Estimates Debate

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) Link to this

The Standing Orders provide for 8 hours of debate on the estimates contained in the Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill. Each member may have no more than two speeches of 5 minutes on each vote. The estimates debate should be relevant to the Government’s current spending plans as contained in the Estimates of Appropriations. As each vote is reached a question will be put that that vote stand part. If it is the wish of the Committee I will put the question on groups of votes by Minister until a vote is reached that members seek to debate. A separate question on this vote will then be proposed from the Chair.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee) Link to this

I hope the Minister in the chair, Michael Cullen, will be able to answer some of the questions I wish to raise with him. When the Finance and Expenditure Committee examined the estimates of Vote Prime Minister and Cabinet, we noted that a bid had been made for an additional $200,000, and that one of the reasons for that bid for additional money was the cost of the Taito Phillip Field inquiry. We noted that the Prime Minister had gone to the Cabinet business committee back in January with a bid for additional funding and had explained in the paper for the committee that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet had faced legal costs in the Prime Minister v court case—that was the former Commissioner of Police whom the Prime Minister shafted—of $15,000 and, at that stage, the Taito Phillip Field inquiry costs were $119,000.

When the select committee sought information as to what the costs were as the inquiry wore on, we were denied that information. The head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet refused to advise the committee, which I found quite an extraordinary turn of events. He finally said he would consider providing the select committee with the information, but that “clearly, of course, I’ll have to consult the Prime Minister.” There are some questions we need to ask about this Field inquiry, because, clearly, money in this year’s estimates is being spent on it, as the report is released today, during this financial year. I do not know whether the Prime Minister feels that we have value for money in this report. I would like the Prime Minister to respond to some of these issues.

When Noel Ingram said in relation to some key issues in his report that he has been unable to resolve the matters—for example, he said: “If the allegations in relation to further Thai labour on Mr Field’s house in Samoa are to be resolved, it would be necessary for an authority with appropriate powers of investigation to inquire further.”—I want to know from the Prime Minister whether she accepts that, whether she thinks the allegations simply do not matter, or whether she accepts Noel Ingram QC’s advice that there needs to be a more powerful inquiry if those matters are to be resolved. Noel Ingram went on further to say that he could not resolve the issues surrounding the painting by, he believes, Thai immigrants of Mr Field’s house at 51 Church Street in Ōtāhuhu. In relation to those issues he said: “I have been unable to establish who undertook the interior painting of 51 Church Street”. It is relevant because Thai immigrants may have done that work in response to immigration services offered by Taito Phillip Field. Noel Ingram went on to say that he is “concerned by the unsatisfactory nature of the explanations provided by Mr Field in relation to that painting.” If the Prime Minister is spending money from this year’s estimates on the report, I want to know whether she is satisfied with it, whether she thinks it resolves these issues, and whether Noel Ingram’s saying that he cannot establish who did the work on the house and that he finds Taito Phillip Field’s explanations unsatisfactory resolves the issues.

Furthermore, I want to hear from the Prime Minister in relation to a certain meeting that took place on 2 October at the home of Mrs Thaivichit, and the allegation that the meeting, which was called shortly after the establishment of this inquiry, may have involved trying to orchestrate what these people—key witnesses involved in these allegations—might say to the inquiry. There was such concern about this meeting that the fact that it occurred was leaked to the police, and the Serious Fraud Office was involved in issues around it. Noel Ingram said that his investigation into the matter was unsatisfactory “because five of the people allegedly present at that gathering on 2 October 2005 declined to be interviewed by me in relation to that matter.” So I want to know from the Prime Minister whether that issue is resolved. Was there an attempt to pervert the course of justice, or at least pervert the course of this inquiry, given that these people—key witnesses—met immediately after the announcement of the inquiry and subsequently refused to talk to the inquiry? What went on at that meeting? Noel Ingram was unable to establish what went on at that meeting. I want the Prime Minister to tell this House whether she thinks those issues are resolved by this report. Is she going to allow this whitewash?

I want to finish talking about these issues that I want the Prime Minister to respond to, because they are serious. I know the Prime Minister is not in the chair; the Deputy Prime Minister is, and he will probably not be as familiar with these issues as the Prime Minister is, because she established this inquiry. The reason why it is important is that we are spending a lot of money on it. I understand that the Government has announced almost half a million dollars has been spent on this inquiry. I want to know from the Prime Minister whether she is satisfied with these elements. I want to run over them again so there can be no doubt about what I am asking the Prime Minister.

The first one is about the four people who worked on Phillip Field’s house in Samoa. All four of them are key witnesses as to what went on involving their doing that work for Taito Phillip Field in response to his assisting them with immigration issues. The fact that all four of them refused to be interviewed by Noel Ingram, refused to tell the inquiry what went on, automatically leads to the ongoing allegation of corruption. Obviously, they did not want to talk to the inquiry because what went on was corrupt practice. That is why they did not want to talk to the inquiry. I want to hear from the Prime Minister whether she believes that Noel Ingram’s saying that he could not take that matter any further and could not resolve those issues is satisfactory, and whether that is the low standard she now accepts from inquiries. I guess when she is involved in things like “paintergate” and the knifing in the back of Commissioner of Police Peter Doone when she pretended she had not, and when, in fact, the documents show her department had to spend $15,000 on legal fees in relation to it, maybe that is Helen Clark’s personal standard as Prime Minister.

I want to know whether her standard as Prime Minister is to say that it is the end of the matter when one of the key issues is around the use of immigrant labour—people whom Taito Phillip Field had helped with immigration issues—and what work they did on his four houses in New Zealand, especially the one at 51 Church Street. Noel Ingram was unable to find out what went on because, first, the people involved refused to talk to him, and, second, Taito Phillip Field continued to mislead him as to what went on. Noel Ingram said, in as many words, that he did not believe Taito Phillip Field’s explanations. Is the Prime Minister happy with that? Is that the standard she now accepts from inquiries of this nature? Does she simply accept that it is the end of the matter when the Queen’s Counsel has said he could not resolve the issue because the people refused to be interviewed.

In respect of the meeting that took place on 2 October just a few days after this inquiry was launched, when five of those key people—the Thai immigrants involved—refused to talk to the inquiry, I want to know from the Prime Minister whether she thinks that is perfectly OK. Does she think that the fact that Noel Ingram said: “My investigation into that matter has been unsatisfactory”—he did not say it was incomplete; he said it was unsatisfactory because five of the people refused to talk to him—is the end of the matter, from her perspective? It is not Noel Ingram’s fault—let me make it very clear. I am not saying Noel Ingram’s work is of a low standard—let me be very clear. The issue is whether this Government accepts the inability of Noel Ingram to resolve these issues as an excuse to say that the allegations against Taito Phillip Field had no substance. Because the Queen’s Counsel could not resolve the issues, does that mean she now simply says they did not happen? That is the low standard—the Prime Minister saying it is all OK because the Queen’s Counsel could not resolve them.

Throughout the report Dr Ingram referred to his lack of powers to resolve the allegations. If the Prime Minister now sits back and says: “That’s fine. We’ve spent half a million dollars on this. It clears Taito Phillip Field.”, and thinks that is the end of the matter, it is not. People who have spoken to me, who have been directly involved in issues with Taito Phillip Field, have also refused to talk to the Ingram inquiry, and some of their personal allegations on issues they have personally been involved in, involving payments by them personally, are not covered in that report. If the Prime Minister thinks that this is the end of the matter, it is not.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) Link to this

I listened to the previous speaker, Lockwood Smith, with some amazement and interest. Clearly, he has not had a chance to read the report, because making allegations that the inquiry by Noel Ingram QC was unsatisfactory goes against exactly what Dr Ingram has said. I refer the member to the opening paragraphs of the report, particularly those in which Dr Ingram summarises the inquiry. At paragraph 12 on page 5 he notes: “Even if I had possessed the power to administer oaths, and to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents, the process of inquiry may not have been significantly more satisfactory.” He goes on to point out that in fact he effectively had the power of a commission of inquiry, because all the Government officials, Ministers of the Crown, and the like cooperated fully in the manner in which Sir Geoffrey Palmer outlined in his book Unbridled Power. In fact, the inquiry was so extensive that the interviews extended to 700 pages, 300,000 words, and 11 volumes of documents. One could not have a more thorough investigation.

It is quite untrue for the member Lockwood Smith to allege that Dr Ingram did not believe Taito Phillip Field. Dr Ingram notes that Mr Field was cooperative throughout the inquiry and assisted as much as he could. At paragraph 191, Dr Ingram states: “However, determining when Mr Field became aware that Mr Siriwan was working on the house is more difficult.” Of course, that statement weighs an allegation against Taito Phillip Field’s evidence, and the shortage of anything else to back up Mr Field or to rebut the allegation simply says that there is no evidence to confirm that allegation or to rebut it. One cannot say that that causes Mr Field to be a liar. The report simply states that although Mr Field’s explanation was “sparse” in areas—and we are talking about events involving 400 immigration inquiries by Mr Field in 1 year—there is no evidence to call him untruthful. Equally, Mr Field has been deprived of evidence to back up what he says is correct.

So the conclusion of the inquiry is that it was a very satisfactory inquiry. There is no evidence to doubt what Mr Field says. The overall conclusion is that we have a member of Parliament who works very hard and very diligently, and who cooperated fully with the inquiry—including at one stage when Mr Field was not represented by counsel and Dr Ingram suggested he get further counsel, so that Dr Ingram could be satisfied that the inquiry was as fulsome as it should be. So a Queen’s Counsel signed off by stating that he was very pleased with the report, that the report was thorough and had been thoroughly checked, and that the report was as substantial and fair as he would have hoped it to be. So to put out the fact that there was no power to compel is to suggest that Dr Ingram lacked the knowledge of how to get the power to compel. A simple request to the Prime Minister at the early stage to vary the inquiry, in order to give the power to compel, may have answered that. But, of course, Dr Ingram answers that himself by noting in the report that having the power to compel would not have much enhanced the inquiry, in any event.

So what we have is simply a thorough report, by a very experienced Queen’s Counsel, that upholds the integrity of Taito Phillip Field. Taito Phillip Field is a hard-working member, and Dr Ingrams notesthat, at times, to rely on memory can be difficult. Mr Field himself has been deprived of access to information that would corroborate his memory, but that is not the same as saying that Mr Field has misled the inquiry or is corrupt. It is very easy in the House to make allegations of corruption; it is very difficult to disprove them. This is an inquiry that lasted for 10 months and had 700 pages of interviews, 300,000 words, and 11 volumes of documents. Mr Field was complimented on his cooperation. It is a long bow to draw from that any suggestion of dishonesty or scurrilous behaviour. This is a report that Mr Field can wave around as a tribute to his integrity, and it suggests he will continue to be a profitable and good member of the House.

JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) Link to this

The previous speaker spent his career as a court lawyer, representing some people who, I suspect, he knew in his heart were as guilty as sin. He may well be able to choose selective parts of a report and convince even a jury or a court that he is correct. But in the court of public opinion there will be only one response to the report from Dr Ingram, which is that Mr Field and this report have left more questions unanswered than answered, and that New Zealand and its Parliament have somehow had their reputation tarnished today.

