Thursday, 26 March 2015

THURSDAY, 26 MARCH 2015

THURSDAY, 26 MARCH 2015

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): When the House resumes on Tuesday, 31 March the Government will look to progress the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2), the Social Security Amendment Bill (No 3), and a number of bills on the Order Paper. Wednesday will be a members’ day.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I wonder whether the Leader of the House can confirm or deny the rumour circulating this afternoon that the Government intends to move urgency this afternoon to pass legislation relocating New Zealand’s capital back to Russell.

Mr SPEAKER: The Minister can respond, if he thinks it is worthy.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): No.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Research and Development—Funding and Impact

1. JAMES SHAW (Green) to the Minister of Science and Innovation: Does he stand by his statement that the Government will “build a strong business-led R&D ecosystem to strengthen and diversify New Zealand’s economy”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Science and Innovation): Absolutely. That statement was made on the launch of the TIN100 in October 2014, which noticed a billion-dollar increase in annual turnover by the TIN100 companies over a 5-year period, and a big 9.7 percent lift in the research and development investment across the TIN 100 over a 1-year period. So it is a very exciting and positive story. My exact quote was that “The Government will continue to back Callaghan Innovation to work alongside New Zealand’s technology companies and build a strong business-led R&D ecosystem to strengthen and diversify New Zealand’s economy.”

James Shaw: By what percentage has Government research and development spending increased under this Government?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The latest figures we have are that it increased over the period 2010 to 2012 from 0.5 to 0.58 percent of GDP, which is a 25 percent increase in a 2-year period.

James Shaw: Has he seen the results of the recent Statistics New Zealand Business Operations Survey that show that in the National Government’s first year of office 8 percent of businesses invested in research and development, and in 2014 the percentage of businesses investing in research and development was still 8 percent?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The interesting thing about the Business Operations Survey is that it is virtually every business in the New Zealand economy. So the difficulty with that particular statistic is that you are adding in all the plumbers, carpenters, consultants, and so on as the percentage of New Zealand companies. Probably a better estimate would be of the technology companies. What I tend to follow is the growth in the technology companies and the growth in research and development percentages as a percentage of GDP overall. I think that is probably a more telling situation in terms of the growth in research and development than just a bald number around a percentage of the total number of New Zealand companies.

James Shaw: By talking about only the relatively small number of businesses that he has chosen to receive research and development grants and ignoring the 92 percent of businesses that do not invest anything in research and development, is he being as tricky with the data as Simon Bridges on a bad day?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! If a political answer is given, do not blame me.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I just think the member is completely wrong. He is wrong on many fronts, actually. For such a short question, he has managed to get a lot of things wrong, including his reference to Mr Bridges, who is a very dedicated and hard-working Minister for this Government. But also he is wrong in terms of suggesting that somehow I pick the people whom Callaghan Innovation gives funding to. That is just not correct. I suggest that he might like to get together with Mr Cunliffe, who is suggesting that I am not picking enough of the companies and that I am actually being way too objective in my criteria setting. The simple reality is that companies get the opportunity to participate in that on an objective basis, and those are the companies that actually do research and development. And if the member thinks I should ask the local hairdresser to do research and development, I do not think that is a good idea.

James Shaw: So given that there has been no change in the proportion of businesses investing in research and development since 2009, what is the return on investment of the additional Government spending on research and development?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Again, I am sorry, but if I was the member, I just would not hang my hat on a statistic that has got no relevance to the overall situation. You need to focus on the amount of research and development actually being conducted by New Zealand companies—and we will have updated statistics on that soon—and also focus on some of the independent metrics and measures, including the one I gave out to the member in the answer to the first question: the TIN100. He may be cynical about that but that is actually New Zealand’s technology companies, independently measured—nothing to do with the Government. The number that it showed was an increase of 9.7 percent in research and development across those top 100 companies in the year under study.

James Shaw: Noting the Minister of Finance’s advice to this House that “Governments have to be very, very careful about picking winners”, why has he not developed a research and development funding strategy that reaches beyond a select number of hand-chosen businesses?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member is just simply incorrect. It does not matter how often he repeats it in his questions, that does not change the fact that he is wrong. There are some very simple objective criteria for the research and development growth grant programme, which are based on the amount of research and development conducted and the intensity of that research. Any New Zealand company—any New Zealand company—has the ability to apply for and secure that on an objective basis. If the member wants to keep persisting that that is not the case, then he needs to go and visit his friends in the left-wing trolling community who keep running that stuff.

James Shaw: What other examples of increased Government spending can he think of where the Government has invested money for zero return?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There was a lot of it between 1999 and 2008. I would have to go back and actually go through all the different things, because there was this massive increase in Government spending, most of which was of a very, very low quality and sent New Zealand into a recession before the rest of the world in the global financial crisis. Unfortunately, the example the member brings today is the wrong example, because that is lifting New Zealand’s business research and development.

Inflation—Impact on Households

2. Dr JIAN YANG (National) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on how low inflation is benefiting New Zealand families?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I have seen a report from the Reserve Bank quite recently that forecasts zero percent inflation in the year to March 2015—that is about now. So we have a very unusual situation where we have solid economic growth, which is delivering moderate and—for many New Zealanders—consistent wage increases, but at the moment, at least, zero increase in the cost of living. This means that families can get some real increase in their incomes. At the same time the Reserve Bank indicated an interest rate track that is a bit lower than what was expected, again assisting the affordability of what have been, for some families, rapidly rising housing costs.

Dr Jian Yang: How is solid economic growth and low inflation benefiting New Zealand families through strength in the labour market?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Low inflation—in fact, at the moment, record low inflation—along with the growing economy is giving many businesses the confidence to invest more money and employ more people. Statistics New Zealand figures show that in 2014, 80,000 new jobs were created across the country and average wages rose 2.5 percent last year. Average wages are expected to grow by a further $6,000 by September 2018, from $56,000 today. That is an increase of around 20 percent up to now, compared with the rate of inflation over the same period of around 11 percent. One particularly interesting statistic is that the labour market participation rate—that is, the proportion of the adult population available for work—is the highest it has ever been, at 69.7 percent, indicating that New Zealanders in general are confident about their prospects of getting a job, even if for some of them that turns out to be a bit of a challenge.

Dr Jian Yang: What other reports has he seen on the benefits of economic growth for New Zealand households?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: An important aspect of the current outlook for the economy is the confidence of businesses and consumers. ANZ recently released its consumer confidence survey—the most recent one—which shows a small lift in consumer confidence, but it is at reasonably high levels, and they are consistent with growth for the year ahead of around 3 percent. The main drivers of this confidence, ANZ reports, are the recent fall in petrol prices, low inflation, employment growth, and a generally positive outlook that Kiwis have for wage growth.

Dr Jian Yang: Do current economic conditions of low inflation but solid growth impact on Government revenue; if so, what steps is the Government taking to return its books to surplus?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The current conditions do work well for the economy but it is clear that low inflation and low oil prices have a significant effect on Government expenditure and revenue. For instance, because of the drop in oil prices, we will be expecting to collect significantly less tax and royalties on oil over the next 12 months. The Government, though, in response to this, is continuing to responsibly manage its finances. We will be continuing to restrain new spending, and that is justified by the fact that there is low inflation, but also continuing to increase the quality of public services.

State and Social Housing—Sale of Housing Stock and Commentary

3. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister responsible for HNZC: Does he agree with the National Business Review who asked “Is the Government’s social housing privatisation policy in tatters”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister responsible for HNZC): No, the Government does not have a social housing privatisation policy. Following the member’s question, I have looked at the article in question, which is particularly ill-informed. We have a plan that means that the nearly $2 billion that taxpayers spend each year on direct housing support will provide better results for tenants, more social houses, and better houses. The National Business Review, along with Labour Party members and Green Party members, are the only people in New Zealand who believe that the way we do State housing now cannot be improved. We believe it can be improved.

Phil Twyford: Is he aware that the Waikato Times this morning says that his State house sell-off “smacks of deception” because of his “lack of candour and camouflaging of its intentions behind comforting references to the Salvation Army”; if so, is this just another example of them being wrong and him being right?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes, I do disagree with the Waikato Times, and as the Government releases more and more information about the sorry state of State housing, it will certainly not be able to accuse the Government of lack of candour. We will have been, and will be, completely open about the policy, completely open about the information—and that, of course, allows people to ask us questions and to shape the policy. That is what we will continue to do, as we have been doing in public consultation over the last 6 weeks—where that consultation was constructive, informative, and insightful, including in Dunedin.

Phil Twyford: Is he aware that the Salvation Army says that the lives of tenants would not be improved by his State house sell-off; if so, how will gouging Housing New Zealand as a cash cow for $220 million in tax and dividends, as this morning’s Dominion Post notes, improve the lives of thousands of vulnerable Kiwi families living in garages and camp grounds?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think the member has pointed exactly to what needs to change. So here we have the Labour Party saying: “There are thousands of vulnerable families living in garages and camp grounds, let’s keep them there. Let’s leave it exactly how it is.” We, however, find that intolerable when we have $18 billion of assets and $2 billion of subsidies. So we think we should get people out of camp grounds and garages, and that is what this policy will do.

Phil Twyford: Does he accept the Dominion Post’s view that he “stumbles on … sowing confusion and doubt” with his housing policy, and that his Government is having trouble finding buyers for the State houses it wants to sell, and that it is also having trouble deciding what social housing will look like, who will run it, and who will benefit; if so, will he be asking Crosby/Textor for a refund?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, I disagree with the Dominion Post. As the member pointed out before, when there are thousands of people in garages, camp grounds, and overcrowded houses we cannot stand by and allow that to continue. He wants to argue to keep them there; we want to argue to change it. There is broad agreement in the community housing sector that these policies are the best opportunity in a generation to change it.

Phil Twyford: Which statement best describes his Government’s State house sell-off: “typical third term government’s over-reach into fringe policies”, which was the National Business Review; or “not a triumph of governance or policy-making … perhaps National’s third term will be just a muddle”, which was the Dominion Post?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, none of those statements. Some of the statements, though, that describe the benefits of our policy were statements made by that member in his speech last year to Community Housing Aotearoa, supporting the policy before his leader got to him and told him to oppose it.

Phil Twyford: Why does he not just adopt the well-balanced and well-considered policies outlined by the Labour housing spokesperson in a well-publicised speech aimed at growing the community housing sector, large-scale urban development, and building actual houses for people to live in, and why does he not drop his own half-baked policy to flick off thousands of State houses to property speculators and property developers?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Because we need to get results very shortly and we cannot wait around to follow the model that that member has supported, which did work 50 years ago but does not work today. That is why we do not adopt his policies—because they will not work. That is why iwi, community groups, developers, and people who want to redevelop their communities and get a better result for their tenants are working with the Government every single day to make sure that this policy can be put into place. That member knows, when he talks to those groups, that they support the Government policy, because they are sick of seeing thousands of people in garages, overcrowded houses, and caravan parks and Governments that did nothing about it.

Business—International Performance of New Zealand Businesses

4. NUK KORAKO (National) to the Minister for Economic Development: What reports has he received on the progress of New Zealand businesses succeeding internationally?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): Last night I was privileged to attend the New Zealand International Business Awards in Auckland, where some of New Zealand’s top exporters were recognised for their excellence in innovation, design, operations, marketing, and leadership across the world. These are the companies that get out there and compete and win on the world stage. Magic Memories, a Queenstown-based tourism photography company, won the Supreme Award for International Business. Smaller businesses were also recognised with International Volunteer HQ, whose founder and chief executive officer, Dan Radcliffe, took out the Entrepreneur of the Year award in October, winning the award for the under $10 million category. Other award winners include Milmeq, Powershop, and Synlait and its chief executive officer, John Penno. Miraka from Taupō won the new award for Māori Excellence in Export.

Nuk Korako: How is the Government helping New Zealand businesses to succeed and grow internationally?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Government is very active in assisting these companies and if you actually read through the list of 25 finalists at the business awards last night, all but two of them have been assisted in some way by Callaghan Innovation or New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, and in many cases, by both. To continue growing the number of New Zealand businesses succeeding internationally, it is important that we continue to grow the number and range of businesses that engage with both of those entities and also with our regional business partners. That is why in Budget 2014 we announced an additional $69 million over 4 years to boost New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s presence in important markets like South America, the Middle East, and China and to grow the number of companies that it works with intensively up to 700. During the election campaign last year we also pledged to invest further increases in business research and development co-funding with Callaghan Innovation.

Nuk Korako: Ka mihi anō. What else is the Government doing to grow New Zealand exports?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: For a small country at the bottom of the world a long way from our traditional and emerging trading partners, it is important that we give our companies the best opportunity to compete in international markets. To secure that access to international markets, this Government has been advocating and negotiating, and will continue to advocate and negotiate, for free-trade agreements, whether they be with the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the New Zealand - Korea free-trade agreement signed by Tim Groser on Monday. That is why we will also be opposing the Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill, which would torpedo the Korean free-trade agreement and others that we are negotiating. To be perfectly clear to anybody opposite who might be confused, that bill, which is supported by both New Zealand First and the Labour Party, is entirely inconsistent with the Korean free-trade agreement and with past free-trade agreements, and you cannot be in favour of both.

Hon Te Ururoa Flavell: Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. In light of the outstanding successes by exporters like Miraka, which is the inaugural winner of the Māori Excellence in Export award, He Kai Kei Āku Ringa, at the New Zealand International Business Awards last night, what is the Government doing to support greater numbers of Māori businesses to be able to trade internationally?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Government is working very closely with, actually, yourself, Minister Flavell, and also with the Māori Party and Te Puni Kōkiri around the implementation of the Māori Economic Development Strategy and Action Plan, He Kai Kei Āku Ringa. He Kai Kei Āku Ringa provides a blueprint for a productive, innovative, and export-led Māori economy that will support better-paying jobs and higher living standards. It is following through on that commitment through things like the $30 million Māori Information and Communications Technology Development Fund, the $8 million Māori Innovation Fund, and encouraging New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to expand its relationship with Māori companies. And one way that was done, of course, was the announcement of Miraka’s win at the New Zealand International Business Awards last evening.

Roading, Northland—Spending

5. KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau) to the Minister of Transport: Will transport spending in Northland return to the level that this Government inherited, given annual NZTA funding for the region has fallen by $36 million since 2008/09?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): No, because to return transport spending to what the last Labour Government spent, this National Government would actually have to reduce spending. After neglect from Labour, we are spending $750 million to date, over 40 percent more—some $30 million more each year—on Northland than the last Government, so we are backing the north. The member should not be cherry-picking his figures between years. He is as tricky as Russel Norman on climate change.

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Kelvin Davis: Can he confirm that in 2008-09, the Labour Government budgeted $125 million on Northland transport, whereas in the last 2 years, his Government has spent less than $90 million, and that is why communities like the Pipiwai-Tītoki advocacy group are sick of the excuses, sick of the threats from National MPs, and sick of bullying from National MPs—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just ask the question.

Kelvin Davis: —when all they want is their roads sealed?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: What is clearly happening here is that the member is cherry-picking his figures. If he gets away from isolated single-year examples, every year on average we have spent more, and in total we have spent more, because we back the north. As I said in my primary answer, if we were to follow the approach of the Labour Government to Northland, we would be spending a hell of a lot less there.

Kelvin Davis: Has he considered that Northlanders would prefer long-term regional investment and the transport priorities they identify, rather than be treated with contempt by panic bribes such as the double-laning of bridges, especially when we now learn that these bridges might not even get built because the New Zealand Transport Agency says they are not worth the cost?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You pinged the Hon Mr Bridges earlier for a comment at the end of his question because it was political, but then Kelvin Davis in his questions today has been extremely provocative, using misinformation as well as other epithets to throw in the Government’s direction. That does not lead to order.

Mr SPEAKER: And I—[Interruption] Order! I accept the point the Minister is making. These questions start OK, and then they become totally provocative and unnecessary, and effectively out of order. I have two courses of action: I can rule the question out of order, in which case the member loses an opportunity, or I can allow the Minister to answer and give the Minister quite a lot of licence with his answer in view of the way the questions—[Interruption] Order! I would be grateful if the Hon Ruth Dyson acknowledged that when I am on my feet, giving a ruling on a point of order, she does not interject. On this occasion, I will allow the Minister to answer the question.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The member should quit while he is behind. [Interruption] I would be embarrassed to be asking the sorts of questions that he is asking. We have spent—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: It is great to see I elicit that kind of excitement from the Opposition. I would be embarrassed to be asking the sorts of questions he has when we compare our record in Northland on roads with that party’s record. We have got bridges coming up, we have got many other projects, and a highway that, unlike the Opposition, we do not call the “Holiday Highway”, because, like that member, actually, we know it is what the people of Northland expect and deserve.

Kelvin Davis: Supplementary question.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Before I call the member, I will allow him to ask a supplementary question, but if it ends where the last two have ended I will be ruling it out of order.

Kelvin Davis: Has he considered that if National had only invested in Northland’s roads when it had the chance rather than slashing spending, those roads might have carried National voters to the booths on Saturday rather than paving the way for an embarrassing defeat?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: This member should learn from Russel Norman, who at least knows how to misleadingly play with figures.

Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have a point of order from Metiria Turei.

Metiria Turei: You repeatedly tell the Opposition that they are not to make political points in their questions, and you allowed Mr Bridges to continue with that statement. I find it offensive and would ask that you take action consistently across the House.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will hear from the Hon Gerry Brownlee. [Interruption] Order! This is an important matter.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Surely you are not going to be put in a position of ruling that it is now inappropriate to offer compliments to other members in the House.

Mr SPEAKER: I am not sure that that comment helps me at all. The difficulty I have with Metiria Turei’s point of order is that I have reminded Mr Davis not to ask questions that have a lot of political implication in them. He has completely ignored my advice now on three successive occasions. As I said, when I get a political question like that I will give a lot of leeway to the Minister answering it. It would be helpful when the Minister does answer the question if he did not refer to Dr Russel Norman in that way. Does the Minister have—[Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. Does the Minister have an answer to complete?

