Estimates Debate

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) Link to this

I have had to wait for close to 18 hours to respond to those sad characters opposite. I think we heard from Mr Power and from the member from Wanganui—no, it was Mr Worth. They all look very similar, actually. What a sad place the National Party caucus must be! Those members are all so miserable. Every word that came from those two members was a litany of misery. I have to say that if we ever want a study in breathtaking irony, we need only look to Mr Worth.

We listened to what Mr Worth had to say and to his criticism of, of all things, the legal aid system and this Government’s performance with it. I have to say that the criticism was, in essence, that access to justice for all is absolutely critical, and we stood criticised by Mr Worth because we have not yet reported on a process, in which the legal profession is directly involved, of reviewing the remuneration for legal practitioners because the work is still being done. We were criticised because a thorough process, which that the Law Society is intimately involved in and is part of, is not complete and we have not reported on it.

We have committed tens of millions of dollars as a first priority to increase the eligibility of low and modest income New Zealanders, because that was this Government’s first priority, and for that I make no apology. It may be that the order of priority is different for those Tories on the Opposition benches, but for this Government the first priority was to address those low and modest income New Zealanders who for more than 20 years had seen no increase in the rate of eligibility. Dr Worth suggests that the National Party is in some way concerned about access to justice for all, but for 9 years in the 1990s it did nothing to lift the eligibility levels for low and modest income New Zealanders. It did not a thing. Further, I ask Mr Finlayson what the National Party did for lawyers in those 9 years. What did it do to address the remuneration rates for lawyers? Did it adjust the rates during those 9 long years? Well, to be fair, yes it did—once. Once during 9 years the National Party adjusted the rates. Do members know what it did? It put the rates down.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) Link to this

It is a pleasure to stand and speak after the hard-working Minister of Justice, and I would like to put it on the record that this Government is indeed investing heavily into justice. How do I know this? I know this because of the amount of work that comes before the very hard-working Justice and Electoral Committee.

This Government is putting its money where its mouth is. It is investing heavily into justice in this country because we know that investing into justice, and into the programmes in the justice sector, gets the results. If we look at the appropriation, which is what this debate is about, then we see that the over $200 million that has already been spent on justice has been increased by another $30 million in this appropriation. That is very much a worthwhile investment. I know that much of that investment will be going into ensuring the effectiveness of the Criminal Justice Reform Bill.

I was disappointed, as was the previous speaker, the Minister of Justice, to hear criticism about the legislation from members on the other side of the Committee last night. We believe this legislation will be a major initiative for this country, and certainly we were very disappointed to see the National Party opposing the establishment of the Sentencing Council. We know that it will produce real consistency and fairness throughout the country and will be a council that all New Zealanders will have confidence in.

I also acknowledge, as I have in earlier speeches, the Law Commission, because I know that this bill and many of the bills that have come before our committee have resulted from the very good work the Law Commission does. I will also talk about legal aid because I heard Dr Worth banging on, as he always does, about legal aid. It is really interesting because when the Minister came to the committee, he reminded us that remuneration rates for legal aid are under review currently. Well, under the previous National Government, legal aid rates were reviewed and they were actually cut. They were cut. Those rates were cut under a National Government, so it is a little bit rich for those members now to be banging on about how badly reimbursed and remunerated legal services providers are. We look forward to that review and, I am sure, along with everyone in the Committee we will be looking at that one with interest.

I also heard Dr Worth criticising the Government’s position on electoral reform. Dr Worth was not at the committee, but the Minister assured us that electoral legislation would be coming before the committee in the near future. We are very confident, with our hard-working committee, that that legislation will be in place for the next election. In fact, the Justice and Electoral Committee secured a select committee trip to Australia on the basis that we would be looking at electoral issues over there. I will not ponder too much on that; the legislation will come before the committee and the legislation will be in place for the next election. It is as simple as that.

The sexual violence task force is another big investment for this Government. The task force was formally established on 1 July—this month—so that is fantastic. I know that nine Government agencies will be working together on that, as will many agencies from the non-government sector, and we know that that move is good. Also, in the area of restorative justice we are working on continuing to increase access to restorative justice. Again, we believe that is very much a good investment for this Government. A centre will be opened at the Auckland University of Technology to further academic research into restorative justice. We know that this is a good investment being made by this Government.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) Link to this

I want to speak to page 797 of the Estimates regarding local government. I would first of all just draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that this Minister in the chair, Mark Burton, goes around talking about all the wonderful things the Labour Government has done for local government. Well, there are a couple of things that we do have to acknowledge.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) Link to this

I want to speak to Vote Treaty Negotiations, at page 1261 of the estimates. When this vote was being discussed in the Māori Affairs Committee, I really looked forward to having some important questions answered and to gaining a greater appreciation of what the Minister is doing to secure the just, speedy, and durable settlement of Treaty grievances. Well, more fool me, because I should have known better than to have any expectations of this Minister, even low ones. The select committee process raised more questions than it answered. Trying to get this Minister to answer questions is like trying to pin jelly to a wall.

I can recall questioning the Minister about “large natural groupings”, because the Office of Treaty Settlements tells potential claimants that the Crown looks to negotiate with such groupings. But, certainly, one cannot tell what a large natural grouping is by following what the Office of Treaty Settlements does. For example, the Office of Treaty Settlements refused to engage with six claimant groups in Tāmaki, partly on the basis that they did not comprise a single large natural grouping, yet it happily negotiated with one of the four Ngāti Whātua whānui subtribes. It is that kind of behaviour that generates such uncertainty among claimant groups and creates such hurt and disillusion.

As of today, 19 final settlements have been reached. Fourteen settlements have required legislation, and five smaller but no less important settlements have not. Of the 19 settlements, 10 were taken from negotiation to final settlement under National in the 1990s, and negotiations on another eight were initiated by National. But since late 1999, under this useless Government, negotiations have been started and taken through to final settlement in—how many, I wonder?

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) Link to this

There we have heard from the member who came to this House pompously, telling members that they should play the issue, not the man. But, ever since, he has been incapable of getting to his feet without giving personal abuse. In every single speech the member has had the gall to stand up and read that vitriolic drivel, then accuse others of giving pre-prepared speeches. I say to Mr Finlayson that in the last speech he delivered in this House on a matter of a particular bill, he commented on the further delay for the delivery—[ Interruption] Well, if that member would be quiet for once, he would hear that I am talking quite specifically about the Treaty settlement process.

One of the reasons the settlement process requires time is that increasingly in this House there are those who will sacrifice principle for cheap political point-scoring. Let me give members an example. Two reasons were given by the National Opposition recently for its opposition to the progress of Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill—

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou e tēnei pō. Six months ago, not far from here down at Pipitea Marae, there was a gathering of some 45 lawyers, a number that by all accounts appears to be unprecedented in the history of the Waitangi Tribunal. They were brought together by the call from Judge Carrie Wainwright to attend a judicial conference in response to the complaints from more than 50 Māori groups concerning unfair and prejudicial treatment by the Crown’s Treaty settlement process.

The report of the Māori Affairs Committee on Vote Treaty Negotiations gives little hope that there has been any change to this dire situation. The report describes the Minister assuring the committee “that officials acted in good faith but that the document discovery process was inadequate at the time”, that an “exercise of judgement is required”, and that further advice on the process is required “to ensure that such oversights in the supply of evidence to claimant groups will not be repeated.” The key words are: “inadequate”, “exercise of judgment”, and “oversights”. What the Minister could have said comes straight from the report of the tribunal into the Tāmaki-makau-rau settlement process—namely: “The Crown’s policy and practice have been unfair, both as to process and outcome.” In reviewing the 2007-08 appropriations, we cannot ignore the conclusions of claimants and the tribunal that fair and equitable settlements are being thwarted by inequities in the terms of settlement, the fact that proposed redress has been set aside, and a process too flawed to achieve progress.

