Thursday, 26 February 2015

THURSDAY, 26 FEBRUARY 2015

THURSDAY, 26 FEBRUARY 2015

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Deputy Leader of the House): When the House resumes on Tuesday, 10 March the Government will look to progress a number of bills on the Order Paper, including the Statues Amendment Bill (No 4), the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill, and the Radiation Safety Bill.

Points of Order

Written Questions—Overdue Replies

Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I raise a point of order with you under Standing Order 382(4). It relates to more than 60 written questions that have remained unanswered—half of them for over 2 months—by the Minister of Defence, Mr Brownlee, when that Standing Order requires a reply within 6 working days. I have approached the Minister’s office and got an arrogant reply. So I am now seeking from you assistance in upholding the Standing Order, on this basis in particular: that our key responsibility is to hold Ministers to account. Answers to written questions are one way of holding them to account. If they treat our written questions with arrogance or behave incompetently, then we have to resort to you to uphold that Standing Order.

Mr SPEAKER: I give the member an assurance that I will look into the matter immediately when I leave the Chamber after the end of question time.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Economy—Progress

1. IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister of Finance: What progress is the Government making in building a more competitive and productive economy as one of its priorities for this term of Parliament?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: In the last hour or so the Minister gave a speech in Auckland that covers this very question. There is broad agreement amongst commentators that New Zealand is doing well compared with other developed economies, and that we are making good progress. Our economy is growing, employment is increasing, wages are rising, and households and businesses are benefiting from low inflation and a long period of stable low interest rates. We are also making good progress in improving public services in areas like welfare, health, education, and law and order, and we are pressing on with wide-ranging economic reforms under the Business Growth Agenda to support more jobs and higher incomes.

Ian McKelvie: How will the Budget on 21 May build on the progress with the Government’s economic programme, and what will be its main areas of focus?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Government’s seventh Budget, on 21 May, will set out the next steps in our economic programme. We have 3 very busy years ahead of us, and there is much to do. Our approach will remain clear and predictable. We will stay focused on the four main priorities, which are responsibly managing the Government’s finances, building a more productive and competitive economy, delivering better public services, and continuing to support the rebuild of Christchurch. We have progressed all of these priorities in the last term, and that is helping us to ensure that New Zealanders and their families benefit from a growing economy and the Government’s responsible management.

Grant Robertson: How does the Minister think a “more competitive and productive economy” will be created when today we learn that total goods exports were down by $371 million, or 9.1 percent, in the last year?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I would say to the member to just be careful not to get carried away with each month’s exports or you will be in this emotional rollercoaster up and down. What I can tell the member is that last year New Zealand’s exports of goods passed $50 billion for the first time, despite the high exchange rate that exporters have been challenged with.

Grant Robertson: What progress does the Minister think he is making to his 7-year target of lifting exports from 30 percent to 40 percent of GDP, when they have fallen by 9 percent on a 1-year basis, not on a monthly basis, Minister?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Again, the member needs to be aware that just before that decline there was a big increase. He can take the view that it is all turning to the proverbial in a handbasket, but, actually, most New Zealanders are impressed with the resilience of New Zealand’s export sector through a very tough period of the global financial crisis and high exchange rates relative to the US dollar. We will continue to challenge that target, but I would point out to the member that the other thing that has happened in the meantime is that Statistics New Zealand has rebased New Zealand’s exports over the last 20 or so years, and that has made the target harder to achieve.

Ian McKelvie: How are the growing economy and the Government’s responsible economic management translating into real benefits for New Zealand families?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: New Zealand’s families are benefiting from the Government’s programme in several important ways. For example, from 1 April this year, paid parental leave will increase by 2 weeks to 16 weeks and by another 2 weeks from 1 April next year; the parental tax credit will rise from $150 a week to $220 a week, and the entitlement will increase from 8 to 10 weeks; the Government’s new Homestart scheme will help around 90,000 Kiwis into their first home over the next few years; and New Zealand superannuation will increase by another 2.07 percent, which means that superannuation will have increased by 31 percent since April 2008, double the rate of inflation over that time. Then from 1 July, children under 13 will have access to free general practitioner visits and free prescriptions, and the average ACC levy for a private motor vehicle will fall by around $130 a year.

Ian McKelvie: What other indicators confirm that the economy is heading in the right direction, particularly compared with many other developed countries?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There are a number of positive indicators. Our challenge over the next few years is to ensure that the economy continues to grow solidly. Current signs are very encouraging. Business investment increased from $30.5 billion in 2010 to $38.4 billion last year. That is an $8 billion improvement in real terms in just 4 years. And 146,000 additional new jobs created in the past few years represent the strongest employment growth we have seen in this country for over a decade. Forecasts show the economy growing by an average of about 3 percent a year over the next 5 years, following annual growth of between 2 and 3 percent over the last 3 years. This would be, if it comes to pass, an 8-year stretch of sustained growth, supporting more jobs and higher incomes, following the domestic recession we inherited in 2008 and the global financial crisis.

District Health Boards—Budget 2015

2. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: What advice has he received on the Health budget for 2015/16?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Associate Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Health: The member will be aware that the details of Budget 2015 and the evidence and advice that sit behind the Budget are confidential until the Budget is announced in May. I have received a range of advice that will inform the thinking of Cabinet for the Budget in May.

Hon Annette King: Was the funding signal given to district health boards to ensure they can complete the first drafts of their annual plans by March $250 million, as recommended by Treasury, or $320 million, as proposed by him in the paper to Cabinet in December last year?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Nothing has yet been decided on the health budget, and the paper leaked to the member has never even been considered by Cabinet. There have been no cuts. The Government has increased the health budget by an average of $466 million per year since we have been in office, and we have seen consistently improving results across the sector. This year will see further increases in the health funding, and we expect even better results for New Zealanders. By contrast, the member doubled the health budget and we are—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no responsibility there.

Hon Annette King: Does he stand by the advice he was going to give to Cabinet, but has not given yet, that the signal of $320 million to district health boards for 2015-16—and this is a quote from the Minister—“will make it extremely challenging to manage the pressures in Vote Health.”; if not, why not?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I stand by all my statements, and I stand by the statement that in the last year funding has increased by $327 million to all the district health boards across the nation. What this Government is not going to do with the Budget is double the health budget but see deficits blow out by $155 million, as it did under that member’s tenure.

Hon Annette King: Is his recommendation to Cabinet that 20 district health boards share $86 million to address the cost pressures they face in 2015-16 sufficient to meet wage pressures, which, as he stated in the Cabinet paper he has not given to Cabinet yet, were “estimated to cost $50 million for just a 1 percent in wage/pay increase for our hard-working health workers.”?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Obviously, a number of employment negotiations are taking place, and I am not going to prejudice the Government’s position by discussing those negotiations. But suffice to say that the member is wrong again on those facts.

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have just been challenged on the facts. I seek leave to table the Cabinet paper that he has not released, which has those figures in it.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular paper described by the member. Is there any objection to that paper being tabled? There is.

Barbara Stewart: Will Budget 2015 rectify the increasing trend of patients being discharged untreated by our hospitals, which in many cases has doubled under this Government?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: As I have stated in my previous answers, the funding for the health budget has increased over $466 million per year, year on year, since this Government took power. That will see further increases in our health funding relating to both elective surgeries and other services to the communities.

Barbara Stewart: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: I can anticipate the point of order that is coming. I am going to invite the member to repeat that question for the benefit of the Minister.

Barbara Stewart: Will Budget 2015 rectify the increasing trend of patients being discharged untreated by our hospitals, which in many cases has doubled under this Government?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I have not been briefed on those specific facts, but if you would like to make a written question to the Minister, we will answer it in due course. Thank you.

Hon Annette King: How much of the $86 million signalled to cover cost pressures across all district health boards will Counties Manukau District Health Board receive in light of its chair, Lee Mathias, stating on Tuesday this week that its district health board alone is predicting a shortfall of $100 million—just one district health board?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: As I said in my response to the primary question, I cannot make available the details of Budget 2015 because it is confidential until the Budget is released. What I can say about the Counties Manukau District Health Board is that it received, in the last financial year, $1.33 billion worth of funding, and that is an increase of $311 million since this Government took office.

Hon Annette King: Is the Minister aware that the Counties Manukau District Health Board has been told it would get $23.61 million for 2015-16 when it is predicting a shortfall, just in this year alone, of $35 million?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: As I have already said to that member—and that member knows the Budget process—I cannot release that figure. What I can say is that since this Government took office, there are now 220 more doctors on the front line. There are now 433 more nurses on the front line in the Counties Manukau District Health Board, and there are now, in terms of orthopaedic surgery, more patients who are operated on in the Counties Manukau District Health Board region, and that member should know all of this.

Welfare Reforms—Valuation of System

3. SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister for Social Development: What reports has she received on the latest valuation of the benefit system?

Mr SPEAKER: Is the Minister going to respond?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): The valuation measures the future cost of New Zealand’s benefit system. The latest valuation shows welfare reform is having a major impact on those costs. The total cost of the benefit system over a lifetime is now $69 billion, a $7.5 billion reduction. Once you remove all the outside factors like the economy and unemployment, etc., $2.2 billion of the reduction is solely due—

Iain Lees-Galloway: Minor details!

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: If you would just listen, you might learn something. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! It was not helped by the Minister’s interjection across the House, but she was responding to interjections from my left. Could the Minister just complete her answer.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Once you remove all the outside factors like the economy, $2.2 billion of the reduction is solely due to this Government’s welfare reforms and the hard work of the front-line Work and Income staff who are supporting people into work. The reductions we are now seeing will mean fewer people on benefit in the years to come, which means we are going to see healthier and more prosperous households.

Scott Simpson: What indicators does the valuation provide regarding the number of young people on benefits?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: This Government’s investment in youth services is having a great effect. The report shows us that 51 percent—just over half—of young people on the youth payment at 17 years are off a benefit when they turn 19, compared with just 31 percent 3 years ago, and we want to keep that momentum going. There is still much work to be done, particularly on intergenerational issues. The valuation showed that nine out of 10 young people who went on to a benefit grew up in benefit-dependent homes as children. This reinforces the importance of working to break that cycle of intergenerational welfare dependence, which this Government is committed to doing.

Superannuation Fund—Responsible Investment Framework

4. JAMES SHAW (Green) to the Minister of Finance: Does he have confidence that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund is living up to its commitments to ethical investment as outlined in its Responsible Investment Framework?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: The answer is yes. It is important to note that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund operates independently of the Government and is overseen by an independent board, but it does have a Responsible Investment Framework, which is closely aligned with the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment. It is benchmarked and assessed by the UN on a regular basis. The last report concluded that the Superannuation Fund was managing responsible investment issues and risks to a best-practice standard and was one of the best-performing signatories of the principles globally.

James Shaw: So does he believe that loaning $200 million through a tax shelter country like Luxembourg; using a shell company like Oak Finance, which was created by a US investment bank like Goldman Sachs; to a Portuguese bank like Banco Espirito Santo, which collapsed amid accusations of fraud and tax evasion; to help a Chinese company now under investigation for bribery, working for the Venezuelan State Oil Company, is a good example of the Superannuation Fund living up to its Responsible Investment Framework commitments?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think there are distinctions between the framework generally and particular investments. I think the member raises fair questions about that investment and I know that those questions were addressed at the select committee this morning. I think it is important that the Superannuation Fund be very careful to operate carefully as well as investing responsibly. The House has noted, and I have seen public reports, that most people in the House think that on the whole it has performed well, but I think we would all hope and consider that it should learn any lessons that need to be learnt from this particular investment.

James Shaw: When he told the House on 18 February that he expects “the Superannuation Fund to take into account the risks to future profits for the companies in which it invests.”, is he concerned that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in financial products like the Oak Finance - Goldman Sachs loan, which Moody’s described as speculative and high risk?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think I said in the previous answer that there were issues of concern there and that I believe that the Superannuation Fund should be very careful to learn the lessons from that. This is an interesting situation where the Superannuation Fund rightly, I think, operates independently of politicians, but as a result of that it has a heightened level of responsibility in terms of the way it makes investments. Again, I think on the whole Parliament would probably be supportive of the returns that the fund has been making. That obviously comes with some risk—all investment does—and we would expect that the Superannuation Fund would learn any lessons that should be learnt from this particular investment outcome.

James Shaw: Does he also believe that investing in fossil fuel companies, which are directly contributing to the disappearance of small island States and the displacement of millions of people as a result of catastrophic climate change, is a good example of the Superannuation Fund living up to its Responsible Investment Framework commitments?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do actually think that it is OK for the Superannuation Fund to invest in fossil fuel companies, in the same way that I think it is OK that the Green Party continues to fly around the country in planes fuelled with fossil fuel. The simple fact of the matter is that fossil fuels are a part of our daily life and actually a part of the investment scene internationally, and I think we have to be very careful about the suggestion that we should start telling the Superannuation Fund not to invest in a whole range of things because of the political views of certain parties in Parliament.

David Seymour: What seems to be coming out of the answers is that there are—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can we just have the question please.

David Seymour: What would happen if the Superannuation Fund was to have another objective added, which was to be a supplier of capital to small businesses at sub-market rates?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think the member illustrates some of the risks when various politicians decide what a fund such as the Superannuation Fund should or should not invest in according to their political beliefs, rather than to the likely investment returns of the funds. Actually, it is good that the fund invests in small and medium sized businesses, provided the return is good. The purpose of this fund is to help meet New Zealand’s future superannuation entitlements, and we do have to be careful not to take political views on all the different types of investment that we think the fund should or should not invest in and take the risk that it actually ends up losing money because Parliament gives it such confused objectives.

James Shaw: Given that answer, when he told the House on 18 February that it is ethical to invest in oil and coal companies because there is a profit to be made, does he also think that the Superannuation Fund should invest in tobacco companies and arms manufacturers because there are profits to be made there too?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: What I believe is that the Superannuation Fund should operate its Responsible Investment Framework, which it does, and that it should come up with that framework itself. We have an independent benchmarking of that framework from the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment. That is benchmarked on a regular basis, and the conclusion drawn by that body is that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund is managing responsible investment issues and risks to a best-practice standard. I think that on that basis we can assume that it is balancing those investment opportunities—all the investment opportunities—appropriately for the fund.

James Shaw: Why is he so reluctant to use his power to direct the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation to stop putting New Zealanders’ hard-won superannuation savings into polluting industries, stranded fossil fuel assets, and dodgy deals?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Again, I think the member is fixing on two issues, one of which I think there is a legitimate concern about, which is the outcome of an investment. The other, frankly, is a little hypocritical coming from the Green Party—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —which uses fossil fuels. The challenge with that is that we actually have a fund that I think, again, by all agreement is actually performing reasonably well because we do not fetter it on a regular basis with politicians’ decisions. So I think that Parliament and the Minister would have to be very, very careful before making those sorts of directions, and generally that has been the case on all sides of this House.

Transport, Auckland—Connections Between Airport and Greater Auckland Region

5. KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) to the Minister of Transport: What work is the Government doing to provide better transport connections between Auckland International Airport and the Greater Auckland area?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): Increasing population and air traveller numbers are going to place growing pressure on State Highway 20A, which connects Auckland’s international airport with the Greater Auckland region. Last week I was delighted to turn the first sod of the $146 million project to upgrade the Kirkbride Road intersection on State Highway 20A near Auckland Airport. The project will support future population and business growth in South Auckland and in the Greater Auckland area and will improve travel times to and from Auckland’s international airport—New Zealand’s international gateway.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What benefits will the upgrade of the Kirkbride Road intersection on State Highway 20A, near Auckland Airport, deliver for travellers and for business?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: By accelerating this $146 million project to upgrade this intersection there are at least three benefits: firstly, a safer, faster, more reliable route into the city on, for the first time ever, one streamlined motorway; undoubted benefits to the local community, including public transport, cycleways, and for walkers; and it will also undoubtedly support regional economic growth. For Mr O’Rourke, who is very passionate about both light and heavy rail, he will be pleased to know that that option has been included in this magnificent project.

Partnership Schools—Te Kura Hourua ki Whangaruru

6. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her decision to approve the Whangaruru Partnership School; if so, why?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Yes; because the school is in an area where there has been longstanding concern about educational underachievement. The school was set up to give a group of the most disadvantaged kids another shot at education.

Chris Hipkins: Why did she agree in September to vary the contract for Whangaruru School, reducing the number of qualified teachers it is required to have, at the very time she was receiving advice from the Education Review Office that its report into the school was delayed because the school was facing major problems?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Because we are trying to find successful pathways for these young people, and the particular choices they were making required different skills.

