Estimates Debate

LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) Link to this

The environment estimates include two key projects, the first of which is the Government’s Resource Management Act reform, and the second is the creation of the Environmental Protection Authority. Both enhance geothermal developments, which of course benefit the Taupō region.

One of the initiatives that has been opened this year by the Acting Minister of Energy and Resources, Hekia Parata, is the Clean Energy Centre, which has been established to accelerate the adoption of clean-energy solutions by industry, communities, businesses, and households in New Zealand. The Clean Energy Centre is a model of energy efficiency and green architecture. The Clean Energy Centre is the perfect example of using environmental opportunities, where we are enhancing—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) Link to this

I am pleased to speak on Vote Environment. I find it somewhat extraordinary that the only members taking calls are Government members, which I think is a real endorsement of how good a shape environmental policy is progressing in. Let me take a couple of areas where this Government is making real inroads.

The first of those is in respect of fresh water. I think it is broadly acknowledged that New Zealand needs to take a significant step up in the way in which we manage New Zealand’s freshwater resource, a resource with which New Zealand is very richly blessed. We are doing three particular things in the area of freshwater management. The first is that we are implementing the new National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management that came into effect on 1 July. It is the third national policy statement under the Resource Management Act that we have done in the last year, and I remind members of the history, which is that only two national policy statements were done under the Resource Management Act in the previous 19 years. We have done three in the last year; previously, two were done in 19 years.

The fact is that we need to make an investment in freshwater bodies around New Zealand in order to clean them up. We have very important work occurring with regard to the Rotorua lakes, Taupō, and the Waikato, and there are other freshwater bodies on which we need to take an initiative. This Budget provides for an additional $15 million, bringing the Government’s total investment in freshwater clean-ups to $265 million. To put it very squarely in terms of the level of importance that this Government gives to fresh water, we are spending five times as much on freshwater clean-up programmes as the previous Government did—five times as much.

Then we have the very important collaborative work occurring with the Land and Water Forum. The Government needs to do a big piece of policy work over the next 12 months to make sure that we have the full framework that is needed to ensure we better manage our fresh water.

I will also talk about clean air, which also goes to the core of New Zealand’s “clean, green” brand. Last week I was delighted to release the results showing that New Zealand’s air, in terms of particulate pollution, is at its cleanest since records began. For the last 10 years we have been monitoring the level of particulate pollution, and it is at its best level ever with the new national environmental standards that we have to meet by 2016 and 2020. The very important issue in that regard is that we must invest in the practical measures that will clean up our air. This Budget provides funding so that over the 3 years of this term in office, we will have spent $26 million on the practical work needed to convert households to cleaner heating. That is 12 times as much as was spent in the previous term of Parliament. This is why we are doing it and why it is important: the health advice is that 1,100 New Zealanders die prematurely each year as a consequence of air pollution. We need to get the pollution level down. The combination of the practical programme to convert houses to clean heating, toughening the standards on vehicles, and improving fuel standards is making a material difference.

I am confident that with the measures in this Budget and the announcements that I made last week about reducing the compliance costs of running two different programmes in Vote Energy and Vote Environment, we will be able to convert another 1,250 homes over and above those I have already spoken of to clean heating. Again, that will help to make sure we get that progress in meeting those standards by 2016 and 2020.

Important initiatives on waste and contaminated sites are in this vote. The policy work associated with the Environmental Protection Authority and with getting proper environmental regulation in the exclusive economic zone is all work that we are doing with the Ministry for the Environment to really make sure that New Zealand lives up to the “clean, green” brand with the sort of practical environmental approach that we are taking with our blue-green agenda, which is being consistently advanced on clean water, clean air, contaminated sites, waste, and the like.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) Link to this

It is a pleasure to rise to speak about Vote Corrections in this debate, because this Government, under the stewardship of the Minister of Corrections, has made some giant leaps, if you will, in the corrections area. I will talk about a few of those areas.

The first one I will touch on is that the Minister of Corrections, Judith Collins, has made it very plain that, as the Minister, she backs Department of Corrections personnel. When one talks to Department of Corrections officers, one finds that they understand that. They understand it. They work in a particularly difficult employment situation, and to know that Minister Judith Collins has their back means an awful lot to them.

This Government has backed up that approach by overseeing the passage of the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill, which is now an Act of Parliament. That legislation has given the Department of Corrections—and the police, but I am talking about Department of Corrections officers now—comfort, if you will, in their difficult employment situation. If they have been assaulted—and they do get assaulted on an unfortunately regular basis, although it is decreasing, I might say—they now have the comfort of knowing that when it comes time for the perpetrator who has been accused of that assault to be sentenced, that aggravating factor will be taken into account by the court. That is the strongest signal possible by this Government and this Minister that this Government backs Department of Corrections officers.

It is interesting to note that there is increased public confidence in the Department of Corrections, is it not? No doubt that increased public confidence is because the Government has shown confidence in the corrections sector. Sixty-one percent of people now think that the department is doing a good job. What do we compare that figure with? We compare it with only 40 percent in June 2008. So in the term of this Government, 61 percent of people now think that the department is doing a good job. By the way, the department is doing a good job.

The Minister has introduced a number of things into our prison system that are having some beneficial results. We are told that drug and alcohol treatment is the single most effective programme that the Department of Corrections is running, and that there are early signs of decreased recidivism by those who have taken part. As well as that, a number of good things are happening. All prisoners, regardless of the length of their sentences, now have access to literacy training and are being given opportunities for trades training and work experience inside prisons. That is proving to be hugely beneficial for our prison population.

I think I need to talk about what is probably one of the single most significant aspects in this debate as far as the Department of Corrections is concerned, and that is that from 1 July this year all New Zealand prisons have been made smoke-free. What are the benefits of that change? Clearly, the benefit to prisoners is that they get the opportunity to break what is perhaps the habit of a lifetime. It is a habit that we all know is bad for health, is dirty, and is expensive. They have been given the opportunity to break that habit, and, more important, prisoners are being given the support they need to break the smoking habit.

Most important—and the Minister of Corrections, Judith Collins, has said this time and time again—making prisoners smoke-free provides protection for Department of Corrections officers. Previously, those officers had to breathe in second-hand smoke, which we know is even more dangerous than smoking directly. They no longer have to tolerate second-hand smoke. It is also known that at least twice a week in a New Zealand prison fires were being lit, putting officers and the prisoners themselves at risk from fire and smoke inhalation. It was a major problem for New Zealand prisons and for Department of Corrections officers, and Minister Judith Collins has dealt with it. Have there been any complaints? No, there have not been. In fact, I think that—

DAVID CLENDON (Green) Link to this

If one was to assign a theme to this Budget, it would be about austerity and about getting the best out of every dollar spent. It would be about cutting Government spending to the greatest extent possible. That makes it all the more extraordinary that this Government is proposing to spend over $1 billion—in fact, over $1.1 billion—on what is effectively a failed model for corrections. A decade ago the Government’s vote on corrections was to the tune of $430 million. It has gone up some 250 percent in one decade, and that sort of increase in what is a flawed, failed mechanism is simply unsustainable. One wonders why we are perpetuating a completely failed mechanism. We are looking at something like $250,000 of capital expenditure for every bed we provide in prisons. We are spending something like $93,000 per year per head on each inmate in our prisons. This is a tragic waste of money and of human potential. It is a failed social experiment.

That, to his great credit, has been recognised by none other than the Minister of Finance, who is on record as calling prisons moral and fiscal failures, and how very right he is. He is rightly concerned not only about the waste of money but also, certainly, about the moral issue of locking up people. There is an absolute commitment to a punitive approach to imprisonment. We are determined, it seems, to punish people—and more of them—by locking them away for longer periods. That is a moral failure, as the Minister of Finance has quite rightly pointed out. The—shall we say—champion of this punitive approach, Mr McVicar of the organisation that I refuse to dignify with the descriptor “sensible”, referred to the Minister of Finance as having capitulated and waved the white flag. In fact, that reference to a moral and fiscal failure was the first show of good common sense that we have seen from the Government. We hope that the Minister of Finance will assert his influence within the Government to get a changed approach.

There have been minor changes. There have been some shifts, but they are very minor. I think some of the improvements are in things like drug and alcohol treatment and literacy programmes. We can probably sheet that home to the co-leader of the Māori Party Pita Sharples, who understands very well that the current “lock more of ’em up for longer” model is a failed mechanism. It is to his credit that he has achieved some small steps. But what is required is an absolute paradigm shift. Of that $1.1 billion, something like $850 million will be spent on simply locking up people in concrete boxes. That is a primitive approach to corrections. It is unacceptable, and we ought to move away from it.

The Wiri Prison, on which construction will begin once the tenders are signed, will have $370 million spent on storing up more trouble for us further down the track. Over 1,000 men will be accommodated in there. We will be putting in people largely for short sentences. They will come out no better off than they were when they went in. There will be no contribution to public safety, or to the well-being of either inmates or society, against which those people have offended. That $370 million represents something like 11 years of current expenditure on drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and it is simply ludicrous to waste that sort of capital on mechanisms that we know will simply fail, at a time when the country and the Government are capital-constrained.