One of the interesting things about New Zealand, when one goes and looks at things like the world freedom index or the world competitiveness index, is that one sees they ask a simple question in those reports. It goes like this: “Is the country in question a country that is known for corruption? Many of the countries around the world—in parts of Asia and Europe—are known for deep corruption, and it is not possible to have things occur in the normal course of events unless payments are made in the most innovative, exciting, and interesting ways. New Zealand is a country that always scores well in that respect. New Zealand is a country that has had a long and deep history of not having corruption in its Parliament.

So I wonder what the people who will fill out those reports on New Zealand’s history will think, when they find in Dr Ingram’s report the matter of a simple meeting that was held by Mr Field and by four or five other people who refused to talk to the Ingram inquiry—people who clearly were afraid to say to Dr Ingram the things they were told. I wonder what Mr Cole will have to say, when he received a phone call from Mr Field, after having gone to the media, and was told that he and his son should “back off”?

I wonder what the skilled people who were seeking immigration services from Mr Taito Phillip Field thought, when a member of the New Zealand Parliament, a Minister in Helen Clark’s Government, asked them to do some private work in his house in Samoa, for no money? The “Samoan solution”, as it will be long remembered, is a solution that went this way: “If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”, or “If you come to my office and help me, I will help you if you come and do some work for me.” Why would a Thai immigrant, who for years had been seeking to get immigration status in New Zealand, go to Taito Phillip Field’s office and then agree to go for at least 3 months and work for nothing in Samoa, if it were not for the chance of obtaining free immigration into New Zealand? Would the person have done that for Mr Phillip Field’s neighbour, who is not a member of Parliament? I think not.

The Prime Minister knows that her department has spent $479,000 on a report that has left far more questions unanswered than answered. Now the Prime Minister tells us in the House today that the Opposition is being ludicrous when it wants to see value for money. Well, the Minister of Finance, who is in the chair—and he is the Deputy Prime Minister—knows that he has thrown about $4 billion or $5 billion more into the health system than previously and has not received a lot of answers for that. He is deeply frustrated. So when the Prime Minister spends $479,000 and comes up with a report that has left more questions unanswered than answered, the Minister of Finance rightfully laughs that off, because he knows that is actually cheap, relative to the $4 billion he is getting no answers for in the health sector.

One of the interesting questions about this whole report is that, for $479,000, it has taken an awfully long time to surface. Why is that? Why, for what Mr Fairbrother and the Prime Minister want us to believe is a pretty simple situation where there was a judgment issue, was there such a long period of time before the report surfaced? One conclusion is that it took Dr Ingram as long as that to find answers. The report is full of references to people who did not want to answer Dr Ingram’s questions. They did not want to give him answers, and Dr Ingram was very frustrated about that. In fact, despite the assurances that the fine defence lawyer Mr Fairbrother put up just a few minutes ago about how Dr Ingram thought that everything was tickety-boo when it came to Taito Phillip Field, in paragraph 497 of the report Dr Ingram wrote: “… I am concerned by the unsatisfactory nature of the explanations provided by Mr Field in relation to that painting.” Actually, I suspect that Dr Ingram is deeply concerned about his inability to get the answers to some simple questions.

Why did this report, which cost $479,000, take so long? It is not because it was difficult to answer the questions. Dr Ingram would have known right back about 8 months ago that he would not receive satisfactory answers from people who knew that they had gone to a member of Parliament and had undertaken some services for which they hoped they would receive special treatment. That was why they went to that member of Parliament. They were not about to implicate themselves further in that sinister event. No, the reason the report took 9 months is that this Government has a very narrow majority. This Government relies on Taito Phillip Field staying with the Labour Party. This was a political solution to what is otherwise a new low in benchmarks being set by a Prime Minister who, I thought, had hit some pretty big lows prior to the release of this report.

One can only draw the conclusion that Mr Fairbrother may think the $479,000 report would stack up in a New Zealand court. He may think, on a technicality, that it passes. He may think that through some obscure part of some legislation, it stacks up. But I am here to tell members that when the people of New Zealand see this matter reported on television tonight—when people find out that the five people who were in a meeting with Taito Phillip Field received a phone call from him telling them to back off, that they were not there to answer Dr Ingram’s questions, that they worked for a member of Parliament for nothing, and that they undertook a great deal of activity for no good reason—in the court of public opinion there will be only one conclusion. It is that the Prime Minister of New Zealand has wasted her $479,000, that Taito Phillip Field has set a new standard—which the Prime Minister has endorsed, and which is now a new standard for her Government—and that Taito Phillip Field is guilty as charged.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) Link to this

It is clear that this is audition afternoon for challengers to the leadership of the National Party. They are sort of bobbing up, one after the other, and coming behind is the wee puppy dog who always votes for the incoming leader and is the first to go and do nasty things outside the kennel as soon as things start going wrong—Mr Murray McCully. But what an interesting disposition that was from Mr Key. It was shallow, as always, but it asked a very simple question from a National Party perspective. “Damn the rule of law,” he said, “you can be found innocent in a court of law, but we are going to find you guilty.” That was the National Party speech. That was the National Party’s notion of the rule of law.

Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) Link to this

I was one of those who served on the Finance and Expenditure Committee, which heard the estimate from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and I was present when my colleague Dr Lockwood Smith asked the head of the department, Mr Wevers, about the report that has been released today. Dr Cullen no doubt thinks that he is being enormously clever, dancing around on the head of a pin, and I simply say to him that grave questions have been raised in relation to the report. If he wants to make light of them, that is his call, but I can assure him that is not the approach members of the public will take and it does him no credit.

I ask whether officials from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet have reflected any credit on themselves in this exercise, and whether Dr Ingram was, in fact, wise to have proceeded in the face of the obstacles that the report correctly identifies. In the select committee I was staggered when my colleague Dr Smith asked Mr Wevers what was happening with the report and how much money it had cost taxpayers to date, and he said that he did not know. Well, I suppose that is an act of sloppiness to some extent, but when Dr Smith asked the next obvious question as to whether Mr Wevers could find out and tell the select committee by way of a note, Mr Wevers would not say yes to that.

I want to record in this debate that that is not a good enough standard of compliance and accountability for the head of a major department of State. Mr Wevers knew precisely what was going on in relation to the inquiry. He was responsible for superintending the activities of Dr Ingram and ensuring the bills were paid. Asked a straight-out question by Dr Lockwood Smith, not only did he not know the answer but also he gave no indication that he was prepared to get that answer. I say to Mr Wevers that that is not good enough. It is not good enough when the Finance and Expenditure Committee, which superintends this estimate, asked him a straight question to which he could have supplied a straight answer.

But today we know why Mr Wevers was wriggling around on a hook and why Dr Ingram has been so slow with his report. It is because members of the public and members of the House wanted answers to some straight questions, and Dr Ingram could not answer them. Dr Ingram came back with a report to the Prime Minister that said he did not know the answers in respect of the truly large questions that had been posed. I feel some sympathy for Dr Ingram, because I guess he felt that, as a man who had taken on a job, he needed to try to see it through. But I am bound to say, having seen the report—and I have had a quick look at it today—that I think that was the wrong call.

I think Dr Ingram, like Mr Wevers, fell short of his obligations in this respect and that on balance—Dr Ingram might even agree with this himself—he probably should have said that if the witnesses would not talk and the Government would not do the things that would make the witnesses feel able to talk, then he could not produce a report he was prepared to put his name to. That would have been the better outcome from Dr Ingram’s point of view, it would have been a more honest outcome as far as the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet was concerned, and it would at least have left us more overtly in a situation where the Prime Minister needed to do what she should have done in the first place: set up an inquiry with the appropriate powers to compel those who had the answers to the questions—those who knew the truth behind the allegations—to go along and answer the questions.

Today’s report solves nothing; it tells us nothing; it vindicates no one. It simply leaves a great stench hanging around that, sometime over the next few weeks, someone will have to do something to resolve, because members of the public, and the news media who report to the public, are not convinced for one minute about the veracity, fullness, and completeness of the report that has been released today—and nor should they be.

I am sad that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has allowed itself to be misused in this way. I want to say to Dr Ingram that I feel some sympathy for him in this respect but I think he has acted unwisely in allowing his name to be associated with a report that leaves these important matters hanging, still to be resolved. In the context of Parliament I think this is a sad day for all of us, and one that the Prime Minister in due course will come to regret.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) Link to this

We ought not to lose sight of the fundamental facts of the matter we are debating as part of the debate on the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet estimates. The facts are these. A member of Parliament provided assistance to some constituents—as we all should, every day, when we can. At the same time, a number of those constituents carried out tasks for him that amounted to a substantial gift—at the same time. The report on this matter, as my colleague says, does not answer the basic questions as to whether that member of Parliament required those gifts in return for that assistance, and it does not answer a whole lot of other questions, because the Queen’s Counsel heading the inquiry could not compel witnesses to answer questions.

Now that the Prime Minister is in the chair I want to ask her whether she endorses this behaviour. Is it now the standard of public life in New Zealand that if we help constituents we can, should, or may expect to get away with their providing a great deal of financial assistance to us? Is that the new standard? And is the description of that now “an error of judgment”? An error of judgment in my constituency office is when my electorate secretary does not treat the local Grey Power president with respect. An error of judgment is when a letter is a week late. It is not just an error of judgment if six people turn up to paint the outside of my house because I got them immigration status—and it does need painting right now, and it will be a very expensive job. What would the Labour Party and the Prime Minister say if I turned up in the House to defend a situation like that, where six people painted my house after I got them immigration status? I ask the Prime Minister to answer here today whether she endorses the behaviour of Taito Phillip Field as laid out in the report of Noel Ingram QC.

Then I ask her this question—[Interruption] No, the member should listen—the Prime Minister needs to hear this question so that she can answer it. What are the consequences for Taito Phillip Field of today’s findings? She cannot say that he loses his job as a Minister, because he lost that 9 months ago. Was he sacked then, or has he been sacked today—which is it? Or are there no consequences? Does the Prime Minister buy the line that Taito Phillip Field has been totally exonerated and needs only an interview with the member who almost lost Otaki, and that is that—or works it through with the Labour whips, or whatever they have called the punishment. Well, it would be punishment; having morning tea with them would be hard work.

Was Taito Phillip Field sacked? Have these findings had any consequences for him? If not, then the boundaries of public life in New Zealand have shifted enormously, because until today no one knew the scale and extent of what went on around those immigration applications. Now we do. If the test is the reality or the appearance of conflict of interest—then that absolutely is the appearance. No one, not even a Prime Minister desperate to keep her majority, can deny the appearance of a fundamental conflict of interest whereby a member of Parliament received significant financial benefit and at the same time helped the constituents from whom he received it.

So Helen Clark needs to answer those questions. Does she endorse this behaviour? Has Taito Phillip Field been sacked, or not? What are the consequences for Taito Phillip Field of today’s findings? And does the Prime Minister believe that this is now the appropriate standard by which members of Parliament run their public lives?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) Link to this

I am wondering why, in the Treasury estimates, the Government pays for its policy advice, because it certainly does not take any. I will give just one example. A couple of years ago the Minister of Education, on the prompting of Treasury, initiated a value-for-money review. I have had the privilege, as Opposition spokesman on education, of spending the last 6 months trying to track down exactly what happened in the value-for-money review. Yesterday I finally got the conclusive letter from the Minister of Education, who said that he was not going to give me any of the pieces of paper because he regarded it as “ongoing work”.