Chris Hipkins: How does lowering the bar or lowering the standards that Whangaruru School has to meet when it became apparent that it was having major problems fit with her earlier commitment that charter schools would be held to higher standards and be more accountable than State schools?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I reject the basis that that question was asked on. Having teachers who have a particular set of skills but are not registered does not mean lowering the standards. It means providing a pathway for the kids who are involved in vocational opportunities.

Chris Hipkins: Does she believe that she made a mistake in agreeing to increase the number of untrained teachers at Whangaruru School, given the Education Review Office readiness report subsequently found that adequate support for the untrained teachers already at the school had not been available?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: No. I think the issue, though, of the level of support available is a key issue, and it is one of the ones that I have identified in the performance notice that I issued to the school.

Chris Hipkins: Did she or her officials know, prior to making the variation in Whangaruru School’s contract, that the school was having difficulty ascertaining the registration of key staff and that it was not clear that there was a sufficient appraisal process in place to be able to attest that their current teachers continued to meet the registered teacher criteria?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I do not know where the member is getting his information from, so I cannot comment on it.

Chris Hipkins: I seek leave to table the Education Review Office’s readiness report, for the Minister’s benefit because she obviously has not read it.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member had just sought leave to table the document, that would have been a far more appropriate way to do it. I will put the leave and let the House decide. Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Drought Conditions, South Island—Government Support for Primary Industries

7. JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to the Minister for Primary Industries: What Government support is available for farmers and growers along most of the East Coast of the South Island since a medium-scale adverse event was declared on 12 February 2015?

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): The Government has made an extra $200,000 available to localised rural support trusts, which provide advice, coordination, and emotional support. Rural assistance payments are also available from Work and Income, and assistance from the Inland Revenue Department will give greater flexibility to affected farmers and growers around their tax obligations. History shows that farmers and growers are not interested in a handout. They want to know that the Government acknowledges that many of them are experiencing tough times right now, and I know that they have the resilience to get through this.

Jacqui Dean: What recent developments occurring from the drought conditions has he been advised of?

Hon NATHAN GUY: Just because we announced a medium-scale adverse event it does not mean that the drought conditions are over for farmers or growers. Yesterday irrigation from the Ōpua Dam stopped. The Ōpua supports three important areas, and they are social, environmental, and economic. It supports the Timaru water supply, which, as I understand, will still be maintained. Fish and Game has also been rescuing fish from drying rivers and releasing them into the Ōpihi River, which is fed by this storage scheme. And, of course, the Ōpua also underpins hundreds of jobs and the South Canterbury economy. This just highlights how much worse it could have been if we did not have decent water storage projects built in this country.

Jacqui Dean: Where can farmers and growers in affected areas continue to receive up-to-date information and support?

Hon NATHAN GUY: Organisations such as Rural Women, Beef and Lamb, Dairy New Zealand, and rural support trusts are holding various events over the coming weeks where farmers and growers can meet and exchange support and advice. Federated Farmers are also operating its feed line, and of course the banks have made support packages available for farmers. Of course, farmers and growers can reach out and call the 0800 number for the rural support trust.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Why will the Minister not provide the support that farmers and growers have been asking for in report after report, and that is more resource for a better bioprotection system?

Hon NATHAN GUY: Well, we are. We are, and industry knows that. Industry was very worried at the last election that the Labour Party could have been sitting on this side of the House on the Treasury benches, because they knew that you did not support irrigation, you did not support biological—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! You cannot bring me into this answer.

Minimum Wage—Adequacy

8. DENISE ROCHE (Green) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Should the minimum wage be enough to live on?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources) on behalf of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: The minimum wage is an hourly rate, not an amount of total family income. The majority of those on the minimum wage are young people under 25. Many are students working part-time who often have access to other means of Government and family support. However, the Government recognises that it is not easy for those on lower incomes, particularly those with children. That is why the Government provides targeted support for low-income families through things like Working for Families, the accommodation supplement, and income-related rents. That support can, of course, amount to many hundreds of dollars a week.

Denise Roche: Is it fair that minimum wages rose by just $20 a week and the student allowance by 90c in the same week that MPs are likely to hear that our pay has increased by about $200?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Be very clear—the minimum wage is now the highest in the world relative to average incomes and the fourth highest in real terms in the world. We have put it up every single year. Be very clear also that this Government does not agree with the Remuneration Authority, but, of course, that is an independent body.

Denise Roche: How can he justify a minimum wage increase that after the rent has been paid leaves workers much worse off than they were a year ago?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: That is simply nonsense. Let me repeat—we have increased it every single year we have been in office. It is now—on, really, any measurement—one of the highest minimum wages in the world. But we have also got to be careful that we do not put people out of work, and that is the difficult balancing act that we as a Government, and a responsible one, take on board.

Denise Roche: Is it fair that $20 a week is only half as much as the average rent increase in the past year, leaving workers way out of pocket?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I remind the member that, in fact, the minimum wage has gone up over $100 a week under this Government.

Denise Roche: Will he peg real minimum wage increases in the future to the rate that productivity rises, or does he not think it is fair that workers get a share of the wealth that they are producing for their country?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: In fact, the minimum wage at this time—from 1 April—has gone up by more than wage increases on average in this country. As I say, it is now one of, on any measure the member likes to take, the highest in the world.

Denise Roche: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was asking about whether he would peg it to productivity—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to invite the member to ask that question again.

Denise Roche: Will he peg real minimum wage increases in the future to the rate that productivity increases, or does he not think it is fair that workers get a share of the wealth they are producing for their country?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well, I would note, as I say, that at 3.5 percent it has probably gone up by more than the measure the member is using. There is a wide range of factors that go into determining the minimum wage—inflation and, to some extent, the productivity measure that the member talks of.

Iraq, Military Deployment—Rules of Engagement

9. Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) to the Minister of Defence: What rules of engagement, if any, has the Government set for the New Zealand Defence Force personnel operating in Iraq if they come under attack?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Minister of Defence: Rules of engagement are currently being finalised. It is a longstanding practice that we do not release rules of engagement, as that would provide a level of operational detail that could endanger the safety of personnel.

Hon Phil Goff: Was the Minister’s statement on Radio Live yesterday that if there were assailants outside the camp wire, “We are not going to say: ‘Whoops! Can’t go after them because the wire’s there.”, consistent with the Government’s position and the rules of engagement?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: It was a general statement. As I have said, however, rules of engagement for specific missions are classified as they detail the extent of force, including lethal force, that may be used. For that reason they are not disclosed.

Hon Phil Goff: Why did that so-called general statement totally contradict the Prime Minister’s assurance at his post-Cabinet press conference on Monday that there is no way New Zealand troops would go outside the wire at Camp Taji, stating that even “If there’s some fight down the road, they couldn’t go out and assist.”; how are those two statements lining up with each other? They totally contradict each other.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I actually did not hear the specific answer. I am sure the Minister of Defence, in his customary way, was trying to be helpful. I have said, however, what the rules of engagement are and what release of the details means. I have repeated that, and repeat it.

Hon Phil Goff: How on earth will the Kiwi soldiers deployed into Iraq know what they are not or are allowed to do if the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence utterly contradict each other in that way, when they are already concerned that they will not have a status of forces agreement to give them legal protection?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: They will know very clearly what they have to do. As that member knows, as a former Minister of Defence, the New Zealand Defence Force’s rules of engagement are orders of the Chief of Defence Force for the purpose of the Armed Forces Discipline Act 1971.

Hon Phil Goff: In the absence of a status of forces agreement, if there is a green on blue attack where the trainees turn their guns on those training them, what legal protection will there be for a Kiwi soldier who shoots a rogue Iraqi soldier in self-defence, or will the response be, as has been suggested, that you will simply whip him out on a diplomatic passport as if he had committed a criminal offence?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Actually, the first part of the question before it degenerated was a good question and it is a very fair one. The Government will not be deploying the Defence Force overseas without appropriate legal protections. I say to that member that one does not have to get hung up on the title “status of forces agreement”, it is the substance that matters. That is what is being worked on at the moment. I can give that member and the House the assurance that they will not be going until that is sorted.

Food Safety—Compliance Costs for Early Childhood Education Sector

TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. To the Minister for Food Safety: what reports, if any, has she seen—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am sorry, there is just too much noise coming from my right, so I want the member to start that question again.

10. TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Minister for Food Safety: What reports, if any, has she seen regarding food safety issues in kindergartens, play centres and kōhanga reo?

Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for Food Safety): I have seen the New Zealand Public Health Surveillance Report that covers October to December 2014. The report states that the third most common setting for illness outbreaks in New Zealand is childcare centres. Some of the reported illnesses will relate to food, and the Circumstances of Exposure part of the report noted 23 childcare centres with 327 cases of various illnesses.

Tracey Martin: Given that answer, does the document that the Minister is referring to support the implementation of another layer of cost and bureaucracy linked to the Food Act 2014 when these centres already have to comply with food safety regulations set down by the Ministry of Education?

Hon JO GOODHEW: The member refers to the consultation process that the Ministry for Primary Industries is currently undertaking with all parts of New Zealand where food is served. Safe food is important for everyone in our society. What the ministry is intending to do, as is evidenced in the Act that was passed last year, is to find the right balance between ensuring safe food and also keeping the costs down for the businesses that are serving that food.

Tracey Martin: When the Minister made the following statement: “We want the regulations to be practical and appropriate for the wide range of businesses operating in New Zealand’s food industry, from coffee carts and catering companies to restaurants and large industrial food manufacturers,” was she aware that kindergartens, playcentres, and kōhanga reos could be caught by these regulations?

Hon JO GOODHEW: The answer to that is, of course, yes. The Food Act applies to food for sale. If an education provider is offering food as part of its service and is charging fees, then the Act will apply. However, there is an exemption from the requirements to operate under a food control plan or national programme for home-based early childcare education services and early childcare education services that undertake only minimal food handling. It is important that during the consultation phase of this process, given that the Act comes into effect next March, all of the early childcare centres and sector engage with the Ministry for Primary Industries to sort through what the ramifications will be for them. But underlying all of this is that safe food is a priority for New Zealanders.

Tracey Martin: Given that playcentres, kindergartens, and kōhanga reos work on a donation basis and given that the previous Minister for Food Safety stepped in to minimise unintended consequences of the Act in the 50th Parliament, will this Minister step up on behalf of our youngest children to exempt these centres; if not, why not?

Hon JO GOODHEW: The member raises an important point, which I think is easily answered by this. We have looked at minimal food handling as being an area that would indicate that there is no need to comply with having to have a food control plan or a national programme. So each individual case will need to work out what the nature of the food that they serve is and, in fact, if they are not charging for the serving of that food, then it is most likely that they will be exempt. However written into the Act is also the ability for the director-general to, on a case by case basis, exempt a particular requirement or the charging of fees for an individual entity. So I can assure the member that we need to work through this, one step at a time, and have great engagement from that sector with the Ministry for Primary Industries. Now is the time to get it right.

Biosecurity Management—Confidence

11. Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) to the Minister for Primary Industries: Does he have confidence in his department?

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Yes, I have confidence in my ministry. In particular, I have confidence in the way it is responding to the fruit fly incursion in Auckland. It is coordinating 180 staff, working hard on the ground with the support of the local community to eradicate this pest. I also have confidence in the way it is supporting those in need through drought conditions. The Ministry for Primary Industries has provided additional funding to rural support trusts and is regularly engaged with local authorities to coordinate support for farmers and growers in the affected areas.

Hon Damien O’Connor: How have the 13 brown marmorated stink bugs entered New Zealand, and can he assure New Zealanders that a population has not been established, which would cost the country billions of dollars?

Hon NATHAN GUY: No, I cannot confirm that, but what I can confirm is that there has been a population explosion in the US. The Ministry for Primary Industries is reviewing all the import health standards. It is looking at chemical eradication, in particular, for products that are coming in to the border. We are extremely aware of this pest and the ramifications it could have on the horticulture industry. That is why biosecurity will always be my No. 1 priority.

Hon Damien O’Connor: What is the cost to the Ministry for Primary Industries of moving the Pasifika Festival out of the fruit fly exclusion zone?

Hon NATHAN GUY: I am unaware that there is any cost. What I can say, because I visited the response site yesterday, is that there has been great collaboration between the Auckland Council, Ministry for Primary Industries officials, and also the organisers of this festival. It makes prudent sense for it to be moved to the planned location, and I endorse that.

Hon Damien O’Connor: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to clarify, and I am not trying to be smart—did the Minister say he did not know of the cost?

Mr SPEAKER: It would really help—[Interruption] Order! It would help if members themselves could listen to the answer. The Minister responded that he was unaware of any cost.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Does he accept ultimate responsibility for the failure of our biosecurity system, and why does he not abide by his own Government policy of “three fly strikes and you’re out” and simply resign?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Nathan Guy, either of those two questions.

Hon NATHAN GUY: What a ludicrous question. We cannot take anything this member says seriously. Last year, when we had a fruit fly find in Whangarei, this member came out and said that we should ban all imports of fruit and vegetables from Australia. Not even the industry was calling for that. Do you know what that would have meant? The price of bananas would have gone up. We could have had trade ramifications from the Australians. This member is completely out of touch.

Richard Prosser: With regard to the Associate Minister’s answer to supplementary question No. 3 in response to question No. 9 in the House yesterday, will the Minister explain the mechanism by which his department, when triaging calls to the answerphone of the hotline, which is not staffed 24/7—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is simply too much noise while this question is being asked. If the member could also just make his question far more concise. He does not need, I think, to refer to the answer yesterday, but just start with the essence of the question. I can assist the member to get an answer.

Richard Prosser: Will the Minister explain the mechanism by which his department, when triaging calls to the answerphone of the hotline, which is not staffed 24/7, manages to identify the origin of cellphone calls in order to give priority to calls from cellphones from the street next door to an existing fruit fly find over calls from cellphones on the West Coast of the South Island?

Mr SPEAKER: To the best of the Minister’s ability, the Hon Nathan Guy.

Hon NATHAN GUY: The 0800 number is working extremely well. We have noticed a big increase in calls. Yes, there is a process where members of the public who are calling through late at night will go across to a recording and they are treated with priority in the morning. I know that the member has a real focus on border security, particularly when his pocket knife got removed from him when he was wanting to fly on a plane.

Richard Prosser: Point of order—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order and it will be heard in silence.

Richard Prosser: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table a recording of the 0800 number, which shows that the caller was asked to leave a message—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! If it is an 0800 number, every member has the ability to dial that after question time if they wish to listen to it.

Richard Prosser: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just to clarify, I am sure this recording will no longer exist.

Mr SPEAKER: I am not putting the leave to table a recording of an 0800 number answer.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. This is a point of order. It will be heard in silence, but before I hear it, if the member is any way questioning a decision I have just made, that, in itself, will lead to disorder.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: My colleague has been pointing out that on a very critical matter to do with biosecurity a phone is not being answered when it should be. He has evidence of that, and I think the country needs to know that that is the level of unimportance that the Government attaches to it. Therefore, it is significant—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. He is very lucky if he remains for the last question. I have ruled that I am not prepared to put the leave. That is the end of the matter.

Hon Members: Why?

Mr SPEAKER: Because I have explained that to the member. Anybody can go and ring an 0800 number if they so want to. Question No. 12, Barbara Kuriger. [Interruption] Order! If I hear another interjection from that quarter, I will be asking a member to leave the Chamber.

Family/Whānau and Sexual Violence—Initiatives Targeting Māori Women

12. BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki—King Country) to the Minister for Women: What reports has she received relating to the prevention of family and sexual violence in New Zealand?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Women): Today I was proud to release the Ministry for Women’s report Wāhine Māori, Wāhine Ora, Wāhine Kaha, which concentrates on preventing violence against Māori women. This research will contribute to work being done by the Government’s family violence ministerial group, and marks the first time the Government has sought to engage in and understand primary prevention of violence against women from a Māori perspective.

Barbara Kuriger: How were Māori engaged with in order to develop the findings of the report?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: In partnership with the Ministry of Social Development, 11 hui were held around New Zealand with 16 Māori service providers and 47 research participants. Through this engagement, the Ministry for Women identified a range of perspectives on what primary prevention is and what the protective factors are that keep Māori women safe from being victims of violence. Analysis of the key discussion themes has shown promising primary prevention strategies for Māori women and their families.

Barbara Kuriger: How does the Minister plan to engage with Māori to share the findings of the report?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I have planned a number of engagements around the country to meet those who will be able to benefit from the research presented in Wāhine Māori, Wāhine Ora, Wāhine Kaha. These interactions will build on and broaden the findings in the report by giving service providers, iwi, and community members an opportunity to share their views. As well as discussions with stakeholders, who will be able to use the findings to achieve better safety outcomes for Māori women, I plan to ensure that there is a strong uptake of this work in homes and communities. Violence is a problem for many New Zealand women, not just Māori women, so any ideas will be used in the broader context of policy development to help prevent family and sexual violence in New Zealand.