The Department of Corrections itself tells us that something like 83 percent of inmates have some sort of drug and alcohol problem. We know that some 80 percent of offending is in some way linked to alcohol, drug, or substance abuse, and occurs when the offender is under the influence or comes from that sort of a background. Yet something like only 5 percent of sentenced prisoners are obliged to go through drug and alcohol abuse programmes. I do not criticise the judges for that; the programmes are simply not made available. We know that community-based programmes for alcohol and drug abuse treatment are significantly more successful and remarkably less expensive than prison-based activities, yet we continue to spend and to waste money by putting it into corrections centres simply to hold people in cells, rather than seeking to deal with the root problems.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections) Link to this

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate in relation to Vote Corrections. I take the opportunity to thank the Law and Order Committee, and the chair, for the courtesy that was displayed to the Department of Corrections in the very long time it had with the committee—as I recall, an hour and a half. It was interesting to hear the speaker who has just resumed his seat, David Clendon, make his comments about the Department of Corrections. I did not notice one question from his party in the transcript of the Law and Committee hearing in relation to the department—not one question to the department from that party. One has to wonder: if the Green members are suddenly so worried about the department and the imprisoning of people who are criminals, then, perhaps, they should have asked at least a question.

Can I also say that I would like to thank the staff of the Department of Corrections for the fantastic work they have done over the last 3 years—in particular, their embracing of what I required from them, which is excellence, accountability, and professionalism. They have come an awfully long way in a very short period of time. The first speaker on this vote, Mrs Dean, referred to the fact that, for instance, we now have no smoking in our prisons, from 1 July. That is a testament to the work of the Department of Corrections staff; a year-long programme of getting people in the prisons to understand that it was simply not acceptable for our staff to have to put up with air conditions that were 12 times worse than those in a normal home of a smoker, because of the fact that they were in a prison. They were the only people in New Zealand who were required to work in a smoke-filled environment, not a smoke-free environment. I would like to thank the people who did give support to the department at that time. They did not do it all alone; they had tremendous support from the Ministry of Health and Quitline. Over 6,000 prisoners are now using nicotine replacement therapy either by way of patches or lozenges, and I would like to thank the partners that the Department of Corrections has worked with in this area.

First off, it is most important that I say that it is the staff who have made the big difference. They needed leadership and they needed to know we had confidence in them, and they have repaid the people of New Zealand in spades. The public confidence in the Department of Corrections has gone up to 63 percent. The best it ever was under the previous Government was 40 percent. It has done a tremendous job. We have removed, for instance, things like razor blades from being stored in the cells of high-security prisoners. I listened to the previous speaker’s comments about the fact that prisons are terrible and they do not make people any better. What is the alternative—to leave them out there? Would people really like recidivist murderers, whom we do have in our high security prisons, left out in the community on home detention?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police) Link to this

Thank you for the opportunity, first off, to thank the Law and Order Committee for its courtesy and attendance on the day of the hearing for police. I also take the opportunity to thank the New Zealand Police, both sworn and employee staff, for all of the work they have done over the last year, and that they will do in the next year. I thank them very much for the fact that every day they put their lives on the line for the rest of us, and that every day they take options that many other people would choose not to have to take. I acknowledge very much that they do not have the luxury of being able to stand by and let something happen that might be a crime or somebody being injured; they have to get in and do the right thing. I thank them for it, and I am sure that everybody in this Chamber would join me in that, as well.

The police are rolling out nationwide the Policing Excellence programme, which is focusing very much on crime prevention and neighbourhood policing. It is really important that we make use of these highly trained professionals in the New Zealand Police to, wherever possible, prevent crime rather than be only reactive to it. Of course, we do want them to catch the criminals as well after the event, but best of all, if we can prevent crime, that is really what we are after. We now have more than 300 extra police in the Counties-Manukau Police District, we have another 100 extra police around the rest of the country, and another 200 are to be out on the beat by the end of this year. So that will be fulfilling an election promise of 600 more police across the country by the end of this year. With my colleagues, we have been able to pass laws to give the police greater powers, particularly around gang assets, and to place the onus on offenders to prove where they got their ill-gotten gains. This has been a huge boost to the police, particularly to their morale and confidence, and we have seen them take to the legislation with great vigour. We have also seen great work, between the police and the Customs Service in particular, in relation to methamphetamine busts, and we have seen a lot of that end up with some offenders being in prison for quite a long time—as they should be.

We have also seen—despite all the naysayers when we said we would put extra police out on the streets—an actual reduction in crime. In the last calendar year we have seen a reduction in crime of about 6.7 percent across the country. In some parts of New Zealand we have seen some quite spectacular reductions in crime, and every district in the country has had a reduction when it comes to a per capita basis, although some are much smaller than others. I believe that that is a fantastic result, particularly when so many people have said “Well, there’s been a tough time in the economy. There’s been a recession. Won’t crime go up?” I have always said that it should not, because people do not commit crimes in this country because they do not have money; they commit crimes because they are criminals. It has nothing to do with someone’s poverty status, and if anyone disputes that they should just have a look at some of those failed finance companies, and at some of the things that were going on there. That was not about poverty; that was about greed—and it always is. But we have seen, too, the police working much better with their communities, and that is where the neighbourhood policing teams, which I talked about today in the House in question time, are really coming into their own. We have had six teams in Counties-Manukau, which has made a huge difference, and teams are being rolled out around the country. They will not be in every community; they will be in the target communities with the greatest needs. I think that that is smart policing. We are seeing some really great confidence in the police.

I will also take the opportunity to welcome the new Commissioner of Police, Peter Marshall, who came on board on 3 April this year, and also Deputy Commissioner of Police Mike Bush. They have joined Deputy Commissioner of Police Viv Rickard. They are a really great team who are putting their troops first, who are expecting their troops to really come forward and think about what they are doing, and who are expecting to get the very best out of them. They are also people who will stand up for their troops, and I think that that is important. One of the things that we as a Parliament can do is to support the police in what they do. I think that many of us who talk to the victims of crime, and who understand what it is like to be on the receiving end of burglaries, of car thefts, or of assaults, understand what it is like for people who are victims of crime. I believe that the police’s new focus on victims will pay dividends, as well.

I have a lot of comments coming into my office about the New Zealand Police, and the vast majority of them are fantastic. I am very proud of the police, and I congratulate them on what they are about to do for the next year.

Dr CAM CALDER (National) Link to this

It is a very great pleasure to take a call on the appropriations for Vote Police. In 2008 I was campaigning in the vibrant and diverse area of Manurewa, and it was very clear to me, in a space of a few minutes, that some people living in that community were living in a state of insecurity. I could tell that by the fact they had three locks on the door, and on the screen door in front of that there were another couple of locks.

This Government has listened. We believe that the fundamental duty we owe as a Government to our people is to allow them to live in a state of safety. Our thrust is making our community safe, and I congratulate the Minister on doing it so ably. It has certainly worked in Manurewa-Manukau, where I have the privilege of being based and of having my office. We have seen a national reduction in crime, as the Minister has alluded to, but in Counties-Manukau it is even greater. It is over 10 percent. There is an over-10-percent reduction in crime, in an area where at the time when I was walking the streets, knocking on doors, and campaigning, sadly and tragically five people lost their lives through crime. Fortuitously, fortunately, and because of the good work that has been done, that is no longer the case.

We are addressing the drivers of crime with a range of cross-agency initiatives addressing behavioural issues in young people, providing educational pathways from school into work, and looking to do work on reducing alcohol-related crime, which has certainly been a problem across our country. But we also have to give credit for the excellent work that the police are doing, and they are doing it knowing they have the full support of this Government. That is something that has come out to me time and time again. We have a very close relationship with the police in Manurewa. I see them on a regular basis, and they tell me that they feel 100 percent supported by the Minister of Police and by this Government.

What are some of the things that we have been doing and the police have been doing? I want to add to the Minister’s congratulations to Peter Marshall. Peter Marshall did a wonderful job as leader of RAMSI, the Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Islands. The leader of the Solomon Islands told me, when I was up there visiting as part of the Pacific Mission, that they would not have had an election without bloodshed had it not been for the good work of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands and Peter Marshall’s leadership.

We are very, very fortunate to have Deputy Commissioner of Police Mike Bush at Police National Headquarters now, because Mike has done some superb work in the Counties-Manukau area. A lot of his work, of course, will be rolled out nationally.

I took the opportunity to go out in an incident car quite recently. I was impressed by the professionalism, the empathy, and the effectiveness of the team. The police have a flexible rostering system. They are working more smartly. They have a flexible rostering system so that they can deploy more police at times when there is greater demand. Of course I chose a Friday night, which is regarded as quite a good time to be out, and sure enough I saw the police doing a wonderful job.

