

There is a rent crisis as well. That is out of control, too. Winter is coming and action is needed.

It is a shame to have to follow the fairy tales of New Zealand First, as it seeks to rewrite history and talk from a very uninformed situation. But what I would like to do in this general debate is to talk about addressing an urgent need around pastoral leaseholders—the high country farmers of New Zealand. It gives me great pleasure to see that the legislative programme around addressing this inequity is coming to an end in this House. It is important that we provide these farmers with certainty, that we provide them with respect, and that we re-establish that sense of partnership that existed previously but was destroyed by the former Labour Government.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am just looking at order of the day No. 5, which is this matter; it is a matter that is coming up later in the day. I think the rules are still that you are not allowed to anticipate the matters coming up that day. I think the member appears to be launching into a speech that is anticipating—in fact, welcoming—the legislation we are considering later this sitting day.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The member’s point is valid that members should not anticipate a future debate, but that does not prevent a member from welcoming the fact that it is coming up, so long as they do not get into the detail of the legislation. So I just point out to Colin King that he should not get into the detail of that, but I see nothing wrong in welcoming the fact that it is coming up.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is appropriate to bear in mind that we are very dependent upon our rural hinterland farmers when we consider the significance that Jan Wright, the Commissioner for the Environment, placed on the fragile hinterland. It is also of significance that this farming has been occurring in the hinterland for some 150 years, and on that basis it is very important for those members who are representative of those electorates that they, in fact, are able to find a solution for these people.

It is worth bearing in mind that although we have heard a lot from the other side of the House about socialising the costs and yet privatising the gains, it is worth bearing in mind that when Labour was in Government it threw money around with gay abandon. I refer to two particular cases. The first was the $43 million that it paid for St James Station and the other was the $10 million that it paid for Birchwood Station. That has contributed to a high level of uncertainty for those farmers. It is worth mentioning at this time that this relationship that needs to exist between the leaseholders and the Crown is very, very important. It is very, very fragile, and they need to be able to front up—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The relevant Standing Order is actually absolutely clear on not anticipating an order of the day. I think you were liberal in your interpretation of introductory comments to a general debate speech on the part of the member. He has actually not debated anything other than the Crown pastoral lease legislation and the background to it, in this speech.

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: There is the third reading on the Order Paper of the Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Bill. This bill, which my colleague has been talking about the effects of, has been in this House and discussed for quite some time. To assert that no member can talk about any piece of legislation that has gone right through the process prior to it having its third reading seems to me to be taking the Standing Orders to the nth degree.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I think the solution to this problem—and I accept the points made by both members—is that the important thing is that the member does not get into the detail of the legislation. I think that talking about it in generalities does not anticipate the debate. I have not heard the member talking about any of the clauses of the bill in particular, which he must not do, but I do not see anything wrong in the generality of the issue.

We are effectively talking about 220 families that are all positioned in the Southern Alps of the South Island, and half of these have actually now gone before the Land Valuation Tribunal. So it becomes very clear that there is an enduring solution. What really does concern this side of the House is the veiled threats of reprisal and suchlike—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have now gone to the 220 families and the issues before the Land Valuation Tribunal relating to the legislation. I invite you to read the Standing Order, Mr Speaker. It does not actually talk about the detail of the bill; it actually talks about—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Which Standing Order is the member referring to?

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: The one that has just been given to you by the Clerk.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Standing Order 110? The member is correct that the Standing Order does not specify the matter of detail, but there cannot be anything wrong with, in a general debate, talking about matters in general. What I do not have in front of me is the bill, so I do not know whether the bill talks about a number of families or not.

I think what the member making his speech must realise, though, is that there is a Standing Order—Standing Order 110—that states: “(1) A member may not anticipate discussion of any general business or order of the day.” I accept the point made by the Hon Anne Tolley that there is nothing secret about this legislation. This is a general debate. What I will be following up on, because this may arise in the future, is to see when this Standing Order came in—whether or not it pre-dates the general debate—because the general debate is a relatively recent phenomenon. To me it would be unreasonable to rule out general reference to matters even if they are on the Order Paper and coming up in debate.

