Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill, Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill

Second Reading

Talofa lava. It has kind of quietened down a little now really, has it not? I have got some oxygen to use up. It is a great pleasure to rise and talk on this, the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill. I think we have got to remember the paramountcy of this bill is the protection of children from recidivist offenders. That is the primary reason this bill is here, and the idea is that by having such a register we can ensure young people will be as safe in our country as they possibly can be.

Over the course of the Social Services Committee process there were a wide variety of submissions. Some people, of course, were submitting suggesting that the register should be publicly available, others were concerned there was an impost on human rights for those who would be subject to these reporting conditions for the rest of their life, and others felt it was an ongoing punishment for people who had already served their time. The select committee weighed this up pretty carefully, and I think it was a good process. We were able to look at the pros and cons of all those things, and we were able to make a couple of changes, which I will touch on in just a moment.

I think the important thing to convey to those people who were adamant that it needs to be a public register, I think what we can say, is that by having this register, which is being held by the police and will be available to certain other agencies as required, we can still give the public some confidence that these people are known to the authorities, that they are at least being monitored to some degree, and that it does not need to be publicly available. I think we have got the balance about right in that.

Just coming to some of the changes that were made in the select committee process, there was a bit of concern that for some people this is, to some degree, a life sentence—that they would not ever be able to be rid of these reporting standards. So there are some changes that are being brought forward that are now a part of the bill and will allow for those who are on this register to be able to apply for suspension of those reporting conditions after a period of 15 years. I think that seems an appropriate balance. It gives them an ability to apply, and if they have been compliant and have been showing there is very, very low risk of them reoffending, then it enables those people to come off the requirements for reporting, and I think that is a good, balanced approach to it.

I think the other thing that has come through and, again, was running parallel to the process of Dr Jian Yang’s member’s bill, which we managed to sort of incorporate, in part, into this bill now, was that if somebody is on this register and wants to change their name, they will need to apply to the Commissioner of Police before they go off to the Department of Internal Affairs to change their name for any reason. Again, that provides a certain level of protection going forward. I am pleased to endorse the bill. I think it has come out of the select committee process in better condition than when it came in. I think it is going to be a bill that is going to be useful to the people of New Zealand. It is going to, I think, help promote a greater level of safety from recidivist offenders, and I commend the bill to the House. Fa’afetai.

Second Reading

I would agree with the previous speaker, Jono Naylor, on one point he made, which was that the bill has come out of the Social Services Committee in somewhat better shape than it went in. However, the Greens initially supported this legislation to the select committee with some reservations because, I guess, sex offending against children is universally abhorred. It is one of the most offensive forms of criminal activity possible. There has been talk of registers and their merits, or not, for some time. We went into that process with an open mind to investigate the evidence and to see whether, in fact, there is value in establishing something like a child sex offender register in New Zealand.

Our conclusion is that there is no value in that proposition. We will not be supporting this bill in future readings. We are basing that on the evidence we heard at select committee. It was a good committee. There were one or two changes made that have improved the bill from the initial draft. But, overall, we simply do not see that there will be a sufficient return on investment, if you like—and I mean that in a general, not only in an economic, sense—in establishing something like this. There is, overall, a distinct lack of evidence that these registers actually do anything to make our children safer. There are a lot of economic and other costs along the way.

The bill as it is drafted proposes an incredibly intrusive regime for people who may indeed have offended. We are concerned, obviously, about the section 7 Bill of Rights Act report. The concerns outlined in that section 7 report still stand. The bill does impose a disproportionate punishment. Yes, I acknowledge that there is now the possibility that after 15 years a person might apply to have their name removed from that register. That is a small step. But still, overall, the punishment, if you like, is disproportionate. I mentioned the intrusive nature—everything down to people’s log-ons and passwords for their internet accounts, their email accounts and the like, would be open to inspection by all and sundry. And I do mean that. It is a point I will come back to in a moment.

The Human Rights Commission was one of those that noted that the bill would be very costly. The regulatory impact statement document, in the figures given by the officials, indicates a cost of about $146 million over 10 years. On balance, it is very hard to see how simply creating a list of names is going to give better value for $146 million over that period than would investment in such things as education programmes—educating families and their children on how to keep our kids safe—and treatment programmes.

Despite some assertions to the contrary, sex offenders can be rehabilitated. They can and often do change their behaviours. So investing $146 million in, essentially, creating a list of names with potential for significant negative knock-on effects, we simply do not see as a smart way to spend scarce public sector dollars. The Council for Civil Liberties agrees with that point of view. It describes the bill as establishing a very harsh regime, with very little justification, while making no economic sense. The Law Society, similarly, expressed the view that the bill infringes on civil rights and freedoms, and it made a positive, alternative proposition that the very admirable intent of the bill, which is to improve the safety of our children from potential offending of this sort, could be achieved by allowing judges and, indeed, parole boards to impose a registration and reporting requirement in individual cases where the risk profile is seen as being so high that such a regime would be appropriate. I think that would be a much, much better proposition, a much more targeted proposition, and a more effective and appropriate proposition than this sort of shotgun, blanket approach that simply registers people for an offence and, in many cases, puts them on that list for life.

I mentioned that the select committee had made some changes that we saw as being positive, but not sufficient to make this legislation overall acceptable to us. The legislation names a number of agencies that would have access to the register. They include Police and the Department of Corrections, and that would seem entirely appropriate. Both of those organisations are accustomed to routinely dealing with confidential information—confidential databases, if you like. Then we get down to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). I am not sure how many people work for MSD, but I suspect it is a large number. In the likelihood—

💬 Alfred Ngaro: 10,100.

Sorry?

💬 Alfred Ngaro: 10,100.

10,100—thank you, Mr Ngaro; a man on top of his numbers, clearly. That is a large number of people we would be relying on to keep a database confidential.

Similarly, Housing New Zealand—people in that organisation, I suspect, have no particular culture or experience in maintaining the very strict confidentiality of highly sensitive database information, or material, or whatever you call it. My point being, of course, that you would have many, many thousands of people, in fact, with access to this database. The likelihood of its leaking—it is almost a certainty that all or part of that database, of that register, would quite quickly enter the public domain.

The knock-on effect of that, we know, could be entirely negative. It could lead to what somebody last night referred to as vigilante action against people. We know from the evidence we saw at the select committee that, for want of a better word, “outing” people publicly, drawing attention to people who may be back in the community and trying to live proper and decent lives, making them the target of suspicion, fear, and often aggression, is more likely to lead to them reoffending than if they are simply left to get on with their lives with appropriate, positive support from within the community.

Again, we would be much better to restore and dramatically increase funding to projects like the Circles of Support and Accountability. We saw the Bond Trust recently, which has a good record of working with paedophiles post-release and ensuring that they are protected, in some cases from themselves, and that other people are protected from them. It is doing that in a very positive, low-key way. That funding of, dare I say, a trivial amount of $25,000 has been withdrawn despite the fact that in the UK, as we speak, the funding for similar entities has been dramatically ramped up because it has proven to lower the likelihood of people—sex offenders, specifically—reoffending. So you have got to pose the question: why are we spending many millions of dollars—$146 million—over 10 years on a project that is unlikely to result in improving the safety of our children when we are taking away small amounts of money from a project that has a track record of protecting those self-same children?

Something that sits behind this legislation, I believe—and we saw it spelt out very graphically in some submissions—is the proposition that sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated, cannot cease their behaviours. That is simply, patently untrue, and we have good evidence that, in fact, there are many examples where people have offended against children but then have gone on to regret their actions, to seek treatment, and to remove themselves from that risk profile. There is no evidence to suggest, no solid evidence to say, that a register will deliver the outcomes that it seeks to achieve. We know there are alternative mechanisms for reducing the risk that certain offenders represent.

I recently had a conversation with a fellow who works in this area as a support person for some serious and high-risk sex offenders. They know very well what does work and what can work. At every step, they are running up against bureaucratic and economic barriers to implementing the programmes that we know do work. Although this is certainly well-intentioned legislation—anything that protects our kids from predators, from sex offenders, has got to be seen as a good thing—we have absolutely no confidence that this legislation will deliver positive outcomes, and for that reason we will not be supporting it.

Second Reading

I think that about 90 percent of that speech by David Clendon, if not 99 percent of it, was talking about the offender. If we continue to address this piece of legislation and this problem of child sex offending starting with the offender at the centre and as the foundation of the conversation, we are going to get it wrong. We are going to get it wrong not only for the previous victims of child sex offending but also for the potential future victims of child sex offending. We will be supporting this bill because we do agree that, at a minimum, there needs to be a register. As we have heard, not only today but also yesterday, throughout the second reading speeches, it is a complex and wide-ranging topic in that it encompasses quite a few issues. It is not a simple, straightforward, one-dimensional issue, and that is why we see, across the House, the varying degrees of agreement or disagreement in opposition.