One of the first things I saw the police do was deploy that wonderful new tool, which has been deployed over 4,100 times, the police safety order. We were called to a domestic residence. There was a gentleman in a stuporous sleep in a car on the front lawn. There was a concerned wife and child inside, and some family members. I was very impressed with the professional way that the constables dealt with the issue. They issued a police safety order so that the gentleman was taken away. At a stroke the family was protected from any possible intimidation, violence, or harassment, and that will last for the length of time the police wrote on the police safety order. It ensures safety for that period of time, which will allow time for things to calm down. That action will not result in a conviction, but the police safety order is a very clever and elegant tool to address a situation that could have been fraught and dangerous at the time.

The other thing I would like to tease out a little bit is the neighbourhood policing teams. I concur with the Minister of Police that it is a superb intervention, and we have benefited hugely in Manurewa and Manukau from the deployment of six teams. There are another six teams coming, so we will have 12 teams in total, as well as the 18 further teams rolled out across the country, so that is 30 teams in all. I went out with one in my community.

SUE MORONEY (Labour) Link to this

What a difference a day makes when it comes to Vote Education.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) Link to this

Goodness gracious me, education is one of the keystone policies of this Government, and that was the best that Labour could offer in return! If ever a speech in this Chamber shattered forever the self-delusion that Labour members operate under that, somehow, it is the party of education, that speech from Sue Moroney did it. That speech, combined with the estimates, the Budget of 2011, put together with the Budgets of 2010 and 2009, should end once and for all the self-delusion of members opposite that, somehow, Labour is the party of education. It is not.

There is one figure in this Budget that must not be overlooked—$12.2 billion. That is a record. It is a massive $4.4 billion increase in investment since the Government took office. I will repeat those figures—

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) Link to this

Tēnā koutou e te Wharenui. We face an extraordinary spectacle in terms of education at the moment. It is depressing to have looked at the Budget estimates and heard the speeches saying that the Government absolutely prioritises education, when, in fact, the Government has declared war on the education sector.

There is a whakataukī that is commonly used, and it has been used in an education document that I have here: “Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou ka ora ai te manuwhiri.”—“With your basket and my food basket the well-being of the people is assured.” If we take that and think about our children, we see that there is no well-being in introducing a system of measurement into the compulsory sector and funding it through Vote Education to the tune of $66 million over 3 years when the sector has asked the Government to trial it, when parents are signing petitions against it, and when schools—20 percent of boards of trustees—have not been prepared to put it into their charters.

The Minister, instead of having a debate over the merits of learning, is attacking a sector and declaring war on those academics, boards, teachers, and parents. It is not a positive move for the children of this country to see this waste of resources in this Budget. Will more money be spent in pursuing these people? Will more money be spent on sacking boards and appointing commissioners—400 of them, if we look at the schools that are not prepared to introduce national standards?

It is really important to go back to look at what we are expecting from schools over the next couple of years. What we really need in the education sector is some collaboration, some solidarity, and some respect from the Government. It is not a political game, when we start to label children as “losers” by age 6. That is what is implied by the model that is being resourced. When one talks to teachers, as I do, and parents who have received reports they have been really distressed by, we hear of reports that have labelled their child as a loser. That is not an appropriate way to treat children.

The Green Party has 10 major concerns about national standards, and one of them is about the way in which children are being labelled. Many teachers are lifting children’s achievement—for example, if English is a second language—and although those children may not reach the national standard, they have actually been lifted in their literacy and numeracy.

There is also a complete failure to understand how learning works, because we have cut professional development to the arts, to science, and to anything except the narrow, mechanistic definitions of “literacy” and “numeracy”. We have cut the funding for drama and science teachers, but for many students those areas are the pathway into literacy and numeracy. If we recognised child-centred learning as the fundamental basis of the education system, why would we do that—unless we wanted to create league tables?

That is the failure that has happened in other countries. What we have had in the United States and in the UK is a privatisation of a quality public education system. That is where we will go, if we create league tables. The media would really enjoy that, but it will not help.

One of the concerns is that national standards do not support the diversity of our children, because, guess what, they do not all learn through just one definition of learning. They learn at different rates: some 6-year-olds are ready to read, and some 6-year-olds are not ready to read and are learning in other ways. They are all valuable ways. We know that, because asTTle and the progressive achievement test identified that issue. The tests that exist already are absolutely fine. [Interruption]

I have struck a nerve, because people know that the implementation of national standards, without the support of the education sector, is causing mayhem out there in the sector. This will require a serious attempt by the Government to whitewash the issue in order to get those 400 schools to put it in their charters—and the schools do not want to. A lot of other schools have put it in their charters, but with the most minimal references, because it does not work.

We know that assessing and reporting tools already exist. We know that refusing a trial is always an indication of ideology.

Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS (ACT) Link to this

My question this afternoon to the Minister of Education is when we are actually going to start tackling the causes of our educational problems that we have in this country and not the symptoms. The fact is that schools fail the bottom 20 percent of pupils. The fact also is that 40 percent of Māori leave school without basic qualifications. The fact also is that we currently spend 50 percent more educating a secondary schoolchild than we did in 2000, yet over the same period more Māori failed National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 3 than they did previously. The result of our educational failure is that New Zealand faces a crisis. The fact is that we have 330,000 New Zealanders on one form of benefit or another—unemployment, sickness, or domestic purposes. The one fundamental characteristic of those 330,000 people who are on a benefit is that they failed, or, to put it better, the education system failed them. So 90 percent of people who end up unemployed or on low wages have that one uniting factor.

Yet that does not need to be the case. We have some exceptional schools in New Zealand where young people achieve, but there are many others where young people do not succeed. I could take members to a large number of them. There are four or five characteristics of those schools that achieve. The first characteristic of schools that achieve, and the most fundamental, is that they have an outstanding principal. If we want New Zealand schools to achieve, then that is where we need to start. If we have to have more immigration to achieve it, we should. The reason that those schools achieve is that that principal will demand, and get, the best out of the teachers. But, more particularly, it is an expectation. There is an expectation that the children will achieve—and they do. Another characteristic of those schools is that when the kids fall behind, the school brings them up to date. I recently visited a Māori total immersion school in Ruatōria, which has 132 pupils, and the expectation of that school was that every child who went through that school would go on to tertiary education—and they do. I tell members they were the smartest-looking kids I have seen around. I started looking at my shirt and wondered whether it came anywhere as close as those ones. We see there are schools where these children can achieve.

A study was done in an Australian school, but it applies here in New Zealand; it is the same sort of thing. In that school 87 percent of its pupils came from homes of beneficiaries, solo mothers, and the like. It was so bad that the equivalent of the education department put in a new headmaster, and basically said it would leave it to him. In 5 years that principal took that school from scoring 20 percent below the average in Australia to scoring 20 percent above. The point there was that that principal ensured that he got the most out of the teachers, and there was an overall expectation that the children at that school would succeed. They went from 20 percent below the average level of scoring, which they do in Australia, to 20 percent above. That school was well ahead of many private schools, and the fundamental reason was about expectation, and about ensuring that when a child actually fell behind, they were brought up to date.

We know what to do, and it is a disgrace that we allow in this country a situation where 20 percent of young people come out of our school bound for the scrap heap. Over 20 percent of youth are unemployed. Then probably another 20 percent barely make it, and are likely to work on the minimum wage. We can do something about that, because we know what to do. It starts by having an exceptional principal, and that is where we have to go. When I visited schools recently, what were the requests that principals made to me? The first was that they would like to train their own teachers. They would like to be able to employ and train their own teachers on the job, and then send them off for the theoretical work they might require. I think this country simply cannot afford to continue with a situation where 20 percent of kids come out of school unable to read or do simple maths. We know that these kids can learn, and it is a tragedy that we do not do something about it. There is clear evidence of a number of New Zealand decile 1 and 2 schools in which the kids are achieving, yet at others they are not. It seems to me that we know what to do; let us get on with the job and do it.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) Link to this

I am really pleased to be able to stand here on behalf of the Māori Party today to address the estimates for Vote Education, and, in particular, to address the section from the report of the Education and Science Committee regarding charters. That report advises that about two-thirds of primary and intermediate schools have submitted valid charters, and that the Secretary for Education has written to schools that have not submitted charters, requiring the information that must be legally provided under section 144A of the Education Act 1989.

At the risk of reverting to legalese, I highlight the significance of charters for every school and, indeed, every community, and our nation as a whole. The charter is the legal instrument between a board and the Minister that outlines how that school will give effect to the National Education Guidelines, and all that falls within them.

This includes the New Zealand curriculum, which is what I will refer to in my kōrero today. The charter is a key report for every community, which outlines the directions schools want to take and the plans they have to get there. It is critical for lifting performance, and provides a plan that enables each student to achieve.

Well, actually, that is how it is meant to work in theory, but in practice what happens makes for very depressing reading. I am particularly saddened by a recent Education Review Office report, which tells us that the performance of far too many schools across key principles of the curriculum is less than it could be. That report, Directions for Learning: The New Zealand Curriculum Principles, and Teaching as Inquiry, reveals that the least-evident principles were the Treaty of Waitangi, cultural diversity, coherence, and future focus.

I will read two key lines from that report. “It would be useful for schools to gain a more comprehensive view of the implications of the Treaty of Waitangi for school policy and practice. It would also be useful for schools to develop their understanding about the nature of the Treaty of Waitangi and cultural diversity principles,”.