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. On a related but slightly different note, there are some Speakers’ rulings around bringing parties that are not party to a question into a debate. In this instance, yes, Kelvin Davis asked a political question and can expect a political answer. However, bringing an insult to another party into the answer is actually against—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I thank the member. If he had noted my ruling to the Minister inviting him to continue, I addressed that point.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Listen, I am getting to the stage when my patience will run out. If it is a fresh point of order and it is relevant to the order of the House—[Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. I am very inclined to be asking that member to leave the House. This is a point of order. I have said I will hear it from Gerry Brownlee. I hope it is useful.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, I hope it is too. My point of order is that the true offence, if Mr Hipkins had thought about it, was the Hon Simon Bridges drawing attention to a member who is not present in the House.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not going to help the order of the House either. Does Mr Simon Bridges wish to complete his answer quickly?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Let me treat the question very seriously. Under any credible basis this Government has invested more in roads in the Northland infrastructure than the last Labour Government. We have an ambitious programme going forward of some $2 billion on roads, which that party does not even support and dismissively calls “Holiday Highways”.

Ron Mark: What is the amount of money taken out of Northland in road-user charges and fuel excise duties relative to the amount being re-invested back into Northland?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I could not say offhand, but I have absolutely no doubt we invest more through central government in roading than we take out of Northland.

Mr SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Kelvin Davis, and I do hope this one is within the Standing Orders.

Kelvin Davis: Was it a good use of $70 million of public money to announce that the 10 bridges would be double-laned, given that Northlanders’ priorities are flood spots, potholes, road slumps, and slips, which are not being fixed because he has slashed Northland’s road maintenance?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: No, and it is great to have confirmation—[Interruption] Yes, I should say. The Labour Party is against every single roading project that we try to put ahead in the north. It calls Pūhoi to Wellsford the “Holiday Highway”. It does not think that the double-lane bridges, which the north knows are vital lifelines, should go ahead. It opposes, opposes, opposes, and the north knows that, and that is why Labour’s candidate, whom it has thrown under the bus, will come a very distant third.

Ron Mark: Will the Minister give the House a guarantee that no rural provincial council will suffer a reduction in the percentage subsidy it currently receives through the Government’s funding assistance for rural roads in the financial years 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019? Will you give that guarantee?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well, the member is asking a very detailed, granular question that I would want to go away and check. But let us be very clear that under the Government’s policy statement in the upcoming National Land Transport Programme, what we have done is make sure that there is more money in every class, including in rural and regional roads. Unlike the last Labour Government, we back the regions.

Ron Mark: To be helpful, I seek leave of the House to table a table provided by the New Zealand Transport Agency showing that over the next 4 fiscal years the financial assistance rates will be reduced for most rural councils.

Mr SPEAKER: Is that document available freely on the internet? It is—then no.

Welfare Fraud—Cost

6. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Associate Minister for Social Development: How much has the Government saved as a result of its benefit fraud initiative?

Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Social Development): Since benefit fraud reform initiatives began 2 years ago we have saved the taxpayer over $60 million in future benefit payments. Only a small minority of beneficiaries take money they are not entitled to, but those who do cost tens of millions of dollars each year. These changes make it difficult to defraud the welfare system and hold people accountable for their actions.

Hon Judith Collins: How is the Government encouraging beneficiaries to comply with the welfare system?

Hon JO GOODHEW: Over the past 2½ years around 9,500 benefits have been cancelled after fraud was discovered. We expect to see fewer cases of benefit fraud as our case officers continue working closely with clients to ensure they declare their income and any changes to their relationship status. We have also identified 3,000 clients who have previously committed fraud. By managing these clients more closely, we can help to ensure that they do not reoffend.

Poto Williams: Will she be advocating on behalf of taxpayers that her Government place more of a proportionate focus on recovering the $1.2 billion per annum of money lost through tax evasion, compared with the slightly lesser amount of $20 million to $40 million per annum of benefit overpayments connected with prosecuted benefit fraud, or is white-collar crime just more acceptable to her Government?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Jo Goodhew, in as far as there is ministerial responsibility.

Hon JO GOODHEW: I thank the member for her question and the opportunity to correct her misassumptions. Last Budget this Government actually provided an extra $132 million to Inland Revenue to bolster its tax compliance activities, and, boy, has that been good value for money. Targeting the hidden economy, tax avoidance initiatives returned nearly $50 million—$5.51 for every dollar spent. Targeting property speculators returned $52 million, a return of $7.88 for every $1 invested. I thank the member for the opportunity to show her how wrong she is.

Poto Williams: I seek leave to table the Child Poverty Action Group report published in November 2003—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, no. That is a report that is available to all members.

Accident Compensation Corporation—Levies and Impact on Government Financial Position

7. SUE MORONEY (Labour) to the Minister for ACC: Was the then Minister for ACC the Hon Judith Collins correct when she said last year that the reason the Government ignored ACC’s recommendation for cuts to levies for employers and workers was “because we need to get to surplus”?

Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister for ACC): I am advised that the previous Minister did not say that the Government ignored ACC’s recommendation. In fact, under law the Minister is required to consider ACC’s recommendations. Section 331 of the Accident Compensation Act anticipates that the Government may not accept the recommendation. Furthermore, section 300 sets out the wider test that the Minister must have regard to, which includes the public interest and may include a factor like the Government’s overall fiscal strategy.

Sue Moroney: Why did she cite section 330 and section 331(5) of the Act as giving her the legal authority to use ACC levies to return the Crown accounts to surplus?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: I cited those sections for two reasons. One reason is that under section 330 the Minister may take into regard the public interest, which may include a factor like the overall Government’s fiscal strategy.

Jami-Lee Ross: What information has the Minister seen regarding the impact of the Government’s decision on the ACC board’s levy rates recommendations?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: I have seen information that shows that if the Government had accepted the ACC board’s recommendations since 2010, levy payers would have paid $630 million more. The Labour Party needs to front up and confirm that under its policy of always accepting the board’s recommendations, levy payers would be almost $630 million worse off.

Sue Moroney: So with reference to her interpretation of section 330 of the Act, does that mean she could overcharge businesses and workers through their ACC levies to fund any other promises made by her Government—for example, to replace 10 bridges in the Northland electorate?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: It is becoming very clear that the member opposite does not understand the law. I would make three points. The first point is that under the law the levies are ring-fenced, so you cannot use the money for anything but claims. The second point that we have continued to make is we take a longer-term view around the levies, which means that if you took the Labour Party approach you would continually have levies going up and down, and we said: “Take a more conservative approach. In the long term that leads to stability, and that is what businesses need.”

Sue Moroney: Has she sought advice from Crown Law about the legal authority to overcharge ACC levies in order to get to surplus; if so, will she table that advice?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Look, I receive regular legal advice, but what I would say to the member is that I am aware that in terms of the law it is entirely appropriate, and it is set out under section 330, that the public interest is taken into account, and that can include the Government’s overall fiscal strategy. But I would make a few other points to the member. There are a range of other factors that are taken into account, including stability of levies for businesses.

Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a very specific question and—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! And it is being answered at the moment. If the member would resume her—[Interruption] Order! Would the Minister like to complete her answer?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: I just want to finish what I was saying. As I said, there are a range of other factors that are taken into account including stability of levies for businesses, including future claims that may come in the future as a result of gradual process, including a range of other factors, including the performance of the ACC scheme.

Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Having listened to the entire answer—

Mr SPEAKER: What is the point of the point of order?

Sue Moroney: So the point is that I specifically asked about advice from—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member was concentrating on listening rather than jumping to her feet, she would have heard the answer. The question was definitely addressed in the answer. Does the member have further supplementary questions?

Sue Moroney: Is she disappointed—[Interruption] Well, I did not hear the answer about Crown Law specifically, and she has not tabled it yet, so—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have a very good mind to move to the next question. I invite the member to rise, ask the supplementary question, and make sure it is in line with the Standing Orders, otherwise we are moving on.

Sue Moroney: As they all have been. Is she disappointed that the Government has failed to get to surplus by growing the economy and instead has resorted to constraining economic growth by overcharging ACC levies?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: I am not disappointed because I do actually believe we are going to make surplus this year. Secondly, I can tell you that under our Government we have given $1.5 billion of levy reductions back. We were left with a $4.8 billion hole, and we absolutely are responsible for a very good ACC scheme.

Hon David Parker: Is overcharging New Zealanders for ACC by hundreds of millions each year the main reason that National’s support is collapsing in regions like Northland, or is it because of other abuses of power like that of—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I cannot see any responsibility for that for this particular Minister. I will invite the member—

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I cannot see any difference in principle between this line of questioning and the line of questioning around transport that the Minister was asked earlier in question time.

Mr SPEAKER: I invite the member, if he has a question, to ask it to the Minister for ACC in line with the Standing Orders. If he can do that, then I can help him get an answer to that question.

Hon David Parker: Is overcharging New Zealanders for ACC by hundreds of millions of dollars each year the main reason that support for National is collapsing in regions like Northland, or is it because of—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Firstly, the question makes an accusation that is completely unsubstantiated, and, secondly, it asks the Minister a question that can only be answered by someone who is on the political stump, not someone in Parliament who is accounting for a ministry.

Mr SPEAKER: I am not sure that is true. The Minister can answer in regard to the suggestion of overcharging, but she certainly does not have any responsibility for political parties’ polling in any region in New Zealand.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: What is the point of order?

Hon David Parker: The point of order from Mr Brownlee interrupted my question.

Mr SPEAKER: No. I am satisfied the question has been answered. [Interruption] Order! I am being very lenient by even allowing this member to ask this question. I am inviting the Minister to answer the question with regard to the suggestion of overcharging, but she certainly has no responsibility—

Hon David Parker: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am on my feet, and my patience has just about failed with this member. I have been very generous to him. It is very doubtful as to whether the question he has asked is in order. I am assisting the member, and I am not getting much gratitude shown by the member I am trying to assist.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that you feel that you have been generous to me. I am entitled to ask a supplementary question. My question was cut off by the Minister rising to his feet—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! You had moved to an area that was in danger—in fact, without doubt had made the question inconsistent with the Standing Orders. I could rule it out of order. I am very tempted to do so, and if the member rises to his feet again I can assure you that will be the result.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: I reject the statement in the member’s question. What I would say to the member and what we have consistently said is that we take a longer-term view in terms of the accounts because you are dealing with $30 billion, and $30 billion potentially around liabilities. So a $300 million shift is about 1 percent. What we have said is that we do not want a situation like Labour left us, where you have a $4.8 billion hole and you take into account the December shift in discount rates, which was $2 billion.

Māori Education Trust—Financial Position

8. PITA PARAONE (NZ First) to the Minister of Education: What reports has she received, if any, about why the Māori Education Trust is selling its 320ha Kahutara dairy farm, the late Edward Holmes’ farm, that was gifted to the Trust to educate Wairarapa Māori?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would ask you to have a very good look at this primary question today. The first point I would make is that the question itself has a whole lot of information in it that tends to be there simply to justify the question, whereas in fact a simple question asking what reports she has received into the sale of the trust’s assets should cover the question. I think it is inappropriate that parties use primary questions and have them accepted by the Office of the Clerk when in fact they are loaded political questions. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: No, I will deal with this matter. The question is in order, but marginally so. It is certainly not the only question today that is loaded with political statements. It has been accepted. The Minister certainly has a responsibility for answering in regard to whether she has seen any reports on this matter. We will then look to further supplementary questions, but the member is going to have to be very tight with his supplementary questions and ensure that they do relate to ministerial responsibility for an organisation that now operates as a charitable trust.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I have received a report from the Ministry of Education on the Māori Education Trust Board and the Mapuna Atea farm. The report makes it clear that the ministry’s interest in the trust is limited to the administration of those scholarships subsidised by Crown funding provided through the ministry. The ministry understands that the farm’s sale is needed to retire debt, improve the liquidity of the trust, and provide a more suitable income stream for future scholarships. As an independent charitable trust, this is a decision it is entitled to make.

Pita Paraone: When did a Government Minister last make an appointment to the Māori Education Trust Board, and which Minister made that appointment?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Hekia Parata, if the Minister has ever made such an appointment or if she is aware of whether any appointments have been made to the trust.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I cannot answer that question because it is not actually generated by the primary question. I could not say whether a Minister of Education has made appointments. What I can say is that the deed document itself sets out which organisations may appoint members to it, and those organisations are so doing.

Pita Paraone: Did the Māori Education Trust Board guarantee a debt facility of $11.1 million, and how much was actually drawn down?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister has absolutely no responsibility for the trust.

Pita Paraone: Has the Minister had any discussions with any of her ministerial colleagues over the perilous financial state of the trust and its business operations, which has seen debt-laden assets sold; if so, when and what were the outcomes of those discussions?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: No.

Pita Paraone: Can the Minister name the advisers and consultants instructed by the Māori Education Trust Board to form its commercial arm—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, the Minister has got no responsibility for this trust.

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Relating to the second answer about discussions with other Ministers, could I ask you to ask the Minister to reflect on that answer?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order.

Ron Mark: Well, it is—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member cannot do that at all. The question was asked; the question was answered.

Pita Paraone: Given that there has clearly been poor management of this trust, poor governance, and, even worse, oversight by the—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am waiting with patience to see whether there is any responsibility. Can the member please just ask the question in relation to a responsibility of the Minister.

Pita Paraone: Before I proceed—

Mr SPEAKER: Is the member seeking a point of order?

Pita Paraone: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This trust receives funding from Government—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order. I am very aware of that; I have done my homework. Does the member have a further supplementary question he wishes to ask that is related to a ministerial responsibility? Otherwise, I intend to move on.

Pita Paraone: I just have a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! A point of order will be heard in silence.

Pita Paraone: I seek leave to table a report named Commonwealth Education Partnerships, where the Minister of Education makes reference to the education trust.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table that particular report, Commonwealth Education Partnerships. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is objection.

Renewable Energy—Electricity Generation

9. JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: What reports has he received on renewable electricity generation in New Zealand?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): The New Zealand Energy Quarterly released today shows that renewable energy made up 80 percent of New Zealand’s electricity generation in 2014. This year is the highest it has been since 1996 and is an increase of 5 percent on 2013. The overall trend of the last few years is exceptionally positive and shows that the Government is making strong progress towards our ambitious goal of having 90 percent of New Zealand’s electricity generated by renewables by 2025.

Jonathan Young: What particular renewables are making strong gains in electricity generation?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Geothermal continues to be a true success story for New Zealand. Geothermal generation has more than doubled over the past decade. For the first time in 40 years, electricity generated from geothermal contributed more energy to users than gas during 2014. Wind also contributes to make an important contribution to the electricity system. Generation from wind increased nearly 10 percent in the last year.

Jonathan Young: How is the Government capitalising on New Zealand’s strong renewables sector and expertise?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I think the figures are a reminder to us of the renewable advantage that we have as a country. I will be promoting our strong renewable advantage in April when New Zealand co-hosts the World Geothermal Congress in Melbourne. Currently, our exports in the renewable energy sector are around $100 million per annum. The Government is really ambitious for this to grow, and I will be taking every opportunity to promote New Zealand’s renewable advantage and expertise internationally.

Hon Te Ururoa Flavell: Given that some small rural communities can be adversely affected by poor electricity infrastructure, does the Government have any plans to incentivise small communities to move towards renewable electricity generation?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I do not concede that we have widespread poor electricity infrastructure. New Zealanders have near universal access to electricity services. I think we have got an open and competitive market for electricity generation that allows communities to invest in distributed generation where it makes sense economically. We are unlikely, I think, as a Government, to subsidise a system that we believe is working. What I would say to the member for the Māori Party is that I think that in renewables there are incredibly exciting opportunities for iwi and hapū, particularly in the central North Island, in partnership with the large energy companies. I am beginning to hear a number of discussions in that regard that, as I say, I think are very exciting for Māoridom in general for the future.

Animal Welfare—Cosmetics Testing

10. MOJO MATHERS (Green) to the Minister for Primary Industries: Will he support a ban on cosmetics testing on animals?

Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Primary Industries) on behalf of the Minister for Primary Industries: Cabinet will be considering the proposed amendment from the Green Party and making a decision very soon. It is worth noting that there is no animal testing of cosmetic products in New Zealand and, to the best of our knowledge, there never has been. We support the intention of this amendment but we need to be sure that the wording is sound so that it does not have unintended consequences, such as banning testing of ingredients that might be in medicines that New Zealanders depend upon.

Mojo Mathers: I appreciate that answer. Is the Minister aware that some time ago a similar claim was made that the outdated and cruel LD50 tests were not carried out in New Zealand and that subsequent to that claim, at least one animal ethics committee has approved these tests?

Hon JO GOODHEW: No, I am not aware of that.

Mojo Mathers: I seek leave to table part of a transcript of a verbal submission to the Primary Production Committee in 1991 where Professor Gluckman says that there are no LD50 tests done in New Zealand and that they—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The document has now been described. It is probably available, but as—[Interruption] The Clerk has advised, and I was going to say that 1991 is a long time ago and it is difficult for members to research back that far. On that basis, I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular transcript. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Mojo Mathers: I seek leave to table an Official Information Act response from an animal ethics committee saying that it had approved three applications to undertake LD50 tests between 2008 and 2013—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The document has been described. Leave is now sought to table an animal ethics committee report. Is there any objection to that being tabled? There is none. It can be tabled.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Mojo Mathers: Given that we cannot rely on assurances that particular cruel and unnecessary tests will not be approved, will the Minister support a ban on animal testing of cosmetics, as called for by more than 92,000 people?

Hon JO GOODHEW: As I have said to the member, Cabinet will shortly consider the amendment, and we will be doing so in light of making very sure that the wording will not have unintended consequences. In terms of the strict controls that are currently in place in New Zealand, we do need an independent ethics committee. Approval is sought before any animal testing can occur. Any project must show that the benefits will outweigh any harm that is caused.

Mojo Mathers: I seek leave to table the names of 92—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, I am not prepared to put that leave. It is not something that is informative for the House.

Mojo Mathers: Is the Minister aware that if National votes against my amendment to ban animal testing of cosmetics, we would be the first country in the world to have had the opportunity to do so and chosen not to, and does he think that will be good for our international reputation?

Hon JO GOODHEW: I can once again assure the member that Cabinet will very shortly consider the Green Party amendment. We will be looking to make sure that there are no unintended consequences from that, but giving it careful consideration.

Business Growth Agenda—Small and Medium Businesses

11. TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Minister for Small Business: How are small businesses benefiting from the innovation initiatives of the Business Growth Agenda?

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business): The Government’s Business Growth Agenda contains more than 100 specific initiatives across the six keys inputs that small businesses need in order to be successful. The innovation strand of the Business Growth Agenda is assisting small businesses in a number of ways, such as the increased support for business research and development that Callaghan Innovation is leading and changes to New Zealand’s patent settings, enabling businesses to have greater certainly of their intellectual property, enforceable by world standards. These initiatives and many more support innovation and show why this Government is better for business.