Indeed, so desperate is the situation that the Waitangi Tribunal report on the Tāmaki-makau-rau settlement process urged that Crown negotiations with Ngāti Whātua o Orākei must be halted immediately. This crisis seems to have fallen on deaf ears, although the select committee cuts to the chase. In relation to concerns that the Crown had not consulted with other tangata whenua throughout Tāmaki-makau-rau, the Minister assured the committee that “… Ngāti Whātua o Orākei has engaged extensively with other claimants,”. Who will take responsibility for the Crown’s failure to interact with cross-claimants, as it promised, and failure to provide accurate information about their status in negotiations, evidence the tribunal described as being provided “late, reluctantly, and piecemeal”. This is not just a one-off, isolated crisis. Less than a week after the Tāmaki-makau-rau report was issued, the tribunal released another damning report, this time stating that during the Crown’s process in Te Arawa: “OTS failed to act as an honest broker in the negotiation process … failed to discharge its Treaty and fiduciary duties to all Māori … OTS did not act honourably and with the utmost good faith.”

Under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, section 8I, “Annual report on implementation of recommendations”, the Minister of Māori Affairs, apparently, is required to report on progress each year. Well, the Minister has not tabled a report at all since 1995, but apparently will do so in the next couple of weeks, in order to catch up for 12 years. Well, he may as well not do it now, because the Waitangi Tribunal has done the job. Twelve years of no monitoring by the Minister is not good enough, and our people expect more.

There are longstanding concerns of claimants. The select committee report makes it quite clear that despite the unanimous and ferocious opposition to the 1992 fiscal cap, the Government is working to a fiscal cap—a cap that has continued to be applied to the Treaty settlement process since day one. The report spells it out as a general assumption of three $19 million settlements per year. We believe that it is essential that claimant funding needs to be reviewed and increased so that all parties are on a level playing field. As part of this, the fiscal cap on Treaty settlements must go. The Māori Party will not minimise the actions of the Office of Treaty Settlements as being mere oversights—oversights that the tribunal views as “cavalier, unfair, and generally uncooperative”. Something needs to change today.

The tribunal has concluded that in many cases the process of settling is damaging more relationships than it is improving. It is in light of this that we in the Māori Party are calling for an independent settlements authority to achieve greater resolution to settlements, so that settlements can be settled earlier, fairly, and with a broad consensus for the process. The Māori Party will not ignore the urgency of an underfunded and oversubscribed tribunal. We know that the tribunal needs to be resourced sufficiently so that it can deal with claims more speedily.

In closing, I want to return to the Minister’s words in response to the 2007-08 estimates in Vote Treaty Negotiations: “inadequate”, “exercise of judgment”, and “oversights”. What we in this House, and, indeed, others outside, want to hear is a commitment to ensure impartiality, fairness, greater transparency, faster processing, and better access to mediation. The time for oversights is well and truly over. What we in this House want to hear is a commitment to justice—Treaty justice. Kia ora tātou.

Hon MITA RIRINUI (Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) Link to this

It is a privilege to take a 5-minute call in what we consider to be an important debate. I congratulate the current Minister and the previous Minister, in their role as Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, on the incredible work they have achieved over the last 9 years. Certainly, it is a track record that no one in this Chamber can criticise when he or she considers the difficulties that any Minister, or any Government, faces in dealing with historical claims. It is interesting that in the Committee today we have heard more about the recent findings of the Waitangi Tribunal in relation to the processes of two particular claims than about the position in which those tribes, those iwi, who have settled over more than 9 years are now in, in terms of building a future for the generations that come after them. That, without a doubt, is the biggest issue we need to talk about.

We talk a lot about the acceleration of Māori economic development and the opportunities that have emerged for Māori entrepreneurs. Those opportunities have been capitalised on, and the settlements that specific iwi have received have grown as a result of the support from this Government and the entrepreneurial skills of iwi. It is easy to criticise, but it is very, very difficult for anyone in this Chamber—although I have heard it here today and on many previous occasions—to get up and congratulate those who are responsible for accelerating Māori development, particularly where Treaty settlements are concerned.

I heard the previous speaker from the National Party, Chris Finlayson, boast about the record of the National Party when in Government. Certainly, he cannot take any credit for that. Those in the National Government in the early 1990s who pioneered what we call the historical claims have all left this House. They have all left. There are no longer any of those types of people in this House. So if that member thinks he is going to fill the big shoes of Doug Graham, Doug Kidd, and all those who supported the Treaty settlements in the 1990s, he is kidding himself. I heard his contributions the other day at the Māori Affairs Committee. They were not progressive or productive; they were actually driven from a negative base, and I think that that is what we will see from that member during the rest of his time in this House, short as it may be.

I want to go back to the issue regarding Māori development. The Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Minister of Māori Affairs, and myself last week attended a hui in Turakina to sign off the deed of settlement for the Ngāti Apa claim and to acknowledge the important work that has been done by the local member, Tariana Turia, to encourage her people to the negotiating table. Her son, and her nephews and nieces, also contributed to bringing this settlement to this stage. We spoke to her people and heard the excitement, the positive attitude, the determination, and the kōrero that came from them on that particular day when they looked to the future and said: “We are going to do something. We are going to build a future for our mokopuna.” That is something that no one in this Chamber has a right to trample over, and that can be said about many of the claims that have been settled today.

In respect of the Kaihautū Executive Council for Te Arawa, in terms of Te Pūmau-tanga o Te Arawa and their settlement, although the tribunal has made some scathing remarks about the process towards the settlement of that claim, it did not say that the claim should not proceed. I am sure that most members on this side of the Chamber are determined that we will proceed with settling this outstanding claim. There are 27,000 Te Arawa people who are looking forward to an opportunity to put the grievances of the past behind them and build a future for themselves. Come what may, at least their future, their self-determination, is in their own hands. Who in this Chamber would deny them that?

There are issues around the process. We encountered a number of flaws in the process when we came into Government in 1999, and we have worked diligently to overcome those flaws. Of course, there is an attitude that one size fits all, in terms of claimant groups. Well, that is not the case. Different issues and new issues arise every time we deal with a different group. I can say on behalf of those of us on this side of the Chamber, to compliment the Minister and previous Ministers, that those issues are taken on board and dealt with at the time. Kia ora, Madam Chair.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Customs) Link to this

I rise to take a call on this particular debate in the first instance to rebut some of the issues that were raised by Mr Finlayson. The Treaty settlement process in and of itself is a very difficult process. In fact, it would take a very brave person across this Chamber to take on this portfolio, because by its very nature the whole process of reconciling historical grievances—and we know how disparate our past has been throughout this country—is a very difficult process. So any suggestion that this Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations is not interested in trying to get a genuine outcome is flawed, should not be tolerated, and is not accepted by this Government. In the second instance, in respect of the nature of how the Treaty settlement process began, far be it from me, who knows probably on both sides of the table how difficult it is to get an outcome, to stand here defending in and of itself the Office of Treaty Settlements. However, the office plays an important role in order to achieve an outcome.

Let us look at where Treaty settlements started with National. By definition of the process that National started, by and large the whole assumption was that a large natural grouping would be the basis upon which it would enter into negotiations. Both Tainui and Ngāi Tahu are evidence of that in itself. At not one point through this process has National ever said that it would ever go to Treaty settlements on a hapū by hapū basis. National has never said that, and it should come clean, because it is clearly raising expectations that it does not intend to deliver on, and that it is criticising the Government for. However, National started a process, and we are really trying to work forward and learn over time from a range of Treaty settlements that have been resolved.

The other issue that I want to address very briefly is the issue of quantum. Everybody could say, hand on heart, that a certain dollar figure should be ascribed to various Treaty settlements, and I am sure that Māori members would be the first to try to get the best opportunities for their region, but we have to ensure that the genuine ability to ensure an outcome that is not just about quantum but that is about returning resources and taonga to iwi is a genuine part of this Treaty settlement process. This is where I think the Government has made some advance to the benefit of iwi—not merely on a dollar-value quantum but also on cultural redress. We have seen here the ability to include, in quite innovative ways, aspects of cultural redress that restore confidence that this is an attempt to try to get an outcome that meets the needs of local iwi in trying to get a settlement. The other issue—and this is one that I think people look at all too scantly—is the role of the Waitangi Tribunal. If it was the role of the Waitangi Tribunal to give out binding recommendations, you bet your bottom dollar that the tribunal would be considering very carefully exactly what it said, because of the implications.