Sue Moroney: Why, then, has her ministry given up on reducing violence against women by 2016, as it once planned to do, and now does not expect to see any reductions until 2018 in its latest output plan, despite the fact that this has been one of her ministry’s top three priorities for 6 years now?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I want to assure the member that, as the Minister for Women, preventing violence against women up and down this country continues to be one of my top priorities. I will be working closely with the ministerial group in a whole-of-Government approach to solve some of these deeply entrenched challenges, and the research findings from this report will be an important part of that, particularly for how to keep women safe in Māori homes and communities.

Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked why her ministry had changed its targets and its dates, and there was no response to that—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am unsure whether the question was addressed. I am going to invite the member to repeat the question.

Sue Moroney: Why has her ministry given up on reducing violence against women by 2016 and now does not expect in its latest output plan to see any reductions until 2018, despite that being one of the top three priorities for her ministry for the last 6 years?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: That member is incorrect. The ministry has not given it up. It has not changed its target. This is a Government that is committed to solving the challenges and keeping women up and down New Zealand safe in their homes.

Sue Moroney: I seek leave to table the output plans from the ministry from 2013-14—

Mr SPEAKER: Can I just—[Interruption] Order! All I need to do is to clarify whether they are freely available to members. Yes, they are, so I will not be putting the leave.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the Minister’s last answer is true, did she receive reports of a particular case of family and sexual violence in Northland in 2014, and what did she or her colleagues do about it?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member can answer the question in respect to her own ministerial responsibility. Did she receive such a report?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: My question today refers to a report preventing Māori violence in Māori families, and I have not received any other reports.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question asked what reports has she received—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I think that if the member had listened to the answer before he jumped to his feet, he would have heard that the member then concluded the answer by saying she had received no other reports.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Of the reports she has received relating to—going off the primary question—the prevention of family and sexual violence in New Zealand, what reports has she received about a high-profile case in Northland that should have come to her and her colleagues’—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. I will refer the member to Standing Order 115, which I have mentioned once before. There is a matter before the courts. It will not be discussed in this House. The member, if he had wanted to do so, had the ability to write to me if he intended to raise the matter; he has not done so. That concludes questions—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With the greatest of respect—

Mr SPEAKER: Point of order, the Rt Hon Winston Peters—[Interruption] Order! I have got to call the member first—the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I am not infringing any sub judice rule, which I am very familiar with as a trained lawyer—much more than you are, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is a point of order, and I wish to listen to it in silence.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I am asking whether or not she received any high-profile case information, and what she did with it. For example, she could answer “I referred it to the legal authorities.” or “I referred it to the police.” But to say that I am captured by the sub judice rule when I have not mentioned any case is simply not correct.

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We all know that the member is skating very much on the head of a pin on this issue, and we also all know that he was fired by Russell McVeagh for not being a very good lawyer. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a serious matter—[Interruption] Order! I have given a ruling where I think this House is in danger of breaching an arrangement that is longstanding with regard to the judiciary. If the member intended to raise it, he had the ability, as I have pre-warned him before, to write to me, so I am declaring the question out of order.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: I will listen once more to the Rt Hon Winston Peters on this matter.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: No, I am not litigating this issue. It is the one that Mr Bridges raised when he made his point of order. It was totally offensive and an utter lie, and he should apologise. At least I got employed by the firm; you did not.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I think we take that as one all.

Bills

Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill

First Reading

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill be now read a first time.

Bill read a first time.

Bills

Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Land Information) on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: I move, That the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environmental Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 29 June.

This bill amends the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act of 2012. This Government put the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act in place to provide comprehensive environmental management of the natural resources in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. Prior to that Act coming into force, New Zealand did not have a system in place for managing the environmental effects of activities undertaken in this area.

Our exclusive economic zone is one of the largest in the world and, together with our extended continental shelf, is approximately 21 times the size of our land mass. The exclusive economic zone covers an area of more than 400 million hectares, while our extended continental shelf covers a further 170 million hectares. It is an area that holds significant economic potential, and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act aims to enable this economic potential to be unlocked in an environmentally responsible way.

The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill, which is having its first reading today, will make a technical amendment to the exclusive economic zone legislation to ensure the sensible transition of existing petroleum operators into the new regime. There are four petroleum production operations in the exclusive economic zone off the coast of Taranaki, which are crucial for ensuring New Zealand’s oil and gas supply. Petroleum production has been occurring in this area since the 1970s in a safe and responsible manner, but the environmental effects of these activities have previously been unregulated. The Government wants to ensure that existing operators are brought into the exclusive economic zone regime in a way that does not compromise the supply of oil and gas to New Zealand.

Currently, transitional provisions in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act require existing operators to undertake the marine consenting process before their pre-existing petroleum mining permits or privileges under the Crown Minerals regime expire. This bill will ensure that when operators apply for a marine consent for their existing production activities, they will be able to continue operating as they have done for the last 40 years until their marine consent application is decided on by the Environmental Protection Authority. The bill will also provide certainty in the case of subsequent objections to or appeals from the Environmental Protection Authority’s decision, as their operations will be able to continue while any objections or appeals are determined.

I want to emphasise that the Government would have preferred that Shell Todd Oil Services had applied in sufficient time so that this bill was not needed, but we also appreciate that with a new regulatory regime, this fine detail over timing was not fully understood. It is inevitable that when we are implementing a new regime of this sort, there will be errors that need pragmatic correction. The Labour Party and the Green Party provided no environmental regulation at all in the exclusive economic zone in their 9 years in Government, and it is true that when you do nothing, you cannot make errors.

This bill does nothing to change the requirement to apply for a marine consent. Operators will still be required to provide an impact assessment on the nature of their activities, and the effects on the environment and on other interests. They will also be required to identify measures to avoid, remedy, or mitigate any adverse effects. Applications for production activities will be publicly notified, and submissions will be invited to allow for community engagement on decision making.

As New Zealanders, we all value our big, blue backyard. The Government welcomes commercial activity, but it must be on the basis that the appropriate environmental safeguards are in place. This bill provides a technical amendment that eliminates any possibility that New Zealand’s energy supply could be at risk should existing production operations have to cease while a marine consent application is being considered or any appeals are being decided.

The cost of the Māui gas platform being down is $40 million per day to the New Zealand economy, and this occurred in 2011. We cannot allow that to occur through the inadequate timing issue over appeals for an existing operation. Risking energy supply was clearly never the intention when the regime was put in place. The bill simply reiterates the Government’s original intent that existing operators have a smooth transition into the new regulatory regime. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is not with pleasure that I take a call on another piece of legislation amending the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. This is not the first time that this House has had to come and play fix-up on what was a badly drafted piece of legislation to begin with. The Labour Party will support this legislation, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill, going to the select committee. We will support it so there can be scrutiny of the legislation. We will support it so that we can hear from interested parties and communities. It does give us a chance to examine this legislation in the context of what we think is actually a much larger and looming issue, and that is further changes to this legislation that may be coming down the line within the next year or so. I will address that more fully later in my speech.

We heard the Minister telling us that it is inevitable with legislation such as this that there will need to be amending legislation and there will need to be some fixes made to a reasonably complex regulatory regime. Well, it is not inevitable that this Parliament and the previous Parliament have had to play fix-up on a botched piece of legislation. If we have a look at when it was first passed in 2012—it is not legislation that has been on our statute book for very long—it was full of errors. It required a major redrafting at the select committee. This was done through very hard work by the Local Government and Environment Committee, and I commend the select committee for that. But even after that, more errors were found, and the responsible Minister at the time, the Hon Amy Adams, had to put forward a 14-page Supplementary Order Paper to fix it.

So this is a badly drafted piece of legislation, a rushed piece of legislation, which, from the very moment of its beginnings, we have been trying to resuscitate and fix. But only a month after the exclusive economic zone legislation was passed, the Government had to pass another 37 pages of amendments to it as part of the Marine Legislation Bill—another 37 pages. This simply is not good enough, and it is not good enough for Minister Upston to call it inevitable. I would not want to be holding up this level of amendment as a shining light, as inevitable, or as something that we should aspire to in our law making. It simply does not meet the standard and it is not good enough.

Then, even after the 37 pages of amendments that we saw in the Marine Legislation Bill, there were several more Supplementary Order Papers from the Minister in charge—in that instance it was the Hon Gerry Brownlee. This is now the second piece of fix-up legislation we are seeing in the last 3 years, and I am concerned, after hearing the Minister today brush this off as inevitable, as to how many more times we are going to be here. How much more time of the House and how much more select committee time is going to be chewed up by fixing this piece of legislation, which was flawed from its very beginning? It is another sign of this Government’s incompetence in handling legislation. It is another example of how this Government is passing bad law into our statute book and we are using so much of our time trying to rectify its problems. It was badly drafted, it was weak law, and it was rushed through the House without proper consideration.

The number of fixes that we are having to do is testament to shoddy process and what that brings about, and now we are having to sit through yet another debate on a bill to fix it. The Minister called it inevitable and said it was a shame that Shell and Todd Energy did not get their application in in time to allow for appeals, but that is actually not taking the responsibility that needs to lie with the Government for the bad piece of legislation that allowed this circumstance to arise.

What was reasonably inevitable was that there were no adequate transitional provisions in order for companies that had existing consents to transition to the new regulatory regime. It is another example of the how the Government did not think through properly what needed to be in the legislation. So, as the Minister has outlined, this piece of legislation that we are here talking about today is essentially to allow an existing operator to keep operating while its consent is processed, and operate not only while its consent is processed but also while any appeals may or may not be lodged in regard to that application. This is something that could have been foreseen.

We have a limited number of existing consent holders that needed to transition into the new regulatory regime, and the primary legislation, which was passed only 3 years ago, could have accounted for this. Instead, we have a Minister who is blaming the consent holder for bad legislation in her contribution in the House today. What we have is a Government that has put a chunk of New Zealand’s gas supply at risk if this legislation is not passed and this mess is not cleaned up. The Government needs to take responsibility for this and not simply blame other people.

This legislation does give us cause to wonder what it is that the Government is planning next for the Act. What we have seen is a great deal of chatter, if you like, following the Chatham Rock Phosphate consents being declined only a few weeks ago, and claims now that the Government is supportive of reforming the law to ensure that projects like that could be consented. Nick Smith has not ruled out changes to suit the seabed mining industry, and we will be watching very carefully at the select committee to make sure that this legislation is not an attempt to fundamentally alter the legislation and to get in through the back door the changes that we know that the Government wants to do. We expect that these changes will come in yet another piece of amending legislation, so next year we will have another amendment bill to deal with, I would imagine. The House will have to turn its attention to this issue again because the primary Act does not do what the Government wanted it to do, which is enable economic activity rather than act for environmental protection—which, actually, the Environmental Protection Authority has been able to do in regard to this.

After the Chatham Rock Phosphate decision we have seen a great deal of posturing from a number of people who talk about the changes that need to be done. We are told by the chief executive officer of Chatham Rock Phosphate that he has actually made a number of suggestions as to how the legislation needs to be changed. So when this bill goes to the select committee we may need to consider other changes that the Government is considering to the primary legislation. Passing an amending piece of legislation, if we are going to be presented with yet another piece of amending legislation in only a very short space of time, will be something that we will have to consider very carefully on this side of the House. We will have to ask some very serious questions about when the next piece of amending legislation is due before this House and the Local Government and Environment Committee, where I am assuming this bill will be going.

Hon Member: The Minister said.

Dr MEGAN WOODS: That is what the Minister said, thank you very much, and these will be questions that we will be asking when we get the chance to examine this.

This is a Government that needs to lift its game in many respects, but it needs to lift its game in the quality of legislation that it is passing. It is passing shoddy legislation, it is passing hurried legislation that does not go through proper process, and—surprise, surprise—we are getting mistake, after mistake, after mistake. Too much of this House’s time is spent fixing up this Government’s mistakes and too much of our energy is spent doing that rather than doing something proactive. To have the Minister blame the company, as she did in the House today—she said it should have got its consent in earlier—just does not take into account the poor legislation.

We have a Government that in 2012 passed legislation that did not have proper provisions. It could have put at risk a vital piece of our energy supply in this country and it could have put at risk 300 jobs in the Taranaki region because the original intent, what we are doing here, was not properly spelt out in the primary legislation in 2012. We will support the bill going to the select committee, but we will be asking some very serious questions of the Government.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Before I turn to address this Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill in its first reading, I just seek the indulgence of the House for a moment to express my condolences and sympathies to the family of Dame Thea Muldoon. I had the great privilege and honour of meeting Dame Thea on several occasions during the 1980s, when her husband, Sir Robert, was Prime Minister, in my capacity as an active and enthusiastic Young National. I always found her to be congenial, warm, very hospitable, generous with her time, and enormously generous with her support not only for the National Party but for her husband and her family, at a time when being a member of Parliament was a lot less family friendly than it is today. I just want to acknowledge the contribution that she made in her own right to this country and to the democracy that we enjoy, and I offer my sincere sympathies and condolences to her family.

This Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill is a very small piece of legislation, it is an important piece of legislation, and it a piece of amending legislation that, as the Minister who introduced the bill said, is one we would have preferred not to be doing. The reason for that is that sometimes pragmatic decisions have to be made and they have to be made in the better interests of the country, of commerce, of the environment, and indeed of our collective and mutual well-being. This bill will amend the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 and it goes to addressing some transitional issues that have been identified and that were not identified during the vigorous introductory stages at the select committee and through the House, in the course of the bill traversing through the House.

It relates to an application by Shell Todd Oil Services, which will be in breach of the requirements of the Act if it continues to operate without a marine consent after 27 June 2015. Why is this date important? It is important because if that business does have to cease operations, there will be a significant loss not only to the economy of New Zealand but to energy consumers and indeed, of course, to the company. So this amendment will allow existing operators that have applied for a marine consent to continue their operations until that application has been decided and until, most importantly, any subsequent appeals to that process have been decided.

As we know, in matters of this sort, appeals can be lengthy and protracted. Indeed, we had the chief executive and the chair of the Environmental Protection Authority before the Local Government and Environment Committee just this very day. The chair, Kerry Prendergast, was at pains to point out in her presentation to the select committee that the bill is very much still in its transitional phase. It is still very much in a settling-down phase and we are in the early days of this very significant and important piece of legislation.

It is important because we have this large exclusive economic zone. I listened carefully to Minister Upston during her introductory comments and I noted that she made the very apt point that our exclusive economic zone is one of the largest in the world. We have a continental shelf that is probably about 21 times greater than our entire land mass, and the exclusive economic zone area covers more than 400 million hectares and our extended continental shelf covers a further 170 million hectares. So this is an area that is vast and it is rich in resource, but there is an awful lot that is yet unknown about it, and that was another point that the chair of the authority made at the select committee today. There is an awful lot about our exclusive economic zone that we do not know about yet. We need to tread carefully, we need to be cautious, and we need to take the steps that are required to ensure the good, stable, and effective management of that exclusive economic zone but also, at the same time, to ensure that all that is there in terms of sea life and everything else that is part of that environment is protected and cared for and not abused in any way.

It is important that we get this stuff right. It is important not just for those of us who are fortunate enough to be here as citizens of New Zealand today but for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren not yet born because they will be the ones who inherit the benefits of our diligence and care in this area. The Minister made the point that there are four petroleum production operations currently operating within the exclusive economic zone off the coast of Taranaki, and I thought the point she made that they had been operating since the mid-1970s in an unregulated environment for almost all that time was particularly important.

I suspect, as this debate goes through, and probably as we go through a very diligent and careful analysis of this amendment in the select committee, there will be those from the opposite side of the House who will criticise us for having the temerity to actually introduce legislation to do something bold, to regulate, and to be considering the future in a way that they simply did not during their time in office. We had 9 long years of a Labour-Green Government, and it did absolutely nothing in this area—absolutely nothing. For those members now to stand in this House and, I suspect, in the select committee and criticise a Government that has had the gumption and the foresight to make significant advances in this area I think is something that they will need to consider for themselves.

When an application for a marine consent is made, it is a process that is quite lengthy, and so it should be. It is a process that requires very careful diligence and investigation. The likelihood of the application that is currently being made by Shell Todd Oil Services being completed before 27 June this year without appeal is, frankly, remote, so as a pragmatic, sensible, and careful Government, it is appropriate that we do move to resolve this issue. The bill will not change the current requirement for existing operators to transition into the exclusive economic zone Act regime through the marine consenting process, so there is no hint or suggestion that anything untoward is going to occur here or anything that will give the business some kind of unfair advantage or commercial benefit that goes beyond allowing it to simply continue to trade.