But I ask the member to try to avoid the detail of the bill because it will clearly continue to cause points of order to be raised. The Standing Order—and we must comply with the Standing Orders—makes it very clear that a member may not anticipate discussion of any general business or order of the day. The Speaker, in determining whether a matter is out of order, has regard to the probability of the matter anticipated being brought before the House within a reasonable time, and the matter is on the Order Paper for debate. I am trying to be liberal and not pedantic because I do not see the problem caused by passing reference, but the member should not get into the detail.

The flow-over from this situation can be viewed within the tenure review, where once again the Labour Party has totally destroyed that feeling of partnership and, in doing so, has set back that relationship a very, very long way. It is a legacy that boils over often when we hear the other side talk about socialising the cost and privatising the gain, when, in actual fact, it is to the contrary and is totally different. When one looks at it objectively one sees that the best solution for all New Zealanders is that we have those families farming in their situations, whether it is a tenure review situation or a pastoral lease situation. So on that basis this side of the House is very, very pleased that it is going to address this issue, that it is going to provide certainty for those families, that it is going to restore confidence within the tenure review situation—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know you were somewhat distracted, but the member has just said that that side of the House is very pleased that the House is going to, I think, deal with this issue. You cannot get any closer to anticipating a debate than saying that we have an issue of pastoral leases that the House is going to deal with.

Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker, I point out that notwithstanding the member’s comment, the reference I was making was to the tenure review situation in this instance.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The dilemma I have is that I do not have the particular detail of the bill in front of me as Speaker. The Standing Order should not prevent members from referring to the general situation of Crown pastoral leases, but the detail of the bill is not a matter that should be debated in this debate, because it is on the Order Paper and is likely to be reached this same sitting day. There are not a lot of Speakers’ rulings to guide the Speaker in the interpretation of this Standing Order. It seems to me unduly restrictive because I do not see the problem being caused to the House. That is why I am being perhaps a little unduly liberal in my interpretation of the Standing Order. But I stress to the member speaking that if he continues to seemingly breach the Standing Order he will tend to be interrupted by points of order. I have tried to guide him to avoid the detail of the bill.

💬 Charles Chauvel: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder if you would just hear me briefly on the question of prejudice to the House, because I do agree that that is the nub of the question. As I understand the Standing Orders, Standing Order 110 precludes specific reference to a debate, or specific anticipation of a debate that is coming, for the very reason that the House is devoting allocated time to it. Of course, we all know that the general debate Standing Order was made after that Standing Order. The general debate Standing Order entitles any member to refer to miscellaneous business. As a member who hopes to speak in the debate later, I know that it is a useful opportunity for me and other members to raise issues that are not otherwise programmed into the orders of the day. So if we are to allow the general debate to be turned into simply an anticipated discussion of things that are on the Order Paper, which we know already are going to come up, then it really goes to the heart of destroying the purpose of the general debate, which is to allow members to just get up and speak about miscellaneous business, not about matters that are on the Order Paper and are going to have the House’s time devoted to them. It is the nub of the purpose of that Standing Order, in my view.

💬 Michael Woodhouse: I just want to make a point of comparison with the speech made by the Hon Paula Bennett in respect of an issue of Government policy that was introduced into the House by way of a bill yesterday, and her articulation of the impact of that on a certain group of people—in this case, the unemployed and those on the sickness and invalids benefits. That is a matter that has a legislative impact and will be brought back before this House within a reasonable period of time, as the Standing Order requires. I suggest that what Mr King was doing was quite similar. This is an issue affecting people whom he represents. It is on the legislative Order Paper, coming up in a reasonable period of time, but I do not think it is unreasonable nor outside Standing Order 110 for him to actually refer in the general debate to the impact of that. At the end of the day, he represents those people and that is his opportunity to articulate the benefits and risks of Government policy to them.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Mr Speaker—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from the Hon Trevor Mallard and then I think we will rule on this matter.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Dealing very briefly with that point, Mr Speaker, Paula Bennett’s bill is not on the Order Paper for consideration by the House; it is at a select committee. Therefore, it will come up but it is not a matter that the House can reasonably be assumed to get to in the near future. Mr Speaker Smith, you have referred to that matter around the anticipation of debate yourself and have given us a Speaker’s ruling on that one.