Last Tuesday I released a member’s bill to ensure that any person signing up to any oath set out in statute may elect to state that they will uphold the Treaty of Waitangi. The rationale behind the bill is to recognise that the Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand’s founding document, and that the Government is committed to fulfil its obligations as a Treaty partner. Every school has an opportunity to lift up to the promise of the Treaty, to make Treaty understanding and cultural awareness come alive in their classrooms.

I highlight the significance, also, of the relationship to cultural competency. Learning to understand and value one’s own culture base is an important step towards being able to respect and value other people’s. That is why the Māori Party has been promoting, in every sector we can, the importance of cultural diversity, associated with factors of quality and excellence.

The Education Review Office report tells us that “Where there was evidence that schools were thinking about and incorporating the principle of cultural diversity into their curriculum, students had opportunities to celebrate some of their cultural practices and to share knowledge of these with other students. By contrast, where this principle was not highly evident, there was little acknowledgement of students’ cultural heritage in school programmes and in the [school] environment.” Perhaps the most sobering statement in the whole report is that “A more inclusive approach to curriculum management would make learning more relevant for students from diverse cultural backgrounds.”

This is exactly why we need to keep a vigilant overview on schools submitting charters, so that we can see exactly how much progress is being achieved towards making learning relevant and meaningful to all students. Because Pākehā culture is so strong and secure, it can sometimes be taken for granted. One might ask whether a fish can describe the sea in which it swims. Cultural competency recognises that there are many seas feeding into our global oceans. We must respect the unique cultural framework that each of us brings to the mix, and there is no better place to do that than in our schools. Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) Link to this

Budget 2011 was good news for the 750,000 New Zealand school children, and excellent news for all of those thousands of children in early childhood education. I was interested to hear the Green member say that this Government had declared war on education. Well, I stand here as a Minister of Education who is part of a John Key - led Government elected at the end of 2008, and we did declare war. We declared war on poor results for kids in our schools. We said we were fed up with 10 years of standing back and watching while 20 percent of kids failed in our schools. In fact, those kids were failed by our schools. So we have put an extra $4.4 billion into education since this Government was elected. We are spending this year more than any Government has ever spent—$12.2 billion—on education. It is a major plank for this Government.

What does that money actually provide? Well, it was interesting to hear the poor maths from the Opposition over there. They obviously cannot read Budget documents, because we have provided a cost of living increase on top of roll growth. We had that in the estimates. I tried again and again to explain to Opposition members that they were two separate figures. Those figures did not coincide. They were not in the one. But we still have difficulty and we get it here in the House today.

We are putting an extra $550 million into early childhood education. We have increased the spend on early childhood education by 38 percent since we became the Government.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) Link to this

I am sure that the Attorney-General will take seriously what I have to say, despite his accusations during question time of politicisation. I refer firstly to the disaster response in the estimates report on Vote Attorney-General, where he makes reference to Pike River and the Christchurch earthquakes. I want to raise these issues in a serious way with the Attorney-General, because there is a serious issue going forward in terms of the expenditure of public funds. The Attorney-General will be aware that Christchurch quake families have applied to him on two occasions to receive independent legal support for the upcoming Royal Commission of Inquiry into Building Failure Caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes.

The Attorney-General will also be aware that his Prime Minister had a meeting. I say that this is future expenditure of money referred to in this vote, and I can quote from it, so it is within Standing Orders, in case the Attorney-General does not want this debate to happen. If he does not want this debate to happen, that will be a telling comment on him and his Government. He may laugh and he may accuse me of politicisation, but I say to him that I do not really care what he says in that respect, and neither do the quake families. He can abuse members and accuse them of politicisation, but those families and members on this side of the Chamber care about trying to convince him, Mr Brownlee, and the Prime Minister to provide legal support.

At the Aurora Centre in Christchurch the Prime Minister gave a personal commitment, noted to him in a letter from the quake families’ lawyers on 23 July, to doing everything that he could to assist. I will quote from that letter: “The primary expression of concern and support upon which they”—that is, the quake families—“rely was made by the Prime Minister in his first meeting with the families at the Aurora Centre here in Christchurch. On that occasion he made it very clear that the Government believed that the families’ interests were paramount and that the Government would assist them in any way it reasonably could.” Therefore, the quake families relied on that expectation of support, I say to the Attorney-General.

One issue here is that application was made to the Attorney-General for future expenditure of public funds, given that those families are relying on the Prime Minister’s advice that he would do anything to support them as he did, and as the Attorney-General did, in making the right decision—and I applaud it and support it—in respect of Pike River. But on the two occasions that the quake families actually asked the Government to help them, they were turned down. I quote again from the letter: “That being the case, this Government’s second rejection of the quake families’ reasonable request is proving very difficult for them to comprehend. As one elderly member of the quake families group recently put it, ‘Are John Key’s assurances worth nothing? The very first time we seek assistance we are rejected out of hand’.”

I put this to the Attorney-General: I have heard various explanations, and I accept that I am not a lawyer and do not have the qualifications to be an expert in this field, but I scratch my head, as others do, when I look at the precedent of Pike River, when I look at the precedent of Cave Creek, and when the Attorney-General makes reference in a strange way to the Victorian bushfires—all in a vain attempt to justify his position that he should not provide independent legal counsel for these families. I say to the Attorney-General that I mean no malice, and I assume no malice is intended by his stance. I will do him that honour. But no one, including the families, can ascertain what the problem is and why the Government constantly refuses to apply the same benchmark as it did in the case of Pike River to assist these families.

The only excuses that have been put up are that there is counsel assisting the commission, and there is a liaison officer that will talk with the families. Well, I know that the Attorney-General has made arguments in a court, whereas I have only observed arguments in a court, but I put this to him: in a practical sense how on earth can counsel assisting the commissioner both do their job—even with the assistance of a liaison officer—of assisting the commission and give justice to those families in covering all the issues that they want covered?

I will give the Attorney-General a practical example. On the morning of the commission a series of witnesses may be called. I am sure that the Attorney-General is listening and taking this matter seriously. The families will have a series of questions that they wish to be asked. But they do not know what they do not know. As the commission progresses through the day, will they have to pass notes across to the counsel assisting the commission? Will they be in a position where they will use up all the time of the counsel assisting the commission trying to get their questions across? That is just a practical difficulty that the lawyers have explained to me.

The real issue, regardless of the relevance of the Victorian bushfires or anything else, is whether the process put in place satisfies the families. Regardless of any examples the Attorney-General might raise and analogies he may draw, the real issue is whether the proposed scheme of arrangement and the process has any chance of satisfying the families’ need to be involved in the commission.

I bring a warning to the Attorney-General: it would be another tragedy—apart from the 181 people who perished—if, because the Attorney-General has stuck to his staunch position, which is going back on the commitment that the Prime Minister made, the commission progressed and those families either lost confidence in the commission or distrusted the commission because they felt they did not have an independent voice making sure no stone was unturned, and that every question, relevant or irrelevant, those families chose to put forward was put. They mean no malice; they simply ask for representation. There is a danger. The Attorney-General may want to throw up international example after international example to try to justify his position, but the guts of this issue is whether this process will satisfy the needs of those families.

I say again to him that I applaud his position in respect of Pike River—I think all New Zealanders applaud that—but I ask the Attorney-General to put aside the legalese and tell us what mischief would be created. It cannot be an issue of money. If the Attorney-General acquiesced to those families and provided them with independent legal counsel, where is the mischief in doing that? It is not good enough for the Attorney-General to say he knows best for those families, and that what he has provided—counsel assistance for the commission and a liaison officer—is what they need. It is not for the Attorney-General to determine what those families, who both are survivors and have lost loved ones, need. It is for those families to determine that. They are now being supported by Mr Bernie Monk and the Pike River families. The media and most of the other commentators that I have read believe that they deserve that independent counsel. It would be a safeguard for the commission, because the excuse could never be put forward that every resource was not put in place to assist those families.

I ask the Attorney-General to address this: where is the mischief or the problem in providing for those families, even if he disagrees that it is necessary? He says it is unnecessary, of course. Where is the mischief created? It is not a matter of dollars. Mr Brownlee has appropriated $5.5 billion. Mr Brownlee has seen fit to double the fee to $1,000 a day for members of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Review Panel so that the Government can get legal advice, even though that is not justified. Yet Mr Brownlee, Mr Finlayson, the Government, and the Prime Minister do not feel it is justified for these families to have independent legal advice.

Presumably the Attorney-General stands by his Prime Minister and he stands by the personal and verbal commitments that he made to those families, which now the Prime Minister, for some bizarre reason, will not affirm or comment on. The families are quite happy to have those comments confirmed publicly, but for some reason the Prime Minister is not. He loves to say what people want to hear but when it comes to the crunch he has not delivered. He said he would support the families 100 percent, and they have asked for independent legal support. No lawyer I have talked to can tell me what mischief would be created if the Attorney-General granted them legal support, putting aside all the legalese and analogies the member likes to put forward in this Committee. For Pike River he did the right thing. There was independent legal support at Cave Creek. The only difference I can see between the Pike River and this tragedy—yes, one was an natural disaster—is that 181 people died, a larger quantum. Not that that should make any difference, and not that I mean any disrespect to the Pike River families.