But let us not stop there. By and large, iwi should have the right to go towards direct negotiations. Some may not choose to go to the tribunal; that is their choice. I will not sit here in judgment and say which is the right way or the wrong way. However, should iwi across the land decide to go into a direct negotiation process with the Crown, boots and all and accepting, warts and all, that this is a head-to-head opportunity to get the best outcome with people talking to people, then we should preserve that ability. It takes courage, it takes leadership, and it is a difficult choice to make. But none of us in this House can make it. We have to leave the ability for direct negotiation from iwi to occur unfettered by everybody’s opinions. So I think that really is an important point that is always overlooked in terms of the voice of the tribunal and the types of recommendations it makes. We need to take into account that iwi continue to want to preserve their ability to have direct negotiations with the Crown.

Whether an independent panel will actually achieve the type of outcome that was being proposed by the previous speaker for the Māori Party, I think remains to be seen. I think, at the end of the day, that any genuine attempt to get an outcome that is durable in the eyes of those negotiating the outcome must be upheld by this House of Parliament. It is woeful that National has adopted the tactic of not supporting various Treaty settlements that have gone through this House since the time we have been in Government. It is woeful, because it signals that there is no confidence at all to go down a path of reconciliation. We just cannot, as members of Parliament, be sending that kind of message to New Zealanders, who really want to move on. They want everybody to try to resolve these grievances and move on. Thank you.

PANSY WONG (National) Link to this

The estimate of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) took place during the time that the position of corporation chair stood vacant for 11 months. This was very interesting. We learnt recently that Mr Hausmann’s appointment to the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board was fast tracked by the former Minister of Health, the Hon Annette King. Yet the ACC chair position was held open for 11 months for another Labour favourite, Ross Wilson, to finish his term as the president of the Council of Trade Unions. It just shows that the Labour Government can be extremely flexible when it comes to appointing its people to the various posts.

I want to test the water with some of the senior members on this side of the Chamber. When the Hon Ruth Dyson explained to the media why it took her so long to appoint Ross Wilson, she is quoted as saying that there was no one else on the board that she was happy to have as chair in the long term. Now, I have to consult with a senior diligent member on this side, Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith. I ask Dr Smith, whether, when he was the Minister and appointed members of the board, he ever said that he could not see anybody on the whole board competent enough to be appointed to the chair, and held the position open for 11 months. That is a public vote of no confidence in the whole of the ACC board. I find it staggering that Labour actually went out and said that it had no confidence in the whole board of ACC. If Labour had no confidence in the board members, it should have sacked them.

That might explain why the Hon Ruth Dyson took on the job of apologist for ACC for 11 long months. Not that long ago Ruth Dyson stood in the House and claimed that she was 100 percent behind the $5 million spent by ACC on branding and spin advertising that told New Zealanders that they were covered. The advertisements attracted only complaints, and the Advertising Standards Authority duly ruled that they were misleading. In fact, not everyone was covered. There was fine print. The Minister was blissfully unaware, even during the consultation phase of that advertising campaign that said some of the staff in ACC that was not smart and it would promise overmuch. That branding exercise actually drew more problems for ACC, because a lot of the long-term claimants then came forward and disclosed to the public. It is really quite frightening to hear the tactics with which the corporation, in conjunction with private investigators, tried to prove whether a claim was valid.

Well, once again the Minister showed that she knew nothing of what was happening in the corporation, because a contract between ACC and private investigators clearly established a key performance indicator where the private investigators have to prove they are successful by making sure that 80 percent of the referral cases should result in prosecution, termination of claims, suspension of entitlement, civil action, positive change to claimant capacity status, complaint to the appropriate medical board, etc. But when we queried the Minister during the estimates she told us that that was not the case. A significant number of referrals required no further action because the legitimacy of the claimants’ cases were validated. Well, obviously she has no idea of what is happening in ACC.

TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Madam Chairperson. Tēnā tātou katoa. The protection of children is the greatest goal of society. The interests of the child, the youth, and the family existed long before there was a department of the same name, and will remain long after the department’s latest reform into another tier of the Ministry of Social Development. The protection of children outdates any Budget cycle, and must remain our greatest priority as a society. For ultimately it is the whānau, hapū, and iwi; it is āinga; and it is family that hold the key to the successful outcomes set out in the 2007-08 estimates.

The State has a critical role in investing in communities to help them to ensure the health and well-being of their own. Nowhere has this concept been more apparent than in the rhetoric of the last fortnight as we have seen all Aboriginal people in Aboriginal communities demonised for the child welfare crisis that they have themselves been speaking about for decades. Dr Chris Sarra, the 2003 Australian of the Year and Director of the Institute for Indigenous Leadership in Education and Development based at Cherbourg, has been one of those speaking out and reminding the world that, politically speaking, there are no votes in ameliorating concerns in Aboriginal communities—hence, it is a case of calling in the army—but there is every reason to do so in terms of what is right. He said: “I challenge the Prime Minister to approach an Aboriginal child on his next visit to a remote community and hold that child close so that he feels their heart beating close to his, then look into their brown eyes and say, ‘You and your family are my family … I can see you need help … and we are going to help your family and your community to fix things here and make it right for you.’ ”

I took the time to share that story today because I think it illustrates a principle so central to how we should approach Vote Child, Youth and Family Services; how we approach the issues associated with placements for children and young people; how we approach respite care; and how we approach social work, care, and protection. When I read the report of the Social Services Committee—with its concerns about the number of times children placed in Child, Youth and Family’s care are moved, repeatedly and frequently; the question of inappropriate or undesirable placements; and whether the differential response model will be effective in reducing the recurrence of abuse and neglect—I wonder what we are doing for our families and our communities to fix things here and make it right for them. The cost of creating more harm is, of course, substantial.

I remind the Committee of the context for comments we made last week urging that the political focus abroad and at home should not be a case of “Ask what we can do to you.”, but, rather, “Listen and learn and support what you can do for each other.” The context of the Little Children Are Sacred report was one of gross endemic child sexual abuse. It is a context that communities seldom have the courage and the commitment to name and to talk about aloud. We even have an estimated financial cost for such a crime. It costs the victim, the offender, and the Government, on average, $84,175 to respond to each case of child sexual abuse occurring here in Aotearoa. Included in this breakdown are the general practitioner visits; mental health care; loss of income for victim and offender; police, prison and court costs; accident compensation counselling; and the victim’s pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life.

Excluded from that figure, however, are the economic costs that spring from the ripple effects of child abuse and child sexual abuse. How do we account for the costs imposed on other people as a result of a lifetime scarred by sexual abuse? How do we measure the impact on alienated families, on families torn apart by such crimes, and on children forced to flea to escape the hurt of allegations that are not believed?

Child victims of sexual abuse are more likely to underachieve educationally. Between 31 and 51 percent of inpatients and outpatients of mental health services have been found to be sexual abuse survivors. Drug and alcohol abuse patterns are more prevalent amongst survivors, and there are higher rates of substance abuse. Primary health centres have found higher rates of health problems amongst women who have been sexually abused, and each of us will know from our constituents that the most common pathways to crime are based on survival of abuse and poverty.

So why is it invisible? Why do we shift children from pillar to post, transfer Child, Youth and Family to yet another department, and dream up another differential response model? The answer surely lies in the problem, and how and who responds to it. In the Otago women’s health study of 3,000 women it was found that the vast majority of the abusers were young men who were known to the victims, yet only 7.5 percent of all abuse was ever reported to the statutory agencies. If the notifications are not happening, and the abuse clearly is, what will we do to ensure our little children are, indeed, sacred? Although the bean counters may rejoice that this year’s appropriations for Vote Child, Youth and Family Services have plummeted by a mere $9 million, I have to ask whether saving money will save lives?

