Thursday, 18 February 2016
Volume 711
Sitting date: 18 February 2016
THURSDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2016
THURSDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2016
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, 1 March, the Government will conclude the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. The Government also intends to make progress on a number of pieces of legislation, including the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill and the Radiation Safety Bill. Wednesday will be a members’ day.
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
Prime Minister, Statements—Flag Referendums
1. RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements on the flag referenda?
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister): Yes.
Ron Mark: How does the Prime Minister reconcile his words “we will take a disciplined approach to Government spending. You work too hard for us to waste your money.” when two-thirds of UMR Research respondents agreed that the $26 million flag referendum has been a distraction and a waste of money?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: They have the opportunity to express that or any other view through the referendum itself, but I might point out to the member that the bulk of the spending is actually on postage. The postage system is run by New Zealand Post, which is owned by the Government, so a fair bit of the money comes back.
Ron Mark: Why do he and the committee putting out the propaganda on his black and blue logo call it a silver fern when even a colour-blind person can tell it is not a silver fern? In fact, it looks more like a feather—a white one.
Hon BILL ENGLISH: Again, whatever the member’s opinion—or anyone’s opinion—about the fern, this is, despite New Zealand First’s opposition, a thoroughly democratic process. That is, every eligible New Zealander will have the chance to vote on the flag and, from what we can see, there is growing public interest in that vote. [Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Both sides need to settle, just a little.
Ron Mark: When he said “It’s no secret that I’m a supporter of changing the New Zealand flag.”, did he mean the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria option; the blue, red, and white option; the black and blue option; or the pale blue option, which flew unnoticed for 13 days on the Auckland harbour bridge? Which option, Prime Minister?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: I certainly agree with the statement. It is no secret that he is proposing change and that he favours the flag that is on the ballot.
Ron Mark: What does he say to former National Party supporters who have come over to New Zealand First because—
Hon Members: Oh!
Ron Mark: We signed up some yesterday. [Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! My patience will run out relatively quickly when I stand to my feet and call for order and interjections continue. If that happens again, then the person who does interject will leave me no choice but to ask them to leave. The question now will be heard again, and in silence.
Ron Mark: What does he say to former National Party supporters who have come over to New Zealand First because we stand up for the values his party has abandoned, just like our flag?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would say to them that the Prime Minister will be at the front door to welcome both of them back.
Mental Health Services, Canterbury—Funding
2. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: Will he make good on the promises he made on radio yesterday to the Canterbury District Health Board that “if they need more money for mental health this year, they need to just tell me exactly what they need, because the Government is listening”?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Associate Minister of Health): on behalf of the Minister of Health: Yes.
Hon Annette King: Who indicated to the Canterbury District Health Board that for the 2016/17 financial year it could expect to receive $10 less per head of population, as stated in the very document he quoted from in the House on Tuesday, to justify his view that it already had sufficient funding?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I do not know who that person is, but what I can say is that the Canterbury District Health Board spends around $147 million on mental health services. That is an extra $23 million compared with 7 years ago.
Hon Annette King: Is he not aware that the Canterbury District Health Board was forced by demand for mental health services to spend $8 million more than the ring-fenced mental health funding provided, and that, perhaps, a lack of awareness may account for the plight Cantabrians now face because ignorance is not a defence?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: In this House that member has come up with some pretty dodgy figures in the past. What I will say—and I reiterate to that member—is that there has been a vast increase in the amount of mental health services funded. In December just of last year an extra $16 million was given to the board so that they could address some of the mental health services that have been requested.
Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table the PricewaterhouseCoopers report commissioned by the Ministry of Health dated 2 December 2015, page 11, saying—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member now will resume her seat. I just want to check whether it is a report that is available publicly to all members.
Hon Annette King: Not readily, Mr Speaker.
Mr SPEAKER: Then I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular PricewaterhouseCoopers report. Is there any objection? There is none; it can be tabled.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Hon Annette King: When will he make good on the promise to give the Canterbury District Health Board more money if they “need it”, in light of the fact that it has already asked and been refused, that he said on Tuesday in this House that it had ample to cover mental health demand, and that he is poorly informed about ring-fenced funding, deficit support—
Mr SPEAKER: Bring the question to a conclusion.