There are a number of issues that New Zealand First has with this legislation and the way that it is implemented—the way that it is written. We have got some concerns, and, obviously, we have got some opposing views as well. The main one for us is that New Zealand First believes that this register should be made publicly available. We have introduced a Supplementary Order Paper that will be discussed further through this process, but we believe that it is absolutely essential that, in order to put the protection and safety and rights of the children at the centre of this conversation, the register needs to be made public.

This is not a new, groundbreaking piece of legislation. We have registers around the world that work, and we have got evidence that shows that they work. Not only are there restricted registers but also there are actually countries that have publicly available registers. So we have 19 countries around the world that have fully functioning, working registers right now, and seven of those are either publicly available or have variations of being publicly available. A further 12 countries are considering using registers and are in the process of putting legislation through the House, just like we are, to create a register. This is not new. It is not groundbreaking legislation. Nowhere in those 19 countries that I have mentioned—they include Australia, Canada, the UK, and the United States—is there any evidence that a register does not work. There is no evidence, anywhere in those countries, that states that it does not work.

We heard the advice of the Green member who spoke, who said that because there is no evidence that it does work, we should not do it—because there is no evidence that it does work, we should not do it. The only reason why you would choose to oppose it, based on that fact, is if you were leaning in favour of the offender. If you had any doubt whether a public register, a register itself, works—if you had any doubt—then putting the children first, you would ensure that you put that register in place. If you have any doubt and the member is wrong and you do not put that register in place—and that member was wrong, or that idea or concept was wrong—then who will suffer? It is the children. That is the stance that New Zealand First is taking. We need to ensure that we take that step, not only to make a register but also to make it fully public.

One of the issues that we have, like I said in my opening statement, is that this is not one-dimensional. It is not a simple concept. There are wide-ranging issues. But what some of the parties in this House are doing is they are literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They are throwing out the entire concept of having a register, or the possibility of making it public, because there are some issues that surround it or that fall out of having a register, or of making it public. Anything that we have heard from some of the members who have spoken previously is only anecdotal; there is no actual evidence that it does not work. Those were the member’s own words—there was no evidence that it works. That was it.

We have heard arguments today that have been about the offender’s rehabilitation or the ability for an offender to rehabilitate, about reintegration, and about issues with vigilantes. We have even heard about the offender’s human rights. But we have heard very little about public safety and the protection of our children, which should be at the centre of this conversation. That is a fact—that is a fact. There is a need for a register. What needs to happen is that there needs to be—if the Green Party or other parties in this House want to concentrate on or invest in rehabilitation and reintegration, and all of those things that the Green member talked about, that is fine. But that does not mean that you throw out the entire concept of a register. That does not mean you throw out the entire concept of making that register public. That is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

This conversation has turned into a perpetrator’s rights versus children’s rights. That is what has happened—the protection of the human rights of the perpetrator versus the right to protect children. We have heard about the issues that have come out. I have got some articles about things that have happened recently, very recently, that prove there is a need for a public register. We have had—and this is only in the last few months—a number of them: “Recidivist South Canterbury sex offender imprisoned.” He appeared on representative charges of indecently assaulting a female between 12 and 16, and this is a recidivist child sex offender. The judge said “You were convicted in 1991 of very similar offending. I assume it was a less frequent series of assaults.” and his major quote was “It is inescapable, it is part of your character.”—it is part of your character.

That is why we have got hundreds of convicted child sex offenders being released into society every year, and we do not know where they are. In fact, I have got the statistics here about just how many. I will be interested to see whether members in this House know just how many child sex offender convictions have occurred in the last 10 years. The number is 4,000. In the last 10 years there have been 4,000 convictions for child sex offending. That is 400 a year. That is more than one a day—more than one a day.

If we are talking about an issue with name suppression, there is a misapprehension out there in that people think that there is a huge number of child sex offenders who get name suppression. In fact, only 10 percent of child sex offenders get name suppression. The vast majority of child sex offenders do not get name suppression. If we are talking about the reoffending rates of these offenders, these criminals, we are talking in the vicinity of—because there have been quite ranging numbers and percentages of reoffending rates—around the 20 to 25 percent mark. That means that, over the last decade, of the 4,000 offences, there have been a thousand offenders who have been reoffending.

I have an article here that actually takes the views, the comments, and the point of view of the victims. The headline says “Sex offender register should name paedophiles …”, and the article says: “Sex abuse victims say a child sex offender register is needed and they want it to go one step further by making the names public.” These are the victims. These are the victims’ voices, which it seems no other party in this House is listening to. A victim says: “name suppression protects the perpetrator and not the victim. It hasn’t protected me as a person at all. I live a life sentence, they serve—if they do get convicted a few years and then they get out and then they can freely travel wherever they wish and continue to do it, they just get smarter. … The Law Society does not support a register and argues the bill before a select committee in parliament takes a blanket approach, treating all sex offenders the same. It says the proposed register should be re-designed so that it is aimed only at serious child sex offenders who are likely to re-offend. … Helena Watson said encouraging silence feeds their ability to reoffend.”

What an action of not creating a public register does is it is feeding those offenders with the ability to reoffend. At the basis and the heart of this is giving the ability to parents in the community to know where these sex offenders are, to know who they are, and to protect their children. That is why New Zealand First is putting through a Supplementary Order Paper to ensure that this register becomes public. We are standing up for the victims, we are hearing the victims’ voices, and we need this register to be public. We will support this bill, and we look forward to discussing it in its further stages. Thank you.

Second Reading

I rise to take a call on the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill. There are some comments that were made in regard to the whole aspect of the register and its importance. I want to just say that the purpose of the register is to provide the authorities with another tool. It does not just exist on its own; there is a list that people will look at and then make a judgment, and create some analysis.

Just to provide a little bit of background information, what has happened previously is there has been the role of information sharing between different agencies. That has played quite an important role, especially with Police and with the Department of Corrections. In fact, back in 2012 this role was significant because it was at that time that they were able, through that information sharing, to identify a convicted sex offender who was actually a teacher at a school. Without that information sharing, that would not have happened. That was critically important. It highlighted the need to have the analysis, to have good data and good information, that allowed them to be able to make a judgment call about what needed to happen in that case.

In 2013 a collaboration between Police and corrections meant they set up what they call the CISO—the Centre for Impact on Sexual Offending. That was set up, particularly, so that there could be both the analysis of the information and the ability to form what they would call a product of intelligence, that allowed them to give to the individual a profile around a particular offender. That was critically important. Out of that analysis, they were then able to have individual profiling, which allowed them to be able to then make an assessment about the risk factor of that offender. The purpose, then, for this bill and for this register is to fit into that context.

So, firstly, the Centre for Impact on Sexual Offending will become the administrator of the register. Secondly, it adds to the analysis because it gives regular up-to-date information. Currently, there is no legislation framework that allows them to be able to do that. In order to be able to minimise risk, you have to have what they call an appropriate risk management framework. So this fits into a framework. It is not purely a list that exists on its own; it has an administrator, it has two key stakeholders—the Police and corrections—working together. They have the analysis. What the register will do is give them up-to-date information that enables them to make an assessment at that point in time. Their role is to both monitor and manage the risk. That is the reason for the register; that is the reason why it is actually absolutely important for us to have this register inside that framework, to truly make a difference to reducing the risk of offending and, at the same time too—I would agree with the member David Clendon—to be able to then provide other forms of rehabilitation that may be appropriate to the offender. That is the reason that is there.

Mr Clendon also made comment around the $146 million. We all had the inquiry and the information that we wanted to be able to ask, as to how, when we think about the cost-benefit analysis, almost two-thirds of that $146 million is already consumed in current roles of responsibility already there. So we are not talking a huge amount of extra fund that is going to be used to administer this register that is being proposed at the moment. That is critically important. We also feel that that is important because, again, it enables them to be able to have this up-to-date information as well.

We had 135 substantive submissions, and 98 of those submissions talked about the need—and I take Mr Darroch Ball’s comment—for making the register public. There was concern because they felt that the public needed to have the information—in fact, many submitters talked about the right of the public to have that information—so that it could give them the ability to be able to assess their own risk and their own challenges that they had in their own communities. You would have to say there is some merit in that submission and in the advocacy for that.

There was some comment that there was no evidence. There is evidence, and it was presented to us. There is a 2011 study by Prescott and Rockoff from Columbia University in the United States, which was substantive enough to identify two things. The first thing that it identified is this: there is little or no evidence to demonstrate that making the register accessible to the public improves public safety overall. So here is the evidence. The fact is, they were saying that there is no evidence to say that by making it public it was going to be able to reduce the offending that was in there. But here is the thing that I think is actually really important too: inside of that, it said that we find that the evidence that the registration reduces the frequency of offences by providing law enforcement with information on sex offenders. There is evidence; it does prove the importance of the register—No. 1, to be able to have approved accredited providers that will ensure that those key stakeholders have that information.