The other point I would like to make, though, is that I think it is fair to say that although there is division on Crown pastoral leases, there is not an enormous amount of rancour about it. But I would like you to turn your mind to a situation where there might be a highly controversial piece of legislation sitting on the Table of the House, something on which urgency might be taken later the same day, something where there was massive division. If members started having the debate on that legislation an hour early, during the general debate rather than in the time that had been set down and allocated for the debate, then our systems would begin to fall apart.

You might be right. It might be time for a review of the Standing Order. It does leave a little discretion, and one might say that you have, in a common law way, taken a little more discretion than you have been allowed by the statute of the Standing Orders already in your rulings. But for the member to refer to changes—which are part of the bill—around the valuation process in this House is, I think, a clear breach of the intention of the Standing Orders, and although it is leading to only a little bit of disorder now, if it was allowed to continue it could lead to a lot of disorder on other legislation.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I thank honourable members for their contribution. In respect of the matter raised by Michael Woodhouse—the interpretation that has been given to Standing Order 110 in respect of how soon a matter may be anticipated to be in front of the House—Speaker’s ruling 25/1 has sort of narrowed that down to “can be reasonably expected that debate on the bill will be reached on the same sitting day.” So it narrows it down somewhat, because otherwise it would be ridiculous.

But I come back to Charles Chauvel’s point of order, and this is what troubles me. I do not want to constrain the House if there is no mischief being caused. The general debate is a matter of members’ choice. It is miscellaneous business. The general debate enables members to debate issues that matter to them, to their constituents, and that is why I do not want to be overly pedantic in applying Standing Order 110. If other members wish to make comment about what the member says about Crown leases in his electorate, other members are welcome to do that, but they are also welcome to debate the issues they wish to debate. That is the purpose of the general debate. I would be loath to interpret Standing Order 110 in too narrow a way, and that is why I have not done that.

It may well be that the Standing Orders Committee should have a look at it, because, as the Hon Trevor Mallard says, the issue may well arise again in the future. If I ruled in a reasonably liberal way today, it might cause a problem in the future; maybe it would be wise for the Standing Orders Committee to look at it before it causes a problem. But I do not want to constrain members in the general debate from discussing issues that matter to them and their constituents, and that is why I have not been pedantic in ruling on the points of order raised.

I have asked the member not to get into the detail of the bill, and I think by and large he has not got into the detail of the bill, although I accept the points the Hon Trevor Mallard has made that he has occasionally got into some of the issues that are covered by the bill. I am going to rule that way. I am not ruling out the member’s speech at all. He has 50 seconds left and I am not ruling it out, because I think it would be contrary to the progress of the House were I to rule on Standing Order 110 in a particularly pedantic way.

When we talk about tenure review we talk about a process that the Crown enters into in a voluntary manner with the owner of a pastoral lease to be able to freehold and work through that relationship. It is just so very important for that process to work positively, so that the holder of the pastoral lease is able to negotiate with the Crown in a positive way. That relationship was destroyed under Labour, and on that basis it is just very important that over this side of the House we work up and rebuild that relationship, trust, and integrity with those wonderful farmers in the South Island high country.

Earlier in question time I sought to ask the Attorney-General some questions about his satisfaction level with the conduct of the matter that is now known as the teapot tapes. Sadly, from our country’s chief law officer, we heard significant evasion on answers to the questions that are of high public interest. It was a real shame that he declined to give the House his view on the matter in question, because what the public now want to know is why public resources were devoted to that investigation over the time of the election campaign. It has been a total waste of time and a distraction right from the start.