Hon Annette King: —and even the amount provided?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: It is rich coming from that member around deficit support, when $150 million in deficits were left by that former health Minister to this Government. But to answer the question—
Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have had three answers. The whole three have been abuse thrown at me, and not answering—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, I do not agree with the first part of that. The—[Interruption] Order! The difficulty I have is that if it is a nice simple question like “When will he make good on the promises?”, I can help. But when the question went on for considerably more than that, then it is very easy for the Minister just to address it in any way he likes. If I can get the member to sharpen up her supplementary questions, then I might be in a position to help her. [Interruption] Order! The member will rise and simply ask her supplementary question. I know she—
Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I responded to an interjection. Are you going to ask that member not to interject?
Mr SPEAKER: No, I am not, but before you responded to that interjection, you also interjected and criticised me as you rose to your feet. Simply rise and ask your supplementary question.
Hon Annette King: Has the Ministry of Health told him that the Director of Mental Health, whom he said is going down to Christchurch on Friday to talk to the people on the ground, is the same director who said: “The Ministry of Health does not consider there is justification to provide additional funding to Canterbury DHB”?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Yes. The Director of Mental Health, Dr Crawshaw, is in discussions with the district health board, as well as other agencies, to identify whether any further assistance is required on the ground in Christchurch.
Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table the aide-mémoire to the Minister, dated 17 March, from John Crawshaw, saying—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! We do not need to know what is in it. I just need to now put the leave as to the aide-mémoire. Leave is sought to table that particular paper. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.
Hon Annette King: Will he take up the challenge—[Interruption] Mr Speaker?
Mr SPEAKER: Is there—
Hon Annette King: Yes, there is. Are you allowing interjections—
Mr SPEAKER: I did not hear the interjection. If the member wants to ask her supplementary question, she can do so.
Hon Annette King: Will he take up the challenges put to him in the Press editorial yesterday, where it said the situation of mental health in Canterbury was disgraceful and distressing, and asked: “What does it take for the scale of mental health issues to be recognised in Wellington”?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Sorry, can you repeat that question?
Mr SPEAKER: I can—[Interruption] Order! If the member would not mind repeating the question, the House would be grateful.
Hon Annette King: I do not mind at all, Mr Speaker. Will he take up the challenges put to him in the Press editorial yesterday, where it said the situation of mental health in Canterbury was disgraceful and distressing, and asked: “What does it take for the scale of mental health issues to be recognised in Wellington”?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: As I have already said to the member, the Director of Mental Health will be having negotiations and discussions with not just the district health board but other agencies, to get a sense of the scale of the need for Cantabrians to have extra resources. Until we hear about those discussions, we cannot make any further decisions.
Social Investment Programme—Statistics
3. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua) to the Minister of Finance: What recent announcements has the Government made around its programme of Social Investment?
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Part of the Government’s approach to doing a better job and having better communities and less Government spending is social investment. It is about using data to better understand what makes a difference to people’s lives, and using the evidence to do more of what works and less of what does not work. Today we have released the third and final data set on the risk factors likely to cause children and young people to have poor outcomes—that is, all young New Zealanders from 0 to age 24. This data and the portal that enables access to it give Government agencies, NGOs, iwi, and the wider social sector the opportunity to understand better the needs of the most vulnerable New Zealanders, and the opportunity to assist the Government in finding better solutions to long-running problems.
Andrew Bayly: What does the information released today show?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: It shows that there are four indicators that are reasonable predictors of future outcomes for our young people, and those are that they are in a household that has been on a benefit long term, a parent with a corrections sentence—17 percent of all New Zealand children have a parent with a corrections sentence—a mother with no formal education, and a Child, Youth and Family notification. For the very small number of New Zealand children, as in 1 percent, who have all four indicators, they are much more likely to leave school with no qualifications, and much more likely to find themselves in prison.
Andrew Bayly: What steps is the Government taking to improve outcomes for the most vulnerable?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: We now have 3 years of tracking the Better Public Services results, which focus on improving outcomes with effective Government intervention, such as improving the number of young New Zealanders who get National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2. But alongside those results, from 1 April benefit rates for families with children will rise by $25 a week—the first increase after inflation since 1972—and as we look ahead, the Government will be looking to provide more effective delivery of its very large amount of spending in areas like, for instance, family violence.
