Don Brash pledges to cut the number of working-age beneficiaries by one third over ten years. He plans to particularly reduce the number of solo parents on the Domestic Purposes Benefit. February 22 February: Social Development minister Steve Maharey announces that seven benefits will be merged into one, with supplements available for accommodation, disability, and childcare. The benefits replaced include unemployment, sickness, disability, and the domestic purposes benefit. The new benefit will apply from 2007 but trial areas will pilot the scheme from May 2005. March 5–10 March: The Prince of Wales tours New Zealand. The most controversial incident was two women baring their breasts to him, in protest against a misreported objection by the Prince to a topless Aborigine dance in Australia, and the temporary closure of a breast cancer screening caravan due to security concerns during the visit. 12 March: The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination states that the Foreshore and seabed legislation discriminates against Māori by extinguishing the possibility of establishing Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed, and by not providing a means of redress. March: Easter road toll the highest for several years. April 4 April: Government member of parliament John Tamihere is involved in a major scandal after speaking candidly and scathingly about his fellow Labour MPs to a reporter (an interview which Tamihere claims was off-the-record). Further details of comments made at the interview were released a week later. 12 April: John Tamihere is censured by the Labour Party caucus for his earlier comments, but was not asked to resign from the party. 12 April: Northland farmer Paul McIntyre is acquitted of charges of careless use of a firearm. He shot at the vehicle of three thieves who were fleeing after attempting to steal his farmbike in 2002, injuring one of them. An earlier jury found him not guilty of reckless behaviour but could not agree on this charge. 21 April: Bus drivers in Auckland working for Stagecoach have voted to strike for six days from 5 May in support of their claim for an extra $2 an hour. 21 April: 700 coal miners strike for the day in the first national coal miners' strike in New Zealand for more than a decade. The miners want a 6% wage increase, but their employer, Solid Energy, is offering 2.8%. 26 April: The Civil Unions and Relationships Acts come into