I ask the Attorney-General to go on the record and explain in detail where the mischief would lie if he acquiesced, buried his pride, honoured the Prime Minister’s commitment, and allowed these families to have independent counsel. What problem would be created? I cannot see one, apart from allowing these families to leave no stone unturned and honour those that were lost, and to sleep at night knowing that no stone was left unturned and they had represented their loved ones. I ask the Attorney-General to address those points.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I know this is exceptionally unusual, but through you I make a plea to the Attorney-General. Families, I am told, are watching these proceedings now, and I make a plea to him—

Hon TAU HENARE (National) Link to this

I say how wonderful it is to get up in the Chamber and look at the statistics for Vote Treaty Negotiations, because for a long time things had slowed down considerably. So my hat is off. I doff my cap to the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. I also doff my cap to those who have seen fit to get out there and hustle for an agreement, and hustle for the right of a people to get to the end of a process whereby they can look forward to, one, telling their story, and, two, receiving a settlement—even if it is not a settlement, it is a signature between the Crown and iwi to show that they are on their way and that they can look forward instead of always having to look back and negotiate. I congratulate the Minister on a job well done: 15 mandates, four agreements in principle, 10 deeds of settlement, and two bills passed in only 3 years. We are not even at the end of 3 years. As I mentioned before, what is interesting is that we are not even through the 3 years yet, and the 9 years before that showed very little inspiration for either colleagues in the Chamber or iwi Māori who wanted to have their story told, have their story acknowledged, and move into a settlement process and then on to that post-settlement period, where they could enjoy the fruits of their negotiation skills and also the good graces of our Government.

I do not want to take up too much of the Committee’s time, other than to say congratulations to the Minister. He has done a great job, a fast job, and I think that the process we went through over the last 3 years—and especially this last year—will make those settlements endure for quite some time. Iwi Māori will be able to get on the road, and get on that new path of developing policies and issues, and doing things for the betterment of their people. Thanks very much.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) Link to this

I begin by thanking Mr Henare for his outstanding chairing of the Māori Affairs Committee. Business is always conducted very efficiently through that committee and it reports back to the House as quickly as possible, and I acknowledge his leadership in that regard.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green) Link to this

One would think that the primary role of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry would be to support and protect our agricultural industries, but we have this peculiar situation where two key farming industries are virtually at war with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. We have the pig industry spending about $800,000 over the last few years on a court case against the ministry because the ministry is proposing to lower biosecurity standards to the point where a devastating pig disease could enter New Zealand, which would devastate the pig industry. Secondly, we have the bee industry, where bee-keepers have been fighting the ministry for years now because the ministry is proposing to bring in imports of Australian honey, which again could harbour devastating diseases that could devastate the bee industry, which has already been weakened by the varroa mite.

If certain diseases that we do not have here, but which Australia has, were to come into New Zealand via honey, we would then have to treat bees in New Zealand not just with miticides and pesticides but also with antibiotics. We are one of the only countries that does not have to treat bees with antibiotics. That gives us a unique position in the world when we sell our honey exports, but we are prepared to put this at risk in order to bring in Australian honey when we are overflowing with honey. New Zealand is genuinely a land of milk and honey. We are overflowing with milk and we are overflowing with honey, yet this Government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are proposing to bring in honey from Australia, even if that honey could cause devastating consequences for our bee industry. The pig industry is in a similar situation.

I think the reason for this extraordinary situation, where significant farming industries are at war with the ministry and the Government on these issues, is that there is a conflict of interest at the heart of the ministry. On the one hand we have biosecurity staff running around trying to keep out pests and diseases, even though about 80 biosecurity staff have been slashed, and on the other hand we have these trade officials running around the world and New Zealand pushing their free-trade agenda and saying that we have to open all of our borders to Australian honey and pig meat—never mind that they might bring in devastating diseases—and, unfortunately, the trade officials seem to be winning hands down. I believe we have to look seriously at separating out biosecurity from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, so that we do not have this conflict of interest at the heart of the ministry and so that the trade officials who are running around trying to open up our industries are completely separate from the people working in biosecurity who are trying to protect these industries.

The other issue I will just briefly touch on is the issue of antibiotic resistance in farm animals. The ministry undertook a 1-year survey on antibiotic resistance in food-producing animals. It concluded that the results were pleasing. It said that farmers were using antibiotics responsibly and there were no problems for human health. One would think: “How fantastic! No problem at all.” But if we take the time to read the actual 1-year survey, we discover that 55 percent of poultry and 35 percent of pigs had antibiotic-resistant E. coli. Then we discover that 48 percent of samples of calves contained E. coli bacteria that were resistant to three different types of antibiotics. Yet we have the ministry telling us that the survey results are pleasing, even though more than half of the samples of calves contained E. coli bacteria. These calves were so young that they could not possibly have been fed antibiotics, so what is going on? It is interesting that I have had a number of people contact me in recent times who are concerned about the amount of antibiotics being fed to animals not just in the poultry industry but also in the dairy industry.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) Link to this

I would like the Minister in the chair, the Acting Minister for Economic Development, the Hon David Carter, to respond to the reality that the Government’s own Budget shows that the underlying structural problems in the New Zealand economy remain unresolved. This is shown by the projections on page 70 of the Minister’s executive summary—the Minister may want to look at the documents while he takes the time to respond—that show that New Zealand’s current account deficit gets worse every year from now.

We have just been through a recession in New Zealand, as have other parts of the world, and that is not all the Government’s fault. But during that period of recession, New Zealand’s current account deficit did reduce. That is because economic activity went down. People were buying fewer consumption goods and fewer purchases were made. As a consequence, there were fewer imports. Therefore, the current account deficit went down. This year, the current account deficit has been recalculated recently by Statistics New Zealand. At one stage it had wrongly included the reinsurance proceeds from Christchurch as being a current account payment rather than a capital payment, but, stripped out, the current account deficit is now on the rise again. The projections in the Budget showed that the current account deficit next year goes to 4.1 percent negative of GDP, then 5.2 percent of GDP in 2013, then 6.8 percent of GDP in 2014, then negative 6.9 percent of GDP in 2015. So by then the current account deficit as a percentage of GDP will have gone up every year for the 5 years to 2015 if this Government is re-elected. In other words, during that period more than $10 billion per annum extra in the current account deficit is added.

Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) Link to this

I follow Mr Parker, as the Minister in the chair, the Acting Minister of Economic Development, the Hon David Carter, has just woken up and realised that he should have exercised the opportunity to address the challenges laid down by Mr Parker. That inattention, that sort of soporific pose he ordinarily strikes, is reflective of his stewardship in this portfolio. Gerry Brownlee, to his credit, did not do a great deal other than try to mine Great Barrier Island and try to mine the Coromandel. On top of that, he ensured that New Zealand’s tourism industry would definitely fail after he decided to try to mine Tongariro, Ngāuruhoe, Ruapehu, and the national parks. But that man was inordinately more active than this character who sits here, who has distinguished himself by promoting water schemes that lead to endless questions in the House as to whether he should have anything to do with them. This is the most derelict Minister we have had in such a key portfolio.

Where are the jobs that this Minister is able to produce? Where are the thousands and thousands of jobs that young Kiwi families need for their sons and daughters? That is a reasonable question to ask of an Acting Minister of Economic Development. What does he tell us? He tells us that the Chinese should make and engineer the railway wagons for KiwiRail. What we will see as a result of that is such a level of hostility by patriotic Kiwis employed in that industry. I cannot imagine that they will be motivated to look after those wagons knowing that the wagons represent the blinkered view of this Minister, who wants to deprive Kiwis of the chance to manufacture, develop skills, and create things. What society can create wealth if the people’s skills are not being used or exploited? Not one idea has come from this man.

In addition to that, regional development is in a state of decay. There is not a regional council, and there is not a local council, that has any confidence that this Government has generated a policy or a programme designed to stimulate activity amongst small to medium sized firms in the provinces. All the Government believes is that by building larger roads, as the “Minister of Warkworth”, Steven Joyce, continues to do, and backing uncritically the intensification of agriculture—ignorant of the effects it has in terms of the worsening of the host environment—somehow that will generate the hundreds of thousands of jobs New Zealand families are looking for over the next decade. I realise that the Government treats the Australasian labour market as its primary focus of attention, but I never thought for a moment that the key element of its agenda was to drive people away from South Auckland and other areas into Australia, rather than to invest back in our own country.