Parliament is appropriating millions of dollars to fund policy advice from Treasury. In every major expenditure area that Treasury advice is questioning the value of the spending of taxpayers’ dollars, because Treasury officials see more evidence of the waste than we do. In just the last week we have had a report on law and order, showing the extent of the cost and the feebleness of the Government’s efforts to deal with it. Treasury has raised fundamental issues about the lack of productivity growth in the health system. The patients have not had all the extra money; the system has all the extra money and does not have much else to show for it. In education, the Government has clearly turned itself inside out with concern about the enormous waste that has gone on in the tertiary sector. So why does the Government keep paying for policy advice—not all of which is accurate but most of which is sound—that it never takes?

Dr Cullen has managed to persuade himself, if no one else, that he is what he calls a “fiscal conservative”. I guess in the Labour Cabinet he is a fiscal conservative, in that he has an interest in at least counting the money as it flows out. Other Ministers, like Steve Maharey, do not even care about counting it, and that became quite clear in the tertiary education debacle last year. So in that sense Dr Cullen is conservative; he likes to count the money. But he has done almost nothing about establishing value for taxpayers’ dollars. We will see, time and time again, endless examples from the Opposition where clearly there has been no focus on value.

I will give another example from the education sector. Five years ago the tertiary education system cost $40 million to run. That sounds like a lot of money, and it is. It is a lot of student allowances, a lot of operations, and a lot of extra students who could be at university. There was $40 million spent to run the Wellington machine, to oversee the tertiary education system. Five years later, it costs $140 million to run the tertiary education system—an extra $100 million. That number has so many zeros that most people cannot imagine it. Five years ago it cost $40 million, today it costs an extra $100 million, so it now costs $140 million to run the tertiary education system—and it is worse. Its institutions are in worse shape, its revenue outlook is in worse shape, but a few bits of it are working better.

The Minister in the chair, Mita Ririnui, should tell us why we are paying for that advice. He should also tell us Treasury’s response to the Ministry of Social Development social report. Any Government can fail according to the yardstick of its opponents, but once a Government fails according to its own yardstick it is in serious trouble. There is no doubt that the Labour Party meant what it said back in 1999 and 2000—that is, that it would bring in a range of policies to deal with inequality of incomes across New Zealand. In fact, it was one of the major themes of its 1999 election campaign. But the Ministry of Social Development report, from a Government agency, has said that things have become worse for the very groups that Labour targeted, saying they should get better. There was $934 million spent on the closing the gaps programmes. The Government changed the name but it did not take the money back. It has now spent the $934 million, and it is stuck with the verdict of its own social agency—whose analysis, I would have to say, is patchy at best but sometimes useful—that inequality has become worse. The Government will talk about Working for Families as being the best way—

CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) Link to this

I rise to speak to Vote Finance, which is allocated $52.8 million. Further to what Mr English has just pointed out about policy advice, I say $2.7 million of that $52.8 million is for policy advice about the management and ownership of State-owned enterprises. I think that taxpayers deserve an explanation of that, because Mr Mallard totally ignores that $2.7 million for policy advice and totally bulldozes any suggestion that is outside his own preferences. An amount of $2.3 million is allocated for policy advice on various taxes. Mr Cullen, the Minister of Finance, calls that an ideological burp. He totally ignores it, totally bulldozes it, and gives us one of his witticisms to explain why that should be ignored. We can point to about 10 percent of the $52 million that should be savings for taxpayers. I am a big fan of Treasury, but if the current administration totally ignores its advice, let us put it out to pasture. Let us save 10 percent. That is probably the next lot of waste we will see on wastewatch.co.nz—the National Party’s new site that will highlight much of this Government’s wastage.

I think it is very important to look at the environment in which we are asked to consider this appropriation. Inflation is now at 4 percent. Inflationary expectations are nudging 4 percent for the next 2 years, as a result of waste, of being unproductive, and of sending money to the squeakiest and loudest wheel, as opposed to measuring productive outcomes for the New Zealand taxpayer. Further to that environment, growth is struggling to beat even 1 percent over the same 18 months to 2 years. The emerging Asian tigers would be disappointed if they did not get 1 percent growth per quarter. In an environment where New Zealand’s gross average income is less than the Aussie average net income, it is no wonder that 640 New Zealanders per week are leaving to go to Australia. This is an environment where, for goodness’ sake, there is a tax bill before the Finance and Expenditure Committee that will incentivise New Zealanders to invest into our biggest competitor, Australia, and into the Guinness Peat Group—and it will do that in an environment where New Zealand is struggling to save money.

As was alluded to earlier, the New Zealand living standards reports show that those who are suffering the most from the policies of the current Government and the forecast spending have grown to 17 percent. All we have heard is rhetoric and spin. If we get on the ground and talk amongst the people in the lower socio-economic levels, we find they are struggling. The Labour members should absolutely hang their heads in shame at what is happening out there to real New Zealand.

With regard to the inflation blowout, I think it is a good idea to look at the effects of inflation bursting out to 4 percent. What are the dangers of that, who will be most at risk, and what are some of the effects? Those who will be hit the most are people on fixed incomes—mostly superannuitants, who are struggling right now to pay $1.77 per litre for gas, when about half of that goes in tax anyway. Those who are struggling on superannuation and on lower incomes will struggle as they try to meet the day-to-day demands to pay for their petrol, electricity, and simply just fruit and vegetables.

The blowout in inflation creates a very interesting question as to whether the indexation of the tax brackets will still happen. There is a lot of uncertainty about that. Higher inflation means that more New Zealanders will lurch into the top tax brackets, and they will recall the 1999 Labour pledge that only 5 percent of taxpayers would be in the top bracket. Well, I think that currently about 16 percent of taxpayers are in that bracket, and that will start to move towards 20 percent right now. We will be able to watch the flights to Australia start to fill up even further than at present. The price of oil has been blamed as part of the reason for the consumer price index increase, and that is fair enough. That has contributed, but the wanton waste, the “spend-athon”, and the gross overtaxation of New Zealanders by this current administration is absolutely to blame for the current situation.

Further to the current environment, what is another result of inflation bursting out through 4 percent? Today I heard 100 percent mortgages being advertised on the radio. One of the constant claims of the Reserve Bank and the Minister of Finance is that there is over-investment in property.

R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) Link to this

In speaking on Vote Finance in the appropriation debate, I would just like to say that it does not surprise us in New Zealand First that we have had a blowout in inflation rates. We have long contended that there is a difference between importing and getting monetary wheels turning in that way, and exporting, which is what we believe should be happening now and should have been happening in past years. New Zealand has simply imported too much and exported too little.

New Zealand First is one of, I think, only two parties that believe in incentivising the taxation system. It is good to see that David Skilling, who heads a thinktank in Auckland, talked about the same thing in yesterday’s New Zealand Herald. It is an appropriate time, given that 2007 is Export Year—a New Zealand First initiative—to talk about those sorts of things.

In Hamilton we have what we call an innovation park, which is for people of a like mind who believe they can add value to, mainly, dairy exports and dairy commodities, and send them overseas. These are the sorts of things we believe should be supported by the Government. They are the sorts of things we believe will get New Zealand out of the exporting hole, and they are the sorts of things that will drive up the income level of average New Zealanders—in fact, all New Zealanders. It will not be some sort of whizzo greenfields find, which people have sought in the past; it will not be some sort of quest for extra production; it will be clever slants on products we already know and already produce. It will be those things that make the difference when it comes to exporting dollars.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) Link to this

It is good to follow Mr Doug Woolerton. I can only agree with him, but I do not think he goes far enough. I agree that we should have tax incentives for exporters, but why just exporters? What about tax incentives for workers? What about tax incentives for dairy owners? What about tax incentives for every business in New Zealand? Each and every one of those business people is working hard. Each and every one of those people could do with more money in their pockets. Mr Woolerton’s ideas were so good that he should be in Government. I say that we should have tax incentives for every working person and every business in New Zealand.

But we are looking at Vote Finance. We could save a great deal of money in New Zealand, because we have a Minister of Finance, Dr Michael Cullen, who knows everything. He actually does not need advice. He knows all about economics and he can grasp everything in a heartbeat. We have a Minister of Finance who does not need evidence or theory because his own ideology tells him everything.

Michael Cullen knows as a fact that tax cuts do not work. Michael Cullen still believes—he used to teach history, and I guess it has just carried on from that faculty—that tax does not matter. He believes that we can have any old tax rate and any size of government—it can be big, small, or medium—it makes no difference to the functioning of the economy. Michael Cullen illustrates this by saying that he would not work any harder if his taxes were lower. That is his complete grasp of the relationship between size of government, tax take, Government spending, and economic growth.

Of course, Treasury, being smart and being made up mostly of economists, knows that is complete nonsense, that taxes have an enormous effect on whether people choose to invest, on whether people choose to be entrepreneurs, on whether people choose to work a bit harder, and, in fact, on whether people choose to stay and live in New Zealand. It does not take much of a change in our growth rate to change our fortunes over 5 years, 10 years, or 15 years.

Michael Cullen, in a speech he gave just this month to the Nelson chamber of commerce, warned against tax cuts, because tax cuts could give a fiscal stimulus. This was from a man who has overseen an increase in the size of government from 36.1 percent of GDP to a whopping 42.1 percent of GDP—a 16 percent increase; an increase per year of $25,000 million. But in Michael Cullen’s world it works like this. He can take money off hard-working New Zealanders, he can bring it into Government, he can spend it on the most wasteful projects that even a kindergarten could not come up with, throw the money against the wall, and that is not inflationary.

But, oh boy, if he did not take that money in the first place, if he left it with a hard-working Kiwi mum or dad, if he left it with a small-business person who is up all night filling out GST returns and who is part of the productive sector of New Zealand, then those people might spend it on their groceries, on some extra education for their kids, on employing another person, or on an extra plant for their business. To Michael Cullen that would be bad; that would be inflationary.

So we do not actually need Treasury because we have Michael Cullen as the Minister of Finance and he knows everything about the economy, including that tax makes no difference.

Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this

One of the most galling things about this Parliament is having to listen to Rodney Hide criticising the Minister of Finance. Rodney Hide is some sort of second-rate ballroom dancer who cannot hold on to his partner—

Hon DAVID CARTER (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee) Link to this

I want to raise two questions in my brief contribution to Vote Agriculture and Forestry and acknowledge that with regards to the Minister Jim Anderton I am also addressing an issue that probably traverses biosecurity. I want to comment on the recent discovery of the varroa bee mite in the South Island and on an incredible report in the Christchurch Press yesterday stating that the Minister of Agriculture, who is also the Minister for Biosecurity, has on his desk a report about the feasibility of whether it is possible to eradicate the varroa bee mite from the South Island. The report went on to state that the Minister was not able to read that report and make a decision, because he was embarking on a week-long trip to South America. I want to say to Mr Anderton that the issue of the varroa bee mite is far more important than his jaunt to South America.

The Government should have learnt from when the varroa bee mite was first discovered in the North Island that we need to act quickly on biosecurity incursions. In that particular case the hapless Marian Hobbs was the Minister for Biosecurity. I believe strongly that there was an opportunity to eradicate the mite from the North Island, but for 13 weeks Marian Hobbs kept calling for report after report, and by the time the final report came forward 3 months later it was, of course, too late to do anything. We are probably now getting into the same position with regard to the varroa bee mite in the South Island. Mr Anderton should have stayed in New Zealand, had a look at the report, and made a decision. There may then have been a chance to eradicate the mite from the South Island.