As a society and as a Parliament we seem to be obsessed with punishing the manifestation of the impact of child sexual abuse. What if we were, instead, to have as a vision the challenge of closing down prisons, reducing the demand for psychiatric services, and taking dramatic action to address our dramatic suicide rates? Twenty years ago Jane von Dadelszen released a ground-breaking study that examined the histories of sexual abuse among girls in the care of the Department of Social Welfare. In the report, 136 15 and 16-year-old girls were interviewed. Over two-thirds had experienced sexual abuse. Half the abuse was perpetrated by family members. Just under one-tenth of the abusers fitted the profile of “stranger danger”. The average age of the girls when they were first abused was 10 years old, and the average age of the abuser was 28. There were no ethnic differences in the incidence of abuse, but Māori girls were more likely to show anger in response to the abuse, and Pākehā girls were more likely to report fear and confusion. It would be fascinating now to interview that same group of 136 35 and 36-year-old women and to understand the true lifetime cost of sexual abuse. The nature of sexual abuse has kept this hidden and has prevented victims from having a platform to bring it out into the open.

Aboriginal communities have demonstrated that some exceptional leadership capacity exists in their communities, and they have brought the prevalence and the impact of childhood sexual abuse in their communities out into the public arena. Are we brave enough in New Zealand to take a serious look at the social and economic harm, and at the devastation upon individuals and families, associated with sexual abuse?

I was pleased to see in the estimates report that Child, Youth and Family talked about its vision of supporting families, consulting with families, and, wherever possible, ensuring that children and young people remained within their own family. I absolutely endorse this approach. I also understand the concerns of the Social Services Committee that we must ensure that children’s welfare must not be compromised. But the solution to situations of risk or danger within families does not rest in punishing the child and extracting such children from all that they know, and in pulling them out from the shelter of their family home—quite the contrary. If the problem lies in the whānau, we should let the hapū or iwi be the solution. It is about using the right process for reconciliation to occur. The key is that we do not make one wrong right by creating a fresh wrong. The Government’s history and reputation in implementing a flawed Treaty settlement process is a classic example of this. The solution lies in working with families to restore their natural responsibilities and obligations to care for and protect their own. The costs of any other approach will lead this nation into ongoing moral and social bankruptcy. Tēnā koutou.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) Link to this

At the time that the Social Services Committee considered the estimates for Child, Youth and Family, the Audit Office was unable to supply us with a report. The committee took advantage of the kind offer of the Minister Ruth Dyson to return after an audit report was provided. Even at that second visit, internal budgets for the 2007-08 year were yet to be set. However, we did ascertain that extra money was being budgeted for foster care, and United Future supports that.

But, of course, such an allocation begs the question: what about grandparents raising grandchildren, and other kinship caregivers raising children, considering that it is often Child, Youth and Family that calls on grandparents to step up to the plate? Once it is clear that kin caregivers are going to be the permanent caregivers for a child, then the costs seriously kick in for those people. They have a new mortgage on the bigger house they have to buy, having previously downsized for their retirement. They have ongoing legal bills, counselling costs for the traumatised children in their care, plus all the other expenses that are covered by additional allowances for foster parents, but those allowances are not available for grandparents.

So we see grandparents failing to fill their own prescriptions, leaving employment to focus on the children, and ploughing through retirement savings at a great rate of knots. When will the Government face up to the fact that the failure to invest that little bit more in these families will not ultimately save it a cent? These children typify the category identified by countless research papers as at risk, but are responsive to early intervention.

One of the other concerns of Child, Youth and Family is the unacceptable number of times that children in the department’s care are moved around. Although the select committee was told that respite care accounted for some of the movement, the department admitted that it was unable to distinguish in its records and statistics between moves between carers, respite care, and time back with the child’s family. The select committee in its report suggested that differentiating between care options may help identify undesirable and temporary placements that need to be addressed.

This highlights for me one of the most serious holes in this department’s service at present. Currently, there is no independent advocacy for children or their families. There are no independent mediation services and no independent complaints service. If people are reliant on the goodwill of their case manager to honour decisions made in a family group conference, reliant on their goodwill to determine how often they get to see their children and in what circumstances, then without independent advocacy the imbalance of power is extreme. Constituents whom I have dealt with are too scared to question or complain, fearing that a further downgrading of their contact arrangements will occur. They are rarely equipped with the calm and coherent verbal skills to negotiate or appeal decisions made, and if they do complain, often it is noted evidentially on a file where it can be used against them.

Nobody resents the statutory powers that Child, Youth and Family has, but even the police have a complaints authority. The Minister has told us again that the differential response model, having been piloted extremely successfully in New Plymouth and Royal Oak, will be rolled out across the country. In the opinion of United Future, that cannot happen soon enough. The previous speaker was concerned about a lack of consultation with not just community organisations but also iwi. I believe that such consultation would be strengthened with the differential response model as it would allow community groups and iwi to be involved in the decisions made around children.

To have a department that is drowning in ever-increasing notifications, most of which are medium to low-level neglect notifications, and at the same time to have competent social service providers and iwi providers who are well able to execute professional interventions where no statutory powers are required sitting around waiting for the Government to trust them enough to pass on the work to them, is completely criminal. It is criminal when we consider that a large percentage of the high-criticality notifications are second and third notification cases that deteriorated while waiting for proper social work to be done. Having said that, I point out that I do not blame Child, Youth and Family staff, but I do blame Child, Youth and Family policy for this problem.

The multimillion-dollar questions are these: why is there such a culture of mistrust in the profession of social work, and does the department contribute to this mistrust? For instance, do teachers, lawyers, and accountants mistrust the professional standards of those who do not work in the same building as them, but are of the same profession? No, they do not. I say to the Minister that there is a huge amount of scepticism right now in the non-governmental organisation sector as to whether the department really will roll out the differential response model. In some regions those organisations do not believe that there is the will and intention to repair the relationships that exist between themselves and Child, Youth and Family to the state whereby low-level risk work can be passed on to them in order to free Child, Youth and Family staff to do the high-risk work we want them to be doing.

There is a huge difference from region to region as to the quality of the relationship that exists between Child, Youth and Family and local non-governmental organisation providers. In some regions there is a culture of active antagonism. I have had reports from the chief executive officers of some non-governmental organisations who have said that they believe that, at a local level, their Child, Youth and Family branch will not cooperate with any ministerial directive for it to pass on work. The staff will pay lip service, they will sit in the meetings and nod their heads, but they have absolutely no intention of moving towards a place where they can pass on this low-level work to these highly competent providers. I think it is a crying shame that this issue is not being addressed very, very seriously.

If the Minister is serious about engaging in a much more relevant way with the non-governmental organisation sector to have it help provide the work that needs to happen, she needs to show equal sincerity in following up on branches that seem to be making slow progress in this regard, to find out what the real problem is. The feedback I am getting is that in some places there is huge resistance. I understand that in some sense social work is a young profession. We have created a Social Workers Registration Board and have given social workers 6 years to comply. The ministry itself is working at a reasonably good speed to make sure that all of its social workers are registered, and so is the non-governmental organisation sector.

What I cannot figure out—as somebody from the teaching profession who has enjoyed amazing collegial support and interaction all her teaching career—is why, in the profession of social work, it depends on the provider one is working for as to what one’s attitude is towards others. I find that really concerning, and I believe that the Minister and her department could do a lot towards rectifying the situation.

I believe that the differential response model is a step in the right direction. I believe that the evidence is extremely clear that, in the places where it has been piloted, it has worked extremely well. I am concerned that, even in the pilot schemes, Child, Youth and Family has been very selective and limited in terms of the non-governmental organisations it is prepared to work with. However, even putting that aside, I think there is the opportunity to reduce the department’s workload, which is ever-increasing. Notifications currently go up at a rate of around 15 percent a year. After incidents like that of Coral Burrows the rate jumps 30 percent as people respond with concern to the situations they see around them. We expect the current staffing ratios to cope with this work.

I also have a concern that Child, Youth and Family seems to still be very output orientated. It says that, yes, its unallocated case rates are down, but what I am hearing is that, yes, its unallocated case rates are down but the quality of the actual social work being done is very, very limited. The social workers have made the phone call, they have knocked on the door, and they can tick the box—the case is no longer an unallocated case—but is there quality social work going on, is there quality intervention, are family and community groups that already have active roles with these families being included in the decisions that are being made? That is another matter, and I have serious doubts.