What is the Government doing in relation to investment so we generate more jobs and exports? I accept that it does not believe that that is its job. Government members are of that discredited Milton Friedmanite approach to the economy—“Close your eyes, take your hands off the wheel, leave it on autopilot, etc., and Kiwis, through some Darwinistic process, will take care of themselves.” Well, Kiwis are getting poorer. More kids are going to school suffering as a consequence of malnutrition and are not able to learn properly. Why is that? Because there is no recipe to address the fundamental things people are looking for: a growing economy, I say to the Minister; jobs, I say to the Minister; and, most important, a living wage, which is something one would imagine would lie at the pith of an economic development strategy. But, as I said, those members do not believe in any of this; they believe that by doing very little, and by privatising the jewels in our crown, our State-owned assets, somehow a massive dynamic of creativity, imagination, and job creation will be unleashed by the Australians and the foreigners who own our assets. That reflects an incredible level of naivety as to how the international economy really works. We, under this Minister, are pursuing a foolish level of purity, while the people we trade with and deal with are far more pragmatic. We watch the Minister navigating us on to the rocks—rocks not so much of treachery, as the Government’s treachery is to the young people it has sold out, but rather those of the consequence of our being left behind while the rest of the world marches on, with no jobs and no innovation.

Hon DAVID CARTER (Acting Minister for Economic Development) Link to this

It is always a pleasure to follow the Hon Shane Jones, because although he speaks with passion and panache, one can certainly be sure, when one analyses the substance of his contribution, that there is very, very, little in it.

I take particular delight in having following Labour’s spokesperson on economic development, the Hon David Parker—the great Labour Party strategist who appears to have taken them from a solid base of around 30 percent in the polls to about 25 percent, and still declining. It is interesting to note that even though he is the spokesman on economic development, he did not actually speak to Vote Economic Development; he spoke entirely to Vote Finance, a debate we had last week.

I am very proud of the role the Ministry of Economic Development is playing in this economy. When we became the Government in 2008, the Ministry of Economic Development was described to me as an ATM; it simply doled out money all over the show, with no focus on the delivery of results. What we have done over the last 2½ years is very much to focus this agency on developing economic growth. We have a very simple agenda. There are six drivers that are important for the economic growth agenda. We have to support better science and innovation, and there is a huge story to tell there about what we have achieved.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) Link to this

In following the previous speaker, the Hon David Carter, I say that there was so much inaccuracy there. I will make a couple of points to start with. First of all, in relation to the 10 years of deficits, I do not remember 10 years of deficits. I do remember that this Government inherited a surplus, and now, less than 3 years later, we are $16.7 billion in deficit—$16.7 billion in deficit. I also point out to the Minister in the chair, the Acting Minister for Economic Development, the Hon David Carter—because he really does need to go back and consult his officials—that his research and development policy is worth less than half of what was already in place when National came into office. The tax credits that the Labour Government had put in in 2008 were worth double the amount of the vouchers and various grants this Government has decided to hand out. Fast Forward was worth $700 million, which is exactly double what the Minister just crowed on about that his Government has put into place. So when it comes to economic development, this Minister really does not know what he is talking about.

The Minister of Science and Innovation, Dr Wayne Mapp, often stands up and talks about Denmark and Israel as being the shining examples of what New Zealand could become. It is great that Dr Mapp is walking into the Chamber right now, almost on cue. Denmark has been held up as the shining light of what New Zealand could aspire to. We have an agricultural economy that is about the same as that of Denmark, but our manufacturing and high-tech sectors are minute when compared with Denmark’s. That is the reason why Denmark is in the top group of the OECD countries, and we are down the bottom—and dropping. Mr John Key talks about the Industrial Technology Research Institute, the technology and research park in Taiwan, which is obviously a place he has visited. Again, he holds up this place as being something we should aspire to. Yet when we actually look at what this Government has put in place to enable us to get there, we see that what he says the Government aspires to bears absolutely no resemblance.

The last Budget, in 2010, came out with that wonderful step change, the big policy talk about what the Government would be doing in science, research, and innovation. We had actually been waiting for that for more than 2 years. Finally the funding came out, and, as I said before, it was worth exactly half of what the National Government had taken away—exactly half of what it had taken away. This year, what has happened? There is $12 million less than what we had in 2010. Despite all the big talk and all the big noting about how this vote would drive the economy, and despite the speeches from Dr Wayne Mapp and the Prime Minister about Taiwan and the Industrial Technology Research Institute and all those things we should aspire to, we have actually ended up with a whole lot less than what we started with when this Government came into being. It is a whole lot less than what this Government started with—had in its hands—when it came into power. We have simply gone backwards. We have gone backwards.

We need a tax credit policy that rewards all companies, not just the favoured few that happen to apply for the grant and have some bureaucrat smile benignly on them, congratulate them on putting in such a good application, and give them the money. I was at a company last week, a high-tech company with fantastic growth potential, which had put in an application but had had it turned down. Under Labour’s tax credit, that company would have been rewarded for its effort.

This Government talks about trying to grow the innovation sector and it talks about research and development. But, as I said, what it has put in is worth only half of what we put in in the form of a tax credit and the Fast Forward fund of $700 million. That was transferred and taken away by Bill English, and it was replaced by this rather paltry, anaemic Primary Growth Partnership. This Government has not delivered on its promise to deliver high-quality research, science, and innovation.

PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) Link to this

It is a pleasure to speak on this, the economic development estimates, at the Committee stage. To listen to Labour members on the other side babble on about their record in power is almost laughable. It is laughable because for 5 consecutive years the volume of exports contracted under the Labour Government, and the biggest show in town was Government spending. The biggest show in town was Government departments, which were leasing some of the most-expensive real estate in this city of Wellington. That was the biggest show in town, but that game is over. That game is over because the National Government is now in power, and the National Government has brought a plan to this country in order to promote economic development—to promote economic growth and jobs in this country.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) Link to this

Last week I moved a motion: “That this House condemn the shooting of peaceful demonstrators in Hama and other Syrian cities and call upon the Syrian Government to enter into a serious national dialogue to chart a transition to democratic government.” I thank the House for passing my motion, because it is so important that people and parliaments around the world support the Syrian people in their hour of need. The people of Syria are so brave, going out on to the streets, week after week, when they know the regime is likely to fire on them.

A victory for the Syrian people, coming on top of the successes in Egypt and Tunisia, would give considerable impetus to democratic struggles across the world. I appreciate that our foreign Minister did give support for the Arab Spring, in a speech last Tuesday. He had been under some criticism previously. One of the placards at the Syrian protest in Auckland that I attended, the Saturday before his speech, read: “NZ Government, your silence is deadly.” Unfortunately in his speech last Tuesday Mr McCully was less optimistic than the Greens about the Arab Spring, talking about the “risks” and possible “dangerous implications for regional security.”, which I think was an allusion by him to unresolved Israel-Palestine issues.

If more and more Arab Governments become democratic—and they will inevitably be more actively pro-Palestinian—this will help to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute. We will need much more international pressure on Israel for a resolution involving the creation of an independent Palestinian State within the pre-1967 borders. That is a Palestinian State that includes much of the West Bank land currently occupied by Israeli settlers. Mr McCully worries that the probable vote in the UN General Assembly next month, to recognise an independent Palestinian State, may “isolate Israel” and risks making negotiations more difficult.

The Greens say it is not a matter of isolating Israel so much as pushing Israel into serious negotiations with the Palestinians. However, I do commend Mr McCully for not ruling out New Zealand voting for the UN General Assembly resolution for an independent Palestine when it comes up next month. We have to be consistent in our support for democracy in the Middle East, and I am not sure our foreign Minister demonstrates that. He said in his speech that “To Egypt’s east, Shi’a/Sunni tensions were exacerbated, to the point that troops from other GCC”—that is, Gulf Cooperation Council—“countries were sent into Bahrain,”. In fact, what was happening in Bahrain was a huge democratic struggle against a reactionary monarch who might well have been toppled if Saudi troops had not invaded. The Saudi King ordered the invasion because he did not want a democracy on his doorstep. Perhaps the trade opportunities in the Gulf cause our foreign Minister to view the Saudi invasion through rose-tinted spectacles.

On Libya, the Minister also got it wrong. He has supported the NATO assault on Libya, which has only increased political support in Libya for the dictator Gaddafi. Now the rebels seem to be fighting amongst themselves and competing for recognition by NATO. Gaddafi will be deposed eventually, but the NATO assault has only prolonged his departure and increased killing on both sides. The NATO bombing campaign is illegal, in contravention to the UN charter that puts priority on conflict resolution instead of war. The decision to bomb Libya was based on a series of lies: firstly, that a big massacre of civilians was about to take place; secondly, that the Arab League supported the military intervention, whereas in fact in the Arab League only six Gulf dictatorships actually voted for the resolution; and, thirdly, that what was being created was a no-fly zone, when in fact it was all about regime change, which has included attempts to assassinate Gaddafi and his close colleagues and the targeting of a range of civilian Government facilities, including the bombing of the Government’s TV station by NATO. New Zealand should not have supported NATO responding to Gaddafi’s extreme crimes with war crimes of its own.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) Link to this

I stand to speak on Vote Defence. I will start by saying that I think the Minister of Defence, who is retiring at the end of this Parliament, has put an enormous amount of passion and energy into the defence portfolio. It is obviously something that is close to his heart.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) Link to this

I was thinking the previous vote was vote foreign affairs and defence; I beg your pardon. The Minister sitting in the chair, the Minister of Defence, put me off. I reiterate what I said previously, that I do think the Minister of Defence has brought a lot of energy and passion into the defence role and he should be applauded for that. However, there are a couple of areas that I want to highlight in my speech. The Minister has been put into an invidious and a difficult situation around the signing-off of aircraft for the use of various Ministers to joyride both around New Zealand and overseas. I want to touch on this—and we have brought it up in the past—because it is an area where I have asked repeatedly for answers to questions and have not yet received them. That makes me rather suspicious that there is a lot more there than we are led to believe. In fact, we hear there is a lot more there than we are led to believe. If there was nothing to worry about or there was no issue, why have we not seen the papers, after several months of asking for them?