We did ask the question to ensure that that information would not be able to be breached or leaked out into the public, to ensure, in a sense, the confidentiality. However, the balance is this: do we have the right information to create the right analyses so that the monitoring and the managing of high-risk offenders could be put in place? We think that is important as well.

The last thing I want to say is that this Government has also passed other forms of legislation, such as the public scrutiny information that is there, that is provided—it is the public protection orders and the enhanced extended supervision orders that are also in place. When there are high-risk offenders, this form of legislation will ensure that the enhanced extended supervision orders are actually still behind the wire. It means there is accommodation that is there. That is another tool, along with the register, to ensure that we both monitor and manage high-risk offenders that are a risk and could be a risk to our communities. At the end of the day, it is about keeping our children and our communities safe. I commend this bill, in its second reading, to the House.

Second Reading

The next call is a split call. Jan Logie—5 minutes.

Second Reading

Talofa lava, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Green Party is opposing the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill. I just want to put on record at the beginning of this speech my discomfort of hearing our opposition characterised as not centring on the needs of the victims and not being concerned with the needs of victims. Green Party members are passionate advocates for survivors of sexual violence. I am on record many times talking in this House of the number of people whom I know personally who were offended against as children; of the many more women and children I have worked with as a volunteer in specialist sexual violence services and Women’s Refuge; and of how passionate I am about sorting out the system, to ensure that they get the support that they need, that we have a functioning justice system, and that we have the appropriate treatment for those who offend, so that they will not offend again. To suggest that we do not care about this issue and the survivors of sexual violence is blatantly untrue.

We oppose this legislation for many reasons, but the heart of our opposition is actually based on a real commitment to reducing the prevalence of sexual violence in this country and to making sure that survivors and perpetrators both get the right help so that we can reduce violence. START, a very well-respected Christchurch-based NGO—it has spent years supporting children in particular, as well as adult survivors of sexual violence—did not support this bill, based on the experience of its work. It brought forward to the Social Services Committee a US-based study that found “no support for the effectiveness of registration and community notification laws in reducing sexual offending by: (a) rapists, (b) child molesters, (c) sexual recidivists, or (d) first-time sex offenders.” The regulatory impact statement also notes that there is limited research evidence from other jurisdictions about the effectiveness of sex offender registers. I heard the member from New Zealand First saying that there being no evidence to show this works does not mean that it does not work. Well, actually, that US-based research does question whether it works.

We also have to recognise the potential for harm from this register: the possibility—when we acknowledge that we have a 1 percent conviction rate in this country—that people will see this register, particularly if it is public, and they will think: “OK, they are the dangerous people over there. Anyone else, we don’t need to be so worried about. We don’t need to make the efforts around having vigilance and ensuring that people know how to report, because they are the dangerous people.” In actual fact, they are a tiny percentage of the dangerous people in our society, because our justice system does not work.

The $146 million—which I might say is about three times what the entire sexual violence sector got out of the select committee inquiry, which they had to fight and advocate for decades to get, based on strong, strong evidence—is being given to an unproven method, and $86 million of that will come from Police baseline funding, when police are patently unable to do their job of getting cases to court at the moment, because of resource pressure as well as a failing legal system. To take money from them and their resources to put into a register when we have no evidence that it is going to work is, to me, creating more potential harm than not.

So the Green Party is absolutely opposing it on the basis of the needs of victims. We need to put money into prevention services right across the country, and we need to put money into ensuring that our justice system works. That is where our money should be going in the first instance, alongside support for survivors. We were given evidence by the Law Society that said that we could do this with some law changes through parole and sentencing to ensure that when there was evidence of risk, we could put measures in place. We have to recognise there is the potential that if this goes through and the Law Society does not support it, that it may be a deterrent against sentencing people, which we have seen with increased penalty rates. So there is significant harm at play here.

Second Reading

Let us first put on the table that, in my view, sex offending against children is the ultimate betrayal of trust. It is that fundamental breaking of a social contract that exists between people who live in the community and the community itself. I actually do not think, to be honest, there is such a thing as a disproportionate punishment for child sex offenders, but what I do want to see is money spent in a way that keeps our community safe.

So what is this bill about? What it means is that all child sex offenders will have to be on this register if they are 18 years old or over and are sentenced to imprisonment. They will have to update the register annually. They will have to update the register within 72 hours of a change of details, or within 48 hours prior to travel. What happens is, depending on the sentence, they will stay on the register for either 8 years, 15 years, or life. The ministries that will have access to this register are the police, the Ministry of Social Development, Housing New Zealand, and the Department of Corrections. The reason they have access to the register is so they can manage the risk to public safety posed by known sex offenders who are living within the community. I do not think there is anyone in this House who would disagree with the intent of that in any way, shape, or form, because it does have to be managed in the interests of public safety.

According to the bill, police and corrections staff will have to inform third parties where they consider it necessary to protect the safety of the community. So the police and corrections staff do have the mandate to go out to the community and say: “Be aware, there is a known sex offender living at this address or living within this community.” The real concern I have about this is the fact that the police and corrections just do not have the resources to do this. What I would like to see before I support this in any way, shape, or form is assurance from the police that they are going to really police this legislation and manage this in a way that is going to achieve the objectives. As Darroch Ball mentioned, if they do not do this and we have recidivist sex offenders living in our community with a high risk of reoffending, then this bill will mean absolutely nothing. So there does have to be an absolute assurance from police and corrections staff that they are going to manage this in a way.

I do have a concern that the register will be leaked. I think that is a very real concern because, if we put ourselves in the situation of someone from the Police, Department of Corrections, Housing New Zealand, or the Ministry of Social Development and we saw on the register that a known sex offender was living beside a friend of ours or beside a school, it would be incredibly difficult. There would be a real moral dilemma, I believe, on whether to speak out or not—on whether to inform a school, or a friend with children, that a known sex offender was living beside them. I think the moral dilemma around how to keep such a register confidential is very real, and we must understand that.

The one thing that must lead policy and legislation in this House is evidence, and Alfred Ngaro talked about this. If you look at my Facebook site, you will see that I am no apologist for child offenders in any way, shape, or form, but what we need to do is develop legislation that is based on good evidence. What I have read is that the evidence suggests that making public such a register actually does not do any good to the community whatsoever. It does not stop child offending in any way, shape, or form, nor does it protect the community in a way that we all want it to. If the evidence pointed the other way—if I had evidence that said making public a register would protect our community—then I would be all for it. But the evidence I have seen says that making public a register does not, in fact, protect the community.

Just to sum up, I have absolutely no doubt that every member in this House has the safety of our community at heart. We have the victims as the No. 1 group that we want to protect, and we have our communities’ safety at heart; there is no doubt about that whatsoever. But what we must do is ensure that if this bill passes, there are the resources in place in the corrections system and Police to give effect to it and to make sure that our communities are safe. Thank you very much.

Second Reading

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill’s second reading. I am taking this call to support this bill.

It is important to reduce any possible risk to children, including the risk of them being sexually attacked, and the responsibility for this cannot be left to parents and guardians alone. It is not written on the foreheads of offenders that they are child sex offenders, so we need a system to record that: a system that is kept up to date and that serves the purpose of informing people—those who can be affected, like parents, teachers, or other community groups looking after children.

This bill is to establish New Zealand’s first child sex offender register. There are conditions around who goes on this register: they should be over the age of 18, should be convicted of a qualifying crime, and should be sentenced to imprisonment or a non-custodial sentence with a judge’s direction to go on the register.

It is important that we have this register so that there is a process for authorised police and corrections system people to work on this register to keep a record of people, because at the moment, what happens after child sex offenders finish their sentence is that they go back into the community. But we want to track them; we want to see whether there are any changes in their circumstances that can increase their risk of reoffending.

As a member of the Social Services Committee, I want to thank all submitters. There was a huge number of submissions, with 140 written submissions received by the Social Services Committee. That shows that there was huge interest in this legislation. All submitters expressed concern about this offending, and I want to thank the submitters because it helped us understand their points of view. All submitters agreed that child sex offenders pose a serious risk to the community that they choose to live in. There was a wide range of views that came through submissions. Some submitters thought that the child sex offender register should be publicly available, while others thought that it could be misused. So there were extreme views on this. But, overall, a majority of them agreed that it should not be publicly available.

The issue of name suppression, when child sex offenders go through the process, also came up. All acknowledge that child sex offending is a serious problem in New Zealand—it is a significant problem in New Zealand—and that monitoring of child sex offenders in a community is limited by the current legislation. In 2014 alone, 451 offenders were convicted of a child sex offence and 307 were sentenced to imprisonment. Once these offenders have completed their sentences, they are free in the community—there is no system in place for them to keep in contact with the justice sector. That is what we want to fix through this legislation.