Todd Barclay: What reports has the Minister seen on small and medium businesses benefiting from these innovation initiatives?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I have seen a report that because of the Callaghan Innovation’s Better By Lean service the Ashburton company Ashford Handicrafts was able to innovate and introduce changes to be more responsive to customer demand. The innovations that they achieved in their manufacturing processes will free up time and resources to put into new product innovations this year. Innovations benefit small businesses, improving their costs, customer satisfaction, revenues, and margins.

Tracey Martin: In light of those answers, can the Minister explain why small businesses in rural Northland, such as in Wellsford, and small rural townships such as Wellsford and Te Hana are closing or continuing to struggle under his Government?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I note recent growth of 7.8 percent, I think it was, in Northland, and so obviously many businesses are benefiting from innovation and this Government’s ongoing strong commitment to Northland.

Todd Barclay: What could have a negative impact on innovation in small and medium businesses?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: Small and medium sized businesses need time, money, and support to be able to innovate and grow their opportunities. If small and medium sized enterprises were burdened with new and complex taxes such as a capital gains tax, it would greatly reduce their ability to innovate. If small businesses were also faced with much higher wage costs such as an increase in the minimum wage to $16.25, it would greatly reduce their ability to innovate. New taxes and higher wage costs have a negative impact on innovation for small and medium enterprises.

Dr David Clark: Does the Business Growth Agenda aim to be innovative in cutting unnecessary overheads for business; if so, why does he not accept advice from ACC and Treasury that the Government should immediately stop overcharging businesses for ACC by $350 million?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I think the member’s colleague presents that question a lot better—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just answer the question.

Hon CRAIG FOSS: For small businesses, overheads have decreased by $1.5 billion per annum in reduction in ACC levies by this Government. Small businesses’ overheads are reduced by this Government, given the new certainty that we have—and they now have—in a sustainable ACC system.

Dr David Clark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: If the member is asking whether the question was addressed, it certainly was.

Dr David Clark: I see you have read my mind. Clearly, it was not addressed to my satisfaction.

Mr SPEAKER: Does the member have a supplementary question?

Dr David Clark: No.

Boarding Houses—Standards and Regulations

12. Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere) to the Minister for Building and Housing: Have all boarding houses that are “rat-infested, mouldy dives that are unfit for human habitation” been closed down since he said he wanted them eliminated in November 2014; if not, why not?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Housing) on behalf of the Minister for Building and Housing: Let us be clear that if boarding houses in that condition exist, I would expect local councils to have taken action under the Health Act to rectify the issues or enforce closure. The Government received a report from the Social Services Committee in late 2014, and we have tabled our initial response early this year. We are awaiting advice from officials on implementing the recommendations we agreed with.

Su’a William Sio: Given his Government’s belief that “there is a risk that raising and enforcing minimum standards in boarding houses would reduce the supply of boarding house accommodation”, why does he not replace the worst slum boarding houses with a commitment to decent emergency housing that goes beyond the pathetic $500,000 announced by Paula Bennett yesterday?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: What he has been doing is liaising with the Minister for Social Housing, who actually, in regards to that emergency fund that was put in place, is looking after those organisations that are working with people who have emergency housing needs, seeing them needing a short-term injection of $500,000—which I am sure they are very pleased to be receiving—acknowledging that there are longer-term issues, that they want to work alongside of them, that are sustainable, that actually recognise that there might be more funding, and that is actually the way forward for them.

Su’a William Sio: Is it acceptable for any family to live in rat-infested, mouldy dives that are unfit for human habitation; if not, why has he not taken immediate action to shut down rogue operators in the boarding house sector, and why will he not set up a licensing regime and impose minimum standards to protect vulnerable communities housed in boarding houses?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Paula Bennett—any of those three supplementary questions.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Let us be quite clear: boarding houses are regulated under the Residential Tenancies Act and the Health Act, amongst others. If it is the case that the member knows of boarding houses that are in that sort of condition, he should actually be getting hold of the local council and making sure that it is actually adhering to the Acts that are in place now that insist that there cannot be those kinds of living situations. So if the member is sitting here simply thinking that this is the way to address it, there is a means to do that and he has a responsibility to follow through on that.

Su’a William Sio: Does he honestly believe that it is up to the council, or that private providers of boarding houses can regulate themselves, given that he himself has acknowledged that some boarding houses are rat-infested, mouldy dives that are unfit for human habitation, and he is the Minister for Building and Housing with the power to prioritise funding for those most vulnerable in our communities?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Let us be quite clear that the Government has come back from the select committee inquiry, which was far-reaching and had a number of recommendations that we agree with. As far as working through—

Phil Twyford: They were weak.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Well, that member was on the select committee, was he not? So if he could not actually then influence that, then there are quite a few problems there. As far as building minimum standards, the Government is working its way through a response, but there are a number of Acts that should be adhered to that make sure there are not those kinds of living situations. And if the member knows of any, then he should be fronting up and making sure that they are followed through by the council.

Su’a William Sio: After being in Government for 7 years, why is he refusing to adequately protect the most vulnerable New Zealanders, who are increasingly being forced to turn to boarding houses because of his Government’s housing crisis?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Well, I simply disagree with all of that statement.

Question No. 10 to Minister

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would just seek your advice, perhaps in a week or so, on your decision to not allow my colleague Mojo Mathers to table a list of names. Our office sought advice from the Table Office, which said that it was legitimate to table a list of names on a petition that is not a petition to Parliament but is none the less a petition. It had been done before, so we understood that it was perfectly legitimate to seek leave to table such a document.

Mr SPEAKER: And it is certainly legitimate to seek leave; nobody was saying it was not. I decide whether, then, to put the leave, on the basis of whether I think the information is informative. As I have said many times, the purpose of tabling a document is not to make a political statement; it is to further inform the proceedings of the House. On this occasion, I made a decision that I did not think that would be informative to the proceedings of the House.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There are some agreed occasions, I guess, where the Speaker has been given the authority, or the ability, to reject a request for leave on issues that we have agreed are out of order. The tabling of documents that are publicly available, for example, is one clear instance. However, decisions on other, wider matters are matters for the House. Any member has an absolute right to request leave, and ultimately it is a decision for the House to determine whether that is granted.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I assure you that is not the way I am going to operate, at all. Members have a right to seek leave. We have been through a period of time where question time was delayed for some hours by members seeking to table all sorts of documents—on one occasion I think it was the Yellow Pages of a phone book. We have moved a long way past that, whereby I will determine whether I think the document a member is seeking to table is going to inform the proceedings of the House. If I then make a decision that it may be relevant, I will put the leave, and then ultimately the House has the prerogative of deciding whether that document will be tabled or not. That has been the rule now for a very long period of time, and I am quite happy to dig out a very detailed ruling on this and send it to the member in the next half hour.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not intend to relitigate—

Mr SPEAKER: Are we moving to another issue?

CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, it is.

Mr SPEAKER: This is a fresh point of order.

CHRIS HIPKINS: The Standing Orders Committee made the recommendation through the Standing Orders review, at the end of about three parliaments ago, to stop members from tabling documents that were already publicly available. That was not a decision of the Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will allow the member to read my ruling and I think he will be far better informed once he has done so. If it is publicly available, if it is freely available on the internet, then there is no point in tabling such information. If it is information that I think is worthy of informing the proceedings of the House, and is certainly not being tabled just to make a political point, then I will consider putting the leave. That is the way we have been operating in this Parliament for some period of time, and it is certainly the way I intend to continue operating.

Bills

Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill

Third Reading

Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Revenue): I move, That the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill be now read a third time. The first part of this bill supports the Government’s $218 million HomeStart package for New Zealanders who are saving to buy their first home. KiwiSaver members who are purchasing their first home can withdraw the contributions that they and their employer have made to supplement a deposit on this first home. The bill proposes to allow them to withdraw their member tax credit as well, giving these KiwiSaver members access to an extra $521 for each year that they have contributed to the scheme, to be used towards their deposit. Members will not be able to withdraw the Government’s $1,000 kick-start contribution, to ensure that their KiwiSaver account remains open and active after the withdrawal of the eligible funds. Measures to extend and clarify KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal rules are also included in this bill. These measures ensure that members can make first-home withdrawals in order to purchase homes on Māori land, and they clarify that withdrawals can be made only for the purchase of homes in New Zealand.

The second part of the bill ensures that the income replacement payments made to New Zealand veterans are taxed correctly. The bill confirms that these payments are taxable income and will be taken into account for social policy calculations—for example, when applying for Working for Families tax credits. The amendments clarify that KiwiSaver deductions can be made from veterans’ income replacement payments, but that the KiwiSaver automatic enrolment rules and compulsory employer contributions will not apply to these payments in that case.

In bringing the bill to its third reading, I thank the policy officials and drafters who worked on the detail of this bill, the organisations and the individuals who have made submissions on the proposals, and the Finance and Expenditure Committee for its work in considering this bill in a timely fashion and for bringing forward recommendations that have helped to improve the bill. I also thank those members in the House who will be supporting the legislation, as I believe it will help many more young New Zealanders on their way to first home ownership—an absolute priority for this Government. It gives me great pleasure to commend this bill, the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill, to the House, and may all those who benefit from it move to homeownership quickly. Thank you.

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): Labour will support this bill through the House, and that is largely because it is a benign bill. It does have an intention, I think, to try to get some more people into homes, and it may be that the additional flexibility will help one or two people get into homes, but it does very little to actually address the core issue in this area, which is about supply.

This Government has no answer to the supply-side problem of housing in New Zealand, and the statistics back that up. We have—

Jami-Lee Ross: Rubbish!

Dr DAVID CLARK: The member opposite says “Rubbish!”, but we now have the lowest homeownership rate in New Zealand in 60 years. That member should know because it is in his part of the country that there is enormous housing price inflation.

The amount by which a house goes up each week in Auckland is more than many, many people earn in a week, so only those who are in the housing market are able to afford a house in Auckland. In many cases, a house will go up by $1,000 a week in value, and how much would those New Zealanders who cannot afford to get into a house enjoy having $1,000 more in their pockets per week? Then they might be able to afford to actually get into a home.

What we see here is a weak attempt to try to do something about the housing issue, brought about, of course, by an election campaign that exposed National’s lack of policy. Those members scurried around, they tried to put something together, and we know that they would not have adopted this policy if they were not on the back foot. Treasury said that it was a hopeless policy. Treasury thought that this policy would not have the intended effect.

What it highlights, I guess, and what we saw in the campaign when it came out, is that Labour is the party of first-home buyers. The KiwiBuild policy that Labour put up in the election, which would have seen 100,000 more Kiwis put into homes through houses that would have been built by the private sector but funded through cheaper Government borrowing, would have seen New Zealanders actually be able to afford homes. Ordinary Kiwi families could have had that dream of owning their own home realised in a way that is currently impossible under this Government, which spirals from one housing crisis to the next.

What we see here is National, the party of speculators, doing a little bit to make it look like it is doing something, but not really addressing the core issues in the housing sector. We know that the average house in Auckland last year earned more than the average worker—a rise of just under $90,000 in the past year. I look forward to hearing what Jami-Lee Ross, the member over there who said “Rubbish!”, might have to say about this, because I am not sure how he can justify those kinds of rises and say that the Government has a policy to tackle that housing problem in Auckland. We heard in question time, of course, of people living in garages and in cars, and we hear a lot of bluff and bluster from the Government but no real solution to the housing problem.

Of course, the implication of not dealing with that goes right around the country. In my electorate, the effect of the Reserve Bank’s measures—because it had no other tools to actually help deal with its issues—was that the loan-to-value ratio saw a significant drop in first-home buyer rates. That has been mirrored around the regions, which are feeling neglected by this National Government. I have no doubt that the result will be exactly the same in Northland. Up there we have, of course, the Government trying to build bridges furiously, as it tries to persuade local voters that it has not forgotten about people in the regions, despite the houses the voters cannot afford, despite housing that is cold and damp in many cases, and despite high levels of unemployment in that area.

Yet we see here a bill that in many ways is actually like pouring petrol on a fire. That is what it is doing. Through giving HomeStart subsidies, we are giving more people a little bit more money in their hands, and the house prices will go up more. So I am afraid that this bill has little to recommend it, but we will be supporting it. The extra amount people can withdraw will at most be a couple of thousand dollars, and it is unlikely to make any significant difference in their ability to buy a home, particularly if those house prices keep going up and up and up. At the same time, people are effectively robbing themselves of their retirement savings in order to take that money out. As I say, for one or two people it might make sense, but overall it does nothing—nothing at all—to address the major housing crisis in New Zealand, which is affecting so many families.

This is another illustration of the way in which this Government has lost touch after 3 years. It does not seem to have answers any more. It had New Zealand behind it. There is no doubt that at the start, the Prime Minister was very popular, but as time has gone on, those ideas are no longer there. I suggest that Simon Bridges, and this Government, actually, should take a lesson out of their own book. We heard him say during question time that we should quit while we are behind, and it occurred to me that, for once, he should use his mirror to good effect and take his own advice—

Phil Twyford: Do what Alice did—Alice in Wonderland.

Dr DAVID CLARK: —Alice in Wonderland—because this Government really has run out of ideas. It is clear when we see policies like this, which will not solve the housing crisis, and which really tinker and make it appear like the Government might be trying to do something but do not get to the nub of the issue. That this is its big idea is really a tragedy for this Parliament.

There are some technical amendments that went through at the Committee stage that will ensure that membership in a complying superannuation fund for 3 years may count towards qualifying for a first-home withdrawal, and that will ensure that a first-home withdrawal can be used only for New Zealand homes. These are kind of sensible things that have been agreed on. Of course, the changes to the veterans’ support payments are largely technical. It is good that we have sorted these things out as they have gone through the House. There is a bunch of other ones in terms of Māori land; first-home withdrawals being used to make payments, including deposit agreements, before the agreement for sale and purchase is unconditional—making sure the rules are right around that; ensuring that existing interests in Māori land do not preclude access to a first-home withdrawal; and so on. These are sensible matters. If you are going to put this bill through, they should be got right. But, as I said at the outset, this bill does not address the fundamental supply-side problem.

This Government is watching while Rome burns. It is watching the housing crisis spiral out of control. Its latest answer, of course, is to flog off State houses to more property speculators—

Phil Twyford: That’s really going to help.

Dr DAVID CLARK: —which will do absolutely nothing to help. That was dressed up with the fig leaf of support from the Salvation Army, and that fig leaf, I am afraid, has been removed, and there is something particularly ugly to show in its place.

The Government, of course, is now squirming. We heard Bill English in the House today trying to defend that policy and trying to defend the indefensible. This Government will continue, of course, to say that it has one or two new ideas, but those ideas do not have the currency to persuade the commentariat, and they are not persuading New Zealanders any more. New Zealanders know from day to day that when they cannot afford a house, and that when they can, in fact, less afford a house today than they could a couple of years ago, things are not working.

In supporting the bill, we note that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has said that it is a “tentatively positive” bill. That is the warmest praise it has got. Obviously, with Treasury’s criticism and the “tentatively positive” stamp put on it, we must wonder why we are here in Parliament spending a couple of million dollars’ worth of taxpayers’ money to get this bill through—I suspect it is that much in terms of the salaries of the people here, the staff supporting this legislation going through the House to pass a “tentatively positive” bill—when, in fact, there are far greater solutions going begging. Of course, the one I mentioned earlier is Labour’s KiwiBuild policy, which would see 100,000 New Zealanders helped into their first homes. It would ensure that there was warm, dry housing for the next generation of children, ensure that our country could invest in the next generation, and ensure that we have people living healthily in warm houses, not in garages or cars, as we are seeing now.

We will support this bill. It is a shame that this is the best the Government now has to offer. It is a tired Government that is looking to push one or two ideas through the House. I am looking forward to seeing how Mr Bennett justifies it when he rises to his feet in a minute. He must be embarrassed. He will know that Hamilton has got housing problems too.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): It is always a pleasure to follow from that member, David Clark, although it is quite unusual that he is speaking first-off in a housing debate, when Phil Twyford is the housing spokesperson for the Labour Party—

Dr David Clark: It’s a taxation bill.

DAVID BENNETT: It is a taxation bill, but Labour has made it into a housing debate. That really is a signal, I think, for Phil that perhaps his position is under threat, as well. Sue Moroney is chomping at your feet. The next housing spokesperson, I am sure, will be Sue Moroney, and that will be a reflection of Phil’s great achievements in the area as housing spokesperson for the Labour Party.

But, on a more serious note, the Labour Party members will talk about KiwiBuild, and they will talk about it until they are blue in the face. KiwiBuild is their flagship policy. It is the only policy they have kept from the election that they have not thrown out. It is the only policy they still say they want to carry through.

Dr Megan Woods: Tell the truth.

DAVID BENNETT: Oh, there are others, are there? Capital gains tax—have you still kept that policy? I do not think so. Have you kept it? Maybe not. But I know they kept KiwiBuild. They believe in KiwiBuild. Let us think what KiwiBuild will look like. What will KiwiBuild actually look like? You will have streets named after Grant Robertson. There will be Robertson Avenue, there will be Robertson Street, there will be Robertson Crescent, and, if you are lucky, you might actually get Robertson Drive—so all the streets will have the same name. Then all the houses will be the same. All these houses will look the same. They will all look the same. They will all be built the same way. They will all have the same colours. They will all have the same letterbox. In fact, New Zealand First might need two letterboxes on some of those, but they will have letterboxes that are the same. If you are lucky, you might get a garage. But the Green Party will not let you have a garage because it thinks you should be on public transport, so you will not need a garage.

Under the Labour Party, Green, and New Zealand First housing policy, it will be State run. The State knows best. There are 60 members in this room who have been elected—some of them have not actually even won a seat—and who know better than the rest of the New Zealand public. They know better than the New Zealand market, they know better than all—[Interruption]

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I remind members on my left that when they are making interjections they should be—from their own party’s previous speaker—rare, reasonable, and if possible, hopefully, witty. To maintain a barrage against a member who has the call is not in keeping with good order in this House.

DAVID BENNETT: That is a reflection of the great Deputy Speaker we have in the House today, who understands that this is just a tactic from the members on the left who realise they have lost the debate and so try to barrage the speakers at this time.

But let us go back to KiwiBuild. You are going to have the same house. Everybody is going to be the same. They might as well all have the same job. And that is the way the Labour Party operates because the State knows best. These people who are union-dominated know better than the individuals, they know better than the market—

Phil Twyford: It’s communism.