John Key and his complaint caused three police officers to investigate, to raid media organisations, and all this on a supposed matter of great principle. The great principle was that a media stunt staged between John Key and John Banks simply went wrong. And there was no expectation of privacy. All the experts agree on this. No possible expectation of privacy in the circumstances, yet the Prime Minister chose to invoke the coercive powers of the police, not just against individual citizens, although that is bad enough, but against the news media, the fourth estate, during an election campaign. That is the sinister and chilling element of the entire matter, and it is chilling—

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: Chilling! Ha!

Well, Government Ministers think it is a joke that the media should not be able to do their job because of intimidation from the Prime Minister. All I can say to them is that it is interesting when the Prime Minister is away, because they look more and more like the one-man band they are on that side of the Table, and I hope we see John Key taking a lot more overseas travel, just to show up what a hot mess we see on the other side, rather than the sort of competent Government with high standards that the people were promised.

Just remember—and I hope members opposite will remember this—the Prime Minister chose to take those scarce police resources at a time when the burglary clearance rate was falling below 25 percent; and it is still below 25 percent, for all the trumpeting that we hear from Mrs Tolley and her colleagues about law and order. Only 25 out of 100 ordinary people who suffer burglary in their homes get a remedy. They are unlikely to see the crime solved, because of, inter alia, the fact that the Prime Minister feels he can just call the police out and have his petty and private complaints about a media stunt gone wrong with John Banks investigated and subject to coercive powers. It is not good enough.

Now the Prime Minister says “Well, I’ve turned the other cheek.” What changed John Key’s mind? He says it was the letter from the cameraman concerned, Mr Ambrose, but that letter says the same thing that Mr Ambrose has been saying right from the start, that he had no intention of recording the sequel to the media stunt between Messrs Banks and Key. His tape recorder was simply left there inadvertently because of the security situation and the media scrum that ensued when the stunt was called to an end.

Nobody likes being embarrassed, but getting the police involved was a total overreaction, and it will have a chilling effect on news media organisations. That will always happen. That will always happen when search warrants are executed on the fourth estate at the behest of the Prime Minister. That is sinister behaviour. It is behaviour that we should all be concerned about if we believe in freedom of expression. John Key might think the police have spare time for this sort of thing, but we on this side of the House know that they do not. This has been a total waste of police time and resources that could have been directed to dealing with the real issues of concern that face New Zealanders.

The saddest thing about the Attorney-General’s evasions in question time today was his refusal to answer the question of whether or not the deal done includes the withdrawal of the costs claim against Mr Ambrose and the civil claim. Taxpayers’ money is at stake, the public deserve an answer, and, despite the Attorney-General’s prevarication, they will have one.

It is a pleasure to stand and talk in this general debate this afternoon, but before I do I just want to mention in this House a recent death. I certainly send out my personal thoughts and prayers to the Tongan people for the loss of their king, King George Tupou V, who died last week. I was part of the parliamentary delegation up there yesterday for the king’s funeral, so certainly my thoughts and prayers go to the people of Tonga and to Tongans around the world, and certainly to those Tongans in my electorate of Maungakiekie, of whom there are many thousands.

I stand today to talk about the welfare reforms that this Government is putting in place. These welfare reforms are an important for several reasons. They are important because the burden of welfare on our economy is becoming great. They are also important because we have identified, as a Government, that welfare is not a long-term solution for our people, and that actually getting people into work is more important for our constituents out there. The background is this: 330,000 people receive benefits. One in eight workers receives the benefit; one in eight workers is not contributing directly to the economy. But we believe that certainly some of those are deserving and should be protected within our welfare system and our economy. One hundred and seventy thousand have spent the last 10 years receiving the benefit. So a great majority of those who are on welfare are long-term dependent beneficiaries, and that is not a good fact.