Looking at the numbers, this register is going to be a substantial register; it is estimated that 472 offenders will be registered in the first year, rising to 1,541 in the fourth year, when an evaluation will be completed. So, along with being a substantial register, in terms of numbers of child sex offenders who will go on this register, this is an expensive piece of legislation because of the system that is required to set it up, and then there is the ongoing maintenance of this register that will be required—but we do not want to compromise the safety of New Zealand families, especially children. We all agreed that this will not completely eliminate reoffending, but this will definitely enhance child safety. So I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.

Second Reading

I am standing up on the behalf of Labour to say that, at this stage, we support the bill, but we do have major reservations. Those reservations are based on the evidence that we have had put before us.

I do want to address something that was said by another member of the House, and that is that anyone who might oppose this bill is not putting children at the centre of the debate. I think that is incredibly unfair. I think no one in this House can say that there is any party, or any individual, that does not care about the welfare of children—in this case, in relation to sexual offences against children. There is no one in this House who does not care about that. Our job here is to be rational in our thinking, to use evidence to guide our decision making, because it is so easy to be guided by emotion. This is an emotional issue. This is an emotional issue for us in this House. This was an emotional issue for the people who came to make submissions. It is an emotional issue for most of the country, actually. Keeping that in mind, we just need to remind ourselves that our job is to make rational decisions on behalf of the country, and to use an evidence base to make those decisions.

Of course we support the intent of the bill, and that is to reduce sexual reoffending against child victims and the risk posed by serious child sex offenders by providing government agencies with the information needed to monitor child sex offenders in the community, and by providing up-to-date information that assists the police to more rapidly resolve cases of child sex offending. I do not think anyone would dispute that. The dispute would come in respect of whether or not we need a child sex offender register to be able to have that kind of data information-sharing between government agencies. During this process, so many people have felt misled, or have been misled in some ways, by the fact that the title of this bill says “Child Sex Offender Register”, because the assumption is that this will be a public register, and, of course, we know that that is not the intention. That is why New Zealand First, which does think it should be a public register, has put up, or will be putting up, a Supplementary Order Paper to say that it should be a public register. That is why we, on our side of the House, though, are putting up a Supplementary Order Paper to say that it should not be a public register and that there should be no doubt that it is not a public register.

One of the concerns that was raised by many of the submitters, and a concern that we now have based on the evidence that we have had put before us, is that a child sex offender register can give a false sense of security. Giving it some context, I think we really need to look at the wider issue that we have at hand, and that is sexual offending against children. If we look at the most recent statistics for New Zealand, we see that one in three girls in New Zealand will be sexually abused and one in seven boys in New Zealand will be sexually abused. The sad case is that only 10 out of 100 sexual abuse crimes are actually reported, only three out of 100 sex crimes will actually make it to court, and only one—only one—out of 100 sexual abuse crimes in this country will actually lead to conviction. So when we are talking about a sex offender register, we are talking only about the sexual offenders who have actually been convicted who can go on that register. It is only one out of 100 of the sex crimes that happen in this country that will lead to conviction, so we are talking about a very small part of a huge issue that we have as a country.

A recent statistic that I saw, as well, was that more than 23 percent of women who participated in a recent Auckland study reported having been sexually abused as children, and most of those women reported that it was a family member who committed the sexual offence. The register makes us all feel very comfortable in this place, it makes us all feel very comfortable in the public and as a country, but, actually, the reality is that the people whom our children are most likely to be sexually abused by are family members or close friends of family. It is not the stranger whom we are talking about here; it is certainly not the person who has been convicted of a sexual offence, because so few are actually convicted of a sexual offence. So to give people this false sense of security is concerning. We are not resolving the issues. We would not even be making a dent in the problem for those children who are at risk of being sexually offended against by introducing a child sex offender register.

It was raised by several submitters that this register is going to cost a lot of money to actually administer. We are talking about $146 million over 10 years—that is $14 million a year. The agencies that actually deal with children, with women, and with men who have been sexually offended against—those agencies have come to us and said: “There are better ways to spend that money. There are more effective ways to address this issue.” There are more effective ways to spend that money, and that is a very valid point. This is a big chunk of money going towards a tool that evidence tells us will not be effective in stopping sexual abuse against children.

We did have over 100 submissions on this bill, and the ones that I was actually reading up on before I came to the House today were the ones that are from the people who actually work in this sector. They are the people who work with children and with adults who have been sexually abused or who have had a sexual offence committed against them, and, overwhelmingly, those organisations that actually undertake this work—individuals who have committed their lives to working with people who have been sexually offended against—are actually against a child sex offender register for many reasons, including some of the ones that I have just stated: the cost and the fact that that money could be channelled into more effective measures to stop sexual offending against children, and also the false sense of security that they are concerned it will give people.

There were some submissions by these organisations that raised the fact that this register could serve to further isolate the offender and could actually result in the offender being more likely to go on to reoffend. We have to take those concerns seriously, particularly when they have been raised by reputable organisations and reputable individuals in those organisations who have committed their lives to this work. I want to quote a couple of them, just so we get an understanding of the thinking that has gone on within these organisations.

We have got one here from the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse. To quote from the submission: “The vision of the Clearinghouse is that families, whānau and relationships are healthy, respectful and free from violence. Our purpose is to provide access to high quality research and information on family and whānau violence. We are committed to working towards the elimination of all forms of family and sexual violence, including child sexual abuse. However we do not support the establishment of a child sex offender register. This is because there is little to no evidence that registers reduce rates of child sex offending. We believe the high level of resourcing a register would require would be far more effectively spent on initiatives which have evidence of effectiveness. Further information, including references to relevant research and our recommendations are [included in this submission].” That is just one of many of the reputable organisations that submitted on this bill and have actually said to us that we need to rethink it.

We in the Labour Party are in the position where we will support this bill at this stage through to the next stage. We will have amendments that we want to put up in the Committee stage, and we really have to think through whether or not we will support this bill at third reading. We need to know that this is actually going to make a difference in people’s lives and that it is actually going to assist us in reducing sexual offences against children before we can support this particular bill. Thank you very much.

Amendments recommended by the Social Services Committee by majority agreed to.

I call Tim Macindoe, and I understand that this is to be a split call. I will ring the bell at 4 minutes.

Back home in the tropical paradise of Hamilton, my constituents are full of praise for the outstanding stewardship of our economy over the last 8 years by the Hon Bill English and for his excellent eighth Budget. I have had the privilege of being a member of this House for every one of those eight Budgets—in fact, I have sat behind him as he has delivered four of them. I have to say that each time he has hit the spot superbly.

Back in late 2008 National came into office after this country had already plunged into recession. That was in no small part because of the reckless explosion in public spending that we inherited from the previous Labour Government. There is no question about that. Labour members boasted that they had spent the lot, they had squandered the good times, and had left an incoming National Government facing Treasury predictions of at least a decade of deficits and Crown debt of eye-watering proportions. That was a horrendous record. The wonderful thing, if you are in the National Party, is to note that they have learnt nothing in the 8 years since.

Through it all, this National-led Government has made the tough calls. We have turned things round dramatically. We have stood shoulder to shoulder with the people of New Zealand and, in particular, with the people of Canterbury as they have gone through the dreadful ordeals that they have suffered in that region. So all of those things have had a devastating impact on Crown accounts, and, in every respect, Bill English and this Government have stood up to the plate and delivered what is expected by New Zealanders.

That is why this Government has achieved this staggering feat of retaining the same support in the polls that it had on the day it came into office 8 years ago. I will go further and say that I will go to my grave proud of the record of this Government, proud of the actions that this Government has taken to get us through those tough times, and proud to defend that record in any public forum across the country. Our lacklustre opponents opposite continue to demonstrate how totally out of touch they are with public sentiment on the reality of the position. After nearly 8 years in Opposition, they still have not grasped the fact that irresponsible spending sprees are not what the public are asking for. Hard-working New Zealanders have to pay for them—not Governments. Governments simply take the money from the pockets of those hard-working New Zealanders. Until the Opposition learns that simple fact of life, its members are destined to stay there, in ever-diminishing numbers.

Over the last week, we watched the wonderful civil union emerge between the Green Party and the Labour Party—well, that was on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday, we watched civil warfare break out, led by the Cosgrove-Nash-O’Connor faction as they took aim at the rest of the Labour Party and said: “We don’t want to go there, and we know damn well the public of New Zealand don’t want to go there either.” It has been a sorry spectacle, and it shows just how desperate the second-largest party of this Parliament is—that its members find themselves in the position where they know they have not got any credible options for forming a Government and so they are scrambling around desperately, even to the point where they are having to say: “Well, you decide what you’ll do on this one, we’ll decide on this one, and let’s go to the public and see whether they think that’s a credible option.” I can tell them right now that the public do not like it, and they will not like it any more when we go to the polls next year.

The Minister has made it very clear that this is a Government focused on social investment. Theirs is the side of the House that says: “Just throw more money; all that you need to do to be a successful Government is to throw more and more money at things.” On this side of the House, we believe in the social investment strategy. That is why we are seeing more people in jobs. That is why we are seeing more elective surgeries. That is why we are seeing higher rates of achievement in National Certificate of Educational Achievement than ever before. That is why we are seeing crime rates down to record levels—by over 40 percent for youth crime. These are the best results in more than a generation.