DAVID BENNETT: It is communism and that is exactly what Phil Twyford wants. It is actually better than communism. Under the New Zealand First housing policy they would actually buy the land off the developers and then develop it, so it is actually better than communism under the New Zealand First approach.

Pita Paraone: But we wouldn’t have red lights.

DAVID BENNETT: You will have red lights?

Pita Paraone: No, we wouldn’t.

DAVID BENNETT: You would not have red lights.

Pita Paraone: Because we don’t want you there.

DAVID BENNETT: Oh, no red lights under New Zealand First. This is the same party that does not want to build the Pūhoi to Wellsford road. I hope you mention that. They are the same party members who stood up in the election campaign and were not looking after the people in Northland.

Phil Twyford: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We are all in favour of a broad-ranging debate, but this member has not actually mentioned the bill and I think he is halfway through his speaking time.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, of course, the Speaker is the judge of that and is monitoring closely, as I am sure you are aware. Mr Bennett, no doubt, will take your point of order to heart as well. Please continue.

DAVID BENNETT: Yes, this is the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill and a big part of that is the ability for first home owners to be able to get those tax credits. That is why we have been talking about housing in this debate. That is a big part of the bill.

But, going back to that housing policy, because this is the debate that Labour has made it into, with KiwiBuild it is somehow going to find a way to build these 30,000 houses in a very short period of time. Somehow, on top of what the private market is doing—well, there will be no private market under Labour policy—

Phil Twyford: You didn’t keep that up for a very long time.

DAVID BENNETT: Are you going to be out there, Mr Twyford, building a home? I would like to see that.

Phil Twyford: I bet I could swing a hammer better than John Key.

DAVID BENNETT: I am sure that “Mr Stoner” could swing a hammer better. But, seriously, the choice that you have in the market is that on one side there is the Labour, Green, and New Zealand First policy, which is a State-dominated, State-built, State-delivered, and State-failed policy around housing, and on the other side we have a range of options available. We have our State houses and we have our private market. We encourage people to save and get ahead. We are creating an economy that enables New Zealanders to have the lowest interest rates they have had for 50 years: 6 percent interest rates compared with 11 percent interest rates. Even if you got a free house under the Labour Party policy, it would still make you pay 11 percent interest rates because the economy would be in a shambles under that side. Under this side, we have a strong economic base, which enables New Zealanders to pay low interest rates, to get on the homeownership ladder, and to actually take advantage of their opportunities. That is a solid economic base from which to go forward.

This bill is a small bill; there is no doubt about that. It is a small bill. But it has become a debate that is wider, around housing policy. On one side the Labour Party has not given up its State-owned, State-run, State-built, State-delivered housing policy. On the other side of the debate New Zealanders have a choice between an operation that is a mix of State, is a mix of private, is a mix of development, and is a mix where New Zealanders have the ability to pay for their own housing, which is what they want in the long term, because that is all that New Zealanders have ever wanted—to be able to get ahead under their own steam and not have it given to them by somebody else.

Dr David Clark: Lowest homeownership rate in 60 years under this Government.

DAVID BENNETT: Did you say something?

Dr David Clark: Lowest homeownership rate in 60 years under this Government.

DAVID BENNETT: Lowest homeownership rate in 60 years. Well, that member would like to see the interest rate under Labour, which was 11 percent compared with 6 percent now, and housing prices went up 96 percent under the 9 years of Labour. It was 96 percent in Auckland under Labour. They went up about 20-odd percent in the years to 2014 under National. It was 96 percent under Labour. Remember those figures.

Dr David Clark: Remember when they were 11—those were the days of economic growth.

DAVID BENNETT: Those were the days of economic growth. Oh, that is right! Labour put us in recession before the rest of the world. Remember that? Remember those days?

Dr David Clark: 25 percent real economic growth under the last Labour Government.

DAVID BENNETT: Oh, 25 percent real economic growth. No way—New Zealand was in recession before the rest of the world. That is the Labour Party, because that is what happens when you do State-dominated, State building, State construction of State housing for everybody.

The Labour Party members do not want to see New Zealanders succeed. They do not want to see people get ahead and buy their own home. They do not want to see New Zealanders pay off their own mortgages. They do not want to see New Zealanders be able to show the next generation of New Zealanders that you can actually make a go of it and you can actually deliver. That is what this bill has now become about: it has become a debate between housing policies. On one side you have got a housing policy that 60 people think they can deliver. On the other side you have got a housing policy that is a mix of the market, a mix of the State, and a mix of delivery. This bill enables New Zealanders to take their share in that process by giving them a tax credit so that they can use it for purchasing their first home.

I know from my constituents in Hamilton that we are seeing a large amount of growth in new housing, and that is a testament to the great investment in our city by this Government. It also shows the hard work and dedication our people have for wanting to get ahead. They understand what a low interest rate environment means, they understand what it means to have a good job, and they are getting that under this Government. They understand what it means to have strong economic management that enables them to take advantage of their opportunities, to get on that homeownership ladder, and to be successful.

This is a bill that we anticipate will have support amongst members of the House, but this has become a debate around housing supply and housing policy. It is very sad to see the Labour Party stick to its very strict, communist ways of how to deliver that housing when everybody knows that those days are gone—well and truly gone and buried. Thank you.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): That was 10 minutes we will never get back. You have got to love David Bennett—[Interruption]

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I wonder whether I can encourage the member’s own colleagues not to banter, bicker, and barrage while he is making his speech.

PHIL TWYFORD: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—quite right. You have got to love David Bennett. He is always good for a laugh—he is always good for a laugh. It is great to see a member of the National Party who is so proud of his own Government’s policies that he spent, I do not know, 10 percent of his speech talking about them.

There is an approach to the housing crisis that is illustrated by this bill. It goes something like this. We have got a problem. National is generally reluctant to admit it is a crisis—although Alastair Scott did last night in the House—but there is a recognition that there is at least a problem, if not a crisis, and that something needs to be done about it. So let us do something—in fact, let us do anything. Let us do anything, no matter how small and inconsequential it may be. This policy is exactly that. It is what I call a Nick Smith special. It was announced in the heat of the election campaign when the Government was very sensitive that it was bleeding support on the housing issue. I say it is a Nick Smith special because it was announced with great fanfare, it will be almost completely inconsequential, and it actually risks making matters worse. But, never mind, the bill’s purpose is simply to convey the impression to the public that something is being done about the housing crisis. That is its sole purpose.

So what does this bill do? The bill enables people to withdraw the Government contribution—often referred to as the member tax credit—from their KiwiSaver account in order to get a deposit together to take advantage of the Welcome Home Loan and the HomeStart subsidies. It is part of a broader policy package, which will kick in on 1 April, that does three main things. It increases the taxpayer subsidies available for the Welcome Home Loan, it lifts the house price caps—thereby making more people eligible—and it allows people to crack open the Government contribution in their KiwiSaver scheme.

Anyone listening to this debate will know by now that Labour is voting for this bill, but they will have noticed that we are highly critical of it. I want to explain why. The reason that we are voting for it is that it is better than nothing, but not by very much. It is benign at best. A number of contributors in the earlier stages of this debate have made the point that it falls woefully short of what is actually needed to make a difference to the housing crisis. It is completely inadequate for the scale of the problem that we have. I will go into a bit more detail about that. The second thing is that it risks making housing—particularly in the growth markets in Auckland and the upper North Island—even more unaffordable than it already is.

So let us talk about the scale of the alleged benefit of this policy up against the scale of the problem. This bill could benefit a first-home buyer by a maximum of $521 a year. That is the maximum amount of the member tax credit: $521 a year. How much is that a week? About $10 a week—$10 a week. How much are house prices going up across New Zealand on average? By $1,000 a week—100 times more. That is just house price inflation.

Hon Jo Goodhew: Not across the whole of New Zealand.

PHIL TWYFORD: Yes—yes, house prices are going up $1,000 a week on average across New Zealand, because in Auckland it is $1,700 a week. The average across New Zealand—even in the member’s electorate of Rangitata—across the whole country, is $1,000 a week. That is 100 times more than the benefit to first-home buyers of this pathetic bill that the Government has brought to the House. If you live in Auckland, the house price inflation is 170 times more than the benefit a first-home buyer would get from this bill. So it is completely out of whack. House prices are out of control—particularly in Auckland, but also in Christchurch—and people simply cannot save enough to keep up with house price inflation. So this scheme, which, at its worst, is Nick Smith tinkering, is completely inconsequential compared with the scale of the problem.

The really bankrupt thing about this policy is that it actually risks making things worse. I want to read into Hansard some of the advice from Treasury about the effects of this policy. In fact, the National Business Review, which we have quoted a lot in the House today, reported when the policy was announced that Treasury had damned this policy as being counter-productive. When it was announced, Prime Minister John Key said that helping more people buy their own home will provide “stability for families, strength for communities and security in retirement.” But Treasury said: “Those claims do not stack up.” That is a direct quote from the Government’s chief financial adviser—this policy does not stack up. Treasury made six main points about the expansion of subsidies under this policy. First, it is likely to simply bring forward purchases that would otherwise happen anyway. Second, the case for Government encouraging homeownership over renting is relatively weak. Third, it is not well targeted to households who need it most. Fourth, increasing demand in a supply constrained environment will simply increase prices, undoing much of the benefit of the subsidy. Fifth, it has not been tested against other competing ways to spend the money. Sixth, it is not consistent with the Government’s own social housing and financial assistance policies, which focus on targeting those most in need.

That is a damning indictment of this policy by Treasury, and the Reserve Bank and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment had similarly critical things to say, as well as almost every commentator in town. They said that this policy risks, as David Clark said, pouring petrol on the fire, increasing demand in a supply constrained market, and actually making housing affordability worse. It is obvious to any observer that the housing crisis is a crisis of excess demand and inadequate supply. So logic would dictate that the solution lies in either, or both, subduing demand or increasing supply. This Government refuses to do anything about demand. It refused to tax speculators, it refused to do anything about offshore speculators driving up property prices, and it has been a complete failure at increasing supply.

The special housing areas, which is Nick Smith’s other great crowning glory, have produced—you could count on two hands the number of new houses that people are living in that have been built in the special housing areas in the last 18 months. It has been a complete and utter failure and it has actually driven up house prices because many of the developers and the land bankers are sitting on land in those special housing areas, watching the prices go up and not building. The National Government is currently presiding over a build rate in Auckland that is 40 percent less—40 percent less—than Labour was doing in 2003. In Auckland, which needs 13,000 houses just to keep up with inflation, National is delivering only about 7,500, a little over half of what is needed just to keep up with inflation—not to mention the fact that the Reserve Bank has said that Auckland has a deficit of 15,000 to 20,000 houses that the National Government’s policies, even if it meets its targets, will not even touch. Those 15,000 to 20,000 houses are the shortage in Auckland, built up under this Government’s watch, and that is one of the main drivers of the exponential rise in house prices.

This policy is a classic Nick Smith special. It is just like the last Budget announcement where the Government took the anti-dumping duties off nails and varnish, claiming that it would save homebuyers $3,500. Its own officials have said it will save less than a third of that. Again, that is a pathetic piece of window dressing designed to create the impression that the Government is actually doing something about the problem. Instead of setting minimum standards to keep rental properties warm and dry, Nick Smith and Paula Bennett have got a pilot scheme of State houses. That is not where the problem is; the problem is in the private rental market, but they refuse to do anything about it. The people of New Zealand deserve much better than this small, inconsequential, and irrelevant policy.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): We are now on the third day of debate on the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill. It has been debated on Tuesday, debated on Wednesday, and here we are on Thursday for the third reading. I remain concerned and actually saddened by the condescending and insulting approach that the Labour Party has to the desire of young Kiwis to be able to bring together a deposit to be able to buy a home, because that is exactly what the Government’s policy is with the HomeStart policy. It is exactly what this bill supports—the policy that will enable New Zealanders to get more of a deposit together—and the condescending and insulting approach from the Labour Party is rather saddening. Mr Twyford called the bill inconsequential. Well, we estimate that over the next 5 years, 90,000 New Zealanders will benefit from the changes that we are putting in place. For a couple who are each earning $50,000 a year and have been in KiwiSaver for 5 years, they will be able to withdraw a significant amount of money—$35,000. Add on to that the doubling of the grants that we are putting in place, which would allow that same couple to have $20,000 in grants over that 5-year period from the Government, then it is a $55,000 deposit.

I challenge any member in this House to stand up and say that for first-home buyers, young homebuyers wanting to buy their first home, a $55,000 deposit for their first home is inconsequential. That is insulting, that is condescending, and that is absolutely wrong. The 90,000 New Zealanders who will benefit from this HomeStart scheme will be much better off than they would have been had we done nothing. Yes, an argument can be made that this bill tackles only part of the HomeStart scheme, but the legislation needed to be changed for only part of the HomeStart scheme. The wider changes we are putting in place around the doubling of the HomeStart grants are also important and can be done through other methods. But to say that the bill is inconsequential is absolutely insulting and I am saddened by that. I remember, just as I am sure many other members in this House remember, that when we all went to buy our first home, getting that first deposit together was one of the most challenging things. Once you get on the ladder it is a whole lot easier, but the Government changes that we are putting in place with HomeStart will help those people by a long way, and they will be better off because of it.

I do want to counter some of the arguments that the Opposition has been running this week, not just today, in the House around housing. Opposition members have a holier-than-thou approach to housing. They believe that they had all the solutions in the 2000s and we are doing it all wrong now. Well, let us just remind New Zealanders listening today that when Labour was in office house prices doubled. House prices went up 96 percent in the 9 years that it was in office. Young New Zealanders wanting to buy homes were seeing house prices skyrocketing, going through the roof, when Labour was in office. In the time we have been in office average house prices have increased by 27 percent. Contrast that with Labour’s record. If Labour members want to come into the House and say they had all the solutions over their 9 years in Government, when house prices doubled—they went up by 96 percent—I would like to know the solutions they believe they have now. If that is what they were doing when they were in office 9 years ago—doubling house prices—what on earth would they want to do to New Zealanders now?

I do concur with many members of this House who talk about the fact that we have supply issues in New Zealand. That is absolutely what we are addressing with many of our solutions in the housing framework. Take, for example, the special housing areas. That policy has led to huge amounts of development taking off in parts of Auckland and in other parts of the country where the special housing areas are taking place. I challenge Mr Twyford and I challenge David Clark to come to the Botany electorate, to come to the Hunua electorate, and to come to the East Coast Bays electorate. Those are electorates where we are seeing development taking off through the special housing areas. You cannot drive down some streets very easily in my electorate, because there are cones everywhere that development is taking place. When you stand on some of the hills in my electorate and look over the Flat Bush area, all you can see past the initial house roofs is dirt, where dirt is being converted into more housing. You can see thousands of houses being built in our electorate. We are getting houses built. Twenty-four thousand consents were issued last year for construction in Auckland. The number of consents is up by 20 percent. Houses are being built and that is absolutely what we need.

But the concern I have around housing and supply is the types of policies pursued by the left in New Zealand—the types of policies advocated by the Labour parties and the Green parties of the world—where they would like to see what they would like to call smart growth take place. I am talking about the compact cities they like to envisage when they sit with their planning documents. One of the biggest problems we have with housing in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland, is that, for year after year, decade after decade, local government, assisted by left-wing planning ideology, has seen land supply being constrained through the district planning process. There simply has not been enough land opened up for development so that those houses can be built. It is a simple supply and demand equation. We have demand up here, where people are wanting to buy houses. We need to build 13,000 a year. We simply have not been keeping up with that demand. One of the reasons is that the supply of land has not been opened up sufficiently. The special housing areas legislation was put in place to try to override some of those planning constraints, and that is leading to more housing. But I remain concerned, as many of my constituents remain concerned, that some of the policies that are pursued by local government in the housing space when it comes to land supply will not necessarily lead to the solutions we need in Auckland. More land needs to be opened up, and I am hoping that the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan process, which is being followed by independent commissioners, will lead to more land being opened up, because that is what we need in Auckland.

When that new land is opened up and the 90,000 New Zealanders who will benefit from the HomeStart policy are able to go to the bank with their doubled grant from the Government, through the KiwiSaver scheme, and with their funds withdrawn from the KiwiSaver scheme—with their $55,000 deposit, which the Opposition calls inconsequential—and are able to purchase new homes that are being built, we will see more New Zealanders getting access to housing. Young New Zealanders want to live the Kiwi dream. Many of the members in this House know what it is like to own property. It is important for New Zealanders. It is part of our Kiwi dream, part of the psyche we have as New Zealanders. This bill is all about trying to make it easier for New Zealanders to get together the money to put a deposit on a house. Other policies we are pursuing will lead to more houses being built, and we are seeing development and progress being made.

I also remain fearful of some of the policies our friends in the Opposition wish to pursue. A capital gains tax will not lead to more development taking place. It will lead to less investment taking place, which will lead to fewer houses being built. I also do not trust Labour, if it was ever in Government, to build the 100,000 houses it was promising. It was promising houses would be built and sold for $300,000 when the average cost of a section in Auckland was $325,000. The mathematics simply did not add up, and I can see why people like Mr David Clark are no longer on the Finance and Expenditure Committee—they simply did not have what it took to be able to put through housing policies that will benefit New Zealanders.

This bill is only part of the solution we have for housing. It is important that we build more houses, but we also have to help those young New Zealanders. That is what the HomeStart policy is about. It is the primary mechanism being put in place through this bill, and as an Auckland member, as a member of the National Party on this side of the House, I am pleased to see it progressing through the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to speak on the third reading of the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill, which the Green Party is supporting. We are supporting it because it might just be better than nothing. We are not quite sure, but we are taking the chance that it might just be.

Most reasonable-thinking New Zealanders recognise that we have a bit of a problem with housing affordability, and quality, and tenure in New Zealand. Many, in fact, call it a crisis. I have had concerns about this crisis raised with me, personally, everywhere from Invercargill to Whangarei. I happen to have heard some stories around Northland about concerns with housing as well. Of course, we most often hear about the problems in Auckland and Christchurch.

There is a crisis. In 1970 the average age for first-home purchase in New Zealand was just 25. In 2013 it is estimated to be either 34 or 36 years of age. We now have the lowest rates of homeownership in New Zealand since 1951, with more than 35 percent of people in this country renting. The median house price is over $380,000, and, significantly, it is almost double that in Auckland. Yet the median family can afford to service a mortgage of only $250,000 to $300,000, and they are likely to have only a few thousand dollars in the bank. It is estimated that only 5 percent of the new builds, the few of them that we have been hearing about, are now affordable. This is compared with 35 percent of all new builds in 1960 being affordable houses. The average cost of a house in Auckland is now $621,800, and the rate of housing inflation in Auckland is $1,700 a week. To meet the loan-to-value ratio requirement of 20 percent deposit, it is around $120,000. It makes it unaffordable for many who would previously have bought a house, only a few decades ago.