Jacinda Ardern: Will he agree to having the Auditor-General assess Government Better Public Services result number 4, to reduce cases of physical abuse of children, given that Child, Youth and Family has recorded for his target 3,235 cases, but the police have recorded 4,698 cases; if not, why not?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: We would welcome the scrutiny of the Auditor-General, if the Auditor-General has not already scrutinised it. Those two numbers measured different things. The police are measuring one thing—
Jacinda Ardern: Physical abuse.
Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, substantiated abuse is different from offending and prosecution. They overlap to some extent, but not completely. But I am pleased to see the Labour Party, after 8 years, is finally—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I do not think that particular part of the answer is going to help the order of the House.
Andrew Bayly: What results has the Government seen from the approach to improve outcomes for the most vulnerable?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: The National Party, as a party, believes in a brighter future. So we always have hope that things can improve, and it turns out that when you focus on some of these things they can be improved. The proportion of immunised 8-month-olds has increased from 84 percent to 93 percent since 2012, the proportion of 18-year-olds who get NCEA level 2 has increased from 74 percent to 81 percent, and there have been particularly strong increases for Māori and Pasifika. Reoffending has dropped by almost 10 percent, and crime has dropped by almost 20 percent. We believe we can change some of New Zealand’s long-running social problems by seeking to reduce the misery, not just spending money to service it.
Housing, Auckland—Intensification
4. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister for Building and Housing: When the Prime Minister said first-home buyers in Auckland might have to consider an apartment in order to get on to the property ladder, did he mean that the Government supports the increased intensification now being considered by the Independent Hearings Panel?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): The Government’s view has always been that Auckland needs to grow both up and out. The core reason Auckland housing prices have increased so dramatically since 2000 is that there have been vocal opponents to both greenfield development as well as intensification who have been able to use the council planning and Resource Management Act legislation to stall both. Special housing areas are helping to resolve this problem in the short term but long-term the answer is getting the unitary plan and the Resource Management Act reforms right. As the Prime Minister said on Monday, intensification makes sense broadly but the Auckland Council and independent hearings panel need to work through the detail on the extent and the areas where it is appropriate.
Phil Twyford: Is it not true that National Party members in the leafy eastern suburbs are in open revolt against the intensification plans being advocated by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the housing Minister?
Mr SPEAKER: It is doubtful whether there is much responsibility for National Party voters, but on that basis I will allow the Minister to still address the question.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Indeed, Mr Speaker. Look, there is a range of views across Auckland. The views I find most contradictory are those of members opposite who have demanded that there be increased housing and every time there is a new greenfield subdivision or there is a project like Three Kings, Labour members are out there opposing it as hard as they can. I simply say to members opposite: “Stop the moaning and the whingeing. Get on board with the Government’s programme, because we are solving the problems.”
Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What progress has the Government achieved to date on increasing housing supply, intensification, and affordability in Auckland? [Interruption]
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Mr Speaker, firstly—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have not called the Minister yet.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Firstly, the pace of new home construction has increased fourfold from 200 per month to now consistently over 800 per month. Secondly, the pace of new apartment and townhouse construction in Auckland has increased sevenfold from 60 a month to 420 a month. In recent months close to half the new dwellings being consented in Auckland are for apartments and townhouses. I am also encouraged that housing affordability in Auckland over the past 6 months has improved as house prices have cooled and interest rates have fallen to 15-year lows. The House should welcome that a bank in New Zealand is now offering, for the first time in 50 years, interest rates of less than 4 percent.
Phil Twyford: If the Government is in favour of intensification, why then are senior National Party figures like Ōrākei Local Board chair, Desley Simpson, Helensville aspirant Councillor Cameron Brewer, and MP Simon O’Connor openly campaigning against intensification in the eastern suburbs?
Mr SPEAKER: In so far as there is ministerial responsibility, the Hon Dr Nick Smith.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Firstly, the member misrepresents the position that I have heard from Simon O’Connor, which is actually very fair and representative of his constituents. What I would like that member to explain is why the Labour chair of the board opposes the Three Kings development when for years I have had lectures from members of the Labour Party that support intensification and new apartments and townhouses in Auckland.