I encourage this ministry to use Vote Child, Youth and Family Services to start to progress those very vital community relationships. If we want every community in New Zealand to have a true safety net around every child who lives in that community, the last thing we can afford to do is to have holes in that safety net created by the fact that agencies that should be working together cannot even get on the phone to talk to each other and work collaboratively around case management. I do not think it matters which agency is the lead agency.

I compliment the Government on its Vulnerable Families project. I love what I have seen and heard about the project, and I believe that it is the way forward. But I also think there is room, in that regard, for non-governmental organisations to be included in that project.

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) Link to this

I want to raise a number of issues with the Child, Youth and Family estimate, too, and I echo my colleague, Judy Turner. I felt that the Government and the Ministry of Social Development perverted the process of this estimate around Child, Youth and Family. First of all, the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) appeared before the Social Services Committee before we had an audit report. So we were unable to have any prior briefing from the Audit Office on the performance of Child, Youth and Family—and, in fact, the office later raised some quite significant issues. The Associate Minister did come back a second time to the select committee, but even the answers to the questions that we had asked of the Associate Minister and her officials were not available to us by the time the Associate Minister appeared before the select committee on the second occasion.

That really is a perversion of the process. That is not how it is supposed to work. Even to date, we have not received the internal budgets from Child, Youth and Family, so we have no idea—even as we are discussing the estimates here today—what its internal budgets are. Now, that hardly gives us confidence that this ministry, which handles the most vulnerable people in our community, is doing an adequate job or that it is a good manager, because it cannot even manage this very simple process, which is supposed to be transparent.

The other issue that I raised with the Associate Minister was Child, Youth and Family’s permanency policy. There are lots of fine words in the statement of intent, and the ministry itself and the Associate Minister say that they understand how important it is to a child’s life that he or she has stability and a secure environment, and that they understand the damage that can be done to a child by being constantly moved from pillar to post. Yet the figures that the Associate Minister released to me for last year show that over 1,000 children in Child, Youth and Family care last year were moved more than three times. In the life of a child who is in a vulnerable state, that can have catastrophic effects on the future of that child.

The Associate Minister said to me that social workers are doing their best and I believe they are. Most of those front-line social workers are doing the very best that they can within a system that is not supporting them. But the figures show quite clearly that a 6-year-old Manawatū boy was moved 11 times last year, a 5-year-old girl from Hastings—my colleague Craig Foss’ electorate—was moved nine times in one year, and a 2-year-old girl in Whenuapai was moved seven times. What does that do to the life of that child? The worst case that Child, Youth and Family has is a boy, now 14 years old, who, while he has been in Child, Youth and Family care, has been moved 43 times. How can that child ever hope for a normal, happy, fulfilled life when he has had no opportunity to have a secure home environment? This is destroying lives.

I heard Tariana Turia talking before about making the children pay for the fault of their family, and punishing the children twice—once because their family is dysfunctional, and the second time because the State has stepped in and is supposedly making things better for them. Well, the State is not making things better if it has not got that permanency sorted out. It is actually destroying the lives of these children, and condemning them to a life that will probably be related to drug and alcohol dependency and that could well be a life of crime.

The Associate Minister fobbed me off a bit, because she said that these figures include respite care and that respite care does children no harm. I disagree. Any movement of a child from one environment to another causes problems for children; any parent knows that. Even a child that has a warm, loving, secure home environment will suffer when moved into a strange environment. It can be very upsetting for some children. These children do not come from that environment in the first place, and the Associate Minister could show no research that has been done to show that respite care does no harm.

KATE WILKINSON (National) Link to this

I rise to take a call on the estimates portion of Vote Labour. I want to raise three main issues at this stage, but to my mind they are very serious matters and they were raised in the questioning of the Minister during the estimates process in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

I am not quite sure whether the Minister is aware that in the Employment Relations Act there is a very important section. It is not a very big section, but it is a pretty important one, and it basically states that the Act binds the Crown. Unfortunately, that small but crucial section seems to have been ignored, or disregarded, by the Government. Under the employment relations law nobody, not even the Crown, is above the law, so I would like the Minister in the chair, Nanaia Mahuta, to comment on a matter that I will now elaborate on a bit more.

Under our employment relations legislation there is a clear, unambiguous provision that a contract or an agreement between persons must not confer on a person a preference because that person is or is not a member of a union. So no preference can be conferred on a person in relation to the terms and conditions of employment because that person is or is not a member of a union. It is quite simple. Members can imagine our surprise at the response when we asked for an explanation of the preference payment of $500, which is taxpayer money, that is paid by this Labour Government specifically and only to union members: to members of the Public Service Association. They get a preference payment of $500. The response from the department was quite amazing, and, actually, worrying. Department officials said: “It’s not a preference payment. It’s a payment that’s negotiated by the collective agreement as part of the settlement of that collective agreement.”

So we inquired a bit further, and asked: “Is this not giving some staff an extra $500 over other staff?”. We were then told: “Well, it might not be. It might not be additional.” Then we were told—and it gets worse—that the union members get an extra $500 “not because they are a member of a union; it’s because they’re part of the collective agreement.” We all know that that is absolutely, totally, and completely absurd, because under our labour laws a person cannot be a party to a collective agreement without being a member of a union. So it is a preference payment. It is a preference payment that is prohibited under the Employment Relations Act. That Act does, in fact, bind the Crown. It does, in fact, bind the Labour Government, and it should be abided by.

Workers should not have their pay docked merely because they do not belong to a union. In the aged-care sector this Government is using taxpayer money—taxpayer money—to actively recruit New Zealanders to join the unions that provide it with support. The matter is worse than that. People will have read the recent media releases about the dispute between people at district health boards and Spotless Services. I do not intend to get involved in the merits or otherwise of that dispute. It is actually the form of it that is concerning, because that dispute reveals that 5 percent of the funding—this is taxpayer funding—will be paid to the union as a bargaining fee. That could be anywhere between $800,000 and $1 million, and do members know to whom it will be paid? It will be paid to the Service and Food Workers Union. Are we surprised at that, when this is the very same union that we are told received some $300,000—$350,000; $380,000—and paid it to the Labour Party, no doubt to get the future Minister of Finance Darien Fenton her place in this Parliament? I am concerned about this matter and I really do think the Minister needs to take a stance on it, because it is a lot of money, it is taxpayer money, and we have a duty to ensure that taxpayer money is spent properly and not contrary to the provisions of the law.

In this department we also have another admission that the department is again flouting other rules, this time by handing out $8 million worth of contracts—as my colleague Paula Bennett revealed—without going through the process of tendering.

LESLEY SOPER (Labour) Link to this

What we had there from that National Party member, Kate Wilkinson, was a rave—an anti-union rave. Let union members negotiate the deals for union members and let people who are on individual contracts, who refuse to join unions, negotiate their own deals. Let them do that. But I ask the member not to come here and give an anti-union speech across this Chamber as though she somehow has gold in her hands. That is just absolute nonsense.

The fact of the matter is that the National side of the House is anti-union, and that member used that speech to attack some very good unions that are working hard for their members. The leader of the National Party and other National Party members bounce from cloud to cloud, trying very hard to find something to give themselves a little bit of substance, and another member of the National Party by the name of Mr Bill English claims to be the one grinding away at the real work. The real work is actually being done by Labour Ministers in a range of portfolio areas. That is the real work, while those members bounce around on clouds with very little style, looking for a bit of substance and not finding it. Substance is something they know nothing about, as has just been illustrated by that last member’s speech.

I want to talk briefly about the real work in Vote Labour, led by that excellent member my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson. I tell the members of the Committee who did not really concentrate on the vote at all that this vote is about providing services to promote and support fair and productive employment relationships, safe and healthy people in workplaces, and issues—if members across the Chamber can recognise them—like safe management of hazardous substances. This vote is actually about creating innovative and productive workplaces, and that means becoming a high-wage, high-skilled, and high-value economy. From that last speech, I really wonder whether the members on that side of the Chamber know what a high-wage, high-skilled, high-value economy might mean.