That is why this Government continues to be in touch with the public of New Zealand, to understand what they are requiring, and that is why, when we go to the polls next year, we will continue to campaign proudly on our record. I look forward to hearing whatever Opposition members think they are going to come up with, because, after 8 years, they have learnt nothing more than they knew on the day they left office.

Order! Before I call the next member, there is the habit developing, particularly on the right-hand side of the Chamber, of people thumping the desks. It is a very annoying noise. I am also the landlord and am concerned at the damage that is being done to the desks. I have got to then make a Budget bid to a mean Minister of Finance to get the repairs undertaken. Applaud enthusiastically by all means, but we are not going to have the thumping of the furniture.

That was the speech of the day from the senior whip on the Government benches. After 7½ years on the Government benches, that is the sort of enthusiasm and passion and excitement that this Government brings to bear. I am just glad that Dr Coleman is in the House, because I thought Mr Macindoe was about to collapse under the weight of that speech.

This Budget is Bill English’s eighth Budget. It is a Budget that focuses on the issues that matter to New Zealanders. What are those issues? In Maungakiekie, where I come from, the issues that New Zealanders want to hear about are not the de facto relationships between parties across the aisle; they want to know about jobs. So here is the Government’s record on jobs: there are 2.4 million people who are employed in this country today—2.4 million. That is more than at any other time in our history. I am proud of the fact that there are 130,000 Pacific people employed today. That is the most of any time in our history. In the last 3 years, we have created 200,000 jobs. That is 200,000 families who have been looked after, clothed, fed, and educated.

This economy is growing, and it is growing at the rate of 2.8 percent per annum, year on year. That is the sort of growth that New Zealanders want, that is the sort of growth that New Zealanders expect, and that is the sort of growth that will support our communities out there in New Zealand. This growth appears not just by accident; it appears through the careful, considered approach by the Minister of Finance, alongside the other economic Ministers, and it is done through trade agreements. We know that the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is an agreement that will benefit all New Zealanders, but the Labour Party will not support it and the Green Party will not support it, because they know that they will argue against what is good for New Zealand. They are the parties of “no”.

As we grow the economy, we also grow the ability of our Government to support those in need. That is why, over the next 4 years—and I am proud of the work that the Minister of Health, Jonathan Coleman, is doing, because the spending on health will go up by $2.2 billion. But it is not just about the increase in spending, which is over $4 billion more than the Labour Government ever put into health under Annette King. It is about the quality of spending. It is about the quality of spending on things like disability support services. I am proud of the fact that there is $169 million more being put into that.

We also know that bowel cancer screening is a really important thing for New Zealanders. That is why we are investing $39 million—that is right, $39 million—into bowel cancer screening, and it is taking effect in the coming years.

As Associate Minister of Health, I am proud of the fact that we have raised taxes on tobacco by 10 percent for the next 4 years, year on year—10 percent. What that will do—and we have seen it over the last few years, where, over the last 5 years, we have got 37,000 fewer people smoking. That is 37,000 fewer people smoking. That is saving lives—that is saving lives. It is promoting the health of all New Zealanders. These are the sorts of measures that, as a package, are improving the well-being of New Zealanders.

Hekia Parata is in the House, and we know that the continued investment into early childhood education is good for our children. We know that these are the issues that matter to New Zealanders. We know that these are the things that make a difference in our communities. That is why we stand by the Hon Bill English in supporting this Budget, and that is why this Government continues to be a popular Government. Thank you.

What is that old saying? It goes something like “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”—and that is exactly what we got from the senior Government whip, where all he could do was bellow and be bombastic.

There was so little in the Budget, the Government members have taken to splitting their votes because they cannot fill in the whole 5 minutes. They are struggling to fill in 5 minutes, so what do they do? They spend the 5 minutes that they have got talking about us. Well, thank you very much; we are very happy for you to talk about the Opposition, because we are doing such a damned good job. So carry on—devote all your speeches to the Opposition. The Labour Party is very happy about it. I know the Greens and New Zealand First will be. We have no problem with you talking about us.

There is another saying, I think it goes: “There are statistics, damn statistics and lies.” Well, I have to say there are none more so than in the health portfolio.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is unparliamentary to imply that lies are being told.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not need any assistance with this. Please take your seat. [Interruption] Please take your seat, Minister. The honourable member gave a quote. If he wants to apply that to himself, he is welcome to, but she was completely within the Standing Orders.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much. Week after week, the hapless Minister of Health stands up in this Parliament and he denies, he denigrates, and he ducks questions put to him about the Government’s performance in health. You know, he is brilliant at statistical gymnastics: he is great at the backflip, he is very good at the forward roll, he is a contortionist, and he is the con man of health. And you see—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You know what it is about.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not need any assistance there. If it has escaped the Minister that this is a fairly robust debate, then, you know, I feel sorry that he is at that loss. But to suggest that you are a con man—as the Minister obviously did—you may well take offence at that. If you have taken offence, you may well seek a withdrawal and apology. I would suggest that you are a little bit more robust than that.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Sorry, I take offence at terms such as “liars” and “con man”. Yes, I do. [Interruption]

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have ruled on the lies. If you take offence at the veiled accusation re a “con man”, no doubt the Hon Annette King will withdraw it.

I will withdraw, Mr Speaker. I have to say, I take offence—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It had better be a good point of order.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: It is. The member has been here for a long 30 years, and she knows it is “withdraw and apologise”. You do not just get up and say “withdraw”.

Speaking to the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, you did not ask me to apologise; you asked me to withdraw. I withdrew.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is entirely over to the Speaker as to what he requires. There was no suggestion that she apologise. The instruction was that she withdraw, and she did that. We will not have any more frivolous points of order that are aimed at breaking up a speech. I recall that the Minister himself got a pretty good go.

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have to say that I am offended, week after week, day after day, at the performance of the Minister of Health. Dr Coleman has just picked up where Tony Ryall left off. You see, it works like this: blame, blame again, and then blame some more. But 8 years on, the blame game has become National’s shame. It has become National’s shame. They have run out of excuses, they have run out of places to hide, because the truth is out. After 8 National Governments—their National health budgets—$1.72 billion of cumulative underfunding has occurred; $1.72 billion. And in this Budget, $50 million is missing from the overall health budget. To make it worse, when you drill down and look at the district health board (DHB) budget, $140 million is missing, in real terms.

Those are not my figures, they are from Infometrics’ updated report, replicating the Treasury model from its fiscal strategy model. It takes demographics and inflationary cost pressures and uses these to calculate the real growth in core Crown health expenditure. So if Dr Coleman does not like the figures, then he should produce his own model and tell New Zealanders what is really happening in health. You see, what Infometrics does is take the demographics calculated by using the 2009-10 health cost weights and apply this to the population data from the Budget 2016 fiscal model. Then when it looks at the average inflation growth, it is calculated from the previous year and the forecast from the Budget 2016 fiscal model. So that means that the Treasury calculation used in the demographic growth is extremely, extremely conservative. What you get out of that, when you put it together in the same way that Treasury does, is that the real growth in core Crown health expenditure is only 0.4 percent.

💬 Hon Member: How much?

It is 0.4 percent—and that is why health does not have sufficient money. [Interruption] So every day when the hapless backbenchers, along with their Minister, come in here and read out their skite sheet of health achievements, they are increasingly laughed at by the public of New Zealand—the ones who live in daily pain and disability and who are missing out on health services.

But I do feel a little pity for the Minister of Health because the well of excuses is exhausted and he is now resorting to tinkering around the edges of truth. Take mental health: he claimed that DHBs have $568 million allocated to them, so part of it could go to mental health. Did health get $568 million for DHBs; would the Minister of Health not know his own budget? No, health did not—it got $400 million. Take off the $11 million it must put into Pharmac’s budget and you are down to $389 million. Now we hear that they are going to have to pay part of the cost of the bowel-screening programme roll-out. So you can see why our DHBs are underfunded.

The Government has no idea what is happening in mental health. Many of those members opposite are constituency members, and I cannot believe that they have not had people come to their constituency offices, telling them about problems in mental health. If they have not, then they are not performing their role as constituency MPs: their doors are not open to listen to what people say. All of us—including members who are list members from the Opposition—have heard these stories, day after day, of the crisis in mental health. So if you do not want to believe your constituents, have a look at the recent reports on mental health failure: Northland DHB—a report into a terrible failure in mental health; MidCentral DHB and Capital and Coast DHB are under review right now because of the number of suicides; Waikato DHB, Canterbury DHB—these are major reviews and reports showing failures in our mental health system.