Increasingly, families are spending their lives paying someone else’s mortgage, spending their money towards somebody else’s accrual of wealth. We know that the answer from this Government will do nothing to help this. It will do nothing to improve people’s ability to pay off their mortgage. It will do nothing to help people who cannot afford KiwiSaver contributions in the first place. It will not help housing affordability—in fact, the views of some are that it will make it worse. It will not help people save for retirement.

Hon Member: What’s your plan?

JAN LOGIE: I will get to our plan. Treasury suggests that it will just enable people who are already likely to be able to buy to do it a bit quicker. It risks increasing demand in a supply-constrained market.

We have heard huge amounts of hyperbole from this Government about how seriously it is taking this housing problem, even though its Ministers cannot quite bring themselves to suggest it is a crisis—though I have heard perhaps more in-touch backbenchers from that side of the House acknowledge that it may be a crisis. I would just like to take this opportunity to contrast the Government’s policies that are contained within this bill, which will allow people to use the $521 a year of tax credits in their KiwiSaver account towards a first-home deposit, with our policy of progressive homeownership and to let the speaker and the public decide which policy would be more effective at addressing the housing crisis and low rates of homeownership.

The Green Party recognises the housing crisis. Housing is central to our vision of a fair, sustainable, and prosperous society. Safe and securable sustainable housing is fundamental to the health and well-being of families, and communities, and our economy. All New Zealanders have a right to warm, safe, stable, and healthy homes.

We have a comprehensive policy to address all of those concerns, but today I would specifically like to contrast the policy contained in this bill with our Progressive Ownership policy. Our Progressive Ownership programme will provide a pathway to homeownership for families who do not have a deposit or the income for a commercial mortgage. It will work by the Crown, ideally along with partners in local government, iwi, and the community sector, building affordable homes worth, say, around $300,000, on average. We do understand that although land prices might be high, the possibility of intensification enables us to leverage off that and bring the cost down. It would build to modern environmental standards and make efficient use of land, with modern urban form well served by public transport. We have read the research that shows that building out on the fringes, not connected to public transport, has the highest rates of mortgagee sales because as petrol prices go up, people become more vulnerable and cannot pay off their mortgages any more. So under our policy people could build healthy communities, and cheaply and easily get around.

Families will enter into contracts with the Crown for these houses. Under these agreements the Crown will initially own all the equity in the house. Families will pay a basic payment to cover the Crown’s cost of capital—say, $200 a week on a $300,000 house, at the Government bond rate of 3.5 percent. Our Government has access to cheap loans in a way that the average individual, through a bank, does not. Then the people who are buying into the houses would be able to make additional variable purchases of equity in the property from the Crown, at the value of the house when the agreement was signed. Basically, that is just saying that when you have got a bit more money, you pay a bit more, and then you start to increase ownership of that house, until you own it. The Government is no worse off. It has the money that it first invested into that house to put into another house, to enable another family to purchase their own house. If that family starts to struggle and cannot meet those rates of repayment, then it just pulls it back, down to the $200 a week to cover the Crown’s capital investment.

This policy recognises the reality of struggle for so many of our families, and provides a solution whereby families can start to accrue wealth. If their situation starts to improve, then they can actually take out the equity they have in that house and use it towards a more expensive house, say, in the private market. The Government is no worse off, the Crown has the same investment that it had to begin with, and that family is able to move ahead at their own pace. They are no longer feeding the wealth of the increasingly small number of investors who own an increasing number of the properties in this country.

I really ask this House to consider the extra $521 a year that this bill, which is in front of the House at the moment, would provide to people who already have the money to put into KiwiSaver to be able to save for that first-home deposit. What will that really do to help people get into housing in Auckland, or in other parts of the country where people are struggling, compared with using the resources that we have as a State to build and help people pay off houses at a rate they can manage and that meets the fact that their situation may change? I really think that, to put it bluntly, it is a no-brainer. Nobody loses in this option, and what we gain as a country is strong secure communities where children are able to go to the same school and improve their learning, and we are all much better off. Sadly, this bill does nothing.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be speaking on this third reading of the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill.

First of all, it is great to be part of a Government that actually knows what it is doing, that has actually got something to do, and that has actually got a plan, and we are actually implementing it. We are not holding talkfests, and, unlike some Opposition parties, we are not relying on newspapers to dictate our strategy.

Owning our own home is not only a cherished Kiwi dream but a fundamental right. All we have heard about from many of the Opposition parties is their desire for the Government to be a major player—in fact, they think it is the only way of dealing with it—and for the Government to build thousands of new homes. That is as creative as they can get. Luckily for us, we have been a little bit more thoughtful about it, because what we have done is actually thought about it from both ends of the spectrum.

This bill is essentially about helping 90,000 lower and middle income New Zealanders get into their first homes. In essence, it will allow KiwiSaver members to withdraw their member tax credits when purchasing their first homes. This bill drives at the heart of the issue for many first-time buyers—that is, how do you gather sufficient money to be able to put down an adequate deposit? It supports the HomeStart package announced in last year’s election that comprises three changes, which take effect in a few days’ time.

These include introducing the KiwiSaver HomeStart grant. This doubles the support for buying a new home and increases the house price limits. Secondly, it enables larger KiwiSaver first-home withdrawals of all the member tax credits other than the initial $1,000 kick-start provided by the Government. Thirdly, it expands the eligibility for the Welcome Home Loans by aligning the house price caps with the KiwiSaver Homestart grant. In total, this adds up to $55,000, provided that the person has been in KiwiSaver for 5 or more years. That is an important contribution to helping to get that initial deposit that I spoke of earlier. This, together with the low-interest environment that we have created as a Government, means that now those disciplined Kiwis who want to work hard and save have a far greater potential to get the necessary deposit to get their first home.

I now just want to return to the issue of supply, which continuously comes up. I have spoken about this before, but I just really want to discuss it in detail. We have 100 special housing zones already in place around the country, 80 of which are in Auckland. I have got two of them in my electorate, one of which, Wesley, is the largest in the country. It will create between 4,000 and 4,500 homes. Another one just down the road is going to create another 700 homes. The Wesley one is due to start earthworks later this year, and the Belmont development is not far away. They are significant projects in their own right.

The Opposition’s claims that not enough houses are being built are simply false. It is very important when you just—

Hon Phil Goff: Read the Treasury report.

ANDREW BAYLY: By way of example, if you go to my electorate—to the Opposition member who just sought to interrupt me, it might just be worthwhile, if next time he goes out there on his weekend jaunt to see his house, for him to stop at Mission Heights and look at the avalanche of new homes coming on board. There is, in fact, one a day, in my estimate; one a day—one completed house every day, and I am probably being conservative—in that vast area of my electorate. It is a fast-growing new development. We are talking about real houses every day coming on to the market.

If you go over the hill, and I am sure you know where Beachlands and Maraetai are, there is a vast majority—again, the population is going to go from 8,700 to about 17,500 by 2021. Diggers, the loaders—everyone is in there now. The issue there is how we deal with the water, the wastewater connections, and the roading infrastructure. But those sections can be observed, and I welcome anyone to come with me and I will show you those areas.

Then Clevedon, which I know that the member opposite knows exceedingly well—in fact, tomorrow I am off to meet a number of people, a number of developers, who are just so keen to tell me about the 700 or 800 homes they are about to commence work on as soon as possible in the Clevedon area. It is a fabulous area, as the member opposite knows. Again, I would be very happy to show anyone around that area.

Then, of course, closer to Pukekohe, apart from the two large social housing areas I have spoken of earlier, we have got, again, huge amounts of development going on—to be very specific, Anselmi Ridge and then on Valley Road. In fact, every day people stop on Valley Road to see the extent of the development and the land excavation that is going on. We have got houses coming from everywhere across my electorate, and the issue, as I have said on a couple of occasions, is actually how the council keeps pace with the level of development that is taking place.

But from another perspective, even if you do not believe me, the consent numbers actually tell you what is happening. For the 2014 year there were just over 24,000 building consents issued country-wide. In Auckland there were 11,000 consents issued.

I think that someone quoted yesterday that the transformation between consent through to a house is approximately 98 percent. So if consent occurs there is a very strong prospect that it will result in a section being offered for sale and, ultimately, a house being built on it. These strong consent figures carried on into January this year with about 1,700 being issued in January 2015. These are all really good indicators of a strong and vibrant housing market, which will, of course, ultimately lead to houses for everyone.

These are all important contributions to actually dealing with the delivery of new houses not only in Auckland but across the country. Even the Reserve Bank in its last report to the Finance and Expenditure Committee indicated that it thought the housing problem was probably going to top off at the end of this year. In regard to Christchurch, the Reserve Bank had a view that a lot of the supply had already been dealt with.

The other thing that I just want to touch on is that the Labour Opposition, particularly, seems to be myopically focused on the Government taking over the role of the building of new houses in New Zealand. The statistics are—and I quoted these yesterday—that 25 percent of all houses in New Zealand are built by the top 20 builders. One percent, historically, have been built by Government, but by far the vast majority have been built by one, two, or three-person building companies, and they account for roughly 74 percent of all houses in New Zealand. That is why this Government is absolutely focused on creating the right environment, where those builders feel secure, have the right financial incentives, and have the right economic environment to be able to go ahead and build the vast majority of houses in New Zealand.

I just want to close by saying that first home ownership is still high, even under the new loan-to-value ratio arrangements. According to the Reserve Bank report that was given to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, although the long-term average over the last 10 years is at 19 percent, even with the new loan-to-value ratios that have come in place over the last 12 months or so we are still sitting at about 17 percent. So we are still seeing a lot of first-home buyers entering the market, and the package that we have set out in this taxation bill is another step in that overall package of helping Kiwi families get into new homes.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First and my colleague Fletcher Tabuteau to take a very slightly belated call in this third reading of the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill. New Zealand First supports this bill.

This bill has become rather more exciting than the average run-of-the-mill remedial tax bill. Legislation intended to remedy faults or anomalies in taxation law have tended to be fairly dry and innocuous affairs, and that is as it should be, as a general rule. However, this one appears to have become something of a bill of two parts, both of which have been the cause of quite some interest and some not inconsiderable controversy. The two parts are, of course, the HomeStart provisions and the veterans’ support provisions. Indeed, the commentary from the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, in which I have been standing in for the Rt Hon Winston Peters these past few weeks while he has been preparing to become the next MP for Northland—and a great result for Northland and the whole of New Zealand that will be, I might say—states: “The bill seeks to amend the KiwiSaver Act 2006 and the Income Tax Act 2007. It would allow KiwiSaver members to withdraw their member tax credits when purchasing their first home, and would correct errors in the tax, social policy, and KiwiSaver treatment of income replacement payments made to veterans under the Veterans’ Support Act 2014.”

With regard to the first issue, might I say it is perhaps less contentious that the Government does take some steps to assist first-home buyers in making that first great leap on to the property ladder than it is that this bill or even KiwiSaver itself may be the best way to go about it. Once upon a time and not so long ago, in fact, New Zealand prided itself on being a property-owning democracy. Today that dream of homeownership is becoming increasingly difficult and distant for an ever-growing number of New Zealanders, for reasons that, it could be argued, can be laid squarely at the feet of Government. So it is entirely appropriate, in our view, that the Government does take some steps towards making that goal a little more attainable, as it was for previous generations, including, might I say, many, if not most of, the members here, who benefited from things as they were in the past when prevailing circumstances meant that houses were both easier to come by and easier to pay for.

Nowadays, of course, thanks to the policies of successive Governments, the goalposts have shifted and they continue to track further and further away for more and more would-be homeowners starting out. So it is right and proper for the Government to help out a little bit with that first big kick down the field. The apparent inability of Governments to grasp the need to build added value into the economy through stimulus packages for industry, thereby raising incomes by creating better paying jobs, has meant that people struggle to pay mortgages on what are all too often low wages by world standards. It is appropriate to use the taxation system to give those people a helping hand. The refusal of Governments to intervene in the operations of the Reserve Bank or in the artificially high value of the dollar, leaving speculation-driven interest rates at the whim of world markets, which we have no way of influencing, has made homeownership more difficult for more people. It is appropriate therefore that the Government gives them a hand up through the tax system.

The refusal of Governments to restrict the purchase of land and houses in New Zealand to citizens and permanent residents only, coupled with open-door immigration policies and the ability of offshore buyers to source finance from foreign banks at what are effectively zero interest rates have created a demand for housing that far outstrips supply. It is only appropriate, therefore, that the Government should make changes to tax laws such as this one in order to assist those ordinary working New Zealanders, too many of whom are struggling as a result of these polices. So this we applaud. It may be too little and too late but it is a step in the right direction and we support it. We encourage the Government to go further to address the causes of inaccessibility of housing that lie within its own policies, but in the interim we support this initiative and this bill.

It is perhaps worthy of note that because wages have historically been low in this land of plenty, and the savings habits of New Zealanders therefore somewhat sparse and lean, the appreciation over time of value in the family home has become the centrepiece in the average New Zealander’s investment savings and retirement portfolio, such that they have. So in that context it is perhaps not inappropriate that a person starting out should be permitted to withdraw a portion of their KiwiSaver retirement savings in order to kick-start their journey towards the ownership of a home, which, in all likelihood, they will have to sell in order to retire in some degree of comfort at the other end of their working life. It is not ideal, but, as I say, it is a step in the right direction. A future New Zealand First - led Government, or even a New Zealand First - influenced Government, would address this pressing issue with some real urgency and some real priority.

With regard to the second primary concern of this bill, that being the financial lot of our veterans and returned service people, this bill seeks to “correct errors” regarding how income replacement payments made to veterans are treated for tax purposes. Despite assurances from the Government, which have not been assisted by the inability—or, indeed, the unwillingness—of Ministers to answer very valid questions from Opposition members during the Committee of the whole House, New Zealand First remains unconvinced that the changes in this bill will not in fact leave some of our veterans worse off financially rather than better.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. That baptism of fire is regarded by many New Zealanders, as well as Australians, as being a coming of age for both our nations, and it would be fitting—if perhaps overdue—that this year could also mark the passing of legislation guaranteed to secure the financial future of those courageous men and women who put body and soul on the line so that all the rest of us may enjoy a better life in a free and democratic world. We are yet to be reassured that this bill will achieve this, and we urge the Government to listen to our very genuine concerns, to examine the potential downstream effects of this bill, and to bring about amendments to it without delay if such are found to be necessary—and we will certainly support such a process.

All that said, we do support the passage of this legislation. It might not be perfect but we think it is better to have it than not have it, and it is probably going to be quicker and easier to fix it in place rather than throw it out and start again. I will not go so far as to say that I commend the bill to the House, but New Zealand First will be voting in favour of it. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call with the Hon Phil Goff—5 minutes.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): There are two aspects to this bill. One is a rather pathetic effort to try to deal with the housing crisis, which is in Auckland in particular, and it will not do much to help at all. The other is something that this Government has desperately tried to paper over, which is a massive stuff-up in the Veterans’ Support Act last year, which will result in this bill, on the surface, reducing veterans’ payments by 25 to 33 percent.

Let me deal first of all with the housing issue. There is a minor change that is proposed. It is allowing people to use their member tax credits under their KiwiSaver scheme towards their first homes. It gives an individual $10 a week—$10 a week. I want to ask the members on the other side of the House how that helps people in my electorate, or their electorates, when they are faced with house prices in Auckland going up by $1,700 a week? So there we are, we get a tax credit worth $10 a week, and the price of houses is going up 170 times faster than the aid that is given by this Government. It is pathetic—it is pathetic.

They deny that there is a housing crisis, yet homeownership in Auckland has decreased from three-quarters of the population—75 percent in the mid-1980s—to 61 percent today, and it is falling. In Auckland, 40 percent of the properties are being sold to property investors. They are making a killing out of the inflation, and this Government is doing nothing to help the first-home buyer who, increasingly, is finding that that Kiwi dream of owning your own home is disappearing—it is out of their reach. How do you deal with house prices going up by $90,000 a year in Auckland? What young family can actually keep pace with that? They cannot do it. That is why most young people today are being locked out of the home market, where the National Party is more interested in its greedy property investor mates making a fortune. This bill is a sticking plaster over a gaping wound. It will do nothing substantial to help the real problem, and that is a problem of a housing shortage.

I hear all the time from the National Party what Treasury’s advice is, and how it is following Treasury’s advice. What does Treasury say about this? It says that this will not make it better for homeowners; it will make it worse. Let me quote: “the Government will end up undermining affordability for first-home buyers.” When you add to the demand and you do not add to the supply, as this bill does, all you do is push home prices up further. The only real beneficiaries of this measure will be property investors.

I want to talk about the other aspect, because I proudly stood in this House and supported the Veterans’ Support Act that went through last year. What we are finding in this legislation—it is called remedial; it is remedial because the Government stuffed it up—is that, somehow, the Government put the payments for veterans at a gross level when it meant to put them at a net level. So this piece of legislation will reduce payments to veterans by 25 to 33 percent. I asked the Minister in the chair repeatedly during the Committee stage yesterday to provide an explanation—no explanation. The Minister would not get to her feet to say how the stuff-up happened, would not get to her feet to apologise to the veterans for the mistake that was made, and would not explain why the veterans had not been informed. That was a disgrace.

I challenge the next National speaker to answer this question: how much has been paid over what should have been paid, and to how many veterans? It is a very simple question. Veterans deserve to know that. The country needs to know that. Will this legislation be retrospective? Will the Government be clawing money back that it paid to the veterans, that the veterans received in good faith—and now it is saying the veterans are not entitled to it? They are easy questions. The answer may be: none. If so, why will not one National member get up in the House and say that? Why would the Minister repeatedly fail to answer questions? The Minister is paid $280,000 a year to answer the questions, and we had Ministers in the chair yesterday who would not get up and give an explanation to the country, would not give an apology, and would not give an answer.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): I would like to pick up where Mr Goff left off. What this legislation does is it actually takes a lump-sum payment that was given to a veteran upon either his or her retirement or injury or incapacitation and says that it is income. Before this bill it was not counted as income, but now it is. And, Mr Goff, this is retrospective legislation—this is retrospective—so what this means is that there may well be veterans out there now who have banked money, who have paid off mortgages, who have given money to grandkids, or, worse still—heaven forbid—who may have died, and the Government is going to go to them and say: “Sorry, we got it wrong. We are going to take money out of your bank account.” That is wrong. There are some very high barriers for implementing retrospective legislation.