The potential impact of a closure is likely to cause enormous negative impact on consumers, on “New Zealand Incorporated” and on the company. The current operators have applied for the marine consent before the expiry date, but we will be moving I think quite quickly, and hopefully I think it is the intention of the Government to ensure that this amending legislation is completed before 28 June in order to allow production to continue. We simply as a nation and as a Parliament cannot afford to allow a field that provides up to 20 percent of New Zealand’s gas to have any uncertainty about its operation at all.

Our natural environment is without doubt our greatest asset, and this is a Government that believes successful economic and environmental policy can, and indeed must, go hand in hand. The oil and gas industry is a very vital part of the New Zealand economy, and oil is our fourth-largest commodity export, after dairy, meat, and wood. The oil and gas economy combined is worth around $2 billion of GDP. This is a small but important piece of amending legislation. As chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee I give an undertaking to the House that this bill will be carefully and thoroughly scrutinised at select committee. We are looking forward to our work ahead on that matter. I commend the bill to the House.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill may be a small piece of legislation, considering the size of the bill. The chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, upon which this bill will fall, said it is not that important and said the committee will give it due consideration. A lot of what the member said Labour actually agrees with, but there is one thing I do not agree with. This is a really sloppy way to craft legislation. It is a really sloppy way to control an industry, and when the chair of this committee says: “Well, it was a little bit of an oversight and this is a big piece of legislation. We need to get it right, and there is going to continue to be these sorts of amendments.”, I wonder what sort of select committee this chair is chairing. Is he actually reading the bills, the statements, and the submissions that come before him?

The reason I ask this is that the important thing about this piece of legislation is that it is actually about giving New Zealanders the right to appeal against a decision made by the Environmental Protection Authority. That is not a minor piece of tinkering. It is a fundamental right of democracy in this country. That right is the ability to appeal against a decision, based on the facts that you may put forward, or your beliefs, or your principles. It is not a mild: “Oh goodness me. We forgot about this. I’m really sorry. We’ll just throw a piece of legislation in front of the House, and it will be OK.” Luckily for Shell it will be OK because we will pass this piece of legislation and we will support it being referred to the select committee, but the last thing we want to see before this House, I would suggest, is legislation made in this way.

If this is such an important piece of legislation, then what we need to do is make sure, before we pass it into law, that we know it is going to be robust and that we know it is going to meet the democratic principles upon which our Parliament is based. Anything like this—the fundamental principle behind the ability to appeal a decision, to have your say—needs to be encoded in legislation. I am very, very surprised that this amendment is needed. I would have thought it would be Politics 101, Legislative Drafting 101—the right of appeal in any decision; put it in there.

We are going to back this bill because the security of energy supply is incredibly important in a First World economy. There is an example of what happened when the Māui platform went down for 5 days: it cost about $200 million. That is around $40 million a day. There is no doubt about the fact that we cannot afford to have this piece of really important energy infrastructure compromised in any way, shape, or form. But I just think this is a sloppy way to do it. There is no doubt about that.

But there are other things that come into play as well, in other debates that we need to be having at the same time. This is about gas. Unfortunately, the Government and the Minister for the Environment will not buy into the promise of having 95 percent renewables by 2020. Shell Todd Oil Services is going to have to make some very important decisions very soon about what it does with the whole Māui platform and what it does with the gas industry. If we want to live our brand, our “clean, green” global brand, which is, in fact, our global competitive advantage—in this day and age it is not just companies that are looking for a global competitive advantage; it is actually economies and countries, and certainly small economies like our own—then we have got to make global commitments to make sure that our words are not empty rhetoric. I think what the Minister should be doing in terms of energy is sending a very clear signal that by 2020 we want to have moved to at least 95 percent renewable energy.

We have a great track record on—well, no, we do not. We are beginning to build a track record, but we have a reputation overseas as being great advocates for this. We have engineers who are developing world-class technology. It is one of those classic cases where our innovators and our engineers are doing brilliant things, and they have a fantastic reputation overseas, but they do not have the same sort of reputation in New Zealand. We need to move to this. I found out today a very interesting fact. Actually, the wind turbines in Palmerston North are the most efficient wind turbines in the world. They have just broken some global record for the most power generated over a 24-hour period. That is fantastic. So we have the ability to do this and we have the know-how to do this; what we need now is the legislative will to do this.

They say that it is very difficult to quantify the value of our “clean, green” brand overseas. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment tried to do it in another guise and it reckoned it was worth about $30 billion, which is a hell of a lot of money for us. These are things in areas that just cannot be copied anywhere overseas. Our brand is one of our most important attributes, and if we do anything to diminish that brand, we are in a lot of trouble. One of the major things that we can do to actually enhance that brand is to move to renewables. This is important because what we are talking about here is prolonging—well, sort of—the life of gas exploration. It is important, this point. I think the Māui platform makes up about 25 percent of New Zealand’s gas supply, which is a significant chunk—there is no doubt about that. As the first Labour speaker, Megan Woods, alluded, it employs about 300 people in Taranaki. It is a very important part of regional infrastructure. There is no doubt about that. But I have my doubts about whether this is the future of energy generation in this country and whether the Māui platform and the whole gas exploration industry are, in fact, what we should be promoting in the 21st century. Please do not get me wrong—I am not saying that we should not be supporting this bill, and I think I have made it very clear that we will support this bill, but what I am saying is that we need to understand where our global competitive advantage lies.

The other thing I would say is that this piece of legislation is a poor way to regulate an industry. I have talked about the sloppy nature of its introduction to the House, and the fact that we are actually speaking in front of something that is so important to us—i.e., the right to appeal—and it just highlights the sloppiness that has crept into this Government over the last 6 years. I think that what the people of New Zealand would like to see is a much tighter, well-run Government that has a vision for the future, but, unfortunately, we are not seeing that. In the first term of the Key Government it had that tightness, it had that cohesion, and there was a bit of a vision. We saw it slip last term, and what we are seeing at the moment is a sloppiness that really just sends bad signals to the people of New Zealand that these guys have forgotten what it means to be a good, caring Government and to put legislation in place that supports a growing economy. This is what this comes down to.

This is not just a minor amendment; what this is about is the security of New Zealand’s energy supply. It might be minor because there are only 6 pages compared with a bill that we have been debating earlier that was about 1,000 pages, but this is an important piece of legislation. I know this is an environment bill, but it is also about energy as well, and it goes to the heart of what Mr Bridges was saying before. We have seen the price of fuel and the importer margins, for example, go through the roof. We wanted to launch an inquiry into that and it was turned down by the Nats because the Minister of Energy and Resources said he was aware of the facts and he had written a letter to the oil companies—so it did not matter; do not worry about protecting the interests of good, hard-working Kiwis. I must admit that the only member of the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers also turned this down. I think he has forgotten that he does actually represent consumers and taxpayers. Well, I think they have forgotten that his party exists.

Anyway, what this represents is a sloppiness and an arrogance that is most unattractive—the belief that there can be just a letter written to oil companies and it is all OK. What this does is that it begins, I think, to treat voters like they are idiots. Well, voters of New Zealand are not. They understand that when they go to the petrol pump and pay $1.90 when they should be paying $1.20 or $1.30, there is something not quite right. What we miss is a real opportunity for MPs right across the House to work together—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come back to the bill.

STUART NASH: —for the common good of New Zealand, which is what this bill is about. I suspect that every party in this Parliament is going to support this bill because we understand the necessity of energy security, but I think there are more things we could do, working across Parliament, to support the interests of consumers and taxpayers and good, hard-working Kiwis. We missed a trick in the energy sector on Wednesday at the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We will not miss a trick this time, but we want to see—Parliament wants to see, and the people of New Zealand want to see—a Government that returns to a much tighter, much more caring, much more energised, and much less arrogant approach to legislation in the issues that are important to the people of New Zealand. Thank you.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I welcome the Labour Opposition’s support for this legislation but I must take exception to some of the comments that have been made so far, both in the measured and reasonable contribution from Mr Nash but also in the slightly more vituperative one from Dr Megan Woods earlier in this debate.

This bill, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill, is very important for New Zealand. The Minister who has introduced it, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, the Minister for the Environment, has an outstanding track record in this Government and in this country in terms of his focus on protecting our pristine natural environment in New Zealand over his more than two decades of service in this Parliament. I applaud him for introducing this piece of legislation, which in my view very carefully and appropriately balances the need to allow existing commercial operators to continue their important activity, which not only supplies energy to meet this country’s energy needs, employs many New Zealanders, and makes us a wealthier country but also actually contributes to our international exports, as previous members have commented on.

This bill has been introduced because of an issue that has arisen in terms of the bedding in of a piece of legislation that for New Zealand was fairly groundbreaking. We have heard accusations thrown around from the other side of the House regarding sloppy process. Well, this bill amends legislation that was a New Zealand first for providing any protection whatsoever for our exclusive economic zone, a zone that is the fourth or fifth in the world in terms of size, depending on the way you measure it, and is the patrimony of every New Zealander—Māori, Pākehā, Asian or wherever you are from. We all have a stake in protecting the pristine natural environment, from the Hector’s dolphins and the Māui’s dolphins to the fisheries and to the mineral resources that we can extract safely and use for the betterment of our economy and for the employment of our people. It is in New Zealand’s interest to make sure that that environment is protected.

The Māui field, which this bill primarily deals with, provides about 20 percent of the natural gas needs of New Zealand. That is very significant in terms of heating, cooking, and other energy—industrial energy as well. We cannot afford to have any uncertainty whatsoever over its operation. That is why we are committed to remedying this bedding-in issue that has been discovered in the legislation.

When Opposition members talk about sloppy process, well, there is a word I am not allowed to use in this House, but I can say that it is a little bit cheeky to do so when, in fact, the track record of that Government, when it was in office for 9 years, was doing nothing whatsoever to protect our exclusive economic zone. There were no environmental regulations. And when it came to other environmental law like climate change, that Government introduced 1,000 amendments to a piece of legislation without notice and demanded that a vote be taken on it on the same day. So I do not think that on this side of the House we should take any lectures from those members of that party on the other side.

This bill deals primarily with a company, Shell Todd Oil Services. It is a very good company. It is half owned by Shell—it is a joint venture—and half owned by Todd Corporation Ltd. It is an excellent New Zealand company that has a very good track record. In fact, I can refer to the exact project that has caused the need for this piece of legislation. It is something called a side track—well, it is effectively a side spur. In fact, there are two of them. There are two side spurs drilled off existing wells. They continue for some distance—up to 6.5 kilometres, I was surprised to learn. It is quite an engineering feat to think that under water and under the seabed one can drill that far—6.5 kilometres. But this is a kind of drilling or gas extraction that has gone on for many years. In fact, Todd reports that it is 35 years old in the particular Māui gasfield that it is dealing with. In that 35-year history it has had an exceptional track record in health and safety for their staff members but also in environmental compliance.

So although it is unfortunate, we are now in the situation where, in passing groundbreaking legislation that, for the first time, protects the exclusive economic zone, we have left a very good, responsible, high-functioning, and serious New Zealand player in the oil and gas exploration field in a position where it may find itself in June this year not to be in compliance with that new and innovative legislation. I think it does behove any Government to make sure that the glitch that we have acknowledged is remedied so that its operations can continue unfettered, as long as it remains in compliance with our environmental standards.

But there are three other companies that would be affected if we were not to bring in legislation at this point. The problem may be a little bit further down the track than it is for Shell Todd Oil Services. We have Australian Worldwide Exploration Ltd, which has existing permits under the previous Crown minerals regime that run through until 24 November 2025; we have OMV New Zealand Ltd, whose permits run through until 1 December 2027; and we have Origin Energy Resources New Zealand Ltd, which has permits that would see its operations continue until 26 June 2031.

So although this bill is primarily to deal with the more imminent issue around Shell Todd Oil Services, there are three other companies for which there would be implications if this remedial action was not taken. In fact, we should also bear in mind that these matters in respect of Shell Todd Oil Services are before the Environmental Protection Authority, an independent body that will consider the environmental implications and, hopefully, in my view, will also look at the economic implications of not allowing the permit, so that we do not see a repeat of the previous decisions—which, although I respect, I cannot say I agree with—in respect of the extraction of ironsands in Taranaki and the extraction of phosphate off the Chatham Islands.

So this is actually a relatively simple piece of legislation. It is nothing like the 1,000 amendments dropped at the last minute by the previous Government on to its major environmental legislation. In fact, despite the honourable member Stuart Nash referring to it as a 6-page bill, it is actually only 1½ pages if you exclude the explanatory note. It is a very simple piece of legislation, effectively amending section 162 of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. It will allow Shell Todd Oil Services to continue with operations that it has been undertaking for 35 years in a safe and effective manner.

We take the environment seriously. I am very proud to be a Bluegreen—that is, a member of the National Party who sees the need and the ability to reconcile environmental concerns with our willingness to move this country forward economically to make sure New Zealanders have secure and well-paying employment. This bill fits into that wider framework. This bill will not change anything for other existing operators in the field. It is specific enough that it will deal with only those areas where there is a problem, and it allows for those who have applied for their marine consents to continue until an application has been decided and subsequent objections and appeals are determined. I think we would all agree that it is important to allow the New Zealand public, through the submissions process, to be able to have their say on what is a very important issue that is dear to the heart of many of us. But if the amendments are not made before 27 June 2015 there will be a company in breach. There will be significant economic impact. Operations may have to cease at Māui and the flow-on effects for New Zealand gas consumers will be significant.

Other members have talked about how vital the oil industry is as part of our economy. I have spent some time in other oil-dependent economies, or at least petrochemical or extractive-dependent economies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, and I can assure members in this House that the approach taken by New Zealand with regard to keeping our environment clean, making it safe—not just in terms of human safety of the workers but safe for marine life—and those other issues shows that New Zealand performs incredibly well in comparison to other countries that have growing petrochemical sectors. I, without hesitation, commend this bill to the House.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to oppose this legislation. This bill, which the National Party members are trying to say is simply a technical bill to fix a loophole, needs, I believe, greater scrutiny, greater intellectual rigour, and greater public discussion. This bill effectively allows the marine consent conditions that apply where an objection is lodged to continue even if the petroleum company’s licence has expired.

We are well aware that this bill is going to pass its first reading. Had it been that the Green Party had the casting vote, we would have demanded more information in advance, and our vote, I am the first to acknowledge, may well have been different. But in the absence of that—in the absence of adequate, appropriate information from the Government and from officials—I am proud that my party is lodging a protest vote. We will be opposing this law because the Government has not adequately made the case that it is the only option available to us. This looks like yet another example under John Key of one law for oil. This treats the locals in Taranaki in an absolutely unequal fashion. Iwi, hapū, and local community groups have not had their submissions extended, despite a story that I will paint, yet Shell Todd Oil Services gets laws changed in our Parliament.

So this bill is not about fixing a loophole. Let us challenge that myth, that piece of propaganda, up front. This is about giving Shell Todd Oil Services more time to get a resource consent because it did not get its act together properly to apply for this marine consent over the last 3 years. We know this company has had this marine licence for 35 years. It was heavily involved in submitting on and assisting with the drafting of this now 3-year-old legislation, yet it messed up. It did not get its application in on time. It did not put in an application, which was fine by the Environmental Protection Authority, which then required 44 separate requests for additional information from Shell Todd Oil Services, yet the public did not get an extension to comment on those.

What we are seeing here is another bill in Parliament passed for one specific industry, a winner that the National Government—National, the supposedly free-market and freedom party—has picked: the oil industry, one of the most profitable sectors in the world. However, as I have acknowledged, our vote may well change in the future. We go into the select committee process with an open mind. We welcome the submissions. We want to question the applicant and associated parties. But at this point, with such inadequate information, we cannot support this law.

So my first point is that the Green Party does not want to see the Māui platform shut down, but we are worried about changing the legislation to suit a company that did not get its application in with enough time and in an appropriate format that did not require four full pages of additional information requested from the Environmental Protection Authority. We have a number of questions that I think the Minister for the Environment needs to front on and explain. Why, when Cabinet agreed to this course of action on 8 December 2014, did we not hear about it until last Tuesday, when I was questioning the Government around Chatham Rock Phosphate’s declined application? Why the months of delay? Why did the Government decide to consult with only the applicant—Shell Todd Oil Services—and related Government departments, not the public, not the iwi and hapū, whom this oil actually belongs to? It belongs to all New Zealanders. The Government consulted only the applicant and Government departments.