Let us look at the major announcement in the Budget: the bowel-screening programme. Everyone knows that we have one of the highest rates of bowel cancer in the world—3,000 cases registered every year, about 1,200 deaths every year. In 2007 the then Minister of Health and, David Cunliffe, announced the roll-out of a bowel-screening programme that would start in 2008-09. The Minister, in an answer in the House today, said: “Well Labour announced it in 2007 and they didn’t implement it in 2008.” We lost Government in 2008, so why did this Government not pick up the roll-out of the bowel-screening programme and implement it? The Minister said today that 700 lives a year would be saved if this programme was in place. In other words, 6,300 lives could have been saved if the Government had rolled out the bowel-screening programme when it was announced.

Did it start where the highest incidence and the highest death rate is for bowel cancer, in the southern part of New Zealand? No. Within days of the Budget announcement—with a quick phone call or two to two little DHBs—the Minister announced a roll-out. Had it been to Cabinet, Cabinet Ministers? Has the case for the bowel-screening programme gone to Cabinet? No it has not. I have not before heard of an announcement where there is a big-ticket item and dollars attached to it that has not gone through a Cabinet process. That is not Cabinet government to make such an announcement—National was desperate to make an announcement before the Budget.

So you have now got what I call the “McColeman announcement”—that is the announcement you have when you do not really have an announcement. There is a problem with it: Treasury has given it a red flag; it is very worried about the implementation. So what does the Minister do today? He goes on radio and slags off all the Treasury officers—the very Treasury officers whose forecasts the Minister of Finance stands up in this House every day and tells us that we have got to believe. It had “decades of deficits”—we were meant to believe that.

💬 Brett Hudson: Thanks to you, Annette.

We were meant to believe those Treasury forecasts, but we are not meant to believe, Mr Hudson, that Treasury said the roll-out of the bowel-screening programme is a crock at this stage and gave it a red flag. You see, you would like it both ways, I think, Mr Hudson.

So where in this Budget is the funding to honour the promises that were made to our older people? Where is the money to pay for home care? Where is the money to pay for the minimum wage increase for all those wonderful women who look after our old people in their homes? Do you know that for 7 years—7 years—the providers of home-care services have not had funding to account for the increase in the minimum wage? I have got their report—these are not my words—for 7 years they have not had funding to pay for the increase in the minimum wage, and that has eroded over $7 million a year from their provision of services for our old people. They deserve better, do they not? Our old people deserve the best possible care, in their own homes.

This Budget is a flop and a failure, and that is why the Government cannot talk about it.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā, ā, huri noa i tō tātou Whare i tēnei ahiahi, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and acknowledgments to us all throughout our House this afternoon.]

Our John Key - led Government is investing in a growing economy. It is a growing economy that is able to generate more jobs, higher wages, and a future that is based on a modern approach that is about science, enterprise, and entrepreneurial behaviour. It is also based on a hallmark of National Governments, which is to have a compassionate heart for those most in need and to do something about it rather than talk, wring our hands, and cry crocodile tears; it is to do practical things. And we get to do those practical things when we have an economy that supports that. So it is pretty important that we grow the economy—that we invest into it and that we do so in a futureproofed way.

The Budget is an important mechanism for telling the country, in a comprehensive way, what the business of Government is. It is important that we do tell the country what the business of Government is, because it makes up, still, too big a part of our economy. It is not the economy—which is something we understand although the Opposition clearly fails to understand that, almost pathologically. The Opposition thinks it is the Government that creates jobs. The Opposition thinks it is the Government that earns the income. It is not. The Government’s responsibility is to ensure that it creates an environment in which New Zealanders can be successful and through which we back New Zealanders to make good choices and to be powerful actors in their own lives so that they are not dependent on Government. That is our long-term vision, and that is what this Budget—the eighth Budget of the Minister of Finance—continues to invest in.

I want to acknowledge the Minister of Finance, the Hon Bill English, for the magnificent job he has done over 8 very challenging years. Yes, we have heard already about the very parlous legacy from the Opposition, and I am not going to rehearse that, because, as the Opposition has rightly pointed out, we are not here to talk about it, because there is not much to talk about. So I am going to talk about us—I am going to talk about this Government. I want to acknowledge the Minister of Finance for the fine work that he has done, because not only are the appellations “prudent”, “conservative”, sometimes “pessimistic” totally apposite but also they have occurred within the context of a strategic framework. We have a very clear vision of how we ensure that we grow a productive economy, of how we ensure that there is prosperity available to all New Zealanders, and of how we invest in an economy that is based on science and on knowledge and that is future-focused and not backward-looking. We can see, within our Budget, that we now will have choices that would otherwise not have been available to us.

The Government’s business makes up about 30 percent of the economy, and it is really important that it is both efficient and effective, given that size. We need to make sure that we get every bang for the taxpayer’s buck that we possibly can, and that we can measure the impacts—that we are actually getting results. We are not simply saying, as the Opposition keeps wanting to argue, that the more money you put in, the more it shows you care. Actually, the more practical the results are and the greater the impact is shows how much we care.

On that basis, this Government has a very good record. It is by no means enough, but that is the direction of travel, and it is comprehensively set out in this Budget. We have a plan, and our first aim is to have an innovative New Zealand. We are a small country—4.5 million and growing. We are small, smart, and sassy. We punch above our weight, and we continue to wish to do that.

I have recently returned from Crete, where I went, along with the Governor-General, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Crete. The point of that was that New Zealanders—7,700—went all the way around to the other side of the world to fight for the principles we believe in: of democracy, of fairness, and of looking after those who cannot look after themselves, while also growing the possibility of prosperity for all.

We are seen by the rest of the world as very credible international players, and the more that we invest into our own science, our own skills, and the growing of our economy—through leveraging off our primary industries and through growing our information and communication technology areas—the more we continue to have weight in that regard. We have continued to invest in infrastructure. It does not sound very sexy, but getting from A to B to C on really good roads, as we see around the country, is pretty critical to the businesses of New Zealand and the flow of that work.

In the education area, we have benefited from that enormously, because we are the single biggest investment in this Budget, at $882.5 million for new schools, for roll growth classrooms, and for redevelopments. Places of learning really do give substance to this idea of growing the economy, and in education we have a plan that supports what I have talked about, generally, in terms of our approach to Government. And the plan is that every kid is educationally successful.

We have not just talked about it. We are overhauling the 27-year-old Education Act; we are reviewing funding. This is the single biggest amount that has gone into education ever: $11.04 billion. Education is bigger than police, bigger than foreign affairs and trade, bigger than roads, bigger than conservation—and that shows how serious this Government is about how we build our kids to have the skills they need, the qualifications, and the technological capabilities to participate. We want to make sure that we have successful and effective teachers. We want to make sure that they have a very independent profession, which, again, is something the Opposition seems incapable of understanding. When I say the Education Council is independent, it is independent. It gets to make its own decisions about how it raises the quality of teaching and leadership.

We are configuring communities of learning because we understand that the whole pathway of the student is critically important. We have provided more pathways—applied learning as well as academic learning—so that every New Zealander has the opportunity to go into the trades, which, of course, we need more of because we have an economy that is growing. In this Budget we have invested in infrastructure, in science and innovation, in health and education. I do not need to talk about health a lot, because we will hear later in this debate about the comprehensive investments we are making in health.

In addition, of course, we have the social investment approach, which is very specific: how do we change the trajectory of young people who otherwise might lead a very poor life? How do we invest early with impact to make the difference? Not only do we cut down the liability of Government and free up money to resource more in the productive side of the economy but also we help support better lives for individuals. That is what this Government is about. We want better lives for all our kids, for all our young people, for all our middle-aged people—for those of us who are in that young middle-aged category—as well as for those who are older. So this Government is about quality opportunities for all, and education is a core part of that.

We provided in this Budget nearly $400 million for early childhood education. Those of you who have been able to see, in a distilled fashion, Professor Richie Poulton’s Dunedin study will understand that if we can invest early, identify those kids most at risk, and make a change for them, they will lead better lives. So we have seen in this Budget that rather than provide a universal operational grant to schools, we have taken what that would otherwise have been and targeted it to those kids who have spent 75 percent of their lives in long-term benefit-dependent homes, because we have heard and understood that we need to prioritise those who are most at risk of educational underachievement.

We are not, in the process, sacrificing the rest of New Zealand students; not at all, because the first $10 billion goes towards that. We want kids who are doing well to do even better, but we also, because this is the nature of this Government, want to pick up those who are falling behind. We want to give them the same chance of better life outcomes—real kids, real results, real time. That, in a nutshell, describes education, but it also describes this Government: real New Zealanders, real results, in real time. Bill English’s eighth Budget delivers the economic and the business approach that will ensure that next year we will be able to report—because we have a transparent means of reporting because we are prepared to be accountable—that we are making progress. But there is still a way to go. Thank you.

A 5-minute call on behalf of New Zealand First—Fletcher Tabuteau.

I think I see the strategy: bore us into oblivion—

💬 Tim Macindoe: No, that’s your job.