To do that we need to focus on things like raising skill levels, and we are doing that work in this vote. We need to focus on producing more globally competitive firms, and we do. We need to concentrate on increasing business investment in equipment and technology, and there are many fine examples of that. We need to concentrate on increasing the value of work through raising workplace productivity, and that means changes in work culture and practices. That sort of work is actually happening, which may come as a surprise to members on the Opposition side.

We need to concentrate on working with business networks, and that is very well done by the Hon Ruth Dyson and by other members like the Hon Lianne Dalziel. We need to concentrate on that particularly in the small and medium enterprise sector. There is some very good work going on there, productive work that it would appear members on the Opposition side know little about. We need to concentrate on things like providing online tools, such as Holidays Online and the Employment Agreement Builder. I really wonder whether the members on the other side have even looked at some of the online tools of the Department of Labour. Perhaps they should look at the “ask a question” feature. It might do them some good. They might get some sensible answers that would help them when they go back to the real world outside Parliament after the 2008 election and actually have to know about things like business progress.

The Labour-led Government has a strong focus on proactive approaches, and those approaches are working. These are approaches that concentrate on higher-value work, higher-quality working lives, social dialogue, and the awareness of fundamental rights for workers like the right to negotiate collectively, which the last speaker might like to do a little bit more research on. All of that is bearing fruit. We now have every employee entitled to 4 weeks’ annual leave. Paid parental leave is available for the self-employed as well, and remember that it is this Government that has increased paid parental leave to 14 weeks. The pay and employment equity 5-year plan of action is under way, and that is something that members on this side are very proud of. National members might remember a certain Employment Equity Act that they repealed in 1990 as soon as they became the Government. Other things like quality flexible work are on the agenda.

BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga) Link to this

I would like to ask the Minister of Housing about the State housing sector but I will not do that, because I know that I would be wasting my time, and I know that all I would get from the Minister would be half-baked answers and deviations from the truth. Therefore, I will tell the Committee what I think. I have never, in all my business life, seen such a badly run business as the State housing sector. [ Interruption] I suggest the member opposite keeps quiet and learns.

Although I believe we should help less-fortunate people, it should be done in an affordable way. It totally amazes me that the Department of Building and Housing subsidises the State housing sector by $465 million per year. That is a massive amount. This subsidy increased by $100 million in the past year alone, and equates to approximately $140 per house per week. I ask members to listen carefully. That is $140 per house per week. That is a stunning subsidy, and that is after the rent has been paid by the tenant and collected by the department.

If we add interest on to the cost of the value of the house, we get a total subsidy of $480 per week per house. This is more than the average person pays in weekly payments for a mortgage to buy a house. It might be sensible for the Government to give State house tenants the house they occupy, and close the State housing department. On my calculations, the Government would save millions over the years. I am not recommending this, but it just proves that the Minister has made a total mess of handling the State housing sector.

The Minister bleats on about buying houses to put into the State housing pool. What a waste of money! I know of many cases where the department has paid $370,000 to $420,000 for houses in Tauranga that have three bedrooms and two-car garages. One of those houses was let for $60 a week to an elderly lady who lives on her own and has no car.

This is a typical example of the failure of this Government’s Minister to be logical. Does anybody in this Government work out the financial cost in owning these houses? It would be a lot cheaper for the Government to pay the full rent for that elderly lady to move into the private sector, and the Government—or taxpayers actually—would be better off by about $300 or $400 a week. We need a National Government in power to sort this problem out.

The Minister of Housing is now thinking of moving into shared equity schemes. I warn him that that scheme is full of problems. I have studied it myself, overseas. Who pays for and who benefits from an extension or any other upgrading of the house—for example, a small room added on to the back? On second thoughts, this Government will have no problem—it will just start up another Government department to deal with the problems caused by this Government department. It will cost millions to set up, but this Government does not care. It is only taxpayers’ money!

This housing Minister needs to wake up, talk to the right people, do some ground-breaking research, and come up with an overall plan for State housing and affordable homes. The Minister is running around and achieving very little. For example, this Labour Government’s home equity scheme was promised in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, and it might, with any luck, start in 2008. The Minister is very consistent with his promises, but he just keeps failing to deliver. We are lucky he will not be here in 2009; he will not be in Government.

The Minister also intends to mix State housing with expensive houses in Hobsonville. This will top off the Minister’s foul-ups. This idea will offend both the top end and bottom end of the housing market. In answer to a written question, the Minister would not tell me how much the sections in Hobsonville will cost. I want only an estimate of the price of the sections, so that I can warn him how big a mess he will be in, and what it will cost the taxpayers to get out of this mess and for this stuff-up.

The Minister has been given two ears and one mouth, so that he can listen twice as much as he talks. He has failed in that area. I finish off by saying that I look forward to a National Government being in power. Thank you.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) Link to this

It is very unusual in an estimates report from a select committee to have to say that the Minister had not answered the questions that we on the select committee had submitted in time for the estimates review. It is simply an indication of the fact that this ministry and this Minister simply cannot get their act together, and do not wish to answer the questions that the select committee legitimately poses, at the right time, so that the answers can be elicited before the Minister and the ministry turn up in the select committee.

For a ministry that has grown in size massively under this Government, one would think that somewhere in there someone could be found to answer the questions. That was one of the comments that was made in the select committee—and it was a cross-party view—that people felt very strongly that an effort should have been made by the Minister and the ministry not to appear arrogant, and to actually take the questions on board, and to answer them. At the end of the day, it is by that select committee process that we hold to account the ministry and the Minister for the taxpayers’ money. In fact, it is not OK just to ignore it and say: “Too bad. We won. You lost.”, which is what Michael Cullen said when the Labour Government came to power.

One of the issues that we raised with the Minister and the ministry was that of sickness beneficiaries and the way in which sickness beneficiary numbers have massively increased under this Government. One of the concerns we have is the level of low-quality but high-cost programmes that have been operated. One of the concerns we have had is the fact that, for instance, the designated doctor scheme, which this Government runs in relation to sickness benefit numbers, means that there is a doctor who has issued 325 medical certificates for sickness benefit entitlements within one quarter—that is 3 months—or 5.1 every working day. The cost rose from $67 to $119 for each person. That is $600 a day, just for signing off sickness benefit applicants. Then there are all the other times of the day in which to make even more profit.

We have said to this Minister that we should be asking questions. We should be asking why it is that suddenly we are a country with a massive epidemic of sickness. After all, we now spend so much more on the public health system that one would have to wonder why it is that we cannot keep people well. We have never had a proper answer, other than that apparently people are getting older. When they get past 65 they are on New Zealand superannuation and would not be on the working-age benefit, so most people have not quite worked out what the Minister means by that.

One of the things we would really like to talk about is the single core benefit and the amount of taxpayers’ money that has been thrown into it. In 1989 Michael Cullen was Minister of Social Welfare. That is a long time ago. Except it is not so long ago, because that was when he first started talking up a single core benefit. We were going to have every working-age beneficiary on one benefit. That scheme emerged again in 2000 and again in 2002. Lo and behold, it became Labour Party policy again in 2005.

I remember, during that election campaign, attending a meeting with Steve Maharey, who was then the Minister of Social Development—because the portfolio turned from social welfare to social development, for some reason. He gave this very long presentation at Victoria University, with lots of PowerPoint things flashing across the screen, about the single core benefit and how tying in—I think it was—seven benefits into one and adding multiple add-ons, about another nine or 10 add-ons, was somehow going to sort out benefit issues and make everything easier.

We have found out from getting our work done and looking at what Treasury said and at the Official Information Act requests, because clearly the Minister is not very good at fronting up with answers, that the single core benefit has died a very, very quiet death. It died in August last year. But it was never announced. It was one of those silent things—the sort of thing that happened when we used to be secretive about our SAS if anything secret happened. But in fact it was swept under the carpet, and it has now reappeared only because we have decided to say: “By the way, whatever did happen to the major welfare plank of the Labour Party in 2005 or, by the way, in 2002?”. It has gone, just the same way as the taxpayer dollars that paid for it have gone.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) Link to this

I guess there has not been a worse year than this year for the Department of Corrections. Every time someone gets up and holds the Minister to account for the performance of the department, he keeps going back to the point that the number of escapes has dropped by 73 percent. He then goes on to talk about three escapes, instead of four, or something along those lines. But if we have a close look at the Department of Corrections and where it has been over the past 12 months or so, there has been one little mess after another.