David Seymour: Can the Minister name a city worldwide that has significantly improved housing affordability through a policy of intensification?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Government’s view, and my view, is that if you look internationally, if you want to have greater housing affordability you need to do both. You need to allow cities to grow, and that involves new greenfield development. But whether you look at the New Yorks, the Londons, whether it be the Sydneys or the like, actually, you also need to provide for intensification, and that is why the Government’s view is that a balanced growth path of both is required.
Phil Twyford: Does he support increased intensification in Auckland’s eastern suburbs and the North Shore?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes, and if the member reads the Government’s submission to the independent hearings panel, we have made plain that we broadly support intensification. The discussion is to be had around where there is a pretty good consensus that it needs to occur around town centres and around transport hubs and, where there is a detailed debate as to how far it goes beyond that, our Government has provided for an independent hearings panel. It will listen to submissions and decide on the balance of where that needs to occur.
Phil Twyford: If the Auckland Unitary Plan is delayed, will he follow through on his earlier threats to overrule Aucklanders, or does he only do that to ordinary New Zealanders and not to potential campaign donors?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at the member’s last remark in that question; that was unnecessary.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is actually quite a serious allegation that has been made. I—[Interruption]—Order! I am going to invite the member to re-ask the question, but there can be no suggestion that a decision being made by any Minister is because of potential funding. Ask the question again.
Phil Twyford: If the unitary plan is delayed, will he follow through on his earlier threats to overrule Aucklanders, or does he only do that to ordinary New Zealanders and not the ruling elite?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The current planning rules for Auckland date back to 1993 in each of the previous councils. It is hugely important for Auckland that we get a unitary plan in place. We have the special housing areas legislation that we have been using for the last 4 years to override those old plans and get that fourfold increase in the rate of house build going on in that city. The Government’s preference is to get a smooth transition from those special housing areas to the new Auckland Unitary Plan, and we will continue to work with the Auckland Council to achieve that because it actually matters to the very real issue of housing affordability, which I thought this House would collectively want us to address.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr SPEAKER: Point of order, Jono Naylor. Oh, sorry—[Interruption]. I apologise immediately to Jono Naylor. Point of order, the Hon Gerry Brownlee.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Thank you, Mr Speaker. If you had not corrected yourself there I might have started singing the “Hallelujah Chorus”. The final comment in that question from Mr Twyford more or less implied that there was influence being exerted on a member from outside the House, and for as long as this House has existed, that has been an inappropriate way of expressing anything, or an inappropriate accusation. You let him off with a previous worse offence, but I do think we need to watch it so that those sorts of things are not added into questions and, effectively, bring the whole House into disrepute by virtue of those occasions.
Mr SPEAKER: I thank the Minister. The first question I did, certainly, find objectionable, and I gave the member a chance to rephrase it. He then used words comparing ordinary New Zealanders with the ruling elite. I do not think that added to the quality of the question, but I do not think in any way I could have ruled it out as being unparliamentary or against the rules of Parliament.
Marama Fox: Kia ora, Mr Speaker. What is the Minister doing to address the issues of the whānau from Ihumātao, whose area has been designated as a special housing zone?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The specific decisions on that site have been made by the Environment Court, and it would be inappropriate for me to overrule a decision that has been made by the court. The owner of that property is Fletcher Residential. They have indicated that they are happy to sit down and to talk with some of the Māori groups that are concerned. The member has made representations to me along those lines; I would be happy to facilitate that, because I think there is the capacity on that site to come to a common-sense solution.
Benefit-dependent Children—Welfare Reform
5. JONO NAYLOR (National) to the Minister for Social Development: What reports has she received on the number of children living in benefit-dependent households?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I recently received the Salvation Army’s state of the nation report, which states that the number of children living in benefit-dependent households is at its lowest since 1998. Our welfare reforms have contributed to this decline. According to the report, the number of children in benefit-dependent homes has fallen by 40,000 over the past 3 years. Getting parents off welfare and into work is the best way to get children out of poverty. This report indicates that our welfare reforms are doing just that.