—and hope that we cannot drive the energy to reply to absolute nonsense like that. It is painful, painful. Mr Macindoe, while you were giving your speech—and it was better than your usual contributions to the House—were you worried as you looked back at the backbench National members there, who were so enthusiastic that it was mind-boggling? It was not that good a speech.

I have coined a new phrase in respect of Mr Macindoe’s contribution today. I have coined a new phrase. I have called it the “sycophantic, bobble-head syndrome”. It is a syndrome. What we have seen over 8 years is a National Party membership sitting there nodding away, agreeing with everything that their members say. It is a beautiful sight. It is usually in sync, and it is quite entertaining. The sycophantic, bobble-head syndrome means that those poor members have come to believe their own spin. Therein lies the problem. If you believe the spin, you cannot prepare yourself for when someone actually holds you to account on logic and content.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Let us try some of that then. Back to the bill.

All you can do is go: “It’s good. It’s good.”

Another member—I cannot remember who, because that is the summation of the contributions this afternoon—spoke about this Budget reflecting a supposedly strong leadership from the Prime Minister John Key, a Prime Minister who is slipping perilously every day in terms of popularity numbers. This was a “Get Stuffed” Budget. This was a Band-Aid Budget that even New Zealand big business could not find much to say about. They struggled to find positive words. I think the most positive contribution I can think of, off the top of my head, was: “It’s a good start.”

We are 8 years into National’s supposed leadership of this country, and we should be well passed a good start. In fact, the banks and the academic and financial experts of New Zealand have gone so far as to say that the Government has lost its way and the Budget is simply a symptom of a National Party that is living in an anachronistic past. It is trying to move forward by looking in a mirror from the past because Government members do not know and do not have the skill set to move forward and to solve the problems that everyday New Zealanders are living with.

This is a Government that stands up and tells us about positive GDP numbers every single day. We dispute those numbers, but let us assume we believe them, because one might concede that 0.5 percent over the last 8 years is still slightly positive. It is still slightly positive. If we believe those numbers, it does not belie the fact that the rhetoric from the Government is not matching the reality that New Zealanders are seeing more and more every day—

💬 Brett Hudson: More jobs, you mean?

—outside in the real world, which Mr Hudson has so carefully blinded himself to.

The evidence is right in front of us: house prices and homelessness, and yet wage inflation is static as we move forward into the future. People are not making more money from their incomes. There is exponential growth in inequality in New Zealand, and this Government does not know how to deal with it. This Budget is a symptom of a Government that has lost its way. Thank you.

A 5-minute call on behalf of New Zealand First—Mahesh Bindra.

I am afraid my speech is going to be less entertaining than my colleague Fletcher Tabuteau’s. It is about a more serious matter.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speak within the rules and we will be happy.

Last month, about 200 members of the South Auckland community, mainly small-business owners, got together in South Auckland, and it took a radio station to bring those people along because the Government was not worried about their safety. These people were actually angry and frustrated, and their frustration and their anger were really palpable at that meeting. We hoped at the meeting that we would be able to take some of their concerns to the Government, and we were hopeful that the Government MP present there would also contribute towards it. That does not seem to have happened, because after the Budget was announced, those hopes were shattered. The hopes of that community were shattered because there was nothing in that Budget to address the crime situation—the law and order situation—particularly in South Auckland.

In this Budget, we have noticed that a paltry $8.5 million has been allocated for police primary response management. The police response as it is at the moment is appalling. The police response time is appalling. A particular incident I knew of, because I had visited that victim and that victim was also present at that meeting. Although he has started back at work, he is still scared and he is worried about his safety. His concerns have not been addressed in this Budget, and there are many more like him.

What actually happened was that a few months ago three offenders raided and burgled a liquor store in Takanini at 7.30 in the evening. The store owner’s friend followed the offenders when they escaped. The closed-circuit television cameras had the evidence. The store owner’s friend then followed those offenders to their hiding place, took the car registration number, took the address of that property, and gave it to the store owner, who in turn then informed the police. This was at about 7.50 p.m., which means that within 20 minutes of that incident the store owner informed the police that he had the evidence, he knew where the offenders were, and he said that he wanted the police to act then. So the police replied: “Look, we don’t have enough staff numbers to go with you and search that property, and, besides that, we don’t have a search warrant for that property.”

The same offenders at 9.50 p.m.—that is, 2 hours later—went to a Manurewa address, another liquor store, and stabbed the store worker there. They stabbed him five times. Those were serious wounds, and I have personally seen those wounds. So the police reacted then, at 9.50 p.m. Had they acted on the previous complaint, which was at about 7.30 p.m., the second incident would not have happened. The second victim could have been saved. But that did not happen, and nothing has happened in this Budget to correct that situation. That will happen again because there is no mention of police numbers being increased in this Budget.

On the contrary, as we know, our population has increased by 6.5 percent since 2012. However, taking into consideration the inflation rate—4.7 percent—there has been an increase of only 1.8 percent, and that is not going to help the 6.4 percent crime resolution rate that we have at the moment—just 6.4 percent resolution of violent crimes. That is not good enough, and neither is this Budget.

A 5-minute call on behalf of the National Party—Parmjeet Parmar.

Budget 2016 is a great Budget. Yes, it is about 8 years since National came into office, and no one can forget that. There are several reasons for that, and one of these reasons is the Opposition—yes, the Opposition—because every single time we announce a new, significant, and practical policy, even on Budget day, all those members do is count the number of years we have been in office, as if counting the number of years is some kind of worthy counterargument. It truly is a testament to the hard work of this National Government that the Opposition does nothing else but just count the number of years we have been in Government.

Year after year, Budget after Budget, election after election, we have overcome challenges, and it is because of this that the people of New Zealand have more and more confidence in this National Government, and the confidence of the people of New Zealand in this National Government is more than ever before. We are one of those handful of countries that enjoy a very positive economic outlook, and this is because of the leadership of the Rt Hon John Key.

I want to congratulate our Minister of Finance, the Hon Bill English, on such an awesome eighth Budget. This Budget is focused on the economy. Our GDP growth is expected to grow by 2.8 percent over the next 5 years.

💬 Hon Member: How much?

By 2.8 percent over the next 5 years. In the past 3 years, there were 200,000 new jobs under this National Government, and it is forecast that there will be 170,000 new jobs by 2020. Over this period, unemployment is expected to drop to 4.6 percent—yes, all this in just about 8 years. And this is despite the global financial crisis, the devastating Canterbury earthquakes, and a series of finance company failures; 2016 is already proving to be a very productive year for families and businesses all around New Zealand.

Budget 2016 is focused on all the important areas. Coming from a scientific background, I am really delighted to see $411 million over 4 years for science and innovation. This includes the commercialisation of high-tech ideas that our New Zealand scientists develop. I am also really happy to see $97 million for health research funding. Coming from a health research and life sciences background, I am really happy to see that commitment from our Government. Through the Health Research Council of New Zealand, the funding is going up by 56 percent, from $77 million in 2015-16 to $120 million in 2019-20. This shows that we are really committed to our health research sector.

I am the National list member of Parliament based in Mt Roskill. In Mt Roskill, social housing and emergency housing are important issues. I am really delighted to see $258 million put towards that, which includes 750 additional social housing places and 3,000 emergency housing places. We are working hard. We are investing to ensure that people have a roof over their heads when they need it the most. We are not doing propaganda like the Opposition, trying to run press conferences outside houses that are not even overcrowded—yes, trying to run press conferences outside houses that are not even overcrowded.

Budget 2016 is focused on the economy. It is focused on low-income people and homeless people, yet Opposition members will try to enforce a stereotype that we work for the wealthy and they work for low-income people. But who increased the benefit for the first time in 40-plus years? It was this National Government. Who is working hard for homeless people? It is this National Government. Who is creating opportunities for low-income families? It is this National Government. The Labour and Greens combination stands for no opportunities, low job security, and more financial burden on families and businesses. This National Government stands for success, prosperity, and opportunities for families and businesses all around New Zealand. Budget 2016 is a great Budget. Thank you.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Mr Deputy Speaker.

Did you say “Point of order.”?

💬 Hon Phil Goff: A call?

No, sorry. A 5-minute call on behalf of the National Party.

New Zealand is in great shape, and Bill English delivered another great Budget—his eighth. Look at New Zealanders; New Zealanders are achievers. They go out, they greet the world, they compete with the world, and they win. And back home, they know that they have got a Government, a National-led Government, that backs them all the way, that supports their aspirations, and that puts the frameworks in place that mean they can go and compete offshore—I know Mr Goff supports that; it is a shame that none of the rest of his caucus does—and supports them competing in the world. This is a National Government that backs Kiwis and Kiwi kids to be successful, that puts an education system around them, and is about each one of them achieving their potential. This is another great Budget from Bill English.