Let us have a look at the Graeme Burton debacle, for instance, which quickly followed the Liam Ashley one. Graeme Burton killed Karl Kuchenbecker and wounded three others. Who was in charge of Graeme Burton at that time? The answer is that it was the Department of Corrections. Burton was on parole, and it was the department’s job to watch over him to ensure that his movements were compliant with his parole conditions. We know that he was released into the community on 10 July on parole, and his exact location was withheld. He set about attending a course. Later on, the police had information from good informants that he was wandering all over the place, and was hitting up lower-order drug dealers, using stand-over tactics—beating them up before robbing them. On one occasion Burton is said to have threatened to shoot all six witnesses to one of these robbings and beatings. We know that that took place on 30 November. He carried on like that.

On 5 December Burton breached his parole, and the Department of Corrections sent him a letter. No one went to look for him. No one told the police. No one followed up. His parole officer went on holiday. More things happened—the sorts of things we would expect him to be pulled up for. The police were worried sick. They were getting information on a frequent basis as to what he was doing—home invasion, standing over other drug dealers, making threats, and gathering arms—but nothing was done. Eventually, as we know, he killed Karl Kuchenbecker on 7 January. What happened then? There was a storm in the media. The Department of Corrections was supposedly held to account, and we had the further debacle of the CEO of the department appearing on television, holding out his hands and saying: “There’s no blood on my hands.”

Last night we had a vein-popping tirade from the Hon Phil Goff. He went on and on about National’s record in corrections. He was the one who made accusations around a project called INCIS, which we all know is a part of history as a failed project. What he did not point out was that this Government appointed “Mr INCIS” as the CEO of the Department of Corrections.

This year the Labour Government, through the Department of Corrections, will spend $311,000 on chartered flights to move prisoners around the country. We have to wonder how it can spend so much money on doing that. The department spent $31 million on consultants in the past 4 years. I know that running up to the 1999 election there was an article in our local paper written by the Labour Party candidate who caned the National Government for having spent $5 million on consultants in the previous year. The Department of Corrections spent $3 million in the first 3 months of this year on consultants. Who would argue that they are any better than they were then? An amount of $2.6 million was wasted on removing the contract for the remand centre in Auckland and putting it back under the Government sector because there was a clash of philosophical extremes on the part of the Labour Party.

The Labour Party, through the Department of Corrections, spends $190 a night on people staying in police cells. Last year 57,000 prisoners—Department of Corrections inmates—stayed in police cells, at a cost of $10.8 million. We have to wonder just where it is going. Jails can have flat-screen TVs and underfloor heating, but when we ask the Department of Corrections about that, it says: “Well, you can’t build old. We’re building these new prisons, and you can’t build old.” Well, actually, the department can build something that is not luxurious. It can tone it down a bit. We have to wonder just how much rope this Government wants, when it can double the amount quoted—from $500 million to $890 million—to build four new prisons, get 500 extra beds, and spend $1 million per bed. If the Government cannot get a prison bed for less than $1 million, it is doing it wrong.

Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Corrections) Link to this

It is hard to know whether that speech justifies any reaction, but on behalf of the over 5,000 people who work in the Department of Corrections I will stand up and explain what we do, because those people end up being the whipping boy too often for too many people in this country. They end up being a mere target for the National Party—a party that has not one policy in the area of corrections. I am sorry; it has two policies. One is to privatise the prison system and the other is to do away with parole. Both those policies are, quite frankly, ridiculous.

The Department of Corrections does a very good job by any international measure, and it does so in a very difficult area. Over the last 7 years we have increased the prison capacity by 2,100 beds. It has cost over a billion dollars. We do not like spending money on prisons in this country, but we came into Government facing a system that had been left to languish and had been run down under the likes of Nick Smith and other Ministers. We grasped the mantle, and we built over 2,100 new cells in this country to address the sad but realistic situation that New Zealand locks up people at the second-highest rate in the Western World. That is something we are not proud of. No one in this country should be proud of that.

Every year the corrections system deals with over 68,000 sentences in the community. Currently, over 8,100 people are in prisons around this country. We are determined, as a Government, to do more than just invest in prisons, as we have had to do—and yes, we do have underfloor heating, because it is the most efficient and safest way to ensure we have minimum standards of heating in our prisons. I make no apologies for that. I make no apologies for building prisons that are of an international standard and will be there for 100 years, conducting what is a necessary but sad part of Government responsibility. [Interruption] Oh yes, Nick Smith is there, desperate to try to justify his management of the corrections system in the past. The only thing the previous National Government did was to attempt to start the privatisation of prisons. Those members initially signed a contract with Chubb. They initially built Auckland Central Remand Prison, which we took back into the public prison system.

Correction is a very difficult area of Government responsibility. We will maintain that responsibility under the wing of the Government. We will not attempt to disengage ourselves from that responsibility, as the National members have said they would do, by privatising prisons. All I would say to those people who think doing that might be better is that they should look offshore. They should look to Australia, the US, and other areas around the world that have attempted to privatise the prison system. It has failed.

What we are doing is moving to improve the system we have within prisons in order to ensure that we have better programmes of rehabilitation, and we have revamped them. We have invested huge amounts in reintegration so that at sentence end those prisoners will be better able to move back into the community and participate in a worthwhile way. Internationally, the sad statistics are that far too many prisoners do reoffend. We are at the forefront of rehabilitation programmes and of initiatives to try to reduce that rate of reoffending.

I stand up for each and every one of those people who work in the corrections system. Some have broken the rules and some have taken short cuts. We have put in place a new intelligence system whereby skilled people within the corrections system gather intelligence and information. They can identify any prison officer or any person employed by the Department of Corrections who is breaking the law or not abiding by the code of conduct and the policies we have laid down. When we identify one of these individuals and that person is stood down or the matter is taken to the police, members of the Opposition stand up and say it is an indication of failure. Well, I have to say that we will be identifying more individuals, and there are only a few who may have been breaking the law or breaking the code of conduct or our policies. We will identify them because we have better systems of intelligence-gathering within the prison system now, and we will be dismissing and prosecuting those people.

Corrections is a difficult environment. Wherever one has 8,000 criminals in any one system, there will no doubt be some problems. We are not running kindergartens here—it is a very difficult area. Every measure against the corrections system—assaults on prisoners themselves, assaults on staff, and escape rates—in international terms, has declined dramatically under this Government and will continue to do so. We have invested a huge amount in better security systems, drug-dog teams, single points of entry, 17 kilometres of perimeter fencing, and on and on it goes, because we are committed to running a properly resourced, effective, and efficient corrections system in this country, and we will continue to do that.

The only alternative we have heard from the National Party, from the bleating of Simon Power and Chester Borrows, is that National would privatise the prison system and all parts of it, and that it would do away with parole. Well, that begs the question—if anyone were to ask anyone intelligent—of how we attempt to reintegrate people back into society when they reach the end of their sentence. Parole is accepted as a key component of any system of corrections, incarceration, rehabilitation, or reintegration—call it what we like. Parole will continue to be part of the system. It must be well managed. We have moved to make changes in that area, as we have whenever we have identified a problem within the corrections system or the justice system.

I look forward to the passage of the Criminal Justice Reform Bill, and to the new community sentences that will be brought into place. They will assist us to reduce over time the number of people who have to be sent to prison and, ultimately, they will reduce the rate of incarceration in this country, which is, quite frankly, a disgrace. This Government will invest in front-end policies like early childhood education, Working for Families, and social support, because we know that ultimately that is the best way to reduce the rate of crime and the rate of incarceration in this country. I applaud the efforts of the people working in the corrections system. I think that they do an outstanding job in the face of very difficult and trying circumstances.