Jono Naylor: Why is the Government focused on reducing the number of children in benefit-dependent households?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: As the Minister of Finance outlined in his speech to the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand today, children in benefit-dependent households are more likely to leave school without National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2, they are more likely to have contact with Child, Youth and Family and with the Department of Corrections before they are 18, and they are more likely to end up on the benefit themselves. But, as the Salvation Army report shows, more young people are achieving NCEA level 2, and benefit numbers and youth offending are both continuing to fall. We are also overhauling Child, Youth and Family to get better results for young people in care, and by focusing on reducing the number of children in benefit-dependent households, we are helping to break the cycle and improve the long-term outcomes for those children.
Carmel Sepuloni: Given the Salvation Army’s state of the nation report finding that “unemployment stays the same as benefit numbers fall” and “the number of children on benefits decline as child poverty rates remain the same”, will she commit to collating reliable data and reporting on the employment outcomes for people going off benefit to ensure that the missing thousands and their children are, in fact, better off?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: To the first part of the question, the good news is that the household labour force survey showed that unemployment is dropping and that is a continual process. To the second part of the question, I have actually asked the social policy evaluation and research unit to do some research. Despite the fact that Work and Income does publish information on exits off benefits, I have asked for some research to be done on following people who do exit benefits to see exactly where they are and what their circumstances are.
Trans-Pacific Partnership—Pharmac
6. KEVIN HAGUE (Green) to the Minister of Health: What is the Government’s estimate of the likely extra cost faced by Pharmac for each of the TPP’s provisions relating to transparency processes, patent term extensions for pharmaceuticals, and data protection extension for biologics?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Associate Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Health: I am advised that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will not change the Pharmac model. The administrative changes are expected to involve up to $4.5 million in one-off establishment costs, and up to $2.2 million a year in operating costs. In respect of patent provisions, although the cost of any delays would depend on the case, the average cost is estimated at approximately $1 million a year.
Kevin Hague: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a question on notice, and I appreciate the Minister’s answers to the first two categories of increased cost, but he has not responded to the data protection extension for biologics issue.
Mr SPEAKER: Can the Minister please respond specifically to the issue about extra costs associated with data protection extension for biologics.
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: There is no associated cost with those provisions. The biologics outcome for the TPP can be met within New Zealand’s current policy settings and practice.
Kevin Hague: Can the Minister explain how it might be possible for data protection for biologics to be extended from 5 years to an 8 years’ equivalent without costing the New Zealand taxpayer substantially more?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: As I have said, under the current policy settings and practice I have been advised that there will be no costs associated with those provisions.
Kevin Hague: If the United States tries to further extend data protection for biologics, which has been signalled, will the Minister categorically rule out agreeing to that?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: That is a hypothetical question I cannot give an answer to.
Kevin Hague: Does the Minister accept that every dollar spent by the taxpayer of New Zealand on jumping through TPP agreement hoops is a dollar not spent on saving lives and on medicines for sick people?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: What I do accept, and what the New Zealand public accepts, is that there will be an estimated benefit of $2.7 billion to New Zealand’s GDP by 2030. That will save New Zealand businesses $274 million per year in tariffs. The benefits to jobs and opportunities for New Zealanders are going to be quite high.
Kevin Hague: Does the Minister accept that if Pharmac has a capped budget, and it does, and the TPP agreement will increase the costs of medicine, and it will, then an inevitable consequence is that it will be harder for Pharmac to fund new and innovative medicines, such as those for treating HIV?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: What I will say in response to that question is that Pharmac will continue to do what it does best. It prioritises spending in negotiation with suppliers for the best prices for medicines, and that benefits New Zealand consumers.
Kevin Hague: Will the Minister guarantee that the extra costs to Pharmac because of the TPP agreement will be met by increased Government funding and not taken from other health services or requiring Pharmac to find savings?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: What I will say is that, despite claims by that member and others out there, consumers will not pay more for subsidised medicines as a result of the TPP. The TPP will not change the Pharmac model.
Kevin Hague: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that the Associate Minister of Health is answering on behalf of the Minister of Health, and so may not be as well informed as the Minister. However, for the last three supplementary questions his answers have been largely unresponsive, and on this particular question he has responded with an answer about dispensing fees, rather than actually addressing the fundamental issue, which is the fact that New Zealand taxpayers will be paying more for medicines.
Mr SPEAKER: I think on this occasion I can accept the member’s frustration with some of the earlier answers, but the point of order was not raised then. On this particular question I think the Minister has addressed it. The member asked for an absolute guarantee. I think that is a tall order for any Minister to give a guarantee of that type. I think he has addressed it by saying he does not expect patients to pay more.