The critical question is this, and I hope some National member can explain this to me, and I want to make sure I am getting this right. Cabinet, according to the regulatory impact assessment, made this decision to go with this course of action on 8 December 2014, yet Shell Todd Oil Services put in its application only on 15 December. The Environmental Protection Agency accepted it only on 12 January 2015, to meet its fast-looming 27 June 2015 deadline. So Cabinet agreed to change the law before this company even put its application into the Environmental Protection Agency. To me, it looks like this company spent its time lobbying Government Ministers rather than actually getting its application in on time. This is an application that lasted for 35 years. Our legislation has been in place for 3 years. This is a company that had been heavily involved in the process to pass that legislation, but it could not get its ducks in a row, could not get its timing right, and so it ran to the Government and said: “Look, can you pass a law for us?”.

We have to ask why the application was so inadequate. There were 45 additional pieces of information required. This is not a loophole; this is a mess that the Government is cleaning up with its statutory power. Passing laws is the most important power each member in this Parliament has—a privilege bestowed upon us thanks to constitutional history and the work of countless individuals over the course of time. Here we are using our most powerful ability to pass a law to benefit a single company that needs its mess cleaned up.

As I said, we are happy to reconsider the process. We will be going into the select committee with an open mind and wanting to ask questions. But the main point we want to challenge is the “significant economic impact” that we have heard from the Government benches. Nick Smith blatantly exaggerated the impact on New Zealand last week when he said that some 40 percent of our country’s gas could be at stake. All the official documents state that it is in the order of around 20 percent. So here is a Minister doubling the gas impact for New Zealand in his public commentary. There has been no explanation why this company, which presumably obviously knew about this issue months before Cabinet discussed it and agreed to this course of action, did not put in place alternative supply arrangements, did not source alternative supplies of gas, and did not talk to other gas suppliers around potential arrangements there.

We often hear National talking about personal responsibility for, say, a beneficiary who has gone to a Government department and been told: “Sorry, the rules are the rules, you didn’t get your thing in on time.”, or for a charity that has applied for Government funding to do some good in its community and is told: “Sorry, the deadline has passed. The rules are the rules.” However, when it comes to the oil industry and Shell Todd Oil Services, the Government is quite prepared to jump, and to ask “How high?” when it is asked to jump. The fact is that there has been no explanation as to how this will have a significant economic impact. If that point can be proved, the Green Party is, I believe, highly likely to support it. We do not want to see families go without gas for their cooking. We do not want to see industrial consumers being forced to close down because of a lack of gas supply. But if this is simply about saving a particular company money for it to avoid particular contractual penalties if it cannot meet its supply agreements, then I think the public of New Zealand would look at this House and the passing of this law in a different light.

The locals have not been given an extension of submissions despite requesting it, despite all the additional information requested, despite the fact that this company still will not release its oil spill response plan. I believe New Zealanders are looking to Parliament to say: “We need a separation of oil and State.” Already in my career in Parliament in the last 3 years I have seen laws made for oil. When Petrobras had an iwi—Te Whānau a Apanui—fishing boat sailing in front of it, the Government called out the navy. When Anadarko was worried that it might see protesters off our shores, we passed the Anadarko amendment under urgency. When the oil industry wanted help promoting itself, the Government thought it would fork out $240,000 of taxpayers’ money on 11 executives for only 4 days. We have got the fourth-lowest tax for this royalty rate in the world—$46 million in tax breaks per annum. This sector—one of the most profitable in the world—has been picked as the champion, as the winner, by this Government, and here we see another law for oil.

But there is an opportunity cost. The Government, Cabinet, the officials, this Parliament—we could have been rolling out a network of modern infrastructure such as electric vehicle charging stations during this time. We could have been rolling back those tax breaks and investing that money in clean energy, growing jobs, and boosting regional economies. We could have been giving solar energy a fair go for all those thousands of consumers who feel ripped off by the power companies when they have those solar panels on their roofs. We could have been establishing a green investment bank to drive the growth of the New Zealand economy in terms of green investment and clean energy. But, no, we are passing another law for oil. The Green Party goes into it with an open mind—we are not locked into this vote—but I am proud to cast a protest vote.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): I am proud to stand on behalf of New Zealand First to actually support this bill, although I appreciate much of what has been said in the House by our previous speaker, Gareth Hughes. It was certainly a bit rich to note that the Minister blames Shell for this problem that seems to need Government legislation. It is unusual to see the Government blame business, or not take the benefit of good business upon itself. This bill continues to highlight this Government’s brilliant management of legislation! I know National is always keen to fix the heck out of a problem that does not need fixing, or, conversely, to do nothing when urgency is needed. This bill just adds to the litany of issues that this Government needs to face up to. The Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), debated just this week, is another prime example of 34—or is it 33—pieces of legislation that needed minor corrections. I question the number because the Associate Minister of Justice himself was not sure how many Acts were affected by the amendments.

This bill seeks to rectify an oversight on the part of this Government that it should have seen coming. There is certainly no two ways about it. It has already happened once before—37 pages of amendments previously, as noted by a previous speaker. The purpose of this legislation is to allow existing petroleum operators that have applied for a marine consent—that is, consent under the new exclusive economic zone legislation—to continue to operate their core business and to continue to operate even though there is no way they could do that under the current configuration of legislation now in front of us. It is an artificial time constraint, and it is interesting to note that in the legislation there was no contingency, no section, that gave these companies the opportunity to transition into this new legislation.

For me, I wonder whether this kind of fix-up is an example of what we will see with the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement negotiations. I mean, we do not have the privilege now of debating it as a House. It is certainly not being consulted on publicly, and we do not even get to discuss it for 4 years. I use this as an example of a forewarning to this Government to please focus on getting the legislation right, getting the negotiation right, so that the New Zealand public can have trust in a Government. There was trust in a Government, but it has been slowly eroded over the past 6 years. Trust is hard-earned, but it is certainly harder to maintain.

It has been categorically stated by the Minister that this bill will not seek to change the requirements for existing petroleum operators to transition into the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act regime through the marine consenting process. Dr Smith, as I understand it, has ruled out the possibility of more and different tweaking of the Act. One risk is that this amendment could see rise to changes made to it later through this process. New Zealand First is critically aware that this opportunity has now been opened and we are strongly, vehemently wording a warning to the Minister, asking that the Government please confine itself to the issues raised in this legislation as the fix that it presents the bill to be.

There is high public interest in the balance struck out in our oceans between exploration and protection. The obligation to protect and preserve is always paramount. New Zealand First believes we should be able to take energy, fish, minerals, and resources from our oceans, but New Zealand First also believes that we must have regard for their protection and the precautionary principle that is actually underlining the new exclusive economic zone legislation. In short, if the Government did now wish to revisit the balance that it struck in the law of 2012, at the very least we need assurance of full consideration, public submission, and proper democratic parliamentary process, not something slipped into the House and rushed through like the countering terrorist fighters legislation late last year.

I have made it known publicly that Minister Bridges’ decision to give permits for oil exploration rights in our marine reserves was anathema. Along a similar vein, after speaking and consulting with the public on this particular bill, two cases that failed just recently were not really about environmental or economic balance; they were about applicants proposing some quite novel ideas where a lot was at stake environmentally and they were unable to satisfy the Environmental Protection Authority that they had done the necessary homework. Those two cases, at this stage anyway, have suggested to New Zealand First that the current law is doing its job and that there is no need to use this as an opportunity to rewrite legislation when a promise has been made to this House that it is simply a fix-up.

New Zealand First supports the reasoning for this necessity. No public consultation has been entered into, as noted by the previous speaker, except, of course, consultation with the one affected party, that is, which, obviously, supports this bill. It is important to note why New Zealand First will support this bill going through to the next stage today. There is a transitional provision under new section 162(5). We speak of the end of June 2015 being the date when there is a real risk that Shell Todd Oil Services will be in breach of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act if it continues operating beyond 27 June of this year. Without that consent, it would have to cease its operations in the Māui field.

It has been noted—but I would add New Zealand First’s point of view to this conversation—just how significant this is. Shell Todd Oil Services’ Māui operations contribute about 20 to 26 percent of New Zealand’s gas supply and employ more than 300 personnel, which, of course, is a significant contribution to Taranaki’s financial well-being. A 5-day shut down in 2011 due to an outage at Māui gave us a real calculation of approximately $40 million a day gross cost to the New Zealand public. This bill, as it reads, will allow only current lawful petroleum activities to transition into the new regulatory regime without breaking the requirements of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. Therefore, international obligations do not directly apply to this bill, thankfully.

I am sure it was never the intention of this Government to deliberately or even inadvertently put operators transitioning into the exclusive economic zone regime at risk of breaching the relevant requirements of the Act. Therefore, with our warnings to the Minister about the process we are about to enter into, which we have been told is a fix-up and not an opportunity to rewrite legislation, New Zealand First will support this bill going through to the next stage because we cannot sit by and see core infrastructure collapse because of poor Government legislation. Thank you.

JOANNE HAYES (National): Before I begin my discussion I just want to acknowledge Dame Thea Muldoon. She was the powerhouse, I believe, behind Sir Robert Muldoon, and I want to say haere rā, haere rā, haere rā, moe mai. There is one other person whom I would like to acknowledge. She is a dear friend of our family. Her name is Mrs Nell Buckman and she passed away just recently. I am sure she is hand in hand with Dame Thea on their way to heaven.

With that I am pleased to stand to support the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. It is not a rewrite, though. This is a bill where we are addressing the transitional issues for current petroleum and gas operators. It is an opportunity for us to take this bill and to make sure and ensure that those operators in the oil and gas industry are being given a fair opportunity to make sure that everything, all the work they are doing, is within the rules of our Environmental Protection Authority work.

In 2011 we had an outage in our Māui field for 5 days. As many people have discussed in the House today, that 5-day shut down cost the gas consumers $40 billion—$40 billion. We cannot stand here and say that that is acceptable. It was unacceptable, so we needed to do something about that.

Oil and gas is our fourth-largest commodity after dairy, meat, and wood. I can tell you that it is $2 billion of GDP per year that is brought in, and the Government receives $800 million of that. Those funds that are received by the Government help to go towards and pay for health services, education services—some of our public services that the people of New Zealand are the beneficiaries of. I believe that that is very important for the well-being of our country and our people.

I am pleased that Labour is supporting this bill, albeit it had 9 long years in Government and it did nothing. It did nothing to protect our environment. Drilling went ahead, 34 wells were drilled, and there were no environmental protections for this country. Thirty-four wells were drilled and nobody knew about it, but then we found out and we blew the lid on that. Thirty-four wells were drilled without any protection for our environment. It is this National-led Government that has brought in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act, which set up the Environmental Protection Authority to look after the well-being of our environment.

I am fortunate to belong to our Bluegreens caucus, and last year—

Hon Maggie Barry: Kia ora.

JOANNE HAYES: Thank you. It is a very good caucus committee, and it is well-known and well respected amongst New Zealanders who know all about us and who are members of our caucus committee. I belong to that, and I went to the launch of the Kaikōura marine reserves. There I could see firsthand what an exclusive environmental zone Act is all about—how it looks after our environment and makes sure we have an even balance of economic and environmental programmes going hand in hand. We can do that, as long as we look after our environment.

I am a little bit perplexed, really, and sad that the Greens have opposed this bill going forward. I thought that referring the bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee would give the Greens an opportunity to discuss it. I am quite sad about that because they were in partnership with the Labour Government for 9 long years, and they did nothing. They did nothing to voice their opposition to Labour not—not—setting up environmental policy to protect New Zealand. I was really surprised that a Green member talked about electric cars and solar power. When the Greens were in partnership with Labour, they never even got a voice in. They were not heard. Why was that? It was because, I think, there is no respect there. There is no respect for that coalition, unlike our respect for our coalition partners. We have a lot of respect for our coalition partners, and we do listen. We listen to our partners, I can tell you that now. [Interruption] I know that you are just jealous. You can harp on over there. You can sit there and you can argue backwards and forwards, but we have a lot of respect for our ACT partner, our United Future partner, and our Māori Party partners, because that is what working in a coalition is all about, I can tell you now.

It is great that New Zealand First over there is going to support the bill going to the select committee. I am really pleased about that because then you can really see environmental policy at work, led by the National-led Government. You can really see that at work.

Anyway, back to the bill—let us have a look. As the law stands, current operators who apply for marine consents would be in breach of the exclusive environmental zone Act if they continued to operate beyond the expiry date of their permits under the Crown minerals regime while consent appeals were being heard by the Environmental Protection Authority. I must say that I was very impressed with the presentation from the Environmental Protection Authority today. I was impressed with the fact that it is doing such a wonderful job. It was set up 4 years ago through the exclusive environmental zone Act. I was impressed to hear about some of the great work it is doing in monitoring the activities within our environment and to learn that our exclusive environmental zone is so large. It is the largest in the world in terms of land, and even larger in terms of sea. I was very pleased to hear that and hear about the successes it is coming forward with.

To carry on with the bill, even if a marine consent application is being considered by the Environmental Protection Authority, section 162 of the Act does not allow existing operators to continue their activities beyond the expiry date of their permits under the Crown minerals regime. All of this you will have heard over and over again from my colleagues before me, and will keep hearing from my colleagues who will come after me, because it is really important that everybody gets the message of what is happening in the background of this bill.

Obviously, those affected directly by the dates of permit expirations are Shell Todd Oil Services; Australian Worldwide Exploration, or AWE, as it is known, on 24 November 2025; OMV New Zealand, on 1 December 2027; and Origin Energy Resources New Zealand, or Origin, as it is known, on 26 June 2031. Even if Shell Todd Oil Services is granted a marine consent before 27 June, there is a risk that the Environmental Protection Authority decision could be appealed, in which case Shell Todd Oil Services would be in breach of the Act. We all know that it did not apply early enough and that there needed to be sufficient time for some appeals. We know that. But I can tell you that this bill will not actually change the current requirement for existing operators to transition into the exclusive environmental zone Act regime through the marine consenting process. Those are just some of the details in the background of this bill.

I just want to kind of wind up my kōrero by saying that our natural environment, for this National-led Government, is our greatest asset. I talked about our marine reserve in 2014 and the work we have done there. We believe, as I said before, that economic and environmental policy can, and must, go hand in hand. We cannot let an outage like at the Māui gas field in 2011 happen again. The oil and gas industry is vital to the New Zealand economy. You have heard all that. You have heard what we do—$800 million into areas within health, education, and the social sector. You have heard how important they are as commodities for our economy and for exports—fourth behind dairy, meat, and wood—and you have also heard that, as I said, $800 million in taxes come back into this economy.

I am proud to support this bill in its first reading before it goes to the select committee, and I will look with interest as it is shepherded through the House to its final approval at the third reading. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call between the Green Party and the ACT Party. I call Eugenie Sage—5 minutes.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you. I am pleased to speak on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill and to explain why the Green Party will be casting a protest vote against this bill. It appears once again that this is an example of special pleading legislation and that the Government is amending our law for the benefit of particular corporate interests—in this case, Shell Todd Oil Services. In the Green Party we believe that there should be one law for all New Zealanders, rather than one for the oil companies and one for the rest of New Zealand.

The Government has form on amending law to benefit the oil industry. When we had the exclusive economic zone legislation going through, an amendment was, of course, rammed through under urgency in the Committee stage. There were changes to establish a no-go zone allowing no protest and banning New Zealanders from exercising their democratic right within that zone around seismic and other exploration vessels and around oil facilities. We had the Anadarko amendment, which allowed companies planning oil exploration to undertake this without the need to get a consent from the Environmental Protection Authority. So we have got history here of the Government changing the law to benefit the oil industry.

It is not just a transitional issue, because again, with one law for the oil industry, we are not seeing the Government changing the law to benefit the community or to benefit the public in having a say on this major application to have the Māui platforms continue for another 35 years.

The public must comply with the deadlines in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. There have been several requests to the Environmental Protection Authority, which is considering Shell Todd Oil Services’ application, which was lodged last December, to have an extension for submissions. The Environmental Protection Authority has declined those requests, and all the submissions had to be in by Tuesday. That 20-working-day deadline for submissions, which is set out in the law, had to be complied with by iwi, by hapū, and by members of the public, despite this being a very complex application and despite the Environmental Protection Authority having made a substantial request with around 55 different points that it wanted further information on.

The public were asking for an extension of time so that they could come to grips with the application, come to grips with all this further information, and make more informed submissions. The Environmental Protection Authority said: “No, abide by the law.” But here we have the Government changing the law to benefit Shell Todd Oil Services to extend its deadlines because it did not get itself organised enough to apply well before its permit expires on 27 June.