We also know that 220,000 kids are living in welfare-dependent families. We see this cycle of welfare over and over again, and one of the greatest things that you can do to break the cycle of welfare in families is to give them a job.

💬 Andrew Little: What are you doing to give them a job? Where’s the jobs?

Finally, $8 billion of welfare spend a year is 14 percent of our Government’s revenue, and we know, and certainly the Labour Party knows, and Andrew Little knows, that that is unsustainable in the long run. It is unsustainable for the economy, and it is unsustainable for those families that are living in welfare situations.

So what do our law reforms do? Well, they introduce a new system to support our young people. It is about supporting those young people to get a job, and also upskilling them through education, through training, and through employment. It is about getting them back into work. But it is also about designing the support around young people to allow them to get back to work and to allow them to pick up skills. What we are proposing is to provide budgeting programmes. What we are proposing is to provide parenting programmes to help them move forward in their lives. There is a carrot-and-stick approach here, and it is about strengthening those obligations.

What does it mean? Full-time education, training, and work-based learning, at least to a National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 qualification, is important, because that promotes their ability to get employed. Undertaking approved budgeting programmes leads to better financial outcomes, not just for those people but for their families. It is about improving their financial outcomes. We all know—we heard from the Retirement Commissioner last week in the select committee—about the issues around financial literacy, and that not just those on low incomes or on welfare but everyone needs to get better education around financial literacy, so that they are able to look after their families better. But it is also about undertaking parenting programmes, getting more kids enrolled in early childhood education, and getting these young children to Well Child checks. That supports the programme that this Government has undertaken and employed around pouring more funding into early childhood education, around promoting national standards for our children, and also around the Youth Guarantee programmes that ensure that those who are falling through the cracks are actually—

💬 Denise Roche: Ngā mihi nui ki a koe, Mr Speaker, and to my esteemed colleagues—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member needs to call, then I have to call the member.

💬 Denise Roche: Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Denise Roche.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koe, Mr Speaker, and to my esteemed colleagues, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

I am increasingly dismayed by the climate of inequality that this Government has fostered. Quite aside from the short-sighted and punitive welfare reform, which is a debate in itself, the chipping away that this Government has done to workers’ rights and union rights is creating an environment where bad employers think they can run riot. In the last few months we have had strikes by rest home workers simply trying to negotiate a decent pay rate. Many of them are on $13.61 an hour. We have had 1,200 meatworkers locked out by Talley’s, which owns the AFFCO meatworks processing plant in several small towns across New Zealand. And, of course, in the place where I come from we have the ongoing dispute with Ports of Auckland. The thing that these three disputes all have in common is that their workforces are unionised. Frankly, this Government is pursuing an anti-union agenda as part of its strategy to create a low-wage economy at the expense of workers. Guess what, people? This is why people are flocking to Australia, where strong unions deliver sound wages and working conditions.

When I look closely at the Ports of Auckland dispute with the Maritime Union I become increasingly worried. The ports have been a highly profitable council asset owned by the ratepayers of Auckland, but the sheer mismanagement of the entire dispute and the hard-nosed approach taken by the port bosses and board to the workers makes me wonder whether they are deliberately running down the reputation and productivity of the ports in order to flog them off to their mates. And they do have mates. The Ports of Auckland board chair, Richard Pearson, is mates with Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, who was sniffing around, looking for a port to buy in New Zealand in 2008, and had to settle for buying Wellington Electricity instead. The chief executive officer, Tony Gibson, is mates with Maersk shipping because he used to work for it.

This whole dispute hinges on the fact that the board and management wanted to make the ports more productive, and we can make the ports more productive, but not by casualising or contracting out the workers. We need a national port strategy so that the shipping companies cannot drive down the prices, and we also need to remove the exemption that the shipping companies currently have under the Commerce Act, to prevent them from acting like a cartel. When you look at the Ports of Auckland—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! When the member uses the word “you” you are referring to the Speaker. You bring me into the debate. You cannot do that.