First and foremost, it is about fairness, and the irony that this is being implemented in the year of the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli has not escaped a number of members on this side. But to make it worse, the one member on that side of the House who knows something about the armed services, Colonel Andrew Bayly, stood up in this House and said: “It’s minor, it’s not important, it doesn’t matter.”—this does not matter. Well, I would love to be a fly on a flagpole when Colonel Bayly has to face his men and explain why this does not matter. There will no doubt be a number of veterans who are due to retire and have banked the money as a lump sum, because the legislation says that you do not pay tax on this—and I do not think that is a bad idea. If you have served your country overseas, if you have been a member of the armed services, you are not doing it for the money; you are doing it because you love your country and you are prepared to die for your country. In fact, it is probably the one job where you can put your hand on your heart and say: “I am prepared to lay down my life for my country.” We are now going to tax these guys on their superannuation lump-sum payments, and I think that is an absolute travesty.

As Mr Goff said, the Minister in the chair would not even stand up and let us know how many veterans this affected. So we cannot go to our RSAs, because Mr Goff consulted with the RSA, and it did not even know about this. I remember at the select committee asking the Defence Force representative: “Are you going to consult? Has there been a level of consultation?”, and she said: “Yes. We’re going to make sure that the people understand this.” Well, how come Mr Goff can phone the RSA and it knows nothing about this? So where was the consultation? And the thing that gets to me a little bit is that this is called the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and—tacked on—Remedial Matters) Bill. I think that this Government has been a little bit disingenuous. I think that it has snuck this in under the radar, hoping it would not get noticed, and would then be able to go: “Phew, it’s gone away.” Well, it will not. It will not, because you cannot screw our veterans in this way. The fact is that over 3 or 4 days we have been asking the same questions—how many veterans are going to be affected, what sort of level of communication have you had with veterans’ organisations, and does the RSA know about this—and not once has a Minister stood up and answered any of our questions. I think that is a little bit of dereliction of duty, and it just makes my blood boil.

The other thing, of course, is the stuff about the housing market, and I have heard National member after National member stand up and say: “It’s about the market. Let the market decide.” In fact, we had one member—a member who uses Maggie Thatcher as his idol—stand up and say: “Let the market decide.” Well, I think every single Auckland MP knows that the market has failed. The market has failed in Auckland, because the rate of homeownership has plummeted, house prices have gone through the roof, and the dream of homeownership for a whole generation of young Kiwis is fast disappearing because they simply cannot afford it. If Dr Nick Smith believes that somehow you can cobble $50,000 together and buy a $500,000 home and that is affordable, then he needs to get in touch with reality, because you need to have a household income of $175,000.

Just to sum up, we will support this bill because Treasury said that it does no harm to anyone. But it does. It harms veterans and we have no idea of the magnitude. Thank you very much.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this amendment bill. As I have said before, this is part of a multi-pronged approach to support first-home buyers into their homes. Currently, first-home buyers are eligible for a grant of $3,000 after 3 years, $4,000 after 4 years, and $5,000 after 5 years. The HomeStart grant has doubled that amount to $6,000 after 3 years, $8,000 after 4 years, and $10,000 after 5 years. This amendment gives access, for those first-home buyers, to an additional $521 per year for each year that they have participated in the KiwiSaver scheme.

There is no silver bullet to solve giving access in order to get those first-home buyers in. Part of it is the low interest rate environment that we have, part of it is the growing economy that we have, and part of it is the real wage growth that we have in this economy. This amendment affects the demand side. We are talking about the supply and the demand side, and this affects the demand side. It does increase and support the demand side, which relates to only the first-home buyers because they are the people whom we are wanting to support at this point in the cycle.

The people on the other side have been talking about the core issue—the core issue being the supply—but they have totally disregarded the special housing areas that are being opened up. They have totally disregarded the fact that there is a housing boom on right now across the country. They have totally disregarded 23,000 new consents in the last 12 months. They have totally disregarded them. If they choose to look around as they drive through various electorates like Botany, Hunua, and Waimakariri, there is a lot of houses and a lot of development. You only need to jump into a car, drive around, and look for yourselves. Open your eyes—open your eyes.

So I would like to also mention the town of Carterton. Just yesterday it was reported in the New Zealand Herald that Carterton is the North Island’s fastest-growing town—the North Island’s fastest-growing town.

Hon Member: Is that right? Carterton?

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Carterton. It has had a 16 percent increase in population in the last 6 years; an increase of 2.3 percent in the last 12 months. It is predicted that Carterton will run out of zoned land in about 15 years. That means that the council is thinking ahead. It is thinking about the infrastructure that is going to be required for the increased population. It is thinking about rezoning more land for more houses, and that is a good thing. That is a good thing. The reason it is growing so fast is that there is a good connection to Wellington City. The key point here is that the average home there is a very affordable $270,106. That is affordable. That is very affordable. It is well under the cap that this piece of legislation relates to, for that town, which is $350,000. So things are working. Things are working as they should. People are attracted to growing towns, growing economies, and regional economies close to major cities, where affordable housing is available.

The other option, of course, is to have central planning—just build 100,000 houses. What a great idea that is—not! Imagine that: all these houses planned and designed by the Labour Party, planned and designed and built by the Labour Party. Imagine the slogan: “Open home Saturday afternoon, 2 till 4 o’clock. Homes specially designed for you by the Labour Party”. How many people would turn up? How many people would turn up? None. None. The idea that you can go out there and build 100,000 homes without affecting the market, without affecting the supply—I mean, where are you really going to find the land to build 100,000 homes, and who are you really going to buy it off? Who are you planning to buy it from? No answer. There is no answer to that question from that side. They have no idea where they are going to find the land. I do not know where they will find it. It is a ridiculous idea that is impractical and is only going to—actually, it is quite sanctimonious, is it not, that these guys think they know best for the people of New Zealand. They know what is best for first-home buyers. They think they can plan a future, a home, for a first-home buyer by putting them where? Well, Labour will decide. It is not for the individual to decide. You see, that is the difference: we think that individuals, the people of New Zealand, have the right and the ability to decide for themselves where and when they would like to live, whereas the other side wants to plan for the people of New Zealand. They want to decide where those people can choose to live. That is the difference between this side and the other side.

The other side also suggests a capital gains tax being some sort of solution, when it is really just a problem. It is only going to accentuate what is not yet a bubble in Auckland, by the way. The Governor of the Reserve Bank has not described it as a bubble. There is not the indebtedness—that the Labour Party would like to think there is—that is the definition of a bubble. But I tell you what: you put a capital gains tax in, as suggested by that party, and the free capital that is available, the capital that we need to invest in the regions, in the real economy, and into real jobs will be attracted to the Auckland housing market. That is what the capital gains tax will do. It was mentioned yesterday; it is known as the “mansion effect”. You will get as much money together as you possibly can to buy the largest, the biggest, the flashest house because, of course, the capital gain associated with your family home will be exempt under that party’s policy. I mean, why would you want to invest in something that is in the real economy for which you potentially have to be taxed, by that party, when you can simply go and buy your own family home and be exempt?

The other idea from the Opposition, from the Green Party today, also was forgetting where the money comes from. The Green Party thinks it grows on trees. As you would expect, it is not the solution.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Talk about your own bill. You’re proud of your own bill—talk about it.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: I am trying to illustrate that—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You’re not trying very hard.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: I am doing a very good job, actually, at illustrating how our multi-pronged approach is effective. It is working, and the alternatives that you are trying to constructively put, which are failing, are just nonsense because money does not grow on trees. If you are going to centrally plan and have the Government build houses or invest in houses, you are forgetting the taxpayer, who is apparently going to fund or subsidise the building programme proposed by that party. I mean, my voters in my electorate in the Wairarapa are not interested in subsidising a building programme proposed by the Greens to build more houses in Auckland. That just does not work. You have got to let the market do what it is allowed to do. You have to support the infrastructure and the process that allows people to make their own decisions on where and when and how they want to live. Thank you.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): I like the last speaker, Alastair Scott. He is like a salmon that just jumps on your hook, this guy. He is very good. You know salmon; you are out there—he just jumps on the hook every time. I was very complimentary to him yesterday. In the spirit of bipartisanship I am going to illustrate how honest this guy is. Yesterday he stood up in the House—I mean, he made the best fist of it he could today. Maurice, you have got to give him some happy pills. He was so enthusiastic about this! It was like watching paint dry, listening to the speech. The propaganda from the National Party research unit almost had to be winched out of him like razor wire.

Yesterday, of course, he said a couple of very honest things, and his constituents should be proud of him. He confirmed yesterday that this policy, this so-called big-hit housing policy, will be the equivalent to—I will quote him because I wrote it down—“$10 per week”. It is $10 per week that people will be allowed to use as they withdraw a huge amount of their own money, $521 of their own superannuation, and they should be grateful to this Government for it. Ten dollars a week is what they will be able to use, when Auckland house inflation is going up by $1,700 per week. He used the words “10 bucks a week”. I commend him for his honesty but I say again he is like the political salmon that just impales himself on the hook.

Then, of course, he used those infamous words. I am sure you will be interested in this: he used words that Gerry Brownlee would not use as Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery, that Nick Smith as housing Minister would not use, that none of Cabinet—the Prime Minister, the finance Minister would ever use. They would never use the words he did. He said that this policy would go some way to resolving the “housing crisis”. He admitted—and I commend him for it; he has probably been beaten within an inch of his life, metaphorically, by the whips last night for making that speech and being so honest—there is a housing crisis.

Yet today he comes out and says that “it is not yet a housing bubble in Auckland”. Well, I do not know what sort of jungle juice he brought up from the vineyard in the Wairarapa and laid out on the caucus room bar of the National Party last night and imbibed, but there is either a housing crisis and a housing bubble or not—you cannot have it one way or another. Then he said last night that the other plank to the National Party’s great housing policy that would help—

Alastair Scott: Try something original. Don’t quote me all the time.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Oh no, no, no—plagiarism is the best compliment you can pay somebody, mate. I want to repeat it and we want the Hansard printed off of your speech last night, because we want to distribute it right around the country, with you being the only honest man or woman in this debate around this mean-spirited bill.

He went on to say that loan-to-value ratios would help first-home buyers. I do not know—I did, as I said last night, get through standard 4 economics, and last time I checked, when you are required to have a larger deposit in a loan-to-value ratio situation and your income stays roughly the same, then that makes it tougher to get into a new home. But I suppose if you are out there in amongst the vines, treading the grapes, walking through the vines and pathways of that wonderful place, Wairarapa, you could maybe get a wee bit out of touch.

I want to make a couple of other comments in respect of this bill. What is shocking in this bill is the way our veterans have been treated. Mr Goff made a very interesting point throughout this debate.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: They can laugh in the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli—they can laugh—yet this Government had the arrogance to not even ring up the RSA and say: “By the way, we’ve made a mess. We had your pensions taxed gross. We’re going to have to retrospectively pull it back.” The chief executive officer of the RSA, the national body, did not know this bill was going through. I would have thought that out of respect the National Party would ring. Say, take Chris Finlayson—a man who has done much for veterans in terms of the cultural and heritage portfolio, a man who has respect for veterans—

Hon Christopher Finlayson: My great park.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Indeed, his great park. It may be called, in years to come, the Finlayson Park—maybe. There may be a small plaque in the corner of the park honouring the Minister and I would support that. But at least he has shown those veterans respect. Throughout this debate no Minister has got up and even given an explanation as to why they did not even contact the RSA. No person in the department was instructed to ring the RSA and say: “Look, we’ve made a mess-up.”—“we” being the Government—“We apologise for this and here are the statistics and the amount that we are going to have to claw back from our veterans.” That may, indeed, smack of arrogance.

So what we have here is a pretty mean-spirited bill. It is Alastair Scott’s $10-a-week bill: $10 a week as house prices in Auckland go up by $1,700 a week in terms of house price inflation, which, ironically, equates to $90,000. They talk about 90,000 people who will be helped by this. I am sure those 90,000 will be down on their bended knees thanking the Government for allowing them to use their own $10 a week that they were putting into their superannuation, looking at it and going: “This isn’t a drop in the bucket. This isn’t even a bit of mist or steam over the bucket. This is basically nothing.”

I say to all those other members, including Mr Bennett and others—apart from Mr Scott, who at least has treated the constituency with respect and been honest—that they should be honest, take Mr Scott’s example with their constituencies, and tell them how it is. Because people can add up—maybe not everybody on that side—but people in the communities can add up and they will work this out very quickly. They will work out that they are up against it and that $10 a week up against $1,700 of price inflation in Auckland is going to do nothing for them except allow them to chew up a little bit of their own money in their own superannuation.

There has been a bit of talk about our policies, and all this sort of Polish shipyard nonsense that comes out from a couple of those newbies over there, as if a Government is going to stand up and build, have all the officials come out, reconstruct the Ministry of Works, and have them out there with—

Hon David Parker: We certainly wouldn’t employ John Key on a hammer.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Indeed. They would have them all out on the hammers building houses. No, no; what the Government can do though is partner—

Hon Maurice Williamson: You’re getting the Greens all excited now.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Oh, Maurice would be all right on a hammer; or a hacksaw, I suspect, is more Maurice’s weapon of choice.

Hon Maurice Williamson: A hatchet. I’m better with a hatchet.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: A hatchet, indeed. Yes, well, there is a bit of history there, Mr Williamson, as you know. But I would say that the simple equation is this. Governments can borrow money cheaper than anybody else. These guys have made an art form of it over the last 7 years. But you partner with the private sector, you back the private sector, and you get it to do what it does best—not the Government—to build those houses. But the actual Government has a part to play in assisting and backing the private sector. I am a free marketer, but I do believe that where appropriate there needs to be some surgical interventions.

Mr Scott got up and said the market must be allowed to do its thing, and in general terms that is right. But you do not do it to an extreme where Mr Scott and his ilk are just quite happy to see tens of thousands of young—and not so young—Kiwis languish without any hope of getting on the first-home buyer ladder that he and I and others have had the privilege of getting on. His view is: “To hell with you.” His view is that the Government has no place even surgically intervening, even partnering with the private sector, as we have proposed, to get it to de-risk some of these large housing projects, so the private sector will do the work for us.

Hon David Parker: And sell them.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: And sell them, of course. And sell them and return the money back to the taxpayer, as Mr Parker reminds me. What is wrong with that? But these geniuses over here, as they try to bluff their way through this bill and try to hoodwink the public by saying how generous they are as a Government, also bluff the public. As if a Government is going to go out and build 10,000 Coronation Streets. I mean, guys, look, give us a break. I will give you some advice. Lift your game. Come up with a better bit of propaganda than that, because no one believes you. Sam Lotu-Iiga is grinning there. He is a sophisticated guy. You will not get him standing up with this piffle. He will be buried under the desk. He does not want to be associated with this.

So I will give some advice to the new people there: lift your game. Maurice, tell the National Party research unit to come up with a little bit better propaganda that is even just slightly believable. The numbers do not add up, the propaganda is unworthy, the research notes are pathetic, and the speeches from that side show they are not even proud of their own legislation. There are a few bright guys over there but I think they have worked out that it is a mean-spirited bill that puts the boot into our veterans, that has arrogantly—arrogantly—trod on our veterans, and not even given them the courtesy of explaining why this happened. Ten bucks a week—it is pathetic, it is piffle, and no one believes it. I look forward to cyclostyling off Mr Scott’s speech and whipping around the odd vineyard and the odd house in Wairarapa and having a wee chat to the locals.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): It is a privilege to speak on the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill in its third reading.

Hon Maurice Williamson: That’s the one we’re on, actually.

TODD BARCLAY: Yes, this is the bill we are talking about. As we all know, this taxation bill introduces amendments to the KiwiSaver Act 2006 and the Income Tax Act 2007 that will allow KiwiSaver members to withdraw their member tax credits when purchasing their first home. It corrects the tax, social policy, and KiwiSaver treatment of veterans’ income placement payments as well.

I have been listening since the start of today’s speeches on this bill, and it has been quite interesting hearing the Labour Party and the Greens speak about their views on what should be happening in the housing market. Firstly, it is quite interesting to hear that they think $521 in tax credits on top of the other contributions—including their own and the employer’s—that they can access to buy or build their first home is insufficient. I would have to say that for anyone in the category of first-home buyer, anything is better than nothing, and $521 on top of the other benefits that the Government has been introducing is sufficient. I think it would be welcomed by any homebuyer who had any sense.

The Labour Party and the Green Party also think that first-home buyers should not get to choose where they live. As David Bennett pointed out, that is just an absolutely communist point of view on the world. People should have the ability to decide where they want to live and where they want to bring up their children. They should have the choice to be able to do that wherever they want to do that.

One point I probably would make—being of the younger generation and a couple of generations behind the previous speaker, Clayton Cosgrove—is that, perhaps, people of my generation have quite high expectations around first home ownership. I think that many of my peers enter the housing market with an expectation that they can enter at the point at which their parents currently are. I think it is probably worth remembering that people of our parents’ generation and that age group have bought their way up the home-market ladder to the point they are at now. I think a point to make to first-home buyers—and I would be included—is that they maybe should lower their expectations where appropriate.

Obviously, the Auckland situation is a different kettle of fish from other areas in the country. Queenstown—in my area—is similar as well. But as we look around we can see that a significant amount of homes are being built, and a lot of them are targeted at first-home buyers. Paula Bennett and Michael Woodhouse were down a couple of weeks ago and we looked at the work the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust is doing to work with developers to secure a portion of new development land to be targeted towards first-home buyers. There are a number of schemes that are focused on that.

The other point that the Labour Party made was that the changes in this bill are inconsequential. Well, if anyone in their right mind thinks that the 90,000 people who will benefit from this are inconsequential, I am not too sure exactly what they are considering, because 90,000 people benefiting from the change that this Government is making is significant and it should not be brushed over. It is also probably worth reminding members of the public of Labour’s track record when it came to affordable housing. Over the 9 years that Labour was in Government house prices went up by 96 percent, but in the 6 years that we have been in Government they have gone up only 27 percent, which shows that we have got a greater handle on how to manage the economy and how to manage all the different levers that have an impact on the cost of housing.