NATHAN GUY (Junior Whip—National) Link to this

I seek leave for Chester Borrows to have a call on Vote Corrections.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) Link to this

The Minister asked the question: “Well, how do you deal with people who are being released back into the community if they’re not on parole?”. The answer to that is: “You deal with them while they are in prison.”

Every person who goes to prison has to come out of it in better nick than when he or she went in. We know that at the moment 8,000 prisoners are inside our prisons. The Minister said that himself, and he confirmed it. There are 44 drug and alcohol beds, and 199 people are waiting for treatment in those beds. But no one is addressing the problem. We know that 83 percent of the 8,000 people in our prisons have drug and alcohol problems. Funnily enough, 83 percent of those people have literacy and numeracy problems, as well. But, you know, people serving a sentence of less than 2 years under this lot over there cannot get any help with those problems—none whatsoever—and that keeps people on a cycle that has them going back to jail, back to jail, back to jail.

In Wanganui, a shoe factory was operating out of Kaitoke prison. It was put there, funnily enough, under the National Government, which, according to Mr O’Connor, cocked up corrections well and truly, in spite of the fact, of course, that Labour has been in Government for 14 of the last 22 years. Apparently, anything that has ever gone wrong in corrections is National’s fault. Anyway, a shoe factory was operating within the Kaitoke prison. The prison took 100 inmates a year, the vast majority of whom had never worked. In 2003 that factory was closed down by Labour because it did not make a profit, but what it did do was to save the taxpayers of New Zealand $5 million a year in unreturned prisoners. Anecdotally, every one of those wardens at the Kaitoke prison who were involved in watching over the shoe factory said that none of the prisoners came back—none of them ever came back.

This Government has spent $11 million on landscaping prisons. That is the big plus it can point to when it talks about what it has done around prisons. But members should look at the situation around the Liam Ashley debacle. Look at what happened there. The parents of this young man, through a tough love arrangement, said that, yes, they would allow him to go into prison overnight, believing he would actually be safe within the care of the Department of Corrections, under this Government. But where did he go? He went to the Auckland remand centre, which had been privatised under National, and which this Government accepted had a better record than any other State-run remand centres. He was put there, at that centre run by the Department of Corrections, and he died because he was locked up in a cage, in a prison van, with a guy who had murdered. He was chained to him and, what do you know, that guy beat the hell out of him. What do we ever hear from corrections about that?

Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Corrections) Link to this

I could sit down here and for the next 10 minutes read off a list of incidents that have happened in corrections under a National Government. I do not think that anyone would pretend that incidents are not part and parcel of corrections life, but we hope to keep them to the minimum, and not to have any tragic consequences as a result of any of them. I acknowledge—and have done so to the families of these victims—that in the case of Liam Ashley, and the Kuchenbeckers through the Burton situation, we have had tragic outcomes from mistakes that were made in the justice system.

I say, though, to go back to a couple of points raised by the previous speaker, that when we came into Government there were two drug and alcohol units, but, yes, they were delivering very few places in the corrections system for people with drug and alcohol problems. At the end of next year we will have six drug and alcohol units operating in this country, and there will be places for 500 inmates. I have opened two new drug and alcohol units myself, and there are two more to be opened. We have committed a huge amount into this area, after years and years of neglect.

The member referred to literacy and numeracy issues, but never has there been more money poured into education in the corrections system than is currently happening. We now have prisoners leaving prison with New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) credits—for many of them it is the first time they have ever achieved anything. I have been very proud to go to those celebrations, where prisoners have broken down in a couple of instances, because they have received acknowledgment of their talents. Each and every one of them has talents, but we cannot turn their lives around overnight. The member says that we should fix up these prisoners while they are in prison. Well, all we can do is offer them opportunities to address their drug and alcohol and literacy problems, and we are doing so.

In terms of employment, less than 40 percent of the prison population were usefully employed when Labour took over. We have set the target, under the Prisoner Employment Strategy, of 60 percent of the prison population being employed or in training. I today visited Tongariro/Rangipō Prison to see the growth in opportunities that we are creating there for prisoners to get NZQA credits, and to try to make something useful of the time they spend in prison, so that when they leave they will be able to move into useful jobs, and, hopefully, not return.

Mr Borrows said—and I would like to check this out, because I think I would certainly issue instructions to start a shoe factory again if what he said were true—that none of those prisoners ever returned to prison. Well, I do not think there would be one programme in the world of which that could be said—unfortunately. It is not that we should not strive for such an outcome, but that member said that no one ever returned. I think that that might be stretching the truth a little bit, I tell Mr Borrows.

We do our best to provide useful employment and training within the prison system. We have moved to get accreditation for that skills training so that people can leave with credits, and I am very proud—as are most of the people in the corrections system—of the progress we have made in these areas of drug and alcohol rehabilitation, of better health services, and of improved opportunities for employment. Once again, I say thank you to the people who work in the corrections system for their commitment and their work in the face of very trying times.

LESLEY SOPER (Labour) Link to this

I stand to take a short call on corrections. We have just heard, not a lot of time ago, from a National speaker, who basically managed to say nothing at all that was positive about our corrections system. All he could manage to do, as a speaker—and as part of the National Party, once again bouncing from cloud to cloud looking for substance—was to bash our corrections system.

In fact, the Department of Corrections is doing a very good job under a very good Minister. The people who work in corrections are doing a very good job. Let us not forget all those people; one of them is my relative in Invercargill. I pay tribute to those staff members in the prison in Invercargill, in my electorate, who are doing a fantastic job in a difficult area. They do not deserve to be knocked by those members opposite. They do not deserve to be knocked, at all, by those members opposite, for nothing but a bit of cheap publicity. They are dedicated staff, each and every one of them; they do a good job. They treat prisoners like people, which seems to be something that is missing from the spirit of Mr Borrow’s speech—people who might actually have a future when they leave prison.

It might be something new for Mr Borrows to reflect on, that many of the prisoners he talked about in the speech he just gave are people who will leave prison and who deserve the ability and the guidance to rehabilitate themselves back into society and lead useful lives. That is what this very good Minister is helping to lead in our corrections system. He is helping to put in place the actual rehabilitation programmes that give some of those people a chance when they leave prison.

It might come as news to the National Party that we do not help put people in prison then throw away the key and feed them on bread and water. Many of those people will come out of prison, and we want them to come out and lead good lives. The fact is that most prisoners will come back into society. If those members opposite have not worked that out yet, then it will be a very sad thing if they ever get their hands on the corrections system again. Those innovative programmes that the current Minister has helped put in place are making a difference and are giving prospects for the future.

And what is the only thing that National has to offer as a solution for corrections? It is privatisation. Well, National tried that when in office, and it failed. If ever it got its hands on the corrections system and tried to privatise it again, then it would fail again, because the policy is without substance. It is another one of the ghostly raft of non-policies, which are all that National is capable of delivering.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) Link to this

Today the latest energy data for New Zealand was released, and what we have discovered is that all the talk about carbon neutrality from the Prime Minister in the 8 years Labour has been in Government is an absolute farce. I want to challenge the Government about its record in this vital area of public policy. Firstly, I ask the Associate Minister in the chair, the Hon Harry Duynhoven, how the goal of carbon neutrality matches the figures put out today. In the last year there was a 9.7 percent increase in the burning of coal. That is an extra 15 petajoules of coal going into the system. Does anybody believe that the fastest-growing area of energy is coal? And we are meant to believe that this Government is about carbon neutrality!

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Energy) Link to this

Well, it is a pleasure to follow the former deputy leader of the National Party, a member who very briefly held that role. Can I just say a few things to the member and correct a few of the myths he has been portraying here for us tonight.

First of all, the member must remember that New Zealand has the third-highest level of renewables in the world, and we are going to build on that. The country with the highest level of renewable energy in the world is Norway, with 110 percent. Why 110 percent? Because it exports electricity from its hydro systems. The country with the second-highest level of renewable energy is Iceland. Why Iceland? Because it has a huge geothermal resource it widely uses. And we—I say to Dr Smith for his information—are third in the world.