Secondly, I want to find out from the Minister of Agriculture what is going on with the public access debate in this country. Prior to the last election, we had Helen Clark with her agenda saying that Labour was going to open up private property to public access. There was outrage, not only from the farmers of New Zealand but from private landowners throughout the country. Helen Clark quickly backtracked on that issue and hid it as we went into the 2005 election. Now, with the election over, a series of meetings on the access issue is taking place around the country with John Acland, John Aspinall, Bryce Johnson, and other members of the access panel, and the debate is alive and well.

Last week, I attended a meeting in Christchurch and though the panel members may well stand there and say there is no risk to private property rights, they have no ability to say that, because all they are doing is conducting a series of public meetings. The actual agenda still lies in the hands of Helen Clark—and we well know how much respect she has for private property rights; she has no respect for private property rights at all.

I want the Minister to tell us today what is going on with this debate, and what the process will be once the access panel has reported on the meetings it is holding throughout New Zealand. I know what the conclusions will be. There will be a general “touchy-feely” conclusion amongst property owners and those recreationists wanting better access rights. But guaranteeing better access rights to waterways and to the public lands of this country must, by necessity, impinge on the private property rights of New Zealand landowners. If that is Helen Clark’s agenda, if that is Jim Anderton’s agenda, if that is Damien O’Connor’s agenda, then I ask them to be honest and have a debate and not to hide behind the sham meetings that John Acland is conducting around the country at the moment.

Those are the questions I raise. New Zealand farmers have had a gutsful of the Labour Government and policies such as “fart-taxes”, public access on to their private land, and the microchipping of farm dogs. The farmers of New Zealand have won every debate so far. We thought we had the security of knowing the public access debate was off the agenda, but we are now very suspicious that Helen Clark has rekindled her agenda and it is back for debate.

NATHAN GUY (National) Link to this

It was interesting to see in the last week that the Labour Party has started refreshing its caucus. I am sad to see that Mr Sutton is giving his valedictory speech next week, and is to be replaced in early August by another MP. I say this because who now in the Labour Party represents the rural sector. Who on its list actually represents the farmers of New Zealand? Mr O’Connor, as we all know, is a washed-up tourism operator from the West Coast. Now that Mr Sutton is heading off to greener pastures, who has Labour got to represent rural New Zealand? The answer is it has no one. There is no one on the Labour list with rural credentials. That is why the primary sector does not trust this Government.

Mr Anderton had to go out and buy a pair of gumboots when he got elevated to the portfolios of agriculture and forestry. I will touch on Mr Anderton for a wee while, if I may, because the rural sector—after the last 9 months—has given up on him. There have been several occasions when he could have shown strong leadership for the primary sector and he has failed. When the Gisborne cropping farmers got badly hit by flooding on two consecutive occasions over Labour weekend last year, Mr Anderton said the Government were just formatting policy and he was sorry but the farmers would miss out. Then it came to the microchipping of farm dogs. He worked hard with Federated Farmers. He said one thing and then delivered another way. He let them down. So the rural sector does not trust this Government; it does not trust it one iota.

Mr Anderton has hit out with a glossy Primary News delivered to every rural letterbox, but the newsletter does not touch on the core issues. It does not touch on the impact that rates are having on rural people. All the legislation that has been passed in this House is flowing down into local government with no monetary cheque from this Government. So the rural ratepayers are propping up district councils all over the countryside. That is a huge issue for the rural and primary production sector of this country.

It is also worth touching on the forestry sector. It has given up on Mr Anderton. Talks have broken down and the sector’s relationship with Mr Anderton is in turmoil. That is because this Government—under the Kyoto Protocol agreement that it has signed—wants to rob all the carbon credits from the forestry sector. This is a huge issue for people in the forestry sector. What are we seeing now throughout New Zealand? Very few pine trees are actually being planted. Nurseries have stopped putting them in their pots because they do not know where this industry is heading. This Government is giving very poor signals to those people. On one hand, we know climate change is happening and we want to plant more trees. But the Labour Government wants to steal the carbon credits. So forestry is another sector that does not trust Mr Anderton, and that relationship is in turmoil.

I have touched a little on the demands on ratepayers out there in the district councils. Those people are propping up all the legislation being passed through Parliament. The Building Act, as a result of leaking buildings, costs 1 percent on the general rate. We know there are other issues flowing through from this Government in respect of food safety, drinking water standards, and the costly long-term council community plan process that is estimated to have cost $100 million. Where does that funding come from? It comes from all the ratepayers throughout New Zealand and is generally being propped up by the rural sector, particularly out in the provinces.

Just recently, I was horrified to hear that Mr Mallard was out signalling to State-owned enterprises that they could loosen up a bit, spend a bit more, and diversify their portfolios. The rural sector is particularly worried about Landcorp. The sector does not want to see the corporation setting up a milk plant and to be in competition with Fonterra. The sector is concerned that Landcorp commands a higher premium than the average cocky can get right now. So I think fundamentally that policy is flawed. State-owned enterprises should stick to the knitting and drive productivity and profits back for the whole of the rural ratepayers for New Zealand.

Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister for Rural Affairs) Link to this

It is indeed an honour to respond to a few of the accusations that have been made in the Chamber today. I acknowledge Jim Sutton, firstly, and the role he has played in agriculture for a large number of years and the incredible contribution he has made through this Parliament, and the good work that the current Minister, Jim Anderton, is doing.

I will answer a couple of questions that have been put up by Mr Carter. I will clarify a couple of things on public access, which is an area I am responsible for. There is no agenda, there is no time line, and John Acland is someone who is respected by the agricultural sector, unlike Mr Carter or Mr Guy. John Acland has respect, and people do acknowledge him. He has stated quite clearly that he has undertaken a consultation process around the whole country, with a huge amount of effort.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) Link to this

Thank you, Mr Chairperson, for the opportunity to speak on these Budget estimates for 2006-07 regarding the Crown research institutes, which are also very much a part of the science portfolio. It is hugely relevant that through the Speech from the Throne last year the Prime Minister, one Helen Clark, made the comment: “My Government believes that science and innovation are critical to driving our prosperity.” Well, as well as that statement a paper has come from the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, detailing a range of actions known as Picking up the Pace . The reality is more like the Labour Government picking up the spin. I see that Minister Maharey has just taken his seat, and if ever there is anyone capable of picking up the spin rather than the pace, it is none other than Minister Maharey.

We have seen in the estimates this year, certainly in relation to science, a sum of $19.397 million for 2006-07. That can be taken in the context of this Labour Government’s general spending. When one looks at what was spent on Working for Families—which is in the order of a billion dollars a year or more, and which will only cement-in dependency—and at what was spent on interest-free student loans, which again cost about a billion dollars a year, then one sees that $19.397 million seems to be extraordinarily meagre, especially if we look at this Government’s rhetoric about science. It says, firstly, that it will pick up the pace and, secondly, that science and innovation are critical to driving our prosperity. I wonder whether the Minister will actually stand up and tell us what that really means, if this Government is serious about science and innovation being critical to driving our prosperity. It seems to me that there is nothing serious about that at all, and that the Labour Government’s priorities are in terms of cementing-in welfare dependency, when it commits literally billions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds into programmes like Working for Families and interest-free student loans, yet puts only a mere $19.397 million into an area that it says is critical to driving our prosperity.

The other interesting thing about this Labour Government is that it says it has considerably increased the spending on research and development over the last 6 years. But we know as a fact that as a percentage of GDP, spending on science has stayed much the same over the last 6 years or has even diminished a little, remaining at about 0.54 percent of GDP. The Minister has the temerity to say the Labour Government is going to aim for expenditure of 0.68 percent of GDP, but he does not tell us when that will occur. Just as the Labour Government said 6 long years ago that its aim was to raise New Zealand into the upper half of the OECD, it is saying in exactly the same way that in science research and development it is going to aim for 0.68 percent GDP of spending without telling us when that will occur.

There is no question that this Labour Government and the Minister of Research, Science and Technology, Mr Maharey, the “Minister of Spin” is, in his actions, doing exactly the opposite of his rhetoric. In fact, at the select committee it was very interesting to hear the Minister say that all the Crown research institutes are operating well at the present time. One only has to look at their financial performance over the last 5 years to see that they are not doing so.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Crown Research Institutes) Link to this

It was interesting listening to the spokesperson for the National Party on research, science, and technology. One of the things that marks this particular area of work in the House—the constituency, obviously, is scientists, the people who are directly involved in a whole range of activities that run off the back of science, and it is a very interesting area of work to be involved in—one of the hallmarks of it during the time I have been in the House, is that members have engaged with each other in debate, which is rare. We will have Vote Education soon, and I am sure the debate will descend into the usual areas, but, in the area of science, I have noticed over the last 15 or 16 years that I have been around here that the debate has tended to be at a fairly high level. People have put up policies and debated what is going on.

I think Simon Upton and Pete Hodgson had a great relationship around this portfolio, and I am certainly looking forward to having that kind of relationship with Dr Hutchison, who I think brings real capacity to the portfolio. I look forward to having that kind of debate. Dr Hutchison will have to forgive me if I do not descend into the same things that he did, and just get into the actual debate. [Interruption] Now let us get into the debate, and I am interested in hearing from the member at a later time. I have looked at the National Party website and there is not any National policy at the present time. I am very keen to see the member put up some ideas in the future, so that they can be debated, as well. I am sure the sector would like that, because that has, as I say, been the nature of the debate over the last little while.

But let us look at the vote for this year. The member is right. Since this Government has been in place over the last 6 years—

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) Link to this

There would not be a member of this Parliament who would not agree with the proposition that the greatest gift a community can give to its children is an outstanding education—not just in some of the years that a child is at school, but every day of every week of every year. I think we understand that in New Zealand, for over 95 percent of our children, that means an education provided by the State. In some areas of the country it is 100 percent. The State therefore has a special responsibility—a responsibility that is not being met in this Budget. Too many of our parents and too many of our children do not have sufficient choice as to where they go to school, and there is nothing in the Budget that enhances that choice. Too often, children are in communities where parents are voting with their feet. Too often, increasingly, those parents have nowhere to go but to sell up and shift to a community where the school is responsive to the needs and expectations of that community, or fork out for private school fees.

There is nothing in this Budget that addresses that issue. Indeed, it must trouble every New Zealander to know that the inclination of the Government, and of its bureaucracies and the teacher unions that support it, all too often is to be prepared to support those schools in which parents have lost confidence. It is time we addressed that balance. It is time we recognised the critical importance of the early years at school. For year after year we have paid lip-service to that, yet we are still talking about the number of children who are not learning to read, write, or do mathematics. We seem to stubbornly refuse to get to grips with the basic problem.

The problem, as I see it, is that there is a group of children who, through no fault of their own, will learn only if the methodologies by which they are taught are compatible with their learning styles. Yet, too often, we find such children stranded in a school that will not acknowledge that, that wants to treat all children the same—one size fits all—and just make the best of it, instead of our being prepared to begin to get to grips with some of these very serious issues that are of concern to parents out there.