When one looks at the actions of the Ports of Auckland bosses they do not seem to care about productivity. For purely economic reasons, good managers would ensure that there was a good employment relationship, but, since December, in this dispute they have negotiated in bad faith during the contract negotiations; shown an unwillingness to settle, even when all their demands for more flexibility were met; displayed reluctance to enter into mediation; decided to contract out jobs to private companies, while negotiating the collective agreement; allowed workers’ leave details to be leaked to the media and a right-wing blogger; made a mockery of the facilitated agreement they had reached last Thursday with the Employment Court to go back to negotiate in good faith; illegally locked out workers, based on the port bosses’ unfounded and unproven beliefs that the union members would harm the other staff; and issued a lockout notice for an indefinite period following next week.

From that list you have to conclude that the management practice is seriously flawed at the ports. Either they are madly incompetent or else they are pursuing the same badly thought-out privatisation agenda that the National Government is. Maybe that is what this Government and Rodney Hide had in mind when they forced the amalgamation of the Auckland councils into the Auckland super-city and removed accountability for our council assets from our elected councillors. This Government is union busting, it is into privatising, and it is anti-democratic.

Before I start I would just like to acknowledge Sir Paul Callaghan, a very able New Zealander and a man who faced his imminent demise with huge courage.

This is a strong and stable Government that has produced strong and stable government in difficult times, and continues to do so. It is a compassionate Government. I am actually proud to be a member of this Government and a member of Parliament based in Manurewa. It is a privilege to be based in that community. At a quarter to 6 in the morning last Sunday, as I was walking to the Totara Hospice sunrise charity walk with 1,200 residents of our community and the wider community of the south of Auckland, I mused upon what a vibrant and diverse community it is, with people of all ages, all sizes, and all ethnicities. It is a vibrant, diverse community of hard-working people who are ambitious for themselves and their children, with a few who lack a sense of purpose and a feeling of belonging. But this Government will never be accused of turning its back on the vulnerable. We believe that we and our society are judged by how we treat our most vulnerable citizens. Very often those vulnerable citizens are children. Fifty percent of families in our South Auckland - Manurewa community have only one parent—only one parent. Many of those parents do an outstanding job for their children—an outstanding job. But we realise, and any person in this House who is a parent will realise, how difficult it is to raise children, even when you have two parents at home. We realise that if there is one person at home, then, obviously, those families need more help.

We are approaching this issue in a number of areas. One of the areas I would like to talk about is the Social Workers in Schools programme. I have been to many of the schools in Manurewa, and I must say the teachers there do an outstanding job. Many of them do pastoral work far beyond what you would expect any teacher to do—taking children home and taking them to medical appointments. We want the child to have the benefit of the teacher’s expertise and education. We realise that in certain schools social workers play a huge role, helping the children, helping the families, and helping the teachers. As a result of that, we have announced funding to increase the number of social workers in schools who can help the teachers—up to 673 social workers in schools nationally. Many of those will be deployed into the decile 1 to decile 3 schools in the area that I am privileged to work in—Manurewa, Manukau, and Māngere—to help those children unlock the potential that lies within each of them. It is that potential that this country needs and that those children need, and that potential being unlocked will be to the benefit of all New Zealanders. We have got schools like Hōmai Primary School, Manurewa South School, Manurewa West Primary School, Puhinui School, and Leabank School. Schools like that which hitherto have not had social workers will have social workers.