The Green Party certainly does not want to imperil the gas supply for New Zealanders, but we do not think there has been enough information provided that that is, in fact, a risk. As Gareth Hughes noted, the company could potentially make other arrangements. This bill could be all about saving Shell Todd Oil Services the cost of making alternative arrangements in terms of our gas supply.

The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act has been in place for 3 years. Shell Todd Oil Services is big enough and ugly enough to understand what the provisions of the Act are and what the requirements are in terms of lodging its application. It failed to do that, it lodged an application for marine consent only last December, and now Parliament is being asked to change the law just to suit the company.

The application that the Environmental Protection Authority is considering is a major one. I note in one of the newsletters that the company has put out about the Māui marine consents, it noted that the application was a good opportunity to consider future activities that may take place at Māui, and Shell Todd Oil Services will likely seek approval for these at the same time. So is there going be an expansion of the existing activities there? Are there going to be other environmental effects? Is this legislation going to give the company an easier run? We want to see much more detail around the justification for the legislation, to reassure us that the Government is not just making changes to benefit Shell Todd Oil Services. Thank you.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): A former long-serving and very honourable member of this House has counselled me to stay for the full debate and listen to what other members have to say so that I can actually join into the debate and contribute to it, rather than showing up, reading a speech, and leaving. I am mindful that if I was to respond properly to everything that I have just heard, I would completely run out of time before I got to make any points of my own.

But, I have to say, what a bizarre contribution from Gareth Hughes. He told us that this is not just a technical amendment—despite it being only 6 pages—and that it is actually a bending and breaking of the law. Well, let us just be clear about what this bill does. It says that Shell Todd Oil Services can continue doing what it was already able to do before new legislation and regulation was introduced and it will still have this new legislation and regulation and its full effects applied to it. However, it will be given more time so it does not come to be in contravention of these new laws and regulations. So, if anything, what we are seeing is additional regulation of the offshore oil industry. I cannot believe that the Green Party would be against that.

He then complained that the Government frequently bends the rule of law, for example, to help people doing oil exploration who find themselves to be under threat from protest. What exactly does he want us to do? Does he really believe that anybody he happens to disagree with does not deserve the protection of the rule of law and actually should be forced to live in a world of anarchy? And then, for the ultimate oddity, he said that he is lodging a protest vote. He wants to see this bill go to the select committee, but he is not actually going to vote for it to do so. As Ōtara Millionaires Club used to sing “How bizarre”.

Then we had Eugenie Sage from the Green Party say that we are not thinking about community. This really goes to the heart of what this debate is about. Actually, $40 million a year, approximately $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion each and every year, about 0.5 percent of the country’s GDP—yes, that does have an effect on the community, and we are going to hear about this more and more.

Although this is a small, technical bill, it brings into stark relief the way that the extractive industry and regulation are very tightly linked. If we look around the world, we can see just how much of a contribution the extractive industries make economically. This is particularly important at a time when places in regional New Zealand—like the Northland area, for example—are facing declining and ageing populations and serious problems funding their local governments, and yet they have the large potential to create jobs and become wealthier through extractive industries.

You can see this all over the world. In Alberta, for example, the province of Canada that has the most extractive industries, you have a median family income of $94,000. In Newfoundland and Labrador, from whence people commute by aeroplane to work in those industries, it is $70,000. It is very clear. In Western Australia, it is $68,000. In Tasmania, it is $48,000. Again, the contrast that you get from having extractive industries and what that can do for regions—particularly regions that are facing economic challenges and do not feel like rock star economies—is very, very large. Have a look, for example, a little bit closer to home. The average income in Taranaki is $74,000 for a household and in Northland it is $60,000. This is the economic difference that it makes.

Hon Simon Bridges: So why do the Greens oppose it?

DAVID SEYMOUR: Because they do not think that making money is actually beneficial for the community, Mr Bridges. That is the problem. And perhaps another prejudice that we should raise here is that there tends to be a belief in some quarters that the extractive industries are not sexy and cool and sophisticated. Did we not see that come out with the member Gareth Hughes waxing liberal about what we could be doing with the so-called smart economy? Well, as someone who has had one or two things to do with a few people who work in this industry, I can tell you that the extractive industries—oil and gas, for instance—are enormously sophisticated, high-productivity industries working with large amounts of capital, and that might explain why the average wage for a New Zealander is $50,000 and the average wage for someone in the mineral industry is $105,000. The ACT Party wholeheartedly supports this bill. Thank you very much.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It gives me great honour and privilege to rise and speak to this very important bill. Just following on from the previous speaker, David Seymour, I am a bit concerned and not sure about the Greens’ position. My understanding is that gas exploration and export took the pressure off and retired coalmining, so I am not very sure of their position today.

I rise to speak on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill in its first reading. I am very much looking forward to following this bill through the legislative process of this reading, the select committee work, and its second and third readings. Could I take the time to acknowledge the Hon Nick Smith, our Minister for the Environment, for his leadership and work in protecting the environment. I also take the opportunity to acknowledge our Local Government and Environment Committee chair, Scott Simpson, for his leadership and work in steering this committee—and very important work it is.

This bill is small, it is simple, and it is effective in allowing existing operators that have applied for marine consents to continue operations until the application is decided and any subsequent objections or appeals are determined. It is simple, small, and effective. I wrote down a few things—I normally have a look at a checklist—for this bill. Does this bill support our fourth-biggest export commodity earner? Tick. Does this bill avoid the closure of a gasfield at $40 million a day? Tick. Does this bill protect 300 jobs? Tick. Does this bill support existing operators to transition into the exclusive economic zone Act? Tick. Does this bill protect $800 million worth of taxes and royalties from operators in this sector, which pays for public services such as schools, hospitals, and roads? Tick. And—very important for the Greens—does this bill support the retiring of coalmining by supporting gas exploration and exporting? Tick. So, for me, even though this bill is small, simple, and effective, it has got a lot of ticks.

The Opposition members have also talked about this legislation as being poor, but, really, the reason for this amendment is no different from what businesses and organisations do every day up and down the country—it is around business continuity and looking at risk management. Very much of what we are doing around business continuity is ensuring, with risk management, that it is business as usual. That is very much the focus of this bill: ensuring we are moving to business as usual. So, very much in my region of Canterbury post-earthquakes, you will find that a lot of businesses and organisations are focusing on business continuity. In this case it is for Shell Todd Oil Services, because if it ceases operation in the Māui field, it is a cost of $40 million a day. Gas is our top fourth export commodity and it is 20 percent of our gas exploration.

Another reason why I think we need to support this bill is that this amendment is very much about the maturity and growth of legislation. We have got a newly established Environmental Protection Authority, which over the last 4 years, in its words, has been moving from “establishment to consolidation” and very much overseeing the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. What we need to do is promote sustainable management of our natural resources. The exclusive economic zone is approximately 12 to 200 nautical miles offshore, and it covers areas of the sea, the seabed, and the subsoil. So what we are looking at with this amendment is the maturity and growth of this legislation. I must say that it was great to hear the Environmental Protection Authority talk today about how our public submission process is unparalleled. This is because New Zealanders expect to have face-to-face time when they make submissions around the environment. It is great to see we are supporting that.

This is a technical bill and I would just like to take a bit of time talking about the technical aspects of it. This bill amends section 162 of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act of 2012. Section 162 allows existing petroleum operators that are permitted under the Crown minerals regime to continue their existing activities for the duration of mining permits or privileges. To continue operating once mining permits or privileges expire, existing petroleum operators must have a marine consent under the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. Currently, section 162 does not allow existing petroleum operators to continue activities while a marine consent application is being considered by the Environmental Protection Authority and any objections or appeals are being determined. This uncertainty about how long it takes to resolve appeals creates unnecessary risk around the transition of existing operators into the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environment Effects) Act 2012.

Just to summarise, I think that this is an important amendment and is very much supporting our natural environment, which is our greatest asset. National believes that successful economic and environmental policy can, and must, go hand in hand. It is interesting that parts of the Opposition think that it is only they who can stand up for environmental interests. I challenge that because I would say that it is intrinsic to every New Zealander and every Kiwi to protect our environment. This Government has taken great steps not only to protect the environment but to ensure we have economic development. As a small country, we need to increase our exports because it is the way we will improve the well-being of our people. This Government has a very aggressive growth agenda to double its exports, and, I must say, coming from an electorate like Waimakariri, which survives on its primary production—

Hon Simon Bridges: Great part of the world.

MATT DOOCEY: —it is fantastic—that primary production supports everyone in the local community, right down to the dry-cleaner, the dairy operator, and the person making the cappuccinos.

So I very much support this bill because what we need to do is protect the $800 million in taxes and royalties that come from companies operating in this sector each year, which helps to pay for our schools, our hospitals, our roads, and our other essential infrastructure. Thank you.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to speak at the first reading of this bill and, as my colleagues have mentioned in their contributions, we are supporting this bill. We do not want to see, come 28 June, the Māui gas platform being switched off and, in the middle of winter, the families and businesses around the country who are reliant on our energy supply being shut out. So of course we are supporting this bill.

However, yet again, unfortunately, we are dealing with cleaning up the sloppy, shoddy workmanship of this National Government in terms of passing legislation that is absolutely full of problems. This is just another patch-up job that this House is now having to do—patching up shoddy workmanship by this Government. Who have been the architects? I know that Mr Doocey referred to the great leadership from the Ministers who have been ushering in this bill and its preceding primary pieces of legislation. Obviously, we had Dr Nick Smith, who was the promoter of the principal Act that we are amending through this bill. We know that Dr Smith introduced that legislation, but he was not able to usher it through because, unfortunately, he had to go into self-imposed exile for the unfortunate Bronwyn Puller fiasco. But I do not want to go there. I just want to ask how many hands this piece of legislation has actually passed through. They are numerous. We had Dr Smith, and then it was passed on to the Hon Amy Adams. Mrs Adams rushed the primary piece of legislation through. The Local Government and Environment Committee—good work that it did—made substantial amendments to the primary piece of legislation, and then, in the Committee stage, Mrs Adams dumped a 14-page Supplementary Order Paper with further amendments. So that is not very good lawmaking.

And then what happened? One month after the passage of the primary piece of legislation, which we are amending yet again through this bill, we had another amendment that was put through the House, and that was the Marine Legislation Bill. Who was the sloppy tradesman from the National Government leading that piece of legislation? Well, it was none other than the Hon Gerry Brownlee. So it had been passed on to Minister after Minister, with shoddy workmanship all the way through. But further amendments to this piece of legislation were passed through the Marine Legislation Bill, which was passed only not so long ago. Here we are, in the 51st Parliament, and now we are having to deal yet again with another amendment to this piece of legislation through what could arguably be a stitch up with Shell Todd Oil Services to ensure that it has enough time to run through the decision-making processes so that it can be issued with a marine consent and, therefore, be able to carry on operating in the exclusive economic zone under the primary legislation. So this is shoddy workmanship from this National Government. It has been going on and it has been passed through the hands of Minister after Minister.

Mr Doocey talked about this legislation being a maturing of the environmental legislation, but it just highlights how shambolic and rushed the process was in terms of the passage of this bill. That is evidenced by the amendments after amendments after amendments that we are having to do. And it has been signalled that there are more amendments in the pipeline—no pun intended there—so we can expect more of the important time of this House to be spent on corrective pieces of legislation in order to correct what should have been picked up right at the start. Unfortunately, that is the so-called leadership that we are getting from this Government through a range of Ministers. I think that when you do that, you are actually creating a Frankenstein’s monster of a piece of legislation. You are having to chop, change, insert things, do deals over here, or maybe try to do something to appease another mining company or another sector or industrial interest. That is not good lawmaking and it is definitely not good government.

I want to now pass on to look at what this legislation does. This legislation allows Shell Todd Oil Services, which is a significant supplier of gas to our households in energy, the ability to see to the completion of its marine consent application in order for it to continue its operations. The company has applied to the Environmental Protection Authority for this consent. As a major corporation of this country, it must have an army of lawyers and the best law firms advising it. It really strikes me how incompetent it must be by not actually applying to the Environmental Protection Authority much earlier for its marine consent application. It alarmed me, when I was listening to Mr Hughes, that apparently Cabinet signed off on this special piece of legislation exclusively for petroleum exploration companies. Evidently, Cabinet gave the approval 3 days prior to Shell Todd Oil Services even applying to the Environmental Protection Authority for its marine consent. It is poor governance, but it is also poor of this Government to be trying to do special deals with what are significant infrastructure companies and energy suppliers for our country. It is not the way we should be running our country. That is of great concern.

If we get back to what has not been said before, I believe, in this debate, what we are missing here is that this legislation as a whole does fall short in protecting our environment. Ultimately, that is what we want to achieve and what this legislation was meant to achieve. However, following the successive amendments that we have had to put through this House, it behoves me to say, again, that this piece of legislation is unfortunate. We want to see the gas continue to flow, but we recognise that our environment is important. Our country has the fourth- or fifth-largest exclusive economic zone, yet there is still a lot that we do not understand about our marine environment and our marine jurisdiction.

I believe that largely a lot of the issues around the problems we are having arise from the fact that significant applications for seabed mining and the like are coming in from companies like Chatham Rock Phosphate. It is jumping through the regulatory hoops that have been put in front of it, and yet it comes to a situation where the Environmental Protection Authority has made a decision and now we are having to, so we understand—we have heard that another amendment to this legislation is now being proposed that will accommodate and maybe allow Chatham Rock Phosphate to continue with its activities. We are now seeing this knee-jerk reaction from the Government to respond to the cries from the commercial sector. This is to the detriment of the people who are actually involved in these processes. I think of the iwi of the West Coast, who have valid objections to the activities of Todd Energy. All of the other objectives are not being respected, in terms of the Environmental Protection Authority process. It is a rubber stamp, but we need to make sure that we put good law in place. Kia ora.

NUK KORAKO (National): E te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe. Before I speak to this bill I want to follow on from my colleagues on this side of the House and acknowledge the passing of Dame Thea. In doing that, I remember Sir Robert Muldoon and the fact that when he passed out of this House in 1992, during the tangi he was haka’d out. There were two hakas that were part of his poroporoaki. I just want to acknowledge her passing. I remember her when both she and Sir Robert came to St Stephen’s College in Auckland when I was a student there. She was just a wonderful person—a very warm person. I acknowledge her and her tangi being held on Tuesday, where she will make her final journey to Sir Robert and her ancestors. Kia ora again. E mihi atu ki a koutou katoa huri noa i te Whare e tū nei. [Acknowledgments to you, all throughout the House, standing here.] Nō reira, tēnā koutou e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa.

I rise to speak on the first reading of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. As the final speaker it is really interesting sitting here listening to the Opposition and to my colleagues on this side of the House. On this side of the House we have all the ticks, and on the other side we have the fact that either the glass is half empty or, if we come further over here to my right, to my Green Party colleagues, the glass is completely empty.

I am pleased to support this bill, and I look forward to considering it as a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee. National has a strong record of promoting economic growth and protecting our environment. We do not see protection of the environment as being detrimental to our economy. We also do not take the view of the Green Party that somehow increasing the wealth of our nation is detrimental to the environment and we should abandon the goal of economic growth. That in itself is a reflection of the fact that the future of this country should never ever be put in the hands of that particular party.

I want to cover off the achievements to date, in relation to this bill, of the National-led Government. The achievements of the National-led Government stand as proof that economic growth and environmental protection can go hand in hand. Through a period of sustained economic growth National has steadily improved environmental management in this country. To me, the environment is neither a left nor a right domain—it really is not.

I am proud to be part of the Bluegreens as well. I am not only “blue brown”; I am also blue-green. I am very proud to be part of the Bluegreens group in the National Party caucus. I have great admiration for the work of the Hon Nick Smith and others who set up this group. The Bluegreens have instigated many of the sensible environmental management measures put in place by the National-led Government. I am looking forward in April to actually being able to go to Great Barrier Island and to be there as part of the Bluegreens conference.

An incredible instigation coming from the Bluegreens initiative, but not least among those measures, was a sea change in how our maritime environment is managed. The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 was the big step forward for environmental management. It certainly was, and we are seeing the fruits of that today. At the Local Government and Environment Committee meeting today the chair of the Environmental Protection Authority came to present. It has been going for just over 3 years, and what an amazing 3 years that has been. This is a direct effect of that 2012 legislation. For the first time this law required the environmental effects of activities in our exclusive economic zone to be managed. That is really the essence here. It is actually about finding that balance, particularly through management. It is sensible blue-green legislation that protects our environment without constricting economic growth in a way that would be detrimental to the prosperity of all New Zealanders.