Those members of the Government who confine themselves to listening to the teacher unions that keep them in office are not getting that message. Schooling is not just about teaching. Of course, teaching is important—and we pay lip-service to that all the time. I want to acknowledge the outstanding work being done by thousands and thousands of teachers quietly in their classrooms every day, but that must not obscure the fact that for some children—too many children—the quality of teaching, and the values and standards in schools that they need, are not being provided sufficiently well by the State. There is nothing in this Budget that recognises that teaching has changed, that teaching, more than ever, is a knowledge profession. More than ever, teachers have to be good at what they are teaching. We should never lose sight of that. That is especially important in the critical areas of literacy, mathematics, and science. In addition, they have to be good at teaching. Too often, we are prepared to separate those two issues out and get into debates about the relative merits of one as opposed to the other, instead of recognising that, today, what teachers require is the ability to teach, and to know what they are teaching.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) Link to this

I would like to open by commending the Government on the injection of funding it has put into the universities, with a particular focus on increasing the salaries of university staff by an additional 3 percent over and above what it was able to do with the inflation-adjusted operational funding the universities were receiving. Certainly, that injection was long overdue. For too long we have failed to recognise, particularly for university staff, how they are really part of an international labour market. We had very clearly started to fall behind the eight ball in terms of international competitiveness in the rates we were offering to our academics, in particular, so I have to give the Government a plus for providing that funding.

However, what it actually does—and this was demonstrated in a question I asked Dr Cullen in the House a couple of weeks ago—is to raise the question of why people who teach degree courses at Auckland University of Technology should be given additional funding for a 3 percent increase in their salaries, when people who teach the same degree courses at Unitec, for example, will not receive it. What is the justification for that split between two institutions that are very close on the Performance-based Research Fund scale and also on things like the proportion of sub-degree programmes?

That exposes a flaw in the structure of our tertiary institutions. We have a number of good-quality universities—up amongst the top 200 in the world or so, and some up in the top 50—and we have another range of universities that are not quite so good as those in the research field, some of which are somewhat smaller than the top universities. Then we have those two institutions, which are very, very similar in profile, that happen to be in the middle, and finally we have urban polytechs and provincial polytechs. So we can think of it as a spectrum of provision. We have made a division right down through the middle between two institutions that are, in fact, almost identical in profile. The Minister of Education, Steve Maharey, really needs to answer the question of why certain provisions that are being made for one of those institutions are not being made for the other. That is the first comment that New Zealand First would like to make with regard to the Budget. We think the increased funding for the universities was a fine gesture, but the Government has to do some thinking-through on that matter.

The select committees this year were invited to comment on the quality of intended expenditure. That was a particularly difficult task, but one area that New Zealand First would like to comment on, in terms of what we consider to be not very good expenditure, is the issue of interest-free student loans. We think they are a give-away to students, because there is no doubt that what is paid back will be less than what was given by the Government in the first place. We cannot see the justification for supporting students through that means. We see justification for supporting students, but we think it should be premised on a universal student living allowance, because that actually has some philosophical foundation in terms of the premises upon which we run our nation. But interest-free loans certainly do not have that foundation, and we believe that they are an example of poor expenditure coming out of this Budget.

We applaud the development of curriculum materials in the three Pasifika languages. The media release that came out with the Budget actually suggested that those three languages would be the languages of the nations that New Zealand is in free association with—in other words, the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau—and therefore one could say it sounded like a pretty good idea that we have some responsibility for the maintenance of those languages. However, from the select committee hearings it seems that, in fact, those are not the languages that are being supported, and that there are a couple of languages other than the three that I mentioned. So time and time again I asked at the select committee level what the principles are upon which we decide which languages we support and which languages we do not. In fact, the chief executive officer of the Ministry of Education said that there are no principles—that the ministry does not have any. I urge the Government to start to think through that issue, because 167 languages are spoken in this country. Are we going to provide emergent education, with materials and trained teachers, for each one of those 167 languages? If, for example, some Latvian parents say they deserve the right to have their children taught in Latvian, upon what basis would we make that decision? At this particular point we have no principles. I suggest that the nations that are in free association with New Zealand and whose peoples are New Zealand citizens should have their languages protected.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) Link to this

The Minister in the chair, the Hon Steve Maharey, should tell us why Parliament is bothering to appropriate any money for him and his ministry. Appropriating the money through these estimates for students and teachers is fine, but in the fading months, maybe few years, of his career the Minister needs to do something better than try to spend all his time oiling the social democratic consensus around Wellington about education. That is what he says it is about. He told the New Zealand Herald a couple of months ago that the problem with the National Party was that it was trying to “wreck the social democratic school system”. Well, we are not appropriating money for a plaything of the left elite; we are appropriating money so that students get the best education we can give them. The Minister should get up and tell us just where the momentum is in his education policy. Because there is none. At least with Trevor Mallard as education Minister—it might have been all in the wrong direction or all over the place, and sometimes right—at least he had some energy and momentum. No doubt Minister Maharey is so thoroughly burnt from the mess he made in tertiary education—and I hope so, because I would not want to see him trying too hard in schooling, if he were going to have the same impact as he had in tertiary education. I want to know where his sense of direction is that is not any more than overseeing the last remaining momentum of the moves that Trevor Mallard made.

I would like the Minister to give us his considered analytical, rather than political, opinion about the National Certificate of Educational Achievement. This year three things have happened with that certificate. The first is that in the external examinations 30 percent of the results fell outside the National Certificate of Educational Achievement benchmarks for valid results. I did not make that up; that is the analysis. The second is that his ministry did a survey that showed there are major problems with motivation for the large bulk of students— “If you make it easy, they’ll take it easy.” And they are! Over three-quarters of students get only an “achieved” or “not achieved”. The trend to unit standards in internal assessment is picking up speed, because students think that that is the easy way to get through.

The third thing is the revelations, over the weekend, that the internal assessment moderation is actually a joke. I can recall the new chief executive of the ministry, when she was in the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, saying the ministry moderated every standard every year. Well, that is just nonsense. The Minister stood up in the Chamber today and said: “Oh, it’s only 3 percent of the standards.”, and then admitted that it was a sample. If the ministry moderates only 3 percent, what happens to the other 97 percent? So we have no idea what is going on. The 3 percent is a sample—a slightly biased sample, if we believe what the rules say. Of course, the Minister has no idea whether teachers are sending in the assessments they should be—no idea at all. There is no way of telling whether teachers are doing what the New Zealand Qualifications Authority says they are. So those are three pieces of evidence, and none of them is being listened to. Each one of them has a solution that has been tried out, thought through, and implemented in other jurisdictions. But no, the Minister is so fixed on his social democratic position—keeping faith with the left in case he can have a shot at the Labour leadership—that he will not concede one single issue.

Now he has a new chief executive of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority who does not know anything about education. They have appointed Bali Haque, who has been one of the strongest political proponents of it in every controversial media story, as the senior civil servant in charge of it. So now nothing is going to happen. It is all perfect, it is all right! The fact that thousands of students get the wrong result does not matter nearly as much as maintaining the Wellington pinko consensus about education and how it is working!

It is the same consensus that is preventing parents from getting access to information about their schools. We have had a bit of a tussle over the last 12 months or so over the SchoolSmart website, and apparently it is going to bring down civilisation if parents find out that the school their child is at is going off the rails. Everyone else is allowed to know—the Minister, the bureaucrats, the Education Review Office—but parents are not allowed to know.

To make a total nonsense of that position, RateMyTeachers.com shows up in New Zealand. That is a website where they rate their teachers. It has all sorts of gossip and malicious material on it, and they should filter out more. But that is where the technology is taking us. The last time I looked was a couple of weeks ago, and there were 50,000 ratings of teachers in just about every secondary school in New Zealand. Actually, on average most teachers rate above average—once they have enough postings on the ratings out of five, most of them are over 2½. That is not a bad thing. But it makes a nonsense of the Minister’s trying to sit on valuable, tested, and reliable data that would be available, instead of malice and gossip from kids. Of course, the union has come out and said it will take legal action, and figured out very quickly that that looked really stupid. So now we are all allowed to sit in the comfort of our own homes and read gossip about any teacher, anywhere in the country, and what the kids think. We can know that in great detail, but we cannot know the valid, objective data the Minister of Education has.

The Minister stood in the Chamber and said, firstly, that we could not have it, because it was collected on the basis that it would not be divulged. That is wrong. There is no formal arrangement. He did not know, or he deliberately misled us. Then he stood up and said that all those groups agree that it should not be made available. Well, I have written to all the groups. School trustees do not agree. They are trying to get access to it. So, far from being opposed to its being available, they want access to it. The Post Primary Teachers Association has no formal policy position on it—except that it does not like it. It suspects that it will now become public. The New Zealand Educational Institute has got formal resolutions. The Secondary Principals Association will not reply, and I think that that is because it cannot decide.

Even if they all did agree to keep that information secret, they cannot all agree to break the law. In fact, it is official information and should be available under the Official Information Act. But what does the Secretary for Education do? I sent him a request under the Official Information Act and, first, he said he had lost it, so I sent it again. Then he took about 5 weeks to read my two-paragraph letter and then said that I could not ask him; I had to ask the Minister. Well, it is on the Minister’s plate. The Official Information Act request was for the website—not access to it—in electronic form, and he has to decide whether he will make it available.

The Minister does not care about the information; he just wants to make sure that his mates in the unions and the upper reaches of the Labour Party believe that he is a true believer, and he is not going to let anyone wreck his social democratic school system. Does it not make one wonder what they talk about when they all get together in the Minister’s office about how they are going to defend the social democratic school system from nasty right-wingers like parents!

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) Link to this

I think that is all the speakers in the debate so let me just review a few of them, if I can, for a moment. I thank those who have participated in the debate. As I think Mr Peachey said at the beginning, this is one of the areas we ought to be talking about, and I will reflect for a moment on what I think the argument was that he was putting forward about the nature of modern education—meaning to offer a lot more choice, flexibility, and responsiveness to pupils, their parents, and the community. There are a number of ways we could do this.

I remember some time ago I had the privilege of being in Minneapolis - St Paul when they offered full choice, total choice, to people just within the city. As people know, Minneapolis - St Paul straddles quite a large area, but it is a compact area. I arrived there just after the educational authorities had stopped their experiment with choice of the kind that used to go with the model whereby one allowed people to go to any school they wanted to. The reason they had stopped was that within 6 months of allowing people to take their children wherever they wanted to and make that free choice to go to any school, their bus budget had blown out by US$22 million. That is, of course, why countries do not opt for that kind of choice, because if they did, they would be paying for people to transport themselves all around the schools. The other thing they found that was a corollary of that policy was people immediately shifted into black and white schools, which Minneapolis - St Paul now has a legacy of.

I think that that does not mean we should not be offering choice, flexibility, or responsiveness, but I guess the way we are approaching it is to ask ourselves how we can make sure that every school is able to take pupils in the classroom and tailor the learning to what they actually need. That has to be our ambition.

I notice that the OECD is now talking about that being the ambition for the countries that it represents—that the educational policy should move away from the mass form of education of the last century, which we all know was the vision we had here. We all went through it. We sat in large classes and we got pretty much one-way traffic from the teacher. It did not matter whether we learnt fast, slow, or whatever our learning style was, we kind of took what was given to us. I think that was totally cutting edge education in those days.

These days I think we would say that, unless we can more and more begin to address the speed at which students learn, the style in which they learn, and their interests, so that they maximise their opportunities at school, we are not doing a good job for them. But my ambition, and this Government’s ambition, is to try to deliver that level of choice, school by school by school—not to have us say that some schools are not doing so well, so that we end up with ghettos where some kids cannot get out, and the kids who can migrate have gone off to schools where they can do it.