Kevin Hague: Will the Minister now guarantee then that if the TPP agreement is ratified, future Pharmac funding recommendations will be funded at the level that guarantees New Zealanders optimal access to medicines and not cut back, as has been his Government’s typical practice?
Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: No, I am not going to make that guarantee.
Immigration—Impact on Corruption Levels
7. RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Minister of Immigration: Has he had cause for concern about the effects of the current Government’s immigration policy; if so, what are the concerns?
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): I am constantly concerned to ensure that the very positive effects of the Government’s immigration policies are achieved, whether they are economic, social, or humanitarian. I am very satisfied that they are.
Ron Mark: Does he agree with the director of the Serious Fraud Office, who told Parliament’s Law and Order Committee that “Immigration to New Zealand has brought other cultures which take a completely different view in relation to conduct we consider to be corrupt.”; if not, why not?
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I respectfully disagree with most of what the Serious Fraud Office director has said, but to the degree that there is an issue around that, the biggest factor that I see as Minister of Immigration is that many people who are recent arrivals into New Zealand need to be encouraged to understand that in this country the rule of law can be trusted, that authorities can be relied upon. Indeed, to the extent that there may well be problems with migrant exploitation, this Government passed the Immigration Amendment Act last year to significantly increase the penalties, including for those who themselves are recent migrants and could be liable for deportation.
Ron Mark: Why will he not accept what the Serious Fraud Officer director is saying, and move to stem the tide of immigration and advise his department to educate new arrivals in New Zealand that corrupt practices are not acceptable?
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Because, to the extent that the Serious Fraud Office director was referring to the Transparency International New Zealand report, which was recently released and which she quoted, the changes in New Zealand’s ranking were very, very much at the margins, and we can remain confident that there are very low or no levels of corruption in this country. To the second question, no, because this Government believes that sensible migration and immigration policy is very, very positive.
Ron Mark: So is he happy that unfortunate numbers of immigrants are bringing corrupt practices such as backhanders to Government officials, and other nefarious activity to New Zealand such as the way they are treating employees of their own ethnicity? Is he happy with that?
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I am never happy, as any Government official would be, when people break the law. But, just as when I was Minister of Police I would not have been happy when New Zealanders broke the law or sped on the roads. There need to be consequences; there are. We have very, very sound immigration policies, and the things that the member describes are very much at the margins. He should not be using them to peddle his party’s redneck policies of anti-immigration. [Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The last part of that answer was—
Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a rather offensive statement to accuse a party of being redneck. I ask for your protection from the House. [Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to ask the Minister just to stand and withdraw the last three or four words of that answer.
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I withdraw those last words.
Tourism—Growth
8. PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National) to the Minister of Tourism: What reports has he received about the growth in number of tourist guest nights?
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Acting Minister of Tourism) on behalf of the Minister of Tourism: There is more good news in the tourism sector, with a recent report showing a significant growth in the number of guest nights. The December 2015 accommodation survey shows national guest nights were up 6.2 percent last year, and December was the 21st consecutive month of growth. This means more people coming to New Zealand, staying longer, and spending more. The increase has been in both international guest nights as well as domestic ones.
Paul Foster-Bell: What evidence is there that regions are experiencing the benefit of rising tourist numbers?
Hon PAULA BENNETT: Eleven out of our 12 regions have experienced a growth in the number of guest nights. Tourism is a big contributor to our regional economies, with over half of our international tourism expenditure being spent outside the three major cities. Many regions are attracting investment in new accommodation as a result. In December I opened a new Novotel hotel in New Plymouth, which will create at least 70 new jobs, 85 beds, and support the growth of Taranaki’s tourism industry, which is already worth $233 million a year.
Paul Foster-Bell: What is the Government doing to help ensure tourism continues its impressive growth?
Hon PAULA BENNETT: On top of the very impressive and unprecedented $700 million in tourism and tourism promotion since 2008, today we have the Prime Minister and the Minister for Economic Development turning the first sod on the construction of the New Zealand International Convention Centre, which will bring an extra $90 million in tourism spending every year. This world-class facility will host conferences of up to 3,150 people and will be able to host up to 33,000 additional conference delegates a year, who will spend their money at the hotels, at the shops, and at those tourism ventures in Auckland. A thousand jobs will be created in the construction phase, and more than 1,140 people employed.