As can easily happen with reforms as big as this, there have been unintended consequences. We have heard from the other side of the House that it is all doom and gloom. The whole country was going to the dogs—all the legislation and everything that we are doing in this House was based on the fact that suddenly we needed to amend certain legislation. I repeat for the benefit of my New Zealand First colleagues over there that these things can easily happen with reforms as big as this. There have been unintended consequences. Once they get into Government they will probably understand that a bit more, if they ever do.

As the Minister stated in his speech at the time, when the original bill had its first reading, it was those activities and undertakings that the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 regulates that would be allowed to continue until the marine consent applications were decided. This particular part of the legislation was to ensure that operators are able to continue their activities without interrupting the supply of gas to New Zealand consumers. That has been highlighted right across the House during this debate. It is now apparent that there is a risk that appeals against the granting of marine consents could interrupt this supply and cause damage to our economy.

The first permit that is at risk expires on 27 June 2015, and even if the operator is granted a marine consent by the Environmental Protection Authority before the expiry of its current permit, any appeal against the Environmental Protection Authority’s decision would force it to stop operating. Those appeals could take years, and so the risk of interruption to the gas supply cannot be ignored. Other speakers have already talked through this, as I have said. It is also about what the Government receives in revenue from extraction, particularly the $800 million that as we have said, goes into infrastructure, education, roading, and all that sort of thing.

I stand here and really commend this bill to the House. It is a simple bill and it is actually being supported by most of the parties in here. It is important that we do protect our resources for the benefit of all New Zealanders. Kia ora.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 106

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 11; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 13

Green Party 13.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Corrections) on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: I move, That the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill be reported back to the House by 29 June 2015.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill

First Reading

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Corrections): I move, That the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Law and Order Committee to consider the bill. The bill implements the Government’s intention to introduce drug and alcohol testing where drug and alcohol abstinence is a condition of bail, home detention, or other community-based sentences and orders.

We all know that the misuse of alcohol and drugs is a major driver of crime. Half of the offender population say they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they offend, and 60 percent of community offenders have an identified alcohol or drug dependency. This is something our Government takes extremely seriously. We are committed to achieving the Better Public Services goal of reducing reoffending by 25 percent by 2017. The Department of Corrections has expanded the number of alcohol and drug interventions that it offers—for example, in 2014 there were more than 8,500 drug and alcohol treatments and interventions, which is an increase of nearly 300 percent on the previous year. This complements the police’s Prevention First strategy, which has led to record low crime rates. But programmes on their own are certainly not enough. Prevention strategies need effective tools to create the permanent lifestyle changes that offenders need to stop using alcohol and drugs. They must be deterred from using these triggers that lead to reoffending when they are in the community.

Each year around 4,000 offenders on community sentences and orders and around 15,000 people on bail have abstinence as a condition of their release. These conditions can be imposed, of course, by the court or the Parole Board. The imposition of these conditions reflects the fact that alcohol or drug use contributes to the individual’s increased risk of further offending. It is important that the agency administering the sentence or order knows when the condition has been breached. Compliance with these conditions improves public safety and security.

Current legislation does not provide a clear authority to test offenders or those on bail for the presence of alcohol or drugs in their systems. The bill addresses this problem by amending the Bail Act 2000, the Sentencing Act 2002, and the Parole Act 2002. By doing so, it creates an explicit legislative mandate for alcohol and drug testing of offenders subject to abstinence conditions. It recognises that such testing is necessary for the proper enforcement of abstinence conditions and that these new technologies provide greater opportunities to improve public safety. The amendments in the bill will require all bailees and community-based offenders subject to abstinence conditions to undergo testing or to submit to continuous monitoring if directed by the police or the Department of Corrections. The ability to test will in practice be confined to those at the highest risk of breaching their abstinence conditions. The high likelihood of detection and the possibility of imprisonment will make these individuals think twice about using alcohol or drugs. On that basis, I expect this bill to reduce reoffending by these offenders.

So how does the bill work? The bill allows rules about testing methods and procedures to be made by the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections and the Commissioner of Police. These rules will be guided by the principles set out in the bill: testing should be no more intrusive than is reasonably necessary, testing should take place no more often than is reasonably necessary, and, finally, those being tested should be afforded as much privacy and dignity as possible. With so many offenders being under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they offend, quick action is critical. This bill will ensure that the Department of Corrections and the police can respond to breaches rapidly and prevent serious reoffending before it occurs.

Under this Government we have already seen the benefits of GPS technology in ensuring that offenders abide by their conditions. This new technology ensures that when offenders stray into the prohibited areas or remove their ankle bracelets, law enforcement is alerted immediately, and this enables enforcement agencies to respond quickly. I look forward to the expansion of drug and alcohol monitoring technologies to also help the police and corrections officers identify breaches speedily. The bill is another critical step towards achieving the Government’s goal of a 15 percent reduction in crime and a 25 percent reduction in reoffending by 2017.

In summary, I am confident that the measures in this bill will significantly help the Department of Corrections and the police enforce drug and alcohol abstinence conditions. I am confident that this bill will deter offenders and those on bail from breaching their conditions. Most important, I am confident that it will protect New Zealanders from the negative consequences of drug and alcohol misuse. That is why I highly commend this bill to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I put the question to the House, I do want to reiterate a warning that was given by the Speaker at the general debate yesterday with regard to the reading of speeches. Although there is some flexibility, especially for Ministers on the first reading when they are making technical remarks, that was not the case in this particular speech. Although it was appropriate to refer to notes for figures—and there were a number of figures, especially in the early part—I want to caution members about reading speeches.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): The Labour Party supports the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill. It goes without saying that the use and the abuse of alcohol in our communities is fairly rampant, and also the use and abuse of drugs such as cannabis are pretty rampant in many communities, as is now, sadly, the use and abuse of harder drugs such as methamphetamine, otherwise known as P. I have spoken in this House before of a family of students at the school where I used to be principal who had an intimate knowledge of the production and the consumption of P. That was because for their parents and their parents’ associates it was just a regular part of their week to imbibe that drug. Also I remember a youth aid officer telling me that in one house that he raided—and this was the house of a student who attended the school I was principal of—in 14 places around the lounge where you and I might have had chips or nuts on the arm of the chair or on the coffee table, they had marijuana. It was just there, accessible, with kids all around. That is, again, unacceptable. Then there was the infamous league competition up north where the player of the day, instead of receiving his $20 meat pack from the local butcher, received, in fact, an ounce of marijuana.

This just emphasises and highlights how normalised drugs and alcohol are in many communities and how normalised drugs and alcohol are in many families. Let us imagine, then, how difficult it is for an offender who is on a community-based sentence, if the use of drugs and alcohol is normalised in his or her life, to voluntarily abstain from partaking of drugs and alcohol. That is why we need a system that has to impose abstinence on these people. I remember a kaumātua up north saying to me that sometimes the only way to get people to do the right thing or to change is to seriously inconvenience them. This bill will seriously inconvenience offenders in that if the conditions of their community-based sentence say that they must abstain from drugs and alcohol, they will be made to undergo testing and they will be made to provide bodily samples to see whether there is alcohol or drugs in their systems. So it will be an inconvenience for them, but sometimes that is the price that we do have to pay to make sure that we live in a safe society.

There are safeguards within the bill that the Law and Order Committee will examine to make sure, as the Minister of Corrections has said, that people’s rights are not going to be overly imposed upon. We have got to make sure that this does, in fact, comply with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The bill itself does give us the proper authority to undergo this testing regime. So what does the bill do? The Minister has spelt out what the bill does. It allows the police and the Department of Corrections to require community-based offenders to undergo a drug and alcohol testing regime to monitor them for drugs and alcohol in their systems. The offender must be advised by a judicial officer or the registrar up front that they will be made to undergo the monitoring by an authorised person, and, if they are advised, then they must do so.

There are a number of areas, as I have said, that the select committee needs to scrutinise and examine. Some of these things are the types of testing procedures that the offenders will have to undergo, the regularity of the testing, the consequences of prohibiting an authorised person from coming to conduct the tests, and the types of drug and alcohol testing devices—and I think it is really important that we examine that. There is a range of drug and alcohol monitoring and testing devices. I believe other jurisdictions around the world have already implemented systems like this, and it would be really good to hear at the select committee stage what those monitoring devices are, how they actually work, the technical functions around those devices, how often and how long continuous testing may be carried out for, and minimum levels of controlled drugs and alcohol in the system as well.

There is no argument that drugs and alcohol are a major driver of crime in the country. In fact, a District Court judge from up north said to me that if we could miraculously eliminate alcohol from up north, 90 percent of his business would disappear overnight. That is quite a telling sort of comment from a District Court judge who every day has to deal with incidents where crimes have been committed because of drug and alcohol abuse. As the Minister has rightly pointed out, 48 percent—almost half—of offenders report at the time that they are arrested that they have been using at least one drug. The Minister said two-thirds—60 percent—of offenders on home detention or supervision have a drug or alcohol addiction issue. So that just illustrates the seriousness, and just how rampant drug and alcohol issues are and their contribution to crime. As the Minister said, 5,000 community-based—he said 4,000; I have read 5,000—community-based offenders and 15,000 bailees have some abstinence conditions imposed upon them as part of their sentence. Drug and alcohol testing is used overseas and evidence shows that it is effective. So, as I have said, I would be interested to hear just what makes it so effective and what we can do to improve on that. What were some of the ups and downs that those overseas jurisdictions experienced as they were implementing similar systems?

There are three principles that need to be applied consistently; again, the Minister has gone over them. The first is that testing is no more intrusive than is reasonably necessary. The second is that testing takes place no more often than is necessary. And the third, of course, is that we make sure that testing and monitoring do maintain a person’s dignity and right to privacy. A positive test for drugs and alcohol can be used as evidence of non-compliance with the drug and alcohol conditions imposed on an offender or bailee, and they—the offender or the bailee—need to understand that this can be used against them. There are offences for non-compliance, such as refusing an authorised person access to the home to conduct the testing, tampering with the devices, or diluting or manipulating any samples.

I just want to go back, briefly, to the technology around the testing—the testing devices and their accuracy, which is something I would like to explore. Again, when I was a schoolteacher we had a policeman come to the school to talk to kids about his police equipment. The kids got to sit in the car and turn on the sirens and the lights and everything. The policeman brought out a roadside breath-testing kit, and he lined up half a dozen kids, got them to speak their names into the device, and they, of course, came up with negative results. Then he got them to gargle Listerine, spit it out, and then say their names and addresses, and it came up with positive results because the device is able to pick up the alcohol in the Listerine. He also said that perfume and cologne, if alcohol-based, can also be picked up for their alcohol content. Therefore, any device that is attached and picks up the alcohol content in sweat may actually also pick up the alcohol in cologne and perfume. Those are just some of the issues that we need to examine as a select committee. As I have said, the Labour Party supports the bill.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. First of all, I would like to congratulate the Minister, Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, on introducing this bill. Drugs and alcohol are a very important part of our lives. Studies done on this show that one of the biggest reasons behind crime is drugs and alcohol. The irony is that we are going through a petition in the Law and Order Committee where the petitioner has requested that we legalise cannabis. This Government is really focused on reducing the use of alcohol and drugs and there are some people who want other drugs to be legalised, which I do not think this National Government will support in any manner.

This bill is a very important tool that we are going to provide to corrections officers and the police that will help to monitor offenders on whether their bail conditions are being breached or not. It is very important that we have the tools. In the past 6 or 7 years this Government has really focused on providing tools to the police and to the judiciary so that we can reduce crime in this country. Crime is one thing that makes people feel unsafe. As I said in one of the speeches yesterday on the Parole Amendment Bill, people are now feeling safe in their homes, they are feeling safe on the streets, and they are feeling safe in their businesses. That is what people want from a Government, and this Government in the past 6 or 7 years has provided tools to the judiciary and to the police so that we can reduce crime. Crime is the lowest since 1978, which means a lot to the people. It has given a lot of confidence and people are feeling happy about it.

I have got little doubt that the National Government has always endeavoured to make communities stronger and safer by focusing its investment on the sectors like rehabilitation, education, and improving the profile of prisoners. Right now we have got three prisons that are called working prisons, where the prisoners are being trained in different sectors so that they can have some kind of trade training before they go back into the community. Once they are back in the community, they have got confidence that they can work, they can integrate into the community, and people can be safe and be protected from their past. People have to think about this thing—the past, which they have to forget—and look forward to the future. It is great to see more and more people who earlier may not have had clarity on their pathway through their life leaving prison and being able now to think about their future, about their families, and about their children.

I do not think that any offender would like to go back to jail or to prison, or reoffend, and that is the reason reoffending is also coming down with time. As the Minister mentioned in his speech, the Department of Corrections is working very hard to make sure that the reoffending rate is coming down. The Prime Minister has set targets for Better Public Services, and we have set a target for reoffending to be reduced by 25 percent by 2017. When we were having a financial review yesterday at the Law and Order Committee, the Department of Corrections was very confident that it will be working towards this target so that we can achieve it in days to come.

The investment in the future of prisoners is an investment for New Zealand’s future. We want to ensure that people who are working are feeling safe, and this bill—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am now going to invite the member in the second half of his speech—he was really good for about 2 minutes—to now address the bill, not post-release, which is nothing to do with the bill.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: This bill will give rights to the police and the Department of Corrections to try to ensure that offenders and bailees comply with their drug and alcohol conditions. They can test them, but this bill does not provide that they should breach their privacy. Police and corrections officers should make sure that privacy is maintained and that it is not quite often that they go and test offenders. They have to ensure that what they are doing is not breaching any privacy and that the offender is not being harassed because of this. Current legislation does not give any clarity or any authority to police or corrections officers to do these kinds of tests, but this bill will help in putting up a legislative basis for the testing and the monitoring of the bailees and the community-based offenders with drug and alcohol conditions.

It requires all the bailees and the community-based offenders who are subject to the drug and alcohol abstention conditions imposed by the court or Parole Board to undergo alcohol and drug testing and to submit to continuous monitoring if directed by the police or the Department of Corrections. The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections and the Commissioner of Police will have this authority to have the testing methods and procedures set up for offenders. This is another tool that we are going to provide to the judiciary. It will help to reduce crime and reoffending further, and I hope that it will go a long way towards the security of people. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): The purpose of this bill is to ensure that those who are out in our community either on parole or on bail and who are subject to conditions of non-use of alcohol and drugs, imposed either by the court in the case of bailees or by the Parole Board in relation to those on parole, actually comply with those conditions. Most New Zealanders would be surprised to know that legislation of this nature is actually required for that to happen. All of us would have assumed that if there is a court-imposed condition or a Parole Board - imposed condition that you do not use drugs and alcohol when you are in the community at the discretion of that authority, then there would be proper checks on compliance with those conditions. What we read in this bill and in the regulatory impact statement is that the authorities are telling us, very belatedly, that there is no legislative mandate to ensure compliance with court or Parole Board - imposed conditions. I find that quite amazing.

You imagine that when a condition is imposed, there is a way of monitoring compliance, and that in cases where there is the highest risk, there is some testing to ensure that compliance is taking place. The fact that we now learn that that is not the case I think indicates that the authorities have been rather lax in reporting back to this House that something that all of us would assume was necessary was not actually in place. I have to ask the question. If the court or the Parole Board has the power to require testing of compliance with the conditions—and the court can, apparently, order that—why has the court not been doing it? We read from this bill that the court has not been.

This is a concern because there are some 20,000 people out in our community at any one time who are subject to conditions of non-drug or non-alcohol use—5,000 on community sentences and 15,000 on bail—yet the police say that they very rarely test people on bail to see whether they are actually complying with the non-use of drugs or alcohol. By comparison, in countries that we would normally relate to in terms of our justice system, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, testing is commonplace. So, somewhat belatedly, this bill comes to the House.

I am curious that 3 years ago, measures were moved to require beneficiaries to be tested for drug or alcohol use, and yet there was no comparable provision for people who have been proven to have committed crimes and been sentenced for them or for people who are on bail for allegedly committing a crime. There was no such provision for these people. Somehow, beneficiaries came under the big stick before those who were either convicted criminals or alleged to be criminals. I am surprised, therefore, that we got this the wrong way about, and that this legislation had not come in earlier, but it is here and it is good that it is here. I believe that it makes sense. Labour will be supporting it, but we will be asking questions in the select committee to ensure that this is the best and the most cost-effective way of ensuring the safety of the community.

There are two fundamental reasons why we need this legislation. The first one is public safety. If a person is subject to conditions they are not meeting and they have a track record of offending while being influenced by drugs or alcohol, they constitute a threat to the community, and we need to deal with that situation immediately. So there is a need to have legislation of this sort.