So I do not think we disagree on the ambition, I say to Mr Peachey. I think our vision this century has to be how to have the kind of teaching and leadership—

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) Link to this

I feel that this vote should not pass without comment. Something like $26 million of taxpayers’ money will go into maintaining the Education Review Office for the next 12 months. I stated publicly on a number of occasions before I was elected to this Parliament that I had a long time ago lost confidence in that organisation. I have been staggered by the number of teachers, principals, and board of trustees representatives who are now contacting me to express their concerns about the way the Education Review Office is doing its job.

I invite the Minister to rise and explain one or two things that are not clear. The first is this. So often when one looks at a review report on a school one finds a statement like: “Most of the teaching is satisfactory.”, or “Most teachers are satisfactory.” The Education Review Office would claim that such assertions are made on the basis of an evidence-based inquiry methodology. The Education Review Office was not able to explain to a select committee exactly what that methodology is. The Minister may like to attempt to do so when he takes the call.

Let us think about it from a parent’s point of view for a moment—reading in a report about a school that most teachers are satisfactory. By implication, clearly, some are not. That is the judgment of the Education Review Office. What if one’s own child is in one of the classes where the teaching is not satisfactory? How is one to know that from the reports produced using the $26 million the Government is spending on this organisation? Nowhere in a review will parents be able to find out whether a school has the support of its community. I have been deeply concerned about some of the Education Review Office reports I have been shown, whereby clearly the community is voting with its feet and turning its back on a school, yet nowhere in the report is it stated that the school has lost connection with its community—that the aspirations and expectations the community has for its children are not being met by the aspirations the school has for them, and that the board of trustees might like to consider this and might like to consider engaging with its community. Nowhere will one find such a statement. So how can the Education Review Office give us such waffly reports—reports that clearly are designed not to upset people who clearly must not be upset—yet claim they are based on an evidence-based inquiry methodology?

Secondly, I invite the Minister to explain to the Committee, if he can, what methodology the Education Review Office applies, how it is applied, and what parents should make of it. Let us be very clear about this. There is no point in spending $26 million of taxpayers’ money if the reports we get are vague, general, non-specific, and do not assist parents and others with an interest in a school to form an accurate impression as to whether it is a suitable school for their children—whether they can put their children into the school with absolute confidence that they will be well taught, as well as be safe and all those other important things.

I believe that the Education Review Office has fallen into a trap. I hope that under new leadership—and I note that it is to have new leadership, which is interesting—the Education Review Office will move beyond one of its fatal flaws: the preconceived ideas and prejudices of its leadership and its reviewers.

RON MARK (NZ First) Link to this

I want to speak about the Vote Defence budget for 2006-07. I have to say that it is a vast improvement on the level of defence expenditure over previous years. I refer particularly to the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, when some of us in uniform were so poorly equipped under previous Governments—and, I have to say, under National Governments—that we were not able to be issued with blank ammunition and we spent our time running around on field exercises saying “bang, bang”, instead. I remember those days very, very well.

Much has been said about Labour’s expenditure on defence, and I have to point out a couple of facts. It was Labour that bought the Mercedes truck fleets, Labour that bought the V8 Land Rovers, and Labour that bought the Scorpion tanks and the frigates. The only problem is that we should have bought more. In the very near future Labour will be introducing Project Protector, which we had a briefing on. I do recall that National gave us the Charles and announced the purchase of heavy machine-guns—the .50 calibre Brownings—that were to be a new addition to our arsenal. The only problem was that those heavy machine-guns had been in service since World War II, having been built in 1942, and had been used in Korea, Malaya, and Viet Nam. Max Bradford’s big hoo-ha that they were new weapons that had been introduced was exactly that—hoo-ha.

Where Labour has got it wrong, though, is in disbanding the air combat capability—New Zealand First has always disagreed with that policy—and, in particular, in introducing the 105 LAVIIIs, which were found to be too big, too expensive, and too cumbersome for the South Pacific. We note with interest that the M113s are still performing admirably in Iraq right now with the United States forces, and that they were the first vehicles of the Australian forces to hit the ground in East Timor recently. They provided good muscle, manoeuvrability, and portability to the forces deployed there to bring peace back into that area.

Where National got it horribly wrong was in pay and conditions. I recall standing in this House and challenging the National-led Government members, led by Jenny Shipley, about pay and conditions for service personnel—a challenge they dismissed. I brought to this House, and tabled, a document that showed that under National’s steerage a recruit soldier in Waiōuru was earning $13,000 a year. Labour, to its credit, took the message on board and, after a lot of pressure from New Zealand First, implemented a number of pay adjustments and adjustments to allowances for the time that personnel were deployed overseas.

But there is still work to be done. I refer specifically to the New Zealand Special Air Service and the pay, allowances, and conditions of service for those personnel. Why is that unit important? It is because, increasingly, internationally it is special operations forces that are the sharp end; they are the point of the spear. In every initiative that takes place internationally in respect of bringing peace, stability, and conflict resolution, it does not matter where we look around the world, special forces are the leading edge. Right now we are finding that our special forces are far more effective in Afghanistan than our trying to deploy and maintain a battalion or a company-sized organisation. In fact, they have been so effective that they have received a presidential citation.

The problem is that we cannot ask questions about those forces. I raised with the Minister of Defence, Phil Goff, at the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee hearing the issue of how difficult it was for the committee and for Parliament to do its job, given the very nature of the SAS, because security-wise it is a very sensitive unit and we cannot ask questions. But serious questions must be asked if we are to get to the real root of the problem in terms of pay, remuneration, and retention of highly specialised, highly sought after Defence Force personnel such as these. The questions I would like to be able to ask publicly and get answers to are questions such as these. What are their numbers? How many SAS personnel do we have? How many Regular Force? How many Territorial Force? What are those numbers in comparison to 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago? Does the Territorial Force element of the SAS exist, or has it disappeared or become virtually non-existent? What are the SAS pay rates? What are its rank structures? Who gets paid what level of pay? How many of those people are in that rank structure? What are the problems with promotion inside such a small, tight-knit organisation that is constrained by the very nature of its speciality? How many SAS personnel are badged each year? How many pass selection? How many go through cycle training and come out the other end as effective SAS troopers?

We need to know that if we are to understand the sustainability, supportability, and effectiveness of that unit. But, of course, it is a secret unit, and to give away such information publicly is to undermine its very capability. I understand that, more than anyone else in this Parliament. But by not being able to ask those questions and get honest answers from the Government, we are unable to address the very pressing need to reinforce and support those personnel, and to make sure that they are remunerated appropriately and thereby attracted to stay in the service of the country in the SAS, where we so desperately need them. What is the average experience level of those within the unit? Are we losing senior NCOs, yes or no? How many senior NCOs, on whom we absolutely depend inside the SAS for training the newly badged troops, are staying on purely out of loyalty when they should or could be taking retirement?

All of those questions are important because they help us to understand the specificities of the troopers’ case when it comes to pay and remuneration. I have asked questions of the Minister in the House about pay and conditions for the SAS. Specifically, on 9 May I asked him what the hourly base rate of pay was for SAS personnel. He said that the base pay rate was $39,000 to $93,000 a year and that when deployed overseas they got benefits that kicked up their pay to $80,000 to $140,000 a year. But the truth, I say to the Minister, is that that is not exactly the case. The truth, in overview, is that a trooper gets paid a base salary of $39,000 to $43,000 a year, which is half of what Special Tactics Group police officers receive for sitting on their backsides at home, waiting for a call-out. These SAS people do considerably more. The keynote experience, as I have experienced, is that candidates join the rank at the range of private through to sergeant, and therefore come in and remain on protected pay for some time. Lance corporals are on $45,000 to $51,000, corporals are on $51,000 to $55,000, and sergeants are on $57,000 to $62,000. Very few, if any, of those people get the $78,000 that the Minister was talking about. I hope he is listening because he will have to answer me, but he is talking to Katherine Rich, so how can he possibly know what I am talking about? Very few of those people get even anywhere near what a Special Tactics Group operator gets, and those who do get it have to deploy to Afghanistan, where they get paid exactly the same remuneration rates as someone who is in a provincial reconstruction team and who is not deployed at the sharp end, chasing down al-Qaeda.

I say to the Minister to bear in mind also that when these lance corporals and corporals, who are special in their nature, go into the SAS, they cannot be promoted further, unlike line infantiers who stay in an infantry regiment, who can rocket through the ranks if they are that good—and the SAS guys are; they are better—and get more pay. For the Minister to lump in all of the allowances the SAS personnel would get if they were in Afghanistan, and to have this House believe that that is their base rate of pay, is deceptive, to say the least. I put on notice that I am standing for the SAS. I want its personnel to get a pay review. I want a better remuneration package for them. For us not to give them that is to leave them open to being poached by other armies that will pay them better. We know, from the work they are doing, that we cannot afford to lose these people. Indeed, right now we are in danger of losing them to the police force because they can stay at home, never leave their families, enjoy all the luxuries and perks of life, never get a call out for 6 months, and get paid twice as much.

On top of that, SAS troops do not have just their black operational role—counter-terrorism—they also have conventional warfare responsibilities that entail them getting out with the battalions in normal peacetime and training for conventional war, exercising their speciality, alongside and with line infantry. I have a horrible feeling that in accepting some of the words of the officials, who have had the Minister believe that every SAS soldier is getting paid $80,000 a year, which is rubbish, we are missing the real value of these people. Without us being able to properly scrutinise them we are running for ourselves the risk of losing more of them, and, in time, of their becoming an ineffective unit.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) Link to this

I think many of our thoughts today are with the defence personnel in the Middle East. We have eight military observers as part of a UN force in that region. We have heard some of them speaking from Lebanon recently on the very trying circumstances there. It must be very frustrating, and they must be living in some anguish, because our defence personnel have been trained properly, and have been trained to fight militarily without affecting civilians—to obey the Geneva Convention. Our officers in Lebanon have seen the two combatants, Hezbollah and the Israeli armed forces, completely defy those rules, particularly the fourth Geneva Convention, which has been violated by the sending of bombs and missiles into civilian areas, where they have killed many people and destroyed basic infrastructure such as electricity, sewerage schemes, neighbourhoods, and bridges. The killing of lots of people applies both to the bombs and missiles of the Israeli armed forces and to the missiles that Hezbollah is sending into Israeli cities.

Our military—and our Government, which has sent our military people there—is well placed to criticise the way in which war crimes are being committed by the Israeli armed forces and Hezbollah today. Those leaders could quite easily, in terms of the International Criminal Court legislation that we passed in this Parliament, based on the Rome treaty, be brought before that court for those war crimes. They are just encouraging the cycle of violence in Lebanon and the Middle East. They are not solving anything—just causing more destruction and death.

We can contrast that with the way in which our forces have operated in East Timor and the Solomons—and in very trying circumstances when they first went into both places, most recently East Timor. They must have been confronted with people who were using various weapons and killing other people. Our forces have operated in a very disciplined manner, and I think it is true to say that neither the New Zealand nor the Australian forces have killed any East Timorese. So they have not encouraged the cycle of violence we see in the Middle East. They have not created grievances that can then come back on a peacekeeping force made up of nationals from another country. I think we can take heart from the way our forces have operated, although I would say that in the case of East Timor we have to be a little careful that we do not go exactly the same way politically as the Australians have gone. The Australian Government, in relation to East Timor, seems to have oil on the brain. It has not given the East Timorese people the best deal in terms of the oil resources that lie between East Timor and Australia, and that has been a cause of frustration amongst East Timor politicians of all stripes.