Trans-Pacific Partnership—Overseas Ownership of New Zealand Properties
9. Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) to the Minister of Trade: Did his predecessor Hon Tim Groser ask MFAT officials negotiating the TPP agreement to preserve the right for a future New Zealand Government to ban the purchase of residential land by non-resident foreign speculators?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) on behalf of the Minister of Trade: No. He asked them to preserve the right for a future New Zealand Government to restrict the purchase of residential land by non-resident foreigners, which, I might add, was one of Labour’s bottom lines.
Dr David Clark: Why did Australia reserve the right to ban non-resident foreign speculators from its housing market, and why did he not do the same?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Other countries have negotiated based on their own domestic policy positions, which I have no responsibility for. The Government has no policy to outright ban foreigners investing in New Zealand, but the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) maintains our current approval requirements for foreign investments in sensitive land, and, as I said in my primary response, the Government has preserved the right for future Governments to restrict the purchase of residential land by non-resident foreigners.
Dr David Clark: Why did New Zealand agree to Singapore reserving the right to impose a ban on the purchase of housing by foreign speculators when Singapore did not already have a ban?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I do not have those details to hand, but what I can say is that this Government has, in the interests of all New Zealanders, preserved the right of the Government to restrict the purchase of residential land, and that is a good deal for all New Zealanders.
Dr David Clark: To assist the order of the House, I seek leave to table a document stating that Singapore reserves the—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I need the source of the—[Interruption] Order! I need the source of the document and the date.
Dr David Clark: It is the relevant annexe in the many thousands of pages of the agreement on the Table—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member is now trifling with the Chair. If it has been tabled in the House it is available to all members. [Interruption] Order! It creates disorder when members then seek, for political purposes, to table something that is already freely available to all members of the House. That information was tabled at the beginning of last week. It is available, and to seek to table it again only creates disorder. I will not put up with it.
Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr SPEAKER: Dr—ah—Chris Hipkins.
Chris Hipkins: Not yet—maybe one day. The point of order that I want to raise with you is that I think the document in question is the document there on the Table, all of the many thousands of pages of it. I think that the question becomes: where such a large volume of information is available and where there is contested debate about a particular part of it, that is not necessarily going to be available—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I do not need any assistance at all. I can see the document from here. To suggest that it is unavailable to members once it has been tabled in this House is not fact. It is available. The question the member might legitimately ask is whether members have an interest to go and look at it. That becomes the members’ business, but the information that is already tabled in the House is already available, and to seek to re-table it is simply using the point of tabling documents for a political purpose. That is not what they are designed for. Does the member have a further supplementary question?
Dr David Clark: Does he accept that Singapore could “adopt any measure affecting real estate”?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Again, I do not have those details to hand, but I am focused on New Zealand’s focus, which is to make sure that we have the ability to restrict the purchase of residential land by non-resident foreigners. And I might add that that was one of the bottom lines of the Labour Party.
Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think we have just had an illustration of the difficulty of having very large documents tabled in the House. If a Minister can say they do not have the information available and you have said that the information is available, how can it be an acceptable answer but not acceptable to table the material?
Hon Gerry Brownlee: The question was asking the Minister whether he could confirm something about the particular ability of Singapore to do something. That answer will not be contained in that document at all. The statement about what Singapore has reserved is in the document—quite a different matter.
Mr SPEAKER: I do not think that the point raised by Chris Hipkins adds to the discussion in any way whatsoever. The Minister was asked for some information about another country entirely. I would prefer him to stand and say he does not have that information rather than attempt to answer and end up giving an answer that he has to come back and correct. The fact is that the information has been available. The further tabling of it would not assist in that answer in any way whatsoever. Does the member have a further supplementary question?
Dr David Clark: Can I speak to the point of order?
Mr SPEAKER: No. I have dealt with it. I have ruled on it.
Dr David Clark: Does the Minister believe that a competent Minister of Trade would know whether the Singaporeans have reserved for themselves the right to ban New Zealanders from purchasing residential land?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: What I believe is that a competent spokesman on trade would believe in trade.