Another point around Labour members’ views on what we are doing with regard to affordable housing is “What exactly would they know?”. We had an election last year where the public clearly voted with their feet and backed our view on how we should be tackling the issue of housing affordability. The Labour Party thinks that a capital gains tax is the answer. The public rejected that. The Labour Party thinks the answer is building 100,000 houses at a cost of $300,000 on sections that will cost $325,000 in Auckland. Anybody who has even considered any form of economics would know that that is economically illiterate.

Hon David Parker: $325,000 for a section under your Government—are you proud of that?

TODD BARCLAY: It was actually that member over there who made up that policy. It was widely rejected by all members of the public.

I will move on to what the Green members have been saying. They do not want people to own their own homes at all. In fact, they want the Government to own their homes. They want around $300,000 to build a home, not taking into account how they will buy the land or account for the land, and they think they will charge people $200 a week. I think the economics behind the Green Party policy are even looser than what is behind the Labour Party’s policy. And then they were talking about the intensification of housing. The Green Party thinks the intensification of housing is the answer. However, intensification in every other respect is, for the Greens, not the answer, so it is contradictory for them to say that we should intensify in this area but not intensify in other areas that are the more productive areas of the economy, such as the use of farmland and the use of other productive assets in this country.

Just while we are on the subject of the Green Party, I have to say that we would not trust the economy in its hands anyway, given its previous leadership candidates. Here is what they think the state of the economy is. Vernon Tava thought that the official cash rate—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not part of the bill.

TODD BARCLAY: OK; sorry Mr Assistant Speaker. Talking about inflation then, which is contributing towards—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, no.

TODD BARCLAY: OK. We will go back on to this bill then. This bill, as we know, is about supporting first-home buyers and honouring our election pledge. As we know, it is in relation to the HomeStart package, which was announced during last year’s election, and it comprises a number of components that will come into effect on 1 April this year. The first is replacing the KiwiSaver first-home deposit subsidy with a KiwiSaver HomeStart grant. That doubles the support for first-home buyers and increases the house price limits, which is significant in many areas across the country, including my own area.

The second component of that is enabling larger KiwiSaver first-home withdrawals. This is being done by including a member’s tax credit, which is included in this bill, meaning that first-home buyers will now be able to draw on their KiwiSaver savings except for the $1,000 kick-start. So the components that they can draw on are their contributions, which they have put in over the years that they have been a member of the scheme, and also their employer’s contributions.

Thirdly, we are expanding the eligibility for the Welcome Home Loan by aligning the house price caps with the new KiwiSaver HomeStart grants. So we are roughly doubling the number of people who are receiving Government grants to buy their first home, from 10,000 people a year to 20,000 a year, and it is doubling the Government’s grant that they are eligible for if they are buying or building their first home. Currently, first-home buyers are eligible for a grant of $3,000 after 3 years in KiwiSaver, $4,000 after 4 years, and $5,000 after 5 years. Under KiwiSaver HomeStart this grant will double to $6,000 after 3 years, $8,000 after 4 years, and $10,000 after 5 years for purchasing a newly built home. So on the top of the $521, which is “insufficient and inconsequential”, we have actually taken other steps to increase the facilities and the means for first-home buyers and first-home builders to access capital and make their first step on to the housing ladder.

I just want to remind members of the public of what the Labour Party’s position is. I am not too sure whether I have got it clear yet, given that quite a few conflicting views have been set out over the last week or so. I understand Labour’s position to be that we need large-scale urban developers, backed by private sector developers and community housing organisations, and such developments cannot happen without the Government playing a role—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member is slightly unlucky in that I was in the House when my predecessor warned him about sticking with the bill and not talking about other parties’ positions. It was yet another party that he was warned about, but I will warn him that if he continues down that line, his speech will be terminated.

TODD BARCLAY: I go back to the nature of this bill, which is that first-home buyers are able to access their tax contributions for the purchase of their first home or, more likely, to go toward their mortgage. It is in the context, as I was saying, of a number of other changes that have been made by this Government, including allowing first-home buyers to be able to access their contributions and their employers’ contributions to their KiwiSaver scheme. And we are sort of seeing the effects of that already as part of the wider implications, which this bill will only help to advance. It has seen residential construction increase by 21 percent already in that more than 24,000 building consents were issued, the highest number since 2008.

I want to touch on what was discussed in the Committee stage of this bill and where the amendments were made. They primarily focus on the KiwiSaver scheme rules relating to members’ withdrawals. One particular amendment was a move to ensure that membership in a complying superannuation fund for 3 years may count towards qualifying for a first home. Thank you. I commend this bill.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Human Rights Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 11 March.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare nui. It is delightful to pick up the pieces of a piece of legislation that we will be opposing, but I want to talk about those pieces. Human rights are a vital part of any society in which there is any form of equity and justice. Unfortunately, this dog’s breakfast of a bill will not advance human rights, and this is a concern.

I think one of the questions that we should always ask at the beginning of a piece of legislation, when it reaches its third reading and has been through the processes, is: did the process indicate—to the select committee, in particular—that anyone wanted this legislation? There was no clarity around who is driving this bill. There was no clear reason for this bill. There was an underlying agenda about getting rid of the titles of the positions, but in terms of a public call, or a sector call, or a human rights community call for changes to the roles within the Human Rights Commission, that was not apparent. And so the question remains after going through that process: why are we doing this when so many people do not like it? Why is it necessary, and who will benefit? They are important questions, which we need to answer.

This bill is definitely out of step with the human rights community, as was apparent in many of the submissions, and it has got two major flaws, which make it unsupportable. One is the disestablishment of statutory positions and the creation of very broad commissioner roles without a specialist focus and without a commitment to a specialist focus, which is disturbing because we really need these positions to be strong. I heard in the previous debate on the second reading, a couple of weeks ago, some very bizarre arguments from the Government benches about justifying getting rid of positions like the Race Relations Commissioner and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner because it is against human rights to actually name discrimination and marginalisation, and because it would be much better if there were these generic commissioners with no titles because people who experience discrimination would not then feel labelled and uncomfortable. When I heard that argument, I thought: “Oh my God, these people don’t actually have any idea what human rights is, and they have no understanding of the importance of a framework where the roles are clearly delineated so that they can be held to account.”

The role of the Human Rights Commission is to hold the Government to account. The role of the human rights community and the marginalised people in our community is to make sure that they are represented through robust and specific statutory positions such as the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner, the Race Relations Commissioner—which should actually be called the “Anti-Racism Commissioner”; that would be a better name because that is what it is—and a disability commissioner. We in the Green Party are very passionate about human rights, and we really think that the Human Rights Commission needs to be strong, unambiguous, and specific in its representation of the specific marginalisations that it needs to challenge and in the rights that it needs to uphold. So this is very disturbing.

The other issue is independence, and the argument that I have heard from a number of speakers so far is that the language in the bill will not change the existing language in the Act that the current Human Rights Commission operates under. That may be true, but we cannot just look at language; we have to look at context. So any requirement to consult the Minister around work priorities has to be seen in the context of what is happening now. What is happening now is that when the Human Rights Commission challenged the Government over the Government Communications Security Bureau legislation, it got a slap on the wrist by the Prime Minister, which is what we call “a chilling effect”. The Prime Minister actually said that the commission’s report—and it was a statutory function of the commission to make that report—was a poor piece of work that was submitted late and that the commission needed to do better if it was to continue to receive taxpayer funding.

It is a very strong message from a Prime Minister to a small Human Rights Commission that dared to actually speak up on an issue of national importance—the privacy and rights of citizens—to be told that it had better do better if it wants to receive its funding. That is what I would call “a severe chilling effect”, and it is really concerning. So whether or not the language of independence has been modified under this bill, it remains that the Minister must be consulted around priorities, and it remains that the Prime Minister of the current Government, under which the commission must operate, has stated that it had better watch out—that if it rocks the boat, it may lose its funding. There is nothing more chilling to an official than to be told that they might lose their funding—even if they are supposedly an independent commissioner.

One of the reasons I am passionate about this bill is that it was supposedly about establishing a full-time disability commissioner. Originally, I had a member’s bill selected from the ballot, and it was to establish a disability commissioner. The sector wanted a disability commission. I understand that, because there are multiple issues of discrimination and marginalisation around disability. But in the current context, none of us thought that was achievable. I thought that a disability commissioner at the Human Rights Commission was achievable, so I had a member’s bill. The day that it was due to come to the floor of the House, the Government announced—and I am very pleased it did; and I know that a lot of the work on this was done by Tariana Turia—that it would set up a disability commissioner, a 0.8 position at the Human Rights Commission. So this legislation is supposedly about mandating that position, but it actually does not, and it does not make it full time, and it does not make it clear that we are going to have distinct roles. What it does is blur the definitions and actually give more power to the Chief Commissioner.

The problem with that is that the Chief Commissioner may or may not, over time and under different regimes, represent and understand the specific and very different rights and needs of different groups. Anyone who knows anything about human rights will know that just because a person has a grasp of, or an experience in, say, disability rights, it does not make them an expert in addressing issues of racism. And just because somebody is an expert in racism, it does not mean that they have a gender analysis that will support the rights of women. That is why those appointments—those commissioners with their statutory roles and statutory responsibilities—are so critical to human rights. That is why this bill is doing this country a disservice: we actually need those experts—those people who have a depth of analysis in their specific field—to work in that field. We have met with the commission and we know that it is overwhelmed with disability issues. We know that it should be more than 0.8—there should be a full-time commissioner. So it is actually critical that we do not roll back progress on human rights by muddying the waters, by blurring the roles, and by confusing the public about the essential need to differentiate between the different types of marginalisation that can be experienced. It is just not the same for everybody, and that is the point, and that is what is being lost under this bill.

We have a number of concerns about this subsuming of positions, and the disability community itself also made a submission on the bill, in which it was concerned about the fact that 30 percent of complaints to the Human Rights Commission are related to disability—and this is underreported because people are too scared, too tired, or too unaware to report. So, at least on that basis, maybe one-third of human rights should be dedicated to addressing disability issues. The title really matters, so it is really important that we actually commit to disability rights. I even think we should clarify the role around women’s rights and not call it equal employment opportunities, because it is unclear, and I think my colleague will probably speak some more about some of the specific issues around that.

But it is really important that we have clarity and independence. One of the key aspects of the 1993 Paris principles on national human rights institutions is independence from the Government. Unfortunately, if you look at Amnesty International’s latest report, we are not doing so well in human rights. This country used to be a leader, but now we are not. We now have 50 percent of our prison population being Māori, while 15 percent of the population is Māori. Internationally, that kind of issue is not unnoticed. Domestic violence is at record levels, and that is not unnoticed either. So we very much need to maintain the Human Rights Commission as it is and make it stronger. But this bill, I am afraid to say, makes it weaker, and we cannot support it.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I take this call on behalf of New Zealand First, and, as we indicated in the first reading of the Human Rights Amendment Bill, we will continue to support it. The major change concerns the roles of the commissioners, and the previous speaker, Catherine Delahunty, has alluded to that. Although there will no longer be statute-appointed designated commissioners, there must be a commissioner other than the Chief Human Rights Commissioner appointed to lead the work in each of the priority areas. Those areas are disability rights, equal employment opportunities, and race relations. The last speaker made reference to the need to have people with a sense of qualification in those particular areas, and yet we have a Race Relations Commissioner whose claim to fame, as I understand it, was being a world-renowned squash player. But since her appointment, albeit attracting some criticism at the time, I think she is doing an excellent job. It just proves that anyone who has the commitment to carry out the duties that they are charged with can do an excellent job. The Chief Human Rights Commissioner is also able to designate a commissioner to lead the work in other priority areas of human rights, after consultation with the Minister of Justice and the other commissioners.

New Zealand First does not agree with those parties that have concerns about the loss of statutorily designated specialised commissioners. We agree with the Government’s new approach, which still requires the commissioner to lead in priority areas while also allowing more flexibility for them to work in other areas. This does not mean any loss of quality or focus in the work of lead commissioners. It is a more efficient and more effective use of their time and expertise, in our view. In respect of new priority areas, the Justice and Electoral Committee has added these words in new section 8(1B) in clause 6: “… in accordance with the strategic direction and the general nature of activities determined by the Commission under section 7(1) …”. This allows the Chief Human Rights Commissioner to designate new priority areas, but only in accordance with the strategic direction and the general nature of activities as determined jointly by the commissioners, under section 7(1).

Chief Human Rights Commissioners can designate new priority areas only in accordance with the strategic direction determined by the commission as a whole. New Zealand First agrees with that approach. It allows for the specialisation needed in the three priority areas, but with the limitation that the commission’s strategy be adhered to. An amendment to clause 11 reinforces one of the functions of the chief commissioner being to include allocating spheres of responsibility for priority areas under the strategy. New Zealand First disagrees with those parties in respect of the requirement for the Minister to be consulted on the strategy and priority areas. We believe that there is nothing wrong with that. Consultation is not direction. The commission does not have to do what Ministers suggest, but it is appropriate for the Minister to have significant input.

However, we are concerned that there is no special priority area for age-related human rights issues, and there are many examples. I am sad to report that ageism is rife in New Zealand, and from time to time we hear references made to that very issue, here in this House. People are discriminated against, on the basis of age, right across the employment spectrum. This party—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am reluctant to do this, but over the last month or so we have worked quite hard with members to invite them to deliver, not read, their speeches. I have heard the member before and I know he can do that, but he is not doing it now. It would be good if he could deliver a speech that is not read. Thank you.

PITA PARAONE: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. With respect, I am quite happy to give you my notes, to show that I am not reading a speech.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): OK. It was just the impression you were giving.

PITA PARAONE: As I said earlier on, there are many examples of ageism, and the comments made in this House from to time have certainly been aimed at a particular member. I should say that that particular member, over the last 3 weeks, has showed just how wrong those people who have criticised him, because of his age, have been about his ability to behave in a more, what shall I say, active, younger—I will not say virile—

Richard Prosser: Energetic.

PITA PARAONE: —energetic—in a more energetic way than a lot of his colleagues here in the House. We do not believe that ageism should be ignored, and it should be a particular issue for the commissioners who will be appointed under this piece of legislation. New Zealand First wants age discrimination identified as a human rights issue, and I think that that will certainly fall out, once this legislation is in place.

Comment has been made about the concern as to the number of commissioners. The bill provides for a minimum of four and a maximum of five commissioners to be appointed. The question, of course, is whether this will be sufficient. We believe that it will. It may provide some extra workload, but experience and history show that those people who have been appointed to similar positions are able to undertake the task. Their appointment has been as a result of having knowledge about their ability to do their job. I just want to comment as to the need for the appointment of suitable people for the lead areas, and to quote what Chief Human Rights Commissioner Rutherford said: “as there will be fewer commissioners, those who appoint Commissioners will need to ensure those in key roles reflect the diversity of New Zealand.” I refer to the appointment of Dame Susan Devoy as Race Relations Commissioner. If her experience as an international squash player—squash champion, I should also add—is any indication of the diversity of her skills and the role she has had to undertake as Race Relations Commissioner, then I think we have it within our hands to ensure that diversity is, in fact, recognised.

The bill also provides that the commission must report on existing or proposed legislation. I think that is an excellent proposal under this legislation. It ensures that there is a sense of independence—that independent view—provided to those of us who are responsible for enacting the legislation. I think that should be commended. In conclusion, I just want to reiterate the support of New Zealand First for this bill. Kia ora.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): I just wanted to pick up on a few points that the previous speaker, Pita Paraone, made, and agree with them. It sort of relates more specifically to the cross-functionality of some of the roles and the flexibilities that this bill brings into play, whereby the Chief Human Rights Commissioner can identify and allocate roles and responsibilities to a number of people, but not necessarily under the titles that they had before. I think although Ms Delahunty was saying—and I take the point—that if you have got a Race Relations Commissioner and a commissioner for women’s rights and all these other various highly specialised roles without experienced backgrounds in those particular disciplines, then it can be difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to perform the functions of that role to its utmost ability.

I suppose the point the previous speaker made, which I want to agree with, is that a bit of diversity and breadth of experience across a number of different activities can provide a positive gain, in terms of the undertaking of the role. And, potentially, as long as somebody has got at least some exposure in that space or a background in that line of work, across one of those roles, they can bring that skill and experience to a broader cross-set of roles in terms of the highly specialised commissioners that are being talked about at the moment. I would have to agree with the previous speaker from New Zealand First, that a breadth of experience across a number of different sectors and not just a siloed background can, in fact, enhance the commission’s joint ability to perform the functions and responsibilities that it has been tasked with, on behalf of New Zealanders, both within New Zealand and on the international stage.

As we know, the Human Rights Amendment Bill amends the Human Rights Act 1993 for two primary reasons. It enables the establishment of a full-time commissioner with responsibility for leadership in the disability rights space within the Human Rights Commission, and it also makes changes to the role and structure of the commission to strengthen its performance. Those were the remarks I was making just before.

I think fundamentally we believe that all people are born free and equal in dignity and in human rights, and as a Parliament and particularly as a Government at the moment, we have to do the best we can to ensure that all New Zealanders have the flexibilities and freedoms to operate in life, without unfair pressure from anybody else who might be trying to influence their ability and freedom to live their lives.

I think, looking particularly at the disability rights aspect of this bill, where a full-time human rights commissioner position with responsibility for leadership in disability rights will be established, the creation of this role requires an amendment to the Act, as it currently enables commissioners’ formalised leadership in only two areas—first, race relations and, second, equal employment opportunities. This Act does not currently allow for the creation and formalisation of leadership roles, such as in disability rights, outside of those priorities.

I think, going back to the point I was trying to make before, we are trying to build in a bit of flexibility to the current Act to allow the commission to tackle some pretty complex and cross-boundary challenges that we are experiencing in a pretty sophisticated world now, more so than potentially what would have existed in 1993 when the initial Act was established, while at the same time honouring our responsibilities to try to ensure that we are allowing the commission to act in the best interests. I think it is a partnership between the Government, particularly the Minister of Justice, and the commission, to ensure that we are appropriately covering our bases and providing for the ability to look after some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable people, in some cases, and ensuring that the voices of the commissioners, in the various hats they will be wearing from time to time, have clear air to be able to demonstrate their view through to New Zealanders.

I think, just going back to the changes of the role and structure of the commission, where it currently provides for full-time and part-time commissioners, it will be changed to permit the composition of full-time commissioners only. However, it will allow a part-time commissioner appointment where it is considered appropriate—for example, because the most suitable candidate is not available full time. That is another step that we will be trying to take to enhance stability, in order to get the best people for the role. They might not necessarily be siloed in one particular discipline of human rights, but it creates the ability to get people who are talented and multifaceted to become involved and provide their voices.