Of course, when we talk about peacekeeping, in some ways the situations that lead to the need for peacekeeping are because Western countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have not necessarily put in enough aid or delivered the aid most appropriately. I think that was a problem in East Timor, in that there was a significant aid contribution from richer countries, but it was not delivered in a way that removed the frustrations that later broke out into conflict in Dili and other places.

Also, to go round the world in review of our defence forces, in Bamian our defence forces seem to have operated in a way that has not provoked a reaction, and some good reconstruction work has been done amongst the Hazari population in a relatively peaceful environment. We could contrast that with the earlier operation of our special forces in Afghanistan with Operation Enduring Freedom. I cannot tell members any detail about how they operated there, because it has been completely secret—overly secret sometimes—but I certainly hope that our special forces operated in a very good and humane way, in as much as they could within those operations carried out jointly with the American and other forces.

What we do see, and it is a parallel with what is happening in the Middle East—in Israel, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories—in the south and east of Afghanistan today is, unfortunately, a resurgence of the Taliban, who are burning down schools and stopping women from going to school. Unfortunately, that is because the way in which the American forces have operated there—and it is parallel to the way they have operated in Iraq—has created more of a reaction amongst the population, and has created the ground for such a reactionary, backward force as the Taliban to stage a bit of a resurgence. I think it is true that, across the region, the way in which the Americans have operated, be it in Operation Enduring Freedom in the south and east of Afghanistan, be it in Iraq, or be it their almost total support for what the Israelis are doing in the Palestinian areas and Lebanon, has only increased the presence of Islamic extremist forces.

We have to take a lesson from that in terms of our emphasising peacekeeping and other things that improve the situation for people, including better aid. Our defence forces are really just a component of how we rebuild nations, which involves getting good governance, delivering aid to get social and economic justice, and ensuring law and order—and not only our defence forces but also, as we have seen in East Timor most recently, our police. We have a very strong role to play through the police. What the Government has been doing with Project Protector, in getting appropriate boats that can play a role in a range of activities in the South Pacific, deserves some praise. The multi-role vessel in particular will be able to trans-ship goods and men to places like East Timor and the Solomons. It will also be involved in disaster relief and civil defence work, and in maritime surveillance work along with the good work that the Orions do in helping to surveil our fishing zone and that of our Pacific Island neighbours. It is a good-news story.

When the patrol boats come on stream they will help us carry out appropriate defence work in our region, in contrast with the previous emphasis of our military, which was more on coalition activities well away from our shores, more on doing the bidding of American, Australian, or British forces, and not necessarily on achieving anything positive in the long term— just as the American forces are not achieving much in Afghanistan and Iraq today.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) Link to this

I thank both Ron Mark and Keith Locke for their comments, and I will talk a little around some of the issues they have raised today. I will start with Mr Locke’s comments, because they are the ones most fresh in my mind. I thank him for his thoughts on our peacekeeping forces. As part of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, a number of our people are in areas that are subject to attacks from either side, because the fire and the rockets are going in both directions. So we have New Zealand Defence Force personnel based in Tyre, Lebanon being bombed by the Israelis, and we have defence forces based in Jerusalem who are under threat of attack from the militants on the other side. I do not think that in the Middle East the situation is so simple as to be able to blame one side, although, clearly, in this case Hezbollah provoked and Israel overreacted.

But our troops remain in the Middle East. Their families are in the process of being evacuated at the present time, as is sensible given the conditions. I am sure all members of the Committee would want to think about the troops’ situation today, and also that of our 26 service personnel based in El Gorah on the Sinai Peninsula. Those personnel have been there a long time now, but the situation there has deteriorated sharply. The Rafah gate has now opened—that means there is movement between the Sinai and the Gaza. Also, this is an area that has been subject to attacks, including a suicide attack aimed at some of our personnel as part of that peacekeeping force in the Sinai. So I think every member of the Committee should acknowledge the work our Defence Force personnel do. We make the easy decision here, sitting in our green chairs. They go off and do the work we require of them, and they do it professionally, competently, and in a way that makes them partners of the people they are working with, rather than occupiers or antagonists to those groups.

Keith Locke, quite rightly, pointed out how well our forces are doing. I acknowledge that Mr Locke supports our forces in East Timor and the Solomon Islands, and I welcome the fact that, I think for the first time, I heard him support the forces in Bamian. Yes, our 122 people in Bamian are doing a fantastic job. I have been in Afghanistan a couple of times and have been hugely impressed with what they have done, and hugely impressed with the relationship between them and the Hazara people. And why would not the Hazara people want them there, when we look at what the Taliban regime did to the Hazara, their culture, and their heritage? The destruction of those 5,000-year-old Buddha statutes was an act of barbaric vandalism that is almost without precedent.

So in Bamian our people are using soft power. I have read the American report on our forces in Bamian that praises what they have achieved with the use of soft power. But I have to say that even if we are exercising soft power, we have to be ready to use hard power, and that is why our people are trained for combat. Our SAS personnel, who have been on three rotations there, have used hard power, but what else could they do, given the nature of the people they were up against—people whose only form of communication is through terror and destruction?

We should remember why our people went to Afghanistan in the first place. They went there because the Afghanistan Government, the Taliban, allowed its country to be used as a host for the terrorist movement that launched the attack on New York and other places on 9/11. One cannot tolerate a Government that allows itself to be used in that way. I say to Keith Locke that we should remember the nature of that regime, where girls were not allowed to go to school, where women were not allowed to go to work, and where the soccer stadium in Kabul, which I have stood in, was used to execute people every Friday. That was the regime we were dealing with. That was not a regime that was going to be brought down by soft power; it was a regime that had to be removed by hard power. Although Afghanistan has a long way to go, we have made some real progress there. Afghanistan still has a long way to go, on the fact that it is close to being a narco-state, on the fact that there are still warlords, and on the fact that there are still Taliban elements, both in Afghanistan and across the border in the north-west territories. But our people are there for a good cause and most people in this Chamber voted for them to be there. We should be very grateful for the job they are doing.

I have had the chance in the last couple of months to visit, along with Ron Mark, our people on the ground in the Solomon Islands and also in Timor-Leste. Once again, I saw our people on the ground welcomed by the people they were working with. They are doing a job in Timor-Leste in a situation that, if they were not there with the Australians, the Malaysians, and the Portuguese, I believe would have degenerated into a blood bath. I have no doubt about that, at all. The job they are doing is necessary. I expect them to be there probably until the East Timorese elections in April next year. Yes, it is a cost to New Zealand, but it is an investment in the future of that country. Investing in the stability of the Pacific is an investment in our stability, in peace, and in the role we can play as a good international citizen in that part of the world.

I now go to the comments made by Ron Mark, and I thank him for his positive comments about the vast improvement in the defence forces. I acknowledge Mr Power’s statement of a couple of years back that the 1990s were hard economic times, but they were hard economic times taken out on the military. We ran down our military for economic reasons, not ideological reasons, but we ran it down to the point where it was not capable of doing the operations we expected of it. When I see our people on the ground now, I see them using light armoured vehicles that are state of the art and that are capable of providing the level of protection that we should have had when we had our troops in Bosnia in quite a dangerous operational theatre. I see our people using the light operational vehicles, the Pinzgauers, in the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste, and our SAS people are returning from their operations using those vehicles. I think those vehicles were a brilliant purchase. They were the best vehicles we could have got. They have served us incredibly well and I am very pleased we have them.

I had the chance, when I was in the Netherlands on trade business in Europe, to see the launching of our multi-role vessel, and I have to say to Ron Mark that this vessel is no Charles Upham. It is no lemon. It is a vessel that will serve us well in the Pacific. It will serve us in disaster relief and in terms of deploying our troops anywhere in the Pacific. It has enormous capacity and it will be a great addition, as will the other six vessels that will be launched over the next 18 months. We will have the biggest increase in our navy that this country has ever seen. The vessel will be multifunctional in its operations, and our people will be proud to be part of the services with the sort of equipment we are giving them.

I am very pleased about what we have been able to do in the area of the Air Force. There has been the upgrading of the C130s and the P3 Orion surveillance aircraft, the modification of the 757, and the—soon I hope—acquisition of helicopters to replace the Iroquois. I love the old Iroquois, but they are 40 years old—a bit like the A4s—

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) Link to this

Just slightly out of context, I congratulate Phil Goff on his rather comprehensive coverage of the defence portfolio. More particularly, it signals to those on the other side of the Chamber that he is no longer waiting in his caravan and is actively pursuing the job he has always been after. We will look and see how that comes about. I also take this opportunity—because I probably will not get another—to wish Jim Sutton well and to extend to him my personal thanks for the work he did after the floods in Rangitikei in 2004. I wish him well.

On the issue of Vote Police, I acknowledged at the time of the Budget—and have done so on numerous occasions since then—that the extra money the Government has put into the police is to be welcomed. It would be churlish to say otherwise, and the Minister gets a bouquet for that particular estimate appropriation.

I raise a couple of points around recruitment. I want to talk about it not in the context that members may expect but in a slightly more abstract way. I am interested in the Minister, Annette King’s, views on this issue. I cannot understand how a Minister who is used to dealing in hard, detailed, and tricky policy areas like health managed to stitch the Government into a deal with New Zealand First, prior to the Budget, to deliver 1,000 new police, plus 250 others, without any real or detailed policy work to back up that decision. All the documents I have seen relating to this decision in Vote Corrections, Vote Courts, and, in fact, Vote Justice show that no real work has been done on the downstream effects of more police. Clearly, if we have more police—and whether we get to the 1,000 is another debate that we will have shortly—presumably, unless they are all on traffic duty, there will be more arrests. If there are more arrests, there will presumably be more convictions. I want to know what work has been done with Damien O’Connor, who has been wandering around the country complaining about the number of people in our prisons. I also want to know what is to be done with Mr Barker and his view that it is all a bit too hard when we fine people and do not have the ability to get them to do community service in any meaningful way.

The first answer, as far as I can tell, to the number problem—not the policy problem—was to recruit from the UK. That was fair enough, except that the attrition rate is up around the 30 percent mark. The attrition rate from the police is not a concern per se, because, as the Minister rightly points out, that fluctuates between 4 and 6 percent on a reasonably regular basis—I have to say to the Minister that the rate is creeping quietly towards the 5 percent mark. The problem is the age and experience of those people who are leaving the police, and I would be interested in her views on that.

Then the Government, together with New Zealand First, decided that the way to solve this recruitment problem was to reduce the entry standards into the police. What I found fascinating about this argument—which we could have seen coming over the horizon from about 6 years ago, once Ron Mark started talking about it—was that it was not the Minister who fronted this particular announcement, it was Ron Mark. I know Annette King well enough to know that she is a pretty canny politician. She knows a good story, and she knows a good thing when she is on to it. Why has Ron Mark been pushed out to front this reduction in standards for recruitment while Annette King remains strangely silent throughout the process? I bet any member of this Committee that had the news been good, the canny Annette King would have been all over the announcement of the reduction in standards. A police recruit now has to leap a four-foot wall rather than a six-foot wall—even Lindsay Tisch, I imagine, could hurdle that on his hands and knees.