Towards the end of last year I walked into Wiri Central School and met the headmistress. She was telling me about the programme that we are rolling out, and are continuing to roll out, in South Auckland, to deal with the unacceptably high levels of rheumatic fever in our South Auckland communities. It not just South Auckland; there are hot spots around the country, but this Government is doing something about it. The way it works is that school nurses are deployed within schools where there are a high number of at-risk children. They do throat swabs on kids with sore throats, and, thereby, reduce significantly the chances of that child going on to develop rheumatic fever. Of course, if they find a positive swab, they treat the child with the appropriate antibiotics and thereby avoid the terrible sequelae of the strep throat, which can occur in some cases. Obviously, our Pasifika and Māori people are grossly overrepresented in these statistics. We have a high proportion of those in Manurewa. Our other strategies, such as improving their homes—making them better insulated, warmer, and drier—will help this as well. Our anti-smoking strategies will also reduce the incidence of this appalling disease—a disease that is a blight on our country. How do we do this? Well, we have to grow the economy. That is another part of this Government’s strategy. We have seen how we have managed to do this very, very successfully, particularly in export-led growth.

What a grubby little Government this is turning out to be. This is a Government not just riven with conflict of interest but now absolutely possessed with self-interest and with self-preservation, and it is generating a rotten stink that is being smelt right across the country. Here it comes. It is a Government bound up in its dodgy little games in a shabby little party. The people who are paying the price are the people who need the help the most.

What a tawdry story, as my learned colleague Grant Robertson said. What a tawdry story that ACC is turning into. It is a convoluted web of deceit, promises, counter-promises, and under-the-table utterances. It is a tale of concocted stories and of backside-covering, and we are nowhere near the truth. There is a lot more to come out.

We are entitled to know. We want to know because we need to know what happened. The people want to know. Please just tell us what happened. There are far too many questions. Two weeks on from when the story of a massive privacy breach at ACC broke, far too many questions still remain. What did Bronwyn Pullar ask for that led to her receiving the private details of 6,700 ACC claimants? What do you ask for that you get that by mistake? How did the board member John McLiskie get involved? What was he told? Who told him? What did they tell him? What did he know? And, most important, what are his links with the National Party? Everybody else tied up in this grubby little story so far seems to be well ensconced in the National Party’s ranks—senior and junior. What did John McLiskie do when he found out what had happened? Whom did he speak to? Whom did he shoulder-tap? Which political contact did he tell in order to try to get something done about it?

How did Bronwyn Pullar get to meet two senior ACC managers? We have been asking this for 2 weeks. Can we please have an answer? That is all we ask for. Is it just more National Party sleaze or is there an innocent explanation? Give it to us, please; we are waiting with bated breath. What happened over the nearly 3 months between the December meeting involving Bronwyn Pullar, Michelle Boag—a former National Party president—and the two senior ACC managers and when the story went public in March? What did happen over those 3 months? We still do not know.

How did Michelle Boag’s message to Judith Collins get out? Who disclosed it? We have had denial after denial and then today, after question time, we had a statement by Ms Collins to the media, saying that she confirmed that her message was printed out in her office but that she will not answer any more questions about it. The finger points to the Minister for ACC. What does she know and what did she do? How did Nick Smith come to have a copy of his letter from 9 months previously 4 months after he left the office of Minister for ACC? What is going on here? What is Simon Lusk’s involvement? And what is Cameron Slater’s involvement?

The links are too close; the relationships are too dodgy. We are entitled to know, and that is why a public inquiry is called for. I have no sympathy for the National Party and its apparatchiks and acolytes; they are donkey deep in something that is tarnishing the reputation of a great institution in New Zealand—the institution of ACC, which this Sunday celebrates its 38th birthday. ACC is too important. This stinks to high heaven and we need answers.

What about the interests of the 2.2 million wage and salary earners who are levied every week to pay for ACC, the hundreds of thousands of good businesses—big and small—that pay their levies to fund ACC, and the registration fees and diesel levies of 3.2 million vehicle owners who fund ACC? They are the people we need to think about and care about, not the backsides of some National Party apparatchiks who do not know what they are doing and who want to sweep it all under the carpet. That is how dodgy this Government has become. It is shabby, it is nasty, and it stinks to high heaven.