I think some of the previous appointments demonstrate that to heighten the relevance and the importance of the commission we should try to attract New Zealanders who are respected by the wider public to perform those duties. I think Dame Susan Devoy is probably a perfect example of that. She is widely known and came into the role with a well-known background already. Performing a slightly different role, as Race Relations Commissioner, enables her to be able to speak to a wider range of New Zealanders, and she has the respect that she has already earned from previous roles she has held in life.

Another aspect of the bill is that the titles of Race Relations Commissioner and Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner will no longer be used. Instead, they will all be appointed as human rights commissioners. I think that goes to the point where they are working across boundaries and across disciplines in a number of cases. Where you have got a human rights case from a strictly race relations point of view, sometimes there might be a women’s rights aspect involved as well, so it makes sense to be able to have specialists wearing both hats in order to be able to tackle the various problems that come about.

I think it is important to note that there is no major change intended to the specialised commissioner role in this bill. It is not the intention to try to devolve the experience in the background of the various people who are appointed to these roles; quite the opposite, actually. It is the intention to try to enhance their ability to perform their roles in an ever increasingly complex world.

I just wanted to touch on the commission’s functions, which will be revised to better reflect its current responsibilities. That just goes into part of the developing world and the developing way in which the commission can operate and undertake its very important responsibilities and duties. The changes in the bill are also being put in place in order to promote the development of new international instruments of human rights; namely, to promote and monitor compliance by New Zealand in this regard and to allow the Government to better report on performance in this regard.

The changes to the commission will better respond to emerging human rights issues, and will do so in line with the Government’s focus around better public services. Although the role of the human rights commissioner is an independent role, I think the role that the Government can play in that regard is to ensure that the legislation allowing the commissioners to perform their duties is as enabling as possible.

Just going back, as part of human rights more generally and particularly disability rights, the education Minister has put a huge focus on special education since she has been Minister, by retaining the special education portfolio within education. The issue of disability rights is being filtered across Government and the various Ministers responsible for that space, right down to education as well. On that note I think I will wind it up there. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

JAN LOGIE (Green): As my colleague Catherine Delahunty has noted, it is with notable sadness that we will be voting against this bill. As Catherine Delahunty mentioned, she had a bill in the ballot that was responding to years of campaigning by disability communities asking for a disability commission. Catherine, working with them, liaising with them, and realising the political environment, realised that it might be possible, through a member’s bill, to get a disability commissioner, if not a commission. After her bill was pulled from the ballot and was about to come into the House the Government came to her and said “Look, we’re on to it. We’ll do it.”, and it said that it would set up, in effect, a disability commissioner.

That is the origin of this legislation. Yet we are unable to support it, because that is not what it does. It does not mention a disability commissioner, despite Catherine Delahunty agreeing to take her bill off the table. This legislation actually removes the possibility of that title and of the disability community being able to be assured that there is somebody there in whom they could see themselves and their experience reflected, whom they could know understood their lived experience, and whom they could connect with, and make complaints and advance their rights through.

We have seen the Government—which is even worse to me—use that as an opportunity to undermine our fundamental human rights framework: to remove the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner as a special, specific delegation, to remove the Race Relations Commissioner as a specific delegation, and to remove the disability commissioner Catherine Delahunty had negotiated, we thought. So it is very disturbing. We have heard from the member who spoke previously, Todd Barclay, about how this provides more flexibility because the human rights context has become far more complex. How? How have human rights become more complex? Experience of intersectionality and people’s cross-connected experience of discrimination have always existed. Our environment has not changed in that sense, but the need for communities to see themselves and their experience reflected within the commission remains the same. This legislation removes that. It potentially reduces the number of commissioners down to four—four full-time positions, where we now have three full-time ones and four part-time ones. So that is a cut, on top of what I have heard have been very significant cuts in staffing, while this supposedly independent commission has been seeking to meet this Government’s targets of cost saving, in an environment where human rights are under threat.

I would like to specifically mention the submission on this bill that was provided by the CEDAW Coalition of New Zealand NGOs. That is a coalition of all the significant women’s organisations in this country—the organisations that are working with women and that have the concern of women’s human rights at the heart of their work. The coalition said that “The loss of the positions as statutory designations and the minimisation of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner functions has no evident public support and will attract international human rights treaty body condemnation and concern.” If you are thinking that maybe they do not really know the details of this and the intricacies of the Human Rights Commission, then I will let you know that the primary presenter of that submission was the previous Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner herself, Professor Judy McGregor. She knows what is needed, she knows the environment, and she is deeply concerned. This is specifically in an environment where they had particular concerns around equal employment opportunities and gender pay gaps, because New Zealand has dropped in terms of our performance internationally on measures around women’s status. In the global gender gap report, which is done by quite a conservative organisation, the World Economic Forum, New Zealand has dropped two places from fifth to seventh, from 2012 to 2013, and this year it has dropped further back to 13th.

We have removed the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner in this legislation—the designation—closed the pay and employment equity unit within the former Department of Labour, abandoned two equal pay investigations, and the list goes on. We need to be sure we can protect our human rights. Thank you.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I would like to take a quick call on this bill, which Labour opposes. The only two times that I can recall the Prime Minister actually mentioning human rights was the other day when he accused those who did not support his sending troops to Iraq as somehow not supporting human rights. I cannot quite understand how he came to that conclusion. It was the same week that it was revealed that he had asked President Rajapaksa—the man who was President of Sri Lanka and was responsible for not looking at why 50,000 Tamils happened to die in Sri Lanka during the later stages of the war there—to New Zealand to watch the Cricket World Cup. He was not re-elected, and so he is not coming.

The second time he mentioned human rights was during the Government Communications Security Bureau bill, when he told members of the Human Rights Commission that they needed to pull their socks up—that what they were saying did not agree with what he was saying. This is an independent organisation that is tasked to give independent advice and information, and it was quite within its rights, in that particular context, to come to the conclusions that it did.

That is part of what I believe this bill is doing, which is eroding our standing in human rights. We are taking away two of the most important human rights commissioners: the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner—whom we need in this country, because we can actually see the gender pay gap, for example, widening—and we are also taking away the Race Relations Commissioner, in the person of Dame Susan Devoy. If there is one issue, one human rights commissioner that is needed, it is that—and that is the reason why the New Zealand Federation of Multicultural Councils came out in opposition to this bill. In Auckland, where 50 percent of our population will be non-European in the next 10 years, this is one area, at least, where people can have some solace and some confidence that we are standing up for them, and we are taking that away.

The third thing that I want to mention, apart from the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and the Race Relations Commissioner being removed, is that under this legislation, the Human Rights Commission will have to come up with a work plan—a work plan to put in front of the Minister of Justice to get the Minister’s sign-off, in order for it to be able to go forward. That, I believe, violates the Paris principles on which this Human Rights Commission is founded. We should not allow our Human Rights Commission to have to go to a Minister to get permission in order for it to be able to have that work plan approved.

This piece of legislation is touted by the Government as being a means of improving its efficiency, as if it is some sort of market that needs to be more efficient. It is not a market, but what we will be seeing is a lessening of the number of staff and a lessening of the ability for the commission to have real focus on the issues that really matter. It will reduce the visibility of the office from what it is today, and it will reduce public confidence that they will be able to go to the Human Rights Commission and get real defence and backing for what they believe is discrimination, across a number of areas. Instead, we will have an amorphous group of people, understaffed and unable to carry out the functions that they have been able to carry out up to now.

This is not something that is broken. It is not broken; we do not need to fix it. We need to get behind it. We need to make sure that it does conform to the Paris principles, that it is fully independent, and that it can discharge its duties as it should do with regard to race relations. That is so important in places like Auckland, where I am. We need to make sure that it does stand up for equal opportunities, that it is not eroded by the lessening of the number of staff, and that it does its job properly. This legislation will not allow it to do its job properly. This will simply weaken what we have today and not stand up for what we need in this country. Thank you.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of the Human Rights Amendment Bill. As the saying goes, we are all different, we are all individuals. We all face issues and problems that are unique to us, and the Government is doing everything possible to address these issues for everyone, old and young. One overlying issue that our communities face is equal opportunities and resources for disabled people. The Government is taking various initiatives to address that area, but there is a lot more that needs to be done.

Actually, I am really stunned to hear the contributor who just spoke, David Shearer. He believes that this bill is about eroding the Human Rights Commission. It is not about that. This bill, the Human Rights Amendment Bill, makes changes to the structure and function of the Human Rights Commission. The Human Rights Commission is an independent Crown entity, and it will remain an independent Crown entity. But we need this legislation, to bring the function of disabled people’s rights into the Human Rights Commission.

The bill is in line with the National Party’s focus on delivering better public services. This bill will amend the Human Rights Act 1993. This is to enable the establishment of a full-time commissioner who will be dedicated to disability rights. The commissioner will have full-time responsibility for disability rights. The creation of this role requires the amendment of the Act because currently the Act enables the commission to have only two leadership roles: one in race relations and the other in equal employment opportunities. The current Act does not allow for the creation of another leadership role in other areas, including disability rights.

The bill also enables changes to be made to the role and structure of the commission to strengthen its function. The structure will be changed to permit only full-time commissioners. There will be a transition period as there are some part-time commissioners currently within the Human Rights Commission. If you look at the current structure of the commission, we have three full-time commissioners. There is one chief commissioner and two specialised commissioners, and we have up to five part-time commissioners. All these positions will be changed to full time, with the minimum number of commissioners to be four and the maximum number to be five. There will be one chief commissioner, and then there will be three commissioners dedicated to these three specialised leadership roles: race relations, equal employment opportunities, and disability rights.

This restructuring also enables the changing of the titles of these commissioners. The Race Relations Commissioner and Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner will be called human rights commissioners. So the question arises—and I heard the reason given for that—of whether by changing the title of these commissioners there is the perception that there will be a compromise of their role. It is not true. The bill is to legislate that there must be a commissioner appointed to lead the work in each of these priority areas, and that is very clear in this bill.

New Zealand endorsed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 26 September 2008. Article 33 of the convention requires States to “maintain, strengthen, designate, or establish within the State Party, a framework, including one or more independent mechanisms, as appropriate, to promote, protect and monitor implementation of the present Convention.” So to implement these requirements, the bill is to amend the Human Rights Commission, which has been given a broad role to promote and protect and perform the role under this convention. To deliver this role efficiently, and address disability rights, a full-time commissioner is required, and that is why this amendment is required to the Act.

If we look at the primary functions of the commission under section 5 of the Human Rights Act, these functions include: “[(1)(a)] to advocate and promote respect for, and an understanding and appreciation of, human rights in New Zealand society; and (b) to encourage the maintenance and development of harmonious relations between individuals and among the diverse groups in New Zealand society … [(2)(a)] to be an advocate for human rights and to promote and protect, by education and publicity, respect for, and observance of, human rights: (b) to encourage and co-ordinate programmes and activities in the field of human rights: (c) to make public statements in relation to any matter affecting human rights”.

Looking at these functions, the Human Rights Commission is the right entity to deliver for disability rights. As I said, there is this perception that the removal of those titles is actually going to compromise these leadership roles, but the fact is that the change of title is not going to negatively affect, or impact in any way on, the commission’s leadership role in protecting and promoting race relations and equal employment opportunities. The responsible commissioner in each area will be the face of, and point of contact for, these areas. So these changes will make a real difference in the lives of disabled people. These changes will actually strengthen the performance of the commission in these three leadership roles, and they also give that flexibility to respond to emerging human rights issues.

Disability can be caused for various reasons. There are different types of disability and there is quite a bit for us to learn to see how we can respond and to address those issues. Both long-term and short-term disabilities need to be addressed, and we need to make sure that equal opportunities are provided to the disabled too. The National Government is committed to helping our disabled people understand their lives and understand the challenges that come with that. We need to make sure that people with disabilities are heard, and we also need to structure our services to be able to provide for their needs. This bill is about providing that special focus for disabled people so that the issues around equality can be heard and addressed.

The amendment to the Act will enable the rights of the disabled to be protected. Where possible, depending on the disability, it is important that the right to education and the right to employment are also taken care of. This will depend on the kind of disability that the person suffers from. We know that it is against the law to discriminate against anyone, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, and there needs to be a very special focus, which we want to bring through this amendment to the Act. Disabled New Zealanders should have the same rights as any other person in our society because they are also an important part of our society. It is a fact that many disabled people do not take part in numerous activities or in as many activities as they would like to.

Disability can come to individuals at any time, but there is some correlation with age. With ageing, the chances of disability increase. The disability can also be the result of another illness, and sometimes there are cases of more than one type of disability. Disability leaves people with fewer choices in life and poor access to services. We also know that the Human Rights Commission receives numerous complaints about discrimination on the grounds of disability.

Living with disability is not easy, so it is important that we make sure we provide all that is identified to support disabled people. The National Government is working hard to get disabled people into work and also to provide other kinds of help that are needed to help them to live independent lives. The Government, through the Ministry of Social Development, is conducting a trial to assist disabled people and people with health conditions into work. Employers are actually critical in providing disabled people with this opportunity to get into the workforce. This is all about removing those barriers for disabled people, ensuring that like all New Zealanders they are able to live good lives.

The great news is that we have seen some improvement in the employment of disabled people, with 61 percent of disabled people aged 15 to 64 working in paid jobs in 2013. The employment rate of all disabled adults, including those aged over 64, was 45 percent in 2013, up slightly from 40 percent in 2001. Disabled people want to have jobs, they want to support their families, and they want to have normal lives. In summary, the Human Rights Amendment Bill is about protecting the rights of disabled people by restructuring the Human Rights Commission to deliver for disabled people, as well as in the race relations and equal opportunities areas. This will also help the commission to be in a better position to respond to emerging human rights issues. So I support the bill. Thank you.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora. Ngā mihi e te Whare. It is my pleasure to speak on the Human Rights Amendment Bill in its second reading. Labour opposes this bill, and we oppose the bill for two distinct reasons.

The first reason is that the Human Rights Commission should not have to consult with the Minister about its priorities. Currently, the Human Rights Commission is an independent Crown entity. It is an independent Crown entity along with organisations such as the Electoral Commission, the Health and Disability Commissioner, the Law Commission, the Independent Police Conduct Authority, and the Privacy Commissioner. Why are they independent? Because sometimes their investigations actually mean they have a responsibility to hold the Government accountable. That is the reason those entities exist in our society—to hold the Government accountable. Having to report to the Minister would make them a Crown agent or an autonomous Crown entity, and what do those entities have to do within our public system? They either have to give effect or have regard to Government policy. That is the fundamental problem we have with that part of this legislation.

The second reason Labour is opposing this legislation is that it disestablishes the Race Relations Commissioner and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner. I would like to take us on a bit of a historical journey, because when we look at how those positions were created within our society they actually all go back to the United Nations. The United Nations was formed on 24 October 1945, and, as an international body, what the United Nations has actually done since its creation is develop conventions. The first such convention that is relevant to the piece of legislation before the House today is the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. That was adopted by the United Nations on 21 December 1965. New Zealand signed that convention on 25 October 1966, and, to ratify that as a country, what did we do? We established the Race Relations Office, actually, and from the Race Relations Office we created the Race Relations Commissioner. So, that particular office then held us as a country accountable to the fact that we ratified this international UN document.

The second instrument that is relevant to this conversation we are having this afternoon is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That was adopted by the United Nations on 16 December 1966. New Zealand signed that covenant on 12 November 1968. How did we embody within our society our commitment to that particular covenant? Actually, we created the Human Rights Act, in 1977. So the Human Rights Commission and the human rights commissioners were created because they displayed internationally our commitment to these UN conventions or covenants. In 2001, however, we did merge those two—the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, and civil and political rights—when we brought the Race Relations Conciliator and the Human Rights Commission together.

The next convention that is relevant to our discussions here in the House is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. That was adopted by the United Nations on 18 December 1979. New Zealand signed that on 10 January 1985, but, in fact, in 1984 we had already established the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Actually, I would like to take this opportunity to say happy 30th anniversary to the Ministry for Women. I know that there is an event tonight and tomorrow, and it is to signify our commitment to that international convention and New Zealand’s commitment to ensuring that the rights of women actually have a very specific vehicle within our Public Service to give effect, obviously, to our commitment to the equality between men and women.

In 1994, when the Human Rights Amendment Act was enacted, we actually created the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner—so that is how that position, again, displayed our commitment to that particular convention.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted by the United Nations on 13 December 2006. We signed that convention on 30 March 2007 and we ratified that on 26 September. I guess if there is one small area within the bill that we can acknowledge, it is that what this bill creates is a priority focus on disability rights, and so a particular commissioner will have the mandate for representing the rights of those in our community who have disability as a part of their identity and their life here in our country. I would just like to highlight that 22 of the 42 submitters actually supported that focus.

So what this bill is going to do, essentially, is have a chief commissioner, four to five other commissioners, and then focus areas will be disability, equal employment opportunities, and race relations. If that is the rationale or logic for those particular focus areas, I actually want the Minister in this House to consider the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was adopted by the United Nations on 13 September 2007. This Government actually announced support for that on 20 April 2010, and I guess I have to stand here as a member of the Labour Party, which was the Government when this particular UN declaration was adopted, and acknowledge that at that point in time we did not support that particular declaration—neither did Australia, neither did Canada, neither did the United States. But I am pleased to say now that the four countries I have just mentioned actually do now support this particular declaration. I probably should say why we did not, because it was all about article 26 of that declaration, and I will read it. It says: “Indigenous people have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.” It is appropriate that the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations is here in the House, because I think we—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am going to interrupt the member and ask her to come back to something closer to the bill.

LOUISA WALL: The reason I am highlighting this is because, based on the logic of the Government, there should actually be an indigenous rights commissioner. Based on the logic of this bill, in the areas that I have identified, there should be an indigenous rights commissioner. So my question, and maybe in the Committee stage I will have an opportunity to ask the Minister—the focus for me is really about the specificity of the commissioners that we have and their relevance to international human rights conventions that New Zealand has signed up to since 1966, and whether or not that logic should be applied as we go into the future. Obviously—from my perspective—if we were going to futureproof this piece of legislation we would also look at the rights of LGBTI people, because it seems within the international human rights framework that LGBTI people are one of the most marginalised and victimised people. Kia ora.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.