Let me go through what that means. I have asked, for example, for all the papers pertaining to Murray McCully’s flight to Vanuatu on 13 February. I have asked for those papers and was told they would be coming. They did not arrive. I went to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman said they had been in contact with the office. The papers did not arrive. I went to the Ombudsman again. They wrote back to me and said that yes, the papers would be coming, but they did not arrive. I then wrote again to the Ombudsman and said: “Why aren’t these papers coming, when you have already asked for them to come?”. The Ombudsman said: “I have formed the opinion that there has been a failure to meet the requirements imposed by the OIA.” They went on to say: “I understand that a response is imminent. If you have any concerns about the substantive response to your request, please feel free to contact me again.” That was in June. We still have not had any reply to that Official Information Act request. I have written to Murray McCully, who sends back notes that say “I refuse to answer that member’s request.” Murray McCully, of course, does not have to be accountable to Parliament on how he spends money.

Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP (Minister of Science and Innovation) Link to this

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this issue. I say also that the Education and Science Committee has dealt with this issue very well. It noted the various initiatives that have been undertaken over the last 2 years. It is such a contrast, is it not? We listen to Mr Shearer recycle failed policies of the past. Labour will go into this election with its big commitment on science and innovation being a failed policy on a tax credit. Anyone can get it. It is a great time for lawyers and accountants, but it probably will not do much for science and innovation.

Do members know how Labour will pay for this policy? It will sock one of New Zealand’s most productive sectors, the primary sector, by bringing it into the emissions trading scheme 2 years early—2 years earlier than 2015. We would be the only country on the planet that would kneecap our most productive sector in this way. That is Labour’s approach. That is another failed policy of the past—Labour committed to do it in 2008. One would hope that after 3 years in Opposition it could spend a little bit more time thinking of future policy, rather than just resurrecting past policies. The Government put some common sense into that issue, and said it would be 2015.

I will speak briefly about what we have actually done, and the springboard that it provides for the future. There have been a variety of things, and I will focus on three in particular: first, the Crown Research Institute Taskforce; secondly, the establishment of the Ministry of Science and Innovation; and, thirdly, business support. When I became the Minister some 2½ years ago it was obvious that Crown research institutes were in difficulty. There was a continuous complaint, if you will, from the sector that the institutes were simply buried in compliance costs, having to take a huge amount of time to complete applications and so forth.

The OECD had also seen this, and made a clear recommendation of sustainable, long-term funding that would provide a strategic focus. The Government put together the Crown Research Institute Taskforce, which was one of the OECD’s primary recommendations. We have now implemented the Crown Research Institute Taskforce and largely picked up on the OECD recommendations, which were ignored by the previous Government. We have put the Crown research institutes on a fundamentally better footing to build capability.

Secondly, we pulled together the governance system into the Ministry of Science and Innovation. Primarily, that was about changing the culture of the organisation and providing a more strategic approach. I note that the Education and Science Committee was unanimous in this instance about that and saw it as an important shift in emphasis. I heard Mr Shearer himself state that this was an important initiative. The significance of the strategic approach should not be underestimated. I inherited a system that was highly fractionated and highly disorganised. Now we have one that is fundamentally more integrated, and one that connects science more effectively to business.

That leads me to the third point, and that is the Government’s programme to back New Zealand businesses. Over 4 years we will put over $200 million into that programme; by next year, in fact, it will be $80 million. It does require a ranking, if you will, of the most capable businesses in New Zealand. The grant is made as a percentage—20 percent—of the company’s research and development spending. Pretty low compliance costs ensure that the money goes to the companies that have the deepest and most effective capability, and, indeed, the best record in exports.

I would have thought the Opposition would applaud that programme, because it is forward-looking, not backward-looking. That is, I guess, one of the fundamental differences between the National Government and the previous Government. We are concentrating continuously on doing the things that will drive our economy up. We have seen science expenditure go up, but the other side is backward-looking and we see failed solutions from the past.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) Link to this

I am very keen to take a call briefly to talk about how the Government has been progressing with its policies on communications, information technology, and broadband, in particular. In the last 2½ years we have tackled one of the most ambitious communications projects that has been seen not only in this country but also throughout the OECD. We are delivering ultra-fast fibre-to-the-home broadband to 75 percent of homes and businesses around this country, while, at the same time, also vastly improving broadband infrastructure and connection speeds in rural areas.

We have set up this company called Crown Fibre Holdings, which has now itself set up four large public-private partnerships for the ultra-fast broadband initiative. We have also set up another one for the rural broadband initiative. These competitively tendered arrangements have ensured a very cost-effective build price for taxpayers, and, most important, very competitive wholesale prices for consumers while using the expertise of established companies in the sector.

We have also further developed the regulatory model for the sector to encourage more competition. One of the outcomes of the ultra-fast broadband initiative is that Telecom is to split itself into two separate companies, and of those two companies one will own the monopoly infrastructure and one will own the retail business. This will create a much more level playing field for all telecommunications retailers, and encourage further innovation and price competition. It is a step beyond the previous model for the industry.

We have also set up a new telecommunications development levy, which I think is very important as that will fund rural broadband. It will also fund emergency services legislation going forward, and other telecommunications service obligations. So the results have been pretty good actually, and we have now set up the framework. The roll-out plans are being finalised, deployment has started in different locations around the country, and attention is turning to maximising the uptake and taking advantage of all the benefits that ultra-fast connectivity will bring.

We are working very hard with a five-point action plan to realise the economic, social, and productivity benefits of much faster broadband. They have five focuses. E-education is very important, making sure we get the benefits of the education sector. We will have 99.7 percent of New Zealand students linked together with fibre connectivity at school, so making sure that the school sector is in a good position to take advantage of that is very important indeed.

The e-health initiatives are very important, and they are becoming more exciting rather than less over time as the sector starts to think about the potential in the health area. I am talking about things like remote diagnostics, particularly remote monitoring of chronic patients, and the ability for specialists to view remotely quite detailed data such as scans—I think this has huge potential—as well as the general shifting of information around between the different elements of the health sector. The more we can do in people’s communities, particularly in the rural communities, then the less travel they have to do, which also helps with their health outcomes.

E-government is very important, and we are making very strong initiatives there right across the Government sector. There is all sorts of work under way to ensure we get a better relationship and, I think, better customer services from the Government for the citizens who use those services. In one of my own areas, in transport, a lot of work is being done to see how we can best take advantage of the opportunities there.

E-business will, I believe, be one of the more immediate outcomes of the improvements in broadband infrastructure, with the business sector already saying that it will take up the opportunities very quickly. Of course, the early focus is rolling out broadband through those business sectors.

Finally, there is what we call e-development, which is as much also an e-regional - development story. We have Ngā Pū Waea, of course, involved to ensure the iwi and Māori development goes ahead well, and we have also lots of involvement with local councils as they seek to gain, if you like, leverage and opportunity for their citizens.

On top of that, we are taking advantage of the switch-over from analogue to digital television, and the Government is looking forward to the potential there with the fourth-generation digital spectrum. We also have announced this year the National Cyber Security Centre, as well, which is an important part of making sure we get all the benefits of this technology going forward.

JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) Link to this

I look forward to pointing out the main points in the tertiary education portfolio, and also speaking very briefly on student loans, which are something that a number of my constituents have given me their views on.

It is really important that in tertiary education, including student loans, our plan for the future is a sustainable one, but we also recognise that now is the time when we need to have more students in tertiary education places. We have put in more than 3,000 extra university places over 2 years. There are now 186,000 core places at universities and polytechnics in 2011, despite the rhetoric from the left. There are now 11,600 more core places at those institutions—universities and polytechnics—than in 2000. But it is also very, very important that the Government gets value for money, that it looks hard at the tertiary education spend and makes sure that it is outcomes-focused, and that we do not have institutions or organisations claiming funding for educating people who are in fact dead, which I understand has been happening. So my constituents are relieved to hear that we are not willy-nilly handing out their taxpayer funding without asking for the details of exactly how it is being used.

When it comes to student loans, there is a belief amongst many New Zealanders that it is a privilege. I certainly believe that, too. It is a privilege for students to receive taxpayers’ money to help them through their education. Students will be the better for it, and I believe they understand that. Right now we are spending $1.58 billion on student loans in 2010-11. We have had to borrow that money. We need students to understand that their responsibility is to use it wisely, study their course, qualify, get a job, and then repay that money to the people who loaned it to them—that is, the taxpayers.