Good people—ACC claimants—are waiting for good decisions on their claims, and they cannot get those decisions, because the whole organisation has been tipped upside down to manage the fallout from some broken National Party relationships. It is a disgrace. The great thing is this—Franz Kafka could not have written this part of it—

Debt management and welfare reform are enormously important issues in my electorate of the North Shore. Last Friday, the Prime Minister spent the day with us, and about 4,000 people listened to the message that he talked about. He reiterated that we have a plan. Unlike the B teams and the bellowers on the other side of the House, we have a plan, it is a great plan, and we are sticking to it. The Prime Minister outlined our four key priorities, which we are making absolute progress on. We are responsibly managing the Government’s finances, and we are on target to redress the balance of the books by 2014-15. We are also building a more productive and more competitive economy, we are delivering better public services, and we are rebuilding Christchurch. I absolutely agree with the member for Christchurch Central, Nicky Wagner, that Gerry Brownlee and the team are doing an outstanding job there and it is going very well under very difficult circumstances.

In our first term as a Government, we made very real progress modernising and reforming the benefit system. Let us take a look at the unemployment benefit, for example. Since Future Focus was introduced in September 2010, more than 52,000 people on the unemployment benefit have reapplied and they have gone through that process. As a result of that, what happened was that 12,500 of them cancelled. If we drill down into that figure, we see that that 6,500 people did not even bother to reapply and to complete the process, 2,500 cancelled for other reasons—quite a lot of them went to Australia we understand, still claiming the benefit, mind you—and 3,389 told Work and Income that they had already found work and they did not need the benefit after all. Is it not a good thing to ask them, to require them, to step up and justify getting the benefit? As the Hon Paula Bennett told the House last week, in the past 12 months the number of people on the unemployment benefit is down by 7,837, and that is following an extraordinary recession. I think that is a sign of an excellent Government doing great work.

I agree absolutely with Paula Bennett that Labour has a record of shame. Labour’s record of shame is well known to those of us who have paid attention from the 1980s onwards. It is cradle-to-grave dependency. Some of their happiest times were spent on the benefit themselves—unbridled spending, galloping this country away into indebtedness. When you look at the unemployment benefit, I have to agree with Pita Sharples, a man of great mana. He has said that in the last few years when he looks at people on unemployment benefits, he sees the reduction in mana. He has said that every day people are on the unemployment benefit it saps their pride and their self-esteem. They need to get off benefits for their own good and we are helping them. We are reforming welfare, as I said, by ensuring those who can work do work, and we are supporting them to do that. We are also targeting resources at the people who really need them. Yes, some people do need a hand up, but not a handout for life.

We are helping young people to make better choices, and to stay either in educational training or in work. We are simplifying the benefit system and clamping down on welfare, for these are long overdue and well-recognised programmes that are doing the job for New Zealand.

When I look at some of the concerns that people in my electorate have brought to me in my constituency office, they have been concerned about people having children while they are on the benefit. I think that New Zealanders do need to recognise that our welfare system is an excellent one, but it is there for those who need it. It is not there for women to continue to breed when they cannot afford to do it. If they bring children into the world and they are only on a benefit, then they need to look carefully at that. It does not need to be a punitive thing, but it does need to be examined. I think we are doing it with compassion and kindness, but we are doing it.

We are taking the courageous step of actually looking at people who have been on benefits for far too long; 170,000 people have been welfare for most of the last decade. The number of people on the domestic purposes benefit has consistently risen over the last 20 years, and at the moment—most disturbingly of all, perhaps—we have 220,000 children who are living in benefit-dependent homes. How sad is that. We are concerned about the children who are born to sole parents who are already on the benefit. Last year alone, 4,800 babies were born to women who were already on a benefit. That adds up to about 29 percent of those on the domestic purposes benefit who have had a subsequent child while receiving a benefit. This is not a great idea. I do not think New Zealanders have the appetite for women to continually do this, so sole parents who have another baby while on a benefit will be expected to be available to work after 1 year. That is in line with parental leave. In my electorate of the North Shore, the feedback that I have had absolutely backs that up. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.