What is this Budget telling us that New Zealand’s future is? New Zealand’s future is bright—with 2.8 percent growth over the next 4 years, on average. That is going to be right up there with the very best countries in the OECD. A further 170,000 jobs and average wages climbing to $63,000 are great results—a great set of figures by any comparison with the developed world. Kiwis embrace these figures—they like the way New Zealand is travelling. It did not actually come as too much of a surprise to hear that in the Budget, though. Why? This is because they look at the record of this National Government, and what have they seen? Well, 200,000 jobs over the past 3 years, and an $11,000 increase in the average wage since the National Government has been in office. This is a Government that understands what is important for Kiwis, and it is a Government that continues to focus on delivering those things.

Let us just look back and remind ourselves what the things that matter for Kiwis and their families are: it is a growing economy, and one that is delivering more jobs and higher incomes; it is a Government that is focused on delivering good education so that your children are going to be ready for the future that awaits them; and it is a country where you feel safer in your communities, and one where you know that should you get sick, you have got a great health care system that is going to help you to return to health as soon as possible. Kiwis know that that is what this National Government is delivering for them.

I came to this Parliament from a 20-year career in the ICT industry, and I am delighted—delighted—to see a continued investment in innovation from this Government. In this Budget there is $761 million—$761 million—for helping to continue to diversify our economy, not only to focus on adding value to our traditional core strengths in the primary sector but also to support burgeoning industries, including the ICT industry and also our creative industries that are very strong and growing here in Wellington, our capital.

When we do this, when we look to support innovation—unlike some, who would choose winners—we know that New Zealanders can be successful across sectors. We invest money, for instance, in research—$63 million into strategic science research; research, for instance, that will look into the likes of freshwater management and research. This will help us to deliver our primary sector strength with a smaller environmental footprint. But if we look at what the Opposition says in these areas, all it wants to do is shrink what we do—to cull the dairy herd and do less of what we do so well.

This is a Government that is very balanced in its approach. It is a Government that supports our traditional sectors while also adding support to the newer ones. I look at Ōhāriu, the electorate that I am based in, and I see, for instance, Taylor Preston meatworks. It exports everything it produces—$250 million worth of export receipts into the Wellington economy every year. At the height of the season, it employs 700 people. It is a very, very important business in Wellington, creating value locally from a traditional core strength of New Zealand. On the other side—in fact, almost across the road; just down the road—you have a company like 4RF, which works in telecommunications. It is a company that does research and innovation—a company that creates new technologies—and it also exports them around the world. It is a company that, for instance, has made use of our research and development growth grant programmes through Callaghan Innovation.

There we have a great example, even in Ōhāriu, of a Government that is balanced in its approach, that supports what Kiwis do so well and supports growth in new and more value-added, intellectual property - based areas, which are a big part of our future. It is that sort of balanced and pragmatic approach that has the New Zealand public continuing to support John Key and continuing to support this National-led Government. It was a great Budget, and I look forward to more.

I think that I have spoken to more and more diverse audiences across Auckland over the last 3 or 4 months than I have in 30-odd years in a political career. I have spoken at meetings organised by the National Party, the ACT Party, the Labour Party, the Green Party, and New Zealand First. I have spoken to business groups, I have spoken to Rotary groups, I have talked to ethnic communities, and to Māori and Pasifika. I am saying this because what I have found, in talking to those audiences, is an amazing unanimity amongst 35 percent of New Zealand’s population about what they expected from the Budget and what Auckland needed.

I have got to say—and I say this with some regret because I thought that with the massive debate around housing need and around transport congestion this would have been a Budget that delivered some relief from the problems of housing and transport gridlock—not only was I disappointed in the Budget for failing to deliver in these areas but so too was a broad cross-section of Aucklanders, who were looking for something better. The argument generally goes like this: the Government wants to increase the population of the country. And maybe that is OK; immigration is good for a county. But we are now seeing migration at the highest level in decades: 70,000 more people coming into New Zealand. How is that impacting Auckland? Auckland is growing by 800 people a week. People say: “Well, that would be OK if the Government was providing the infrastructure needed to cope with that growth, the transport system to stop the roads being gridlocked, and the housing so that New Zealand’s first-home buyers could still afford to buy a home in their own city.”

The Budget offered no relief at all in either of those areas. I even read the press statements of the Minister of Building and Housing and the Minister of Transport, and they are usually skite sheets saying: “This is what we are doing.” I read it line by line, and the word “Auckland” did not exist there—it just did not exist. The truth of the matter is that those are really serious problems. They are not only holding Auckland back but also holding New Zealand back. We now have a situation where our roads and our motorways—not only at peak hour but also even outside peak hour—are becoming gridlocked. We have got the Productivity Commission and the New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development saying that congestion in Auckland is costing $3 billion a year—$3 billion. Aucklanders say to me: “Well, aren’t we just pouring that money down the drain?”. That is money in lost productivity and other costs, and we are getting absolutely nothing for it. If we were investing $3 billion a year in a congestion-free transport network, we would have something to show for it and Auckland could move forward. But we are not, and there was not a dollar in capital investment in Auckland to relieve that congestion.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: So what would Phil Goff do if he was mayor?

Then it comes to housing affordability. Now, if the Minister of Health listens—you listen through your ears not your mouth, Dr Coleman—I will tell him what some of the problems are, including those in his own electorate. The problem is that housing prices in Auckland went up by over 15 percent in the last year, on top of the 15 percent the year before. Do you know what the average cost of a house in Auckland is now? It is $955,000. God damn it—I bought my first house in Mt Roskill for $64,000; it was 1½ times my annual salary. Today, my kids are paying 6 or 7 times their annual household income to live out in places like Papakura and Pukekohe because they cannot afford to live closer to town than that.

I have got to say that I have heard all sorts of blame being attributed to why people cannot get into homes of their own. You know, it’s their own fault; if you chose your parents wrong and your parents cannot pay your deposit to get into a home, then you cannot buy a home in Auckland today. That is the truth of it. That is why we will have growing inequality in our city, because those who come from reasonably privileged backgrounds can be on the housing ladder, and those that do not will miss out. That is not the New Zealand and that is not the Auckland that I want, Dr Coleman. I want a New Zealand where the Kiwi Dream of owning your own home can survive and people can have that stability and security and they can have a chance in life.

I am telling those members that there is nothing in this Budget that helps those young people towards the dream of homeownership. I am saying to those members that each year in Auckland, with the population growth, we are falling 4,000 houses further behind what we need. That means that 4,000 people lose out on getting any form of what we would call reasonable housing. It means that people are sleeping in garages and cars and are doubling up in homes. And that is not the New Zealand that I want, Dr Coleman. That is not the Auckland I want, and nothing in this Budget will alleviate that. People who are renting their homes have seen their rents go up at seven times the overall rate of inflation. These are massive problems, and there is nothing in this Budget that addresses those problems.

I want to say that it is not good enough just to blame the council—that seems to have been what some members of the Government have been doing recently. The council does have its responsibility. It must make sure that sufficient land is available for the growth that is happening in the city. If the council does not accept that the city needs to go up and out, it will not be doing its job. I do not have a problem with the national policy statement, other than this: the problem that I have with it is that it deals with one aspect of the problem but not the others. I want to know: where is the policy that will see affordable homes being built? Do you know that affordable homes are about 5 percent of the homes being built at the moment? It used to be about 50 percent. We will not get affordable homes unless the Government is prepared to partner with the private sector to make sure that homes are developed that are affordable. That is the time-honoured way in New Zealand of providing for people to have decent, warm, and healthy homes.

I am saying this too, that you can make the land available through your planning but if the council does not have the capital to provide the infrastructure needed to build homes on it, then the homes will not be built. Dr Coleman, as a member of Cabinet, will know that Treasury reported to Cabinet that Auckland Council can neither use the rates base nor borrow to provide the infrastructure. So I am saying to the Government, why not have infrastructure bonds? Why not have either the Government raise the money itself and on-lend it to Auckland, or allow Auckland itself to raise that money so it can provide the infrastructure? If you do not do that, how is that infrastructure going to be provided if you cannot borrow to pay for it or rate to pay for it? And I do not want to push the rates through the ceiling.

I want to know from the Government why there is not some sort of restraint on demand when 40 to 50 percent of the houses are currently being bought in Auckland by investors, and one house in the paper the other day was onsold five times in a year. Each person clipped the ticket for $30,000, did not add anything except to the price, and the price goes up and it becomes unaffordable. I want to know why we do not do what the Aussies do and say to foreign investors: “If you want to buy property in New Zealand, build a new house. Add something to New Zealand. Don’t just push the price up on existing houses.”

There is a lot that can be done. I look forward, interestingly, to working with the Government, not squabbling with it, but it needs to be a Government and a council that puts Auckland first and is determined to do something to address those pressing problems. I want to say it again, and I want to say it very clearly: if Auckland cannot succeed, then, at 35 percent of the country’s population and productivity, New Zealand is not going to succeed. The Government cannot close its eyes to those problems; it needs to be prepared to work with the elected members of the Auckland Council after October to do something that will really make a difference for a better future for Auckland and a better future for New Zealand.

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 1 June.