Some of my constituents have been telling me that they believe that students should not be able to go overseas, at all, until their loan is all paid back. I have said I think that is a bit tough, but nevertheless I think it is really important that we have shortened the repayment holiday for overseas borrowers to 1 year. We have also restricted borrowing for those who have had a repayment of $500-plus overdue for more than a year. We are, however, keeping interest-free student loans, and we intend to make sure that we write off a whole lot less than the 47c in the dollar - plus that it was in 2009. It is now down to 45c in the dollar; it is improving, but we still have a long way to go. It is largely the overseas borrowers—55 percent of the overdue debt is owed by 15 percent of the borrowers, and they are overseas. It is a really generous scheme, but it is a scheme whereby there is an obligation on students to pay back the money that will ultimately have made their lives better by improving their educational standard.

We also require that students pass their courses; this seems like a bit of a no-brainer, really, does it not? Over a period of 2 years students must have passed half of their courses. We have also said that there must be a limit on how many years they can continue to receive student loans. I heard a story last night from a constituent about someone who went back for a third degree, and then said they were intending to do a fourth. I think that person might be in for a bit of a shock, because simply being a perpetual student and having the taxpayers funding that particular lifestyle is not what the scheme was intended for.

The student loan scheme is a really important scheme. We have made changes that will make the student loan scheme much more sustainable, thereby reducing the need for more Government borrowing to fund it. Those students who are overseas will find that we are entering into arrangements with countries to help us track them down so that they can repay their loans. There should not be arrogance amongst students who have borrowed that money, or a belief that they can keep the money and not repay the loan. The taxpayers in New Zealand have loaned it.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education) Link to this

I would like to have the opportunity to take this call to follow on from my colleague Jo Goodhew, who spoke very well, and to talk a little about some of the other initiatives that the Government is taking to improve the skills in the economy and improve the outcomes of tertiary education. A lot of them involved moving from an inputs focus, if you like, or a “how much money can we spend” focus, to a “what can we get for the money that we spend, and what sorts of results can we achieve” focus. We have increased the numbers of places, as Jo mentioned. We now have, for example, at universities and polytechnics 11,600 more full-time funded places than in 2008, which I think is a pretty impressive result.

We can look around the rest of the world to see some of the challenges that the higher education sector is facing. I met the vice-chancellor of Oxford University last week, and he updated me on what is going on in the UK. It is certainly a very different situation from the one in this country, as we have sought to maintain and indeed grow our investment in the number of places in institutions. This year in the Budget we have funded up to 750 additional places in high performing private training establishments as well, and that is the first significant increase in the number of funded places in that part of the tertiary sector for some time. But we are also making requirements in terms of performance-linked funding, to make sure that it is not just about enrolments but also about achieving results. We are also getting the publication of performance information across the tertiary sector to encourage that focus, as well. I record for this Committee’s information that the tertiary sector is responding very, very well to the incentives that we are setting.

There was quite a bit of discussion at the Education and Science Committee about the area of industry training. I think it is very important, because we are doing a lot of work there at the moment. We had an issue of very significant numbers of trainees being listed as being involved in industry training but not achieving any credits. In fact, something like 53 percent of trainees who were enrolled to train in 2008 did not achieve any credits in that year, and there was a very similar percentage in 2009. In fact, 44,000 people were enrolled in both years. Money was paid in terms of a subsidy in both years for their training, but they achieved no credits, at all. So in the industry training space we have also moved to a model in which we are looking to see better outcomes, and actually get credits awarded appropriately to trainees who are operating in that space. Again, I have to say the industry training sector has responded well. This year, despite the fact that quite naturally we would see a decline in the number of trainees in training, we have actually had an increase in the number of credits earned, and an increase in the number of qualifications earned. Ultimately, that is the important thing: how many people are being upskilled in industry training.

Right across the vocational sector a number of changes will have a very positive impact, and I would like to refer briefly to them for the Committee’s information. The first one is the whole tidying-up and simplifying of the qualifications system, particularly in the vocational educational training area. From the 4,500-odd qualifications that we currently have listed at levels 1 to 6, we will be down by about a third of that at the end of this year. That process is ongoing. We are working hard with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to achieve a further reduction, because it will have the effect of simplifying the whole vocational pathway system.

On top of that, we are putting a lot of effort into getting more and better literacy and numeracy, in levels 1 and 2 particularly. I think that is hugely important. If we are to have second-chance learning at levels 1 and 2—and that is very important—I think making sure that we have literacy and numeracy embedded in it is crucial. We know we have a challenge with some older New Zealanders who do not have the required literacy and numeracy skills to be successful in the modern world. With the approach that we have taken, we have seen in a couple of years a quadrupling in the number of embedded literacy and numeracy courses available. Again, I take my hat off to that sector for responding very well to the challenges that the Government has placed in front of it. There is some very good early success, but it is only early success; there is a lot more to do in this space, and we are very determined to do it.

The other thing I just mention in passing is international education. We are doing a major reorganisation in this area and will have legislation back before the House shortly. This is important too for New Zealand’s educational future—to take advantage of the great skills we have in our education sector. Thank you.

GARETH HUGHES (Green) Link to this

Kia ora, Mr Chairperson Tisch. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. On Saturday night some 18,000 Aucklanders boarded a train to Eden Park to enjoy a good game of rugby. It was good to see Dan Carter practising that drop goal, which might come in handy in the Rugby World Cup. It was good to see the rail network coping with such a huge number of people. But we saw delays of 30 minutes, sometimes longer, because the bottleneck in Auckland is the Britomart Transport Centre. Of course, we can get only 12,000 people through the Britomart Transport Centre; the capacity problem is that it is a dead-end station. The massive missed opportunity of the 1920s, 1950s, 1970s, and 2000s was not to construct the central business district rail link but to double the capacity of the station, which would have transformed downtown Auckland and transformed the rail network. The context, of course, is that we have the Rugby World Cup, which is a fantastic opportunity. But people will be disappointed when they see our dinky little diesel trains, no railway to the airport, and no plan to progress Auckland’s major asset.

Faced with an economic and ecological crisis, this Government, however, has gone down a road to nowhere, borrowing billions of dollars for its expensive motorways and acting as a roadblock to the smart transport alternatives that we need. In fact, the Government’s plans are failing to deliver economic development or sustainability. What we need is a smart transport policy that delivers jobs and clean, green economic development. The Minister of Transport asked me today what a smart transport policy is, and I say it is a balanced budget that looks across all the transport modes, it is resilient, it is future-proofed, and, lastly, it gives people options. When we face high oil prices, this Government says we should buy a hybrid or an electric car. Not many Kiwis I know can go out and do that. So I asked the Minister why he is acting as such a roadblock to Auckland’s aspirations to develop its transport network.

Of course, the problem stems from the fact that this Government refuses to fund Auckland’s ambitions. The pantry is bare, because the Government has spent all the money on State highways. It refuses to fund regional fuel taxes, which is Auckland’s own revenue stream, and it is leaving it up to rates or, potentially, asset sales in the future. Of course, on top of this we have a significant funding shortfall recently uncovered for Auckland transport. We have seen this Government ramp up the rail access charges. We have seen it pile on the interest for the electric multiple units, and we constantly hear in this House that the Government is spending $1.6 billion on rail. Yet at the same time we have also seen massive patronage growth of 21 percent in the last year.

The big picture coming from the Government in the last few months has been the Government policy statement for transport funding planned for the next 10 years. Again, what we are seeing is considerably unbalanced. For every dollar that this Government is spending on all the walking and cycling projects and on all the buses and trains, it is borrowing $6 and pouring it into State highways. If we look across the OECD, we see that we are spending 82 percent of our transport budget on roads. In the UK that figure is only 55 percent. In Sweden, which actually has an oil reduction strategy, it is down to 45 percent. We are seeing the Government spending an average of only $372 million on public transport infrastructure over those 10 years, yet we are seeing a total spend of $19.3 billion for State highways. That is absolutely unbalanced. We are seeing cuts to some activity classes, road safety, and planning, and something that I cannot quite fathom: we will see better data recording coming from the Government policy statement by having only one activity class in the future.

The context, of course, is that we have falling road traffic across the country. We are seeing oil prices increase. We see that being the major driver of inflation, which is now at the highest rate that we have had in 20 years. We have also seen new research findings come out in only the last month that 700 Aucklanders are dying prematurely as a result of the air pollution stemming from cars. The report from Auckland Council’s Kristen Webster, the principal specialist air-quality expert, found that we are seeing 700 premature deaths and 1.16 million days being lost due to poor health. We should be focusing on those issues in our transport plan. Instead we are seeing a not smart transport plan from this Government to borrow billions of dollars to pour into expensive motorways, when we are seeing traffic falling, we are seeing the price of petrol increasing, and we are seeing patronage on public transport increasing by more than 20 percent. We are seeing a monument in tar and asphalt to 1950s transport speaking—a colossus of roads.

Lastly, the solutions we need are transport choice and an inspiring vision for our future. The Green Party view is that we are wasting billions of dollars on expensive motorways, locking us into a car and oil - dependent future. We need to set a moratorium on motorways. We need to redirect the transport budget into a balanced transport system that takes into account all the transport modes, including buses, walking, cycling, and sea freight. That is the answer.