What the bill also does is that it sets out the methods and procedures for monitoring and testing. Well, actually, it does not spell out those in detail, but rather it sets the principles that will govern the rules and procedures that will be set by the chief executive officer of the Department of Corrections and the Commissioner of Police. This House is rightly careful about delegating authority to subordinate legislation—to regulations—about what is done and how it is done, but in this case I am glad that at least the principles are set down by which the police commissioner or the head of the department will set the rules. They are common-sense things: that the drug testing and monitoring be no more intrusive than necessary, that they be no more often than necessary, and that they give as much privacy to the person being tested as is reasonable given all of the circumstances of the case.

The bill also sets out the consequences of non-compliance because it is not just a case of testing and finding people who are breaking the rules; it is about making sure that those who are subject to the conditions believe that if they actually do not meet the conditions, there is a good chance they are going to be caught. That is the critical thing about this bill.

We have seen that in the United States. The United States, which has similar provisions to this, found that it could reduce drunk-driving by repeat offenders from around 36 percent down to nil if those most at risk of drunk-driving felt that there was a high likelihood that their breach of the conditions would be detected. I think that those statistics are persuasive.

Secondly, in Australia the experience has been pretty much that you do not do it to everybody. We are talking about 20,000 people who are subject to conditions. If we were to regularly monitor and test 20,000 people, the cost would be astronomical. We would be talking about tens of millions of dollars and a huge use of resources. So practicality suggests that what you do is test those at most risk of reoffending and those who, if they reoffend, are at most risk of committing a serious offence, such as a violent offence. From reading the regulatory impact statement, that appears to be the way in which the department and the police will go about implementing a testing regime, and I think that that is very appropriate.

Why do we need to do all of this? Well, what we know about drugs and alcohol is that they are both major drivers of crime. I think that during the time when I was working in the justice system, nearly half of all of those arrested reported that at the time of arrest they had been using drugs or alcohol—48 percent. If that is relying on them to report it, you can assume that it is not over-reported—it is more likely to be under-reported. So for nearly half of all of those arrested, their behaviour at the time they are arrested is influenced by the misuse of drugs or alcohol, or addiction to drugs or alcohol.

It is even greater when you come to looking at those who are on home detention, on extended supervision, or supervision orders. Of those who come into those categories, 68 percent are found to have behavioural problems caused by drug and alcohol abuse and addiction—68 percent. So whatever we can do in this area is really important. We will end up testing somewhat fewer than 500 out of the 20,000 people who have conditions imposed on them, but if we target the people who are most at risk, then we are going to have the biggest impact in the most cost-effective way.

The cost is reported as being about $2 million to $3 million a year. That is a substantial amount of money and a substantial amount of work on the part of the department and the police, but if this is effective—and I believe that it should be effective—then I believe that that is a good investment of the taxpayer dollar.

What we are trying to do here, to sum up, is to ensure compliance. There is no good purpose in imposing conditions about non-use of alcohol and drugs unless you have a means of checking to see that those conditions are being followed. If there is a breach of those conditions, then there will be some sanctions. The sanctions will involve either fines or imprisonment, and they will probably increase the need for prison capacity by a modest amount—by about 10 beds a year. So I believe that this legislation does have the potential to improve public safety, and the Labour Party will be supporting it on that basis.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): It is an honour to rise to make a contribution to the first reading of the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill. It is pleasing to hear that the Labour Party will be supporting this bill, and I want to acknowledge Phil Goff, the former Minister of Corrections on the other side of the House. I would be interested to see how the Green Party votes on this one, though, given that, from what we have heard of it in the past, there are two pieces here that go against the grain—that is, being tougher on criminals and being tougher on the consumption and use of wacky backy. So it will be interesting to see how those members vote.

I just want to touch on the purpose of this bill. It amends the Bail Act 2000, the Sentencing Act 2002, and the Parole Act 2002 to enable the Department of Corrections and police to require community-based offenders and bailees who are subject to conditions prohibiting the use of drugs and alcohol to undergo drug and alcohol testing. I agree with the statement made by Phil Goff. I think it would probably be consistent with the assumption of most New Zealanders that this had taken place already. So it is a really pleasing move, and I congratulate Minister Lotu-Iiga on bringing this bill to the House. It is very important.

I think that at a fundamental level, when offenders are back in our communities, we want to support them in order to be sure they stay away from the drivers of crime and to keep our communities safe as well. Everybody who has spoken on this bill this evening so far has acknowledged the incredible contribution that drugs and alcohol make in terms of encouraging first-time offenders and also recidivism. Anything that we can do to stymie and prevent excessive consumption of alcohol and consumption of drugs will be very important in achieving the overall desire, which is reducing the level of crime and reoffending. Just as a bit of background, at the moment police and Department of Corrections staff are trying to ensure offenders and bailees comply with drug and alcohol conditions, but they are limited in what they can actually do. The current legislation does not give clear authority for them to test offenders or bailees for the presence of alcohol and/or drugs, and so, therefore, this bill creates the opportunity and legislative mandate for alcohol and drug testing for eligible offenders and bailees.

Yesterday, in the Law and Order Committee, we had the Department of Corrections come in for its annual review. It outlined a number of initiatives that are taking place in order to reduce reoffending and increase rehabilitation. The first sort of touches on and brings together the Government’s increased investment in three key areas: the first is rehabilitation, including rehabilitation from drug and alcohol issues; the second is education; and the third is work experience. I just want to briefly touch on each of those three areas because I think they relate to the purpose of this bill quite closely.

In terms of rehabilitation, we know that in the 2013-14 financial year there were 2,525 alcohol and drug treatments that took place by the Department of Corrections. In the same year there were 5,262 interventions for prisoners. That is an increase of 102 percent of alcohol and drug treatments compared with the year before that, and an increase of 310 percent of interventions compared with the year before that. We can see that the increased investment and the increased focus that the Department of Corrections staff are putting on rehabilitation for drug and alcohol treatment is having an effect behind the cell doors. What this bill does is it extends that one step further to ensure that it is also having an effect when these people are out in the communities, either on bail or on parole. I think that the risk for reoffending to take place and for criminals to slip back into the drug and alcohol habits that they had while they were in prison and before they came in in the first place is incredibly heightened when they leave prison. That is why this bill is critically important in the wider picture in terms of the Department of Correction’s strategy around rehabilitation.

The second key area is around education. I will just briefly explain how I think that relates to the drug and alcohol provisions that are in this bill. When staff from the Department of Corrections were at our select committee meeting yesterday they talked about the increased investment and focus they are putting on education. They are saying that every prisoner has now received an individual learning assessment and is receiving an individual education plan. I initially assumed that that would be for vocational training and enabling them to get into a job and into the workplace, but, actually, it goes right back to National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 1. A lot of these people do not even have the basic qualifications that you receive when you are 15 or 16 years old at high school. If you do not even have NCEA level 1, 2, or 3, you are not going to have any chance of having any vocational training whatsoever, which reduces your chances of being able to be employable, and I suspect that that was probably one of the major factors leading into these people entering the corrections system in the first place.

I think that how that relates to this bill in terms of drug and alcohol treatment is that if you are constantly seeking employment or seeking work opportunities, you are constantly being let down and you are not being taken on board due to your education and qualifications. Then, as a depressant, it probably drives you towards alcohol and drug consumption because you do not know where else to go. You feel your self-esteem is very low and you are not being given opportunities to earn an income, so you are, therefore, having to rely on other avenues to earn a living and provide for yourself and your family, which probably gets people on the train of drug and alcohol consumption in the first place. So the focus that the Department of Corrections is putting on the training and education space, in addition to the rehabilitation of drug and alcohol treatment, I think goes hand in hand. The third is work experience, which has the same relationship to drug and alcohol as education does.

I think the investment into, and emphasis on, what goes on behind the cell in terms of drug and alcohol rehabilitation that the Department of Corrections is making and the emphasis that it is now extending through the provisions in this bill—it is going to be putting this on past the cell gates as well—goes towards the wide social policy approach that the Government is taking. I think that although it relates incredibly to this bill, it also relates to a number of other bills that the Law and Order Committee has been considering—and is considering in my very limited time on the committee; 2 weeks, as of yesterday—but it is, none the less, very important. I think that tying all of these things together and the work that is being done in police, the corrections system, social welfare, education, and justice more broadly are very important in contributing towards the overall strategy around reducing offending, reducing reoffending, and trying to prevent as many people as possible from entering into the justice pipeline.

Going back to the provisions in this bill, Mr Goff focused on the principles that the bill outlines, which then gives some guidance to the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections and the Commissioner of Police to go ahead and set some more precise guidelines around that. The following principles have been put in place to adhere to the human rights safeguards that need to be in place in such a bill—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! That section has already been read out four times, and I think that is tedious repetition.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): It is a great pleasure to take a call on this bill on behalf, really, of my colleague David Clendon, who has followed the issues that the bill canvasses with considerable interest. I wanted to begin by referring to what has happened in Auckland over the last year or so, and that is a trial of a new specialist kind of court, the alcohol and other drug treatment court. The principle behind those courts is to take offenders who meet certain criteria—they are repeat criminal offenders whose offending is fuelled by alcohol and other drug consumption who otherwise would be on their way into a custodial sentence—and it says in respect of those offenders: “Let’s divert them away from that custodial path and instead let’s try something else. Let’s try actually treating the alcohol or other drug use that is actually fuelling their criminal behaviour.” What the court does is it imposes on them a strict regime of irregular—rather than regular—frequent testing and compulsory alcohol or other drug treatment programmes. It involves frequent reappearances in court in front of the same judge and in front of the same team who were present at their first appearance to monitor progress.

I spent a day in Judge Emma Aitkin’s court in Auckland following the process that was employed by the court. It was an extraordinarily rewarding day. I have spent a lot of time over the years in courts and it is usually a pretty depressing process, but in this particular court I saw in the morning a panel convened by the judge that involved the prosecution, defence lawyers, social workers, and treatment providers all getting together discussing the cases that they were going to be considering in the afternoon and thinking: “What progress has this person making? What is the best thing that we could do for this person when they appear this afternoon?”. I was hugely impressed by the genuine goodwill and concern shown by all of those parties. Then in the afternoon I was able to see the offenders who had been discussed in the morning appearing in court and I saw the plans that had been worked out in the morning actually being implemented. I have to say after years of administering alcohol and other drug treatment services for district health boards and other health service providers that I saw a really rewarding process with the people appearing before this court actually making progress and changing their lives, which was fantastic.

I was particularly encouraged because it is a new way of dealing with criminal offending, whereas the old way, which is traditional punishment, is clearly not working—clearly not working. Prison and other forms of punishment simply do not address the irrational behaviour that emerges from the consumption of alcohol and other drugs. These are irrational processes that are not possible to change through punishment mechanisms that intend to impact on offending.

That is why this bill is so important, because it provides a springboard to allow us to do something a little bit different in community-based sentencing and in bail. That is one of the reasons why the Green Party is supporting this bill today. We are supporting it at least as far as the select committee because, although currently some treatment is available in prisons and in other corrections system settings, the simple fact is that most of the offenders who need that treatment are not getting it. Yet, as we have already heard from Kelvin Davis in this debate, much—perhaps most—of the criminal offending that comes before the courts is actually fuelled by alcohol and other drug consumption. So we have a fundamental disconnect between what is causing offending, what might change that offending, and how we respond to it.

So typically, the corrections system aims to do several things. It aims to provide a disincentive for other offending, it aims to take a person who has committed offences out of circulation so that they cannot reoffend during that time, and it sets out to provide—I hesitate to use the word—a kind of revenge or retribution for the offending. It does not set out to change the fundamental drivers, and that is where this bill comes in.

I want to quote from Roger Brooking, who is one of our most experienced drug and alcohol counsellors involved in the corrections system. He wrote a book called Flying Blind: How the justice system perpetuates crime and the Corrections Department fails to correct. What he says is that by failing to place offenders into substance abuse treatment in particular, the justice system actually contributes to criminal reoffending and to New Zealand’s high rate of recidivism. The biggest obstacle in the system is that although 80 percent of offending occurs under the influence of alcohol and drugs, only about 5 percent of all offenders are required by judges to attend a treatment programme as part of their sentence.

The Green Party supports this bill for these reasons. It provides the opportunity for us to connect offenders with alcohol and drug treatment programmes, which is a connection that is simply not occurring at the moment, and also for the absolutely obvious reason that if we have got 200 or 250 people—I guess estimates would vary—who have been required to be abstinent by judges when they have appeared before the court and who would pose a serious risk to New Zealanders if they are not abstinent but there is no mechanism for monitoring their abstinence, then that is a fundamental problem. It places the public at risk and it means that those offenders themselves are actually at risk of further offending.

So we would say that intensive, targeted testing is going to be the most effective at improving public safety because it focuses the testing on those who pose the highest risk of breaching an abstinence condition and causing the greatest harm if they do so. The House has already heard that research from the United States, in fact, has shown that a higher likelihood of detection is a significant factor in avoiding further offending. We do want to see the testing that this bill provides for linked up with treatment programmes. We believe that that is in the best interests of achieving a health approach to offending, rather than having a purely punitive criminal justice approach.

We agree with the other concerns expressed by Phil Goff around some of those other issues, and that is why at this point we support the bill, but only to a select committee, because this regime could be used—could be used—as a means of harassment. So that is why we say that at the select committee we will be looking for the processes for determining who will do the testing and the processes for how testers will gain access into private homes. We will be looking for the mechanisms to ensure that there could be independent oversight and review of the testing processes that have been used. Those are the concerns that we are going to be looking out for, but we are very happy to support the bill’s referral to a select committee at this point. Thank you.

MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to this bill. This bill rightly amends three Acts of Parliament in an effort to improve public safety, reduce crime, and, hopefully, reduce reoffending. The abuse of alcohol and other drugs has been the bane of our lives. It is a major driver of violence, as other speakers have previously mentioned, and unfortunately, therefore, is one of the drivers in the breakdown of our society and the quintessential Kiwi lifestyle.

We have to change behaviour if we are to ever rebuild the lives of the offenders, their victims, their families, and our communities. This bill will change behaviour, we believe. It will change the behaviour of hopefully all of the nearly 50 percent of offenders who report that they were under the influence of either alcohol or at least one drug at the time of their arrest. It will also hopefully change the lives of approximately two-thirds of community-based offenders who have drug and alcohol-based addictions.

As the law currently stands, the courts and the Parole Board may impose conditions requiring the offender to abstain from consuming or possessing alcohol or drugs, but very rarely are offenders or bailees ever required to be tested for compliance. There is no legal authority to require offenders and those on bail to submit to testing, nor are there any consequences for lack of compliance. To New Zealand First it makes sense to change the situation. This bill, we believe, will change the situation. The current three Acts—the Bail Act 2000, the Sentencing Act 2002, and the Parole Act 2002—are good. They give provision for the courts and the Parole Board to place conditions on release or bail relating to the abstinence of alcohol and drugs. However, this bill gives these current pieces of legislation more grunt and more teeth to be able to bite at the offenders who are using and abusing alcohol while on bail or in the community.

Personally, having been a part of the corrections system in my previous employment, I have seen the success of the random drug-testing system within our prisons. I have seen personally the number of prisoners within the wire who used to use drugs go down drastically because of random drug-testing. That system works two ways. It imposes penalties for non-compliance and at the same time it has brought in some incentives at the time of their parole hearing if they do comply with the requirements consistently.

I must, at this juncture, congratulate the Department of Corrections on its success in changing people’s lives. Some of my colleagues have very unkindly mentioned that the Department of Corrections also deserves congratulations on getting rid of me to New Zealand First.

The bill makes sense because it will require all those on bail or serving community-based sentences who have conditions imposed on them such as abstention from alcohol and other drugs to be tested for compliance. If they are not compliant, there are consequences for stepping out of line. New Zealand First likes that.

New Zealand is faced with a group of offenders, bailees, and parolees whose offending is directly related to their use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs. If we are to ever protect our people and property, we need to seek a change in behaviour. Legislation drives a change in behaviour and so does having education and support services. New Zealand First hopes that this bill will mean that those offenders at the highest risk of reoffending because of their abuse and use of alcohol and other drugs will be forced to change their behaviour. The consequences they face if they are not compliant with the conditions placed on them once this bill has passed into law will encourage them to stop abusing alcohol and other drugs. We hope that not only are such conditions placed on them but they are also ordered to attend rehabilitation and support services so that they can learn how to manage their addictive tendencies. We presume that the testing will be random, and we support this because it defeats the purpose if the offender, bailee, or parolee—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I regret that I have to interrupt the member because the time has come for me to leave the Chair.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.