What has happened is that the Police Association has said that it needs somewhere between 2,250 and 2,500 police to meet the target. Thirteen days into the big recruitment drive, the human resources manager from the police stated in the New Zealand Herald that they did not get the full numbersforthe first intake to the Police College, but that there was no need to worry because they would make up for it by wandering around schools and recruiting school leavers to the police to make up the numbers. The problem is that with the number of well-trained, experienced officers leaving the force, someone has to train the new recruits.

In the policy context—going back to where I started from—I worry that this work has not been done properly. The Government’s crime reduction strategy, which Treasury had a flick at in December 2005, makes it clear that at that point the work had not been done on the downstream fiscal costs and other costs for the corrections and courts systems. I do not believe that that work has, to this day, been completed. I have not yet seen a document that has explained in any meaningful way what the proposed increase will do to the courts and corrections systems. We cannot, on the one hand, have Damien O’Connor running around the country and continually reminding us of how embarrassed he is about our prison numbers and, on the other hand, have recruitment standards for new recruits to the police dropping through the floor while the canny Annette King remains quiet and Ron Mark is pushed into the forefront to make the announcement. I have a funny feeling that Annette King’s heart is not in this project. I do not think that she, as an experienced and senior member of the Government’s Cabinet, believes that real work has been done in a way that has tied up this deal properly in order to take into account those downstream effects. I will be very interested in her comments on that matter.

There are many other areas that we could explore in Vote Police, but we have many, many question times ahead of us this year, and I will be using those occasions to explore those other matters.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) Link to this

There is a line from Gilbert and Sullivan that ends: “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one”. In actual fact, I never found it quite that way, but there were so many pressures on the police and that remains so today. The police seem to be at the bottom of the tree. They are the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff and at the same time are criticised for not being the fence at the top of the cliff, as well. When the on-duty social worker cannot be found or cannot be reached, the police are rung. When the school is broken into, the police are rung. When the road is blocked, the police are rung. The police are the catch-all.

I will give members an example. Last Sunday, I was driving between Waverley and Hāwera and there had been a bit of rain up our way. It was starting to dry out and there was a dirty great big rock lying in the southbound lane on a blind corner at Manawapōu Hill. I drove up to the top of the hill where I could get some signal, rang the local police station and told them. I was told I would be put through to “coms”. I was put through to the communications centre. I stayed on the phone and I was told numerous times that my call was important, that I was in a queue, and “For God’s sake don’t hang up!”, so I hung on. I hung on for 15 minutes, and after 15 minutes I did hang up. I rang the police station again and said: “I tell you what—how about you ring coms?”.

Police officers want a number of things, but I do not believe that they want too much. One thing they want is support. They want the numbers and the powers, and the Government confidence in them to be able to police with enthusiasm in the way they know it should be done. They want, when they need ten staff members, to get ten staff members—but that is not always the case. This year it is 25 years since the Springbok tour. During the Springbok tour I was a cop in Nelson. There was a sergeant and five on five sections who worked around the clock. Tonight I rang up my mate, who is a sergeant in Nelson, and there is a sergeant and two staff members on duty. Things have changed.

Just before the election Labour took six staff members away from the Wanganui station and put them somewhere else, closer to Auckland, where apparently they were required. Everybody in Wanganui said “Dumb move!”, but not the Government. All Labour could quote were the overall staff numbers and levels, which had gone up nationally: “You don’t need those staff; you won’t get ’em; and you won’t get ’em under us.” A local councillor decided to put together a petition. He put together a petition for extra police. Labour said “Rubbish!”. In fact, Labour in our area screeched “Rubbish! You don’t need ’em.” In fact, 11,000 people signed the petition, and Labour still said “Rubbish! You don’t need them.” The campaign heated up and Labour still said “Rubbish!”. National’s policy was to increase the number of police at that time, prior to the election, and its policy was to increase those numbers by about a thousand. But still Labour said—members have guessed it—“Rubbish! Scaremongerers!”.

Winston Peters promised to double police numbers just before he promised he would not take the baubles of office. He was going to double the number of police. He was going to have so many police they would be coming out of his ears and we would not know what to do with them. But Labour said that that was—members have guessed it—“Rubbish!”. Then the polls kicked in, and Labour said: “Tell you what: we’ll give you 250 more community cops.”—and National said “Rubbish!”, and New Zealand First said “Rubbish!”. But Labour needed a coalition partner and looked around, and Winston said “Pick me. Pick me.” Labour said “A thousand new police?”, and Winston said “Yes, now you’re smokin’!”. The Greens said “Rubbish!”, and Labour said “Now you’re smokin’.” So the Government reckons it will get its thousand new coppers, and I tell you what—I really hope it does, because I do believe we need them. And I hope they do because nothing is better than seeing a Labour Government implement National Party policy.

I cannot say it will be easy; the Minister has agreed it will not be easy. The trouble is that the quota system has been denied, and the calculation of income as revenue has still been denied, but when the Government has been forced to admit it, it has had to admit that there has been a negative impact on policing, because so many of the police are turning down jobs on the basis that they do not want to become “road Nazis”.

KATE WILKINSON (National) Link to this

If we look at the police’s mission statement, we see that it is “To serve the community by reducing the incidence and effects of crime, detecting and apprehending offenders, maintaining law and order and enhancing public safety.”, and that is exactly what we should expect. But whereabouts in that mission statement does it talk about host responsibility? The latest course created by the Government is to send our hard-working, front-line policemen and policewomen on a course run by KiwiHost, to provide “customer experience management programmes”. That 3-day training course, at a cost of $900 per person, covers such things as “avoiding the dangers of too much knowledge”—not a problem of the Labour Government, I would have to say—“learning techniques for switching an angry customer into a satisfied one, using the smile mirror, understanding how to use complaints as a gift, and learning about managing moments of truth”. This course is for the hospitality industry, not for our police force. Our police are not there to learn silver service, so that they can correctly wait on tables in the police cells, and to know how to serve from the left and take from the right. Our police are there to maintain law and order—

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police) Link to this

I thank the three members who have contributed to the estimates debate on Vote Police, but I have to say I am extremely disappointed that not one of them said one word of support for the New Zealand Police. Did we hear from members opposite that our police, who go out on the streets 24/7, have done, and do, a good job? There was not one word. We heard snivelling, whingeing, and groaning from people who want to make political points, but who were not prepared to say they were proud of the New Zealand Police. Well, I am—I am very proud of the New Zealand Police, and I am particularly proud to be their Minister. They are out there working on behalf of New Zealanders. They go into situations most of us cannot even imagine, and they do that on our behalf.

I would like to say to those listening tonight that they ought to be proud of the New Zealand Police for the work they do, but they ought to be very disappointed in National’s law and order spokesperson, because he did not have a good word to say about the police. In fact, the hallmark of his press statements has been to criticise everything that the police do. The police cannot open the door of their car or go out on the streets without the member putting out a press statement to criticise the work that they do.

I would like to go through some of the issues that were raised by members in their speeches, and I would like to start with Kate Wilkinson. She criticised the police because some of them—in fact, at this stage it is not the sworn police but some of the non-sworn police—have gone on KiwiHost courses. I just happened to find in my file that in 1996 the National Party in Government were urging New Zealanders and departments to take up the KiwiHost option. It is not about silver service or whether one uses a serviette, it is the way one actually deals with the public. So it was OK to have KiwiHost in 1996, but it is a terrible idea 10 years later. I would like to say to members opposite that whatever happens in terms of the police having a good relationship with the public, whether it is the people who answer the phone, or whatever their job is, I think that that is a good thing. I think that is a very good thing because they are a public service.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Deputy Chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee) Link to this

I am delighted to take a call on transport. I apologise to the House if I sound as though I am beating the same old drum, but, tonight, in the very short period of time I have, I will deal with just one very brief part of transport—probably the most important part—which is roading and roading infrastructure.

I will start by saying something positive about the Budget, because I think it is important to say that the National Party has been beating the drum for some time with the message that in these times of economic surplus, when the Government has a lot of money in excess of what it is spending, our view has been that at least what was being collected from motorists by way of petrol tax, road-user charges, and motor vehicle registrations should be spent on the roads. We have run that campaign for some years, now. The very first of the red and blue billboards at the last election basically stated that. And finally, in Budget 2006—and this is where I give some credit to the Minister of Transport, Annette King, before I get on to some other issues where I do not think there is much credit due—the Minister of Finance came out and announced that over the next 5 years the Government would be spending $13.4 billion on our roading network or on land transport, although most of that is for roading, and collecting only $13.1 billion. That means that over the next 5 years, the Government will be spending around $60 million a year more on land transport than it collects from those three forms of revenue.

I congratulate the Minister on that. I doubt whether any political party in this House would actually expect the State to spend more than that on the roads. We have finally got the Government there. When Labour runs the line that it has been spending lots on infrastructure for years, I can only show members of the Committee graphs like the one I am holding. It shows that in the Labour Government’s first full year in office, it actually spent less on land transport than National had spent, and that in the next 2 to 3 years, when the figures are corrected for inflation, spending was actually under the previous level, in real terms. So the crocodile tears from the Government about it spending more than National on roading have not been true for some time. But, finally, I think the Government has done something right.

I would like to ask the Minister a really important question. If by this acknowledgment that in the next decade or so the roading infrastructure of this country will be so desperately in need of public funding that the Government will need to spend all the revenue from petrol tax, road-user charges, and motor vehicle registrations on it—in fact, as I said before, the Government is spending fractionally more than that—why will the Minister not just move away from her ideological position and say that the Government is dedicating the money? The public would love the Government to do that. The Government is actually doing so anyway; that is what the funding level is. The Government has said there is to be a 5-year, rolling, ongoing funding package. I doubt whether any Government—and I can tell members that when the National Government comes to power in 2008, it will not reduce the sum of money—

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this

Following on from Maurice Williamson’s very good points about the three factors in the tripod, the first thing I say is that that was a blatant theft of National’s policy going into the last election, whereby we said we would spend all the money raised from road taxes on the roads. Due to a one-off payout from the energy sector, which is another major part of infrastructural development, the Government in essence said all the road taxes are going into road funding. But as the lights go on and off in Auckland over the next decade or so, will all that funding for roading come through in the future? There is no guarantee of that; the Government has not entrenched that position in legislation. National has asked the Government on numerous occasions to do that, but it has not done so.

Maurice Williamson talked about private sector involvement, and we saw an example today where the Minister of Corrections failed to give any indication that he would allow any private sector involvement in building jails. Ideologically, the Labour Government will not allow the private sector to be involved, and the same goes for roading. Private sector involvement will not happen, because ideologically Labour does not want that sector to be involved.

And we have seen big issues with regard to Auckland passenger transport, a matter that was raised by the Greens after the Budget. Indeed, they were quite right to do so. There was nothing in the Budget for Auckland passenger transport. There has been a lot of talk about negotiation at some point in the future, but we have not seen anything happen.

If we look at the Waikato, we see a perfect example of what has happened under the Government. We have had about five major 10-year State highway project plans in the last 15 months. Let us look at what actually happened in the Waikato, leading up to the election. We had a State highway plan in about February or March of last year that put the Waikato projects way down in priority. The Minister at that time was asked to come and explain that, and he did. He said we should wait until June, when a new plan was to be put out, and we would be all right then. So the Government put out a new plan in June. There was no change in priority; we were still at the bottom. Then he came back and said we should wait for a joint officials group to report—after the election, of course! Sure, it did that, but it was about 12 months later, after the Budget.

After the election, we had to wade through five 10-year project plans, and then we did not get much.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Transport) Link to this

Can I thank the—