Dr David Clark: What does it say about his Government when it uses the opportunity for this Parliament to question it about a trade deal to demean opponents, refuse to answer straight questions with straight answers, and chuckle in glee at honest discussions about this serious issue?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: This Government welcomes wide-ranging discussion on the TPP, and that is what we will be doing over the rest of this year. We believe that this is a great deal for this country and that is why we are supporting it.
Joanne Hayes: Can the Minister confirm whether the TPP meets essential bottom-line requirements to protect New Zealand’s interests?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I can confirm that the TPP meets all five bottom lines set out publicly by at least one organisation. They include that Pharmac must be protected, and we can tick that one; that corporations cannot successfully sue the Government for regulating in the public interest, tick; that New Zealand maintains the right to restrict sales of farmland and housing to non-resident buyers, tick; that the Treaty of Waitangi must be upheld, tick; and that meaningful gains are made for our farmers in tariff reductions and market access. We can tick that one too. So the TPP meets every one of the bottom lines set out by the Labour Party.
Dr David Clark: Has the Minister seen reports from 2013 when Labour announced its policy on banning non-resident foreign buyers and subsequent reports when it introduced its bottom lines that clearly indicate that the intention was to ban non-resident foreign speculators with that policy?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I am not responsible for Labour policy, but what I can say is that Labour policy was to restrict, and that is what this Government has set out to do.
Seafood Industry—Exports
10. SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister for Primary Industries: What recent reports has he received on growth in seafood exports?
Hon NATHAN GUY: Recent reports show that seafood exports reached a record high of $1.63 billion last year, up over 6 percent on 2014. A significant part of this growth was from greenshell mussel exports. As new season supplies became available, 300 tonnes of mussels were shipped to Korea, and that compared with 97 tonnes over the same period of December 2014. Total seafood exports to Korea grew by nearly 12 percent last year—a very important new and emerging market.
Scott Simpson: How will the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) benefit our seafood exporters?
Hon NATHAN GUY: A very good question. The TPP will eliminate all tariffs on New Zealand’s fish and fish products once fully implemented. This will save the industry around $8 million a year. Consumers around the world are increasingly looking for high-quality, sustainably harvested seafood. The TPP will help place our products more competitively in these very important international markets.
Question No. 11 to Minister
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I seek leave to have this question held over as an additional question so it can be answered by—
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is? There is objection.
Tertiary Education Commission—Confidence
11. Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: Does he have full confidence in the Tertiary Education Commission’s oversight of tertiary education funding?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Associate Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment) on behalf of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: Overall, yes. I have confidence in the system’s ability to monitor over $2 billion of funding to over 730 tertiary education providers, which delivered 163,045 qualifications in 2014, up over 31,000 on 2008, including 29,390 Bachelor’s degrees, up from 4,460 in 2008. I am also confident that the Tertiary Education Commission will thoroughly investigate any funding concerns and, indeed, is doing so in a more robust manner than at any time in the Tertiary Education Commission’s history.
Hon David Cunliffe: How can the Minister have confidence in the Tertiary Education Commission and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority when a Deloitte review said that coordination between the two is inadequate, when there are now five Serious Fraud Office probes into the sector, and 35 providers have “widespread or serious” education delivery issues, 27 of which the names are still being kept secret?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The report that that member has referred to has found that the broad approach to monitoring tertiary education organisations has the principal elements expected of a comprehensive framework. It also went on to make some additional recommendations to improve monitoring, including the increased use of data analytics—more extensively used both in risk assessment and also in identifying specific issues for review and investigation—as well as improved reporting between both the Tertiary Education Commission and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.
Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table a copy of the Deloitte report, which says that the system lacks—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just want an assurance that the report is not freely available to members if they want to go back and search for it.
Hon David Cunliffe: It is not freely available. It is a public document, but it has not been tabled in this House.
Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular Deloitte report. Is there any objection? There is objection.
Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table, for the first time, an Official Information Act response from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, which declares 35 cases of serious or widespread misappropriation, but redacts the names of 27 of them.
Mr SPEAKER: And the date?
Hon David Cunliffe: The date of that is 15 December 2015.
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular response to an Official Information Act request. Any objection? There is none; it can be tabled.
Report, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Hon David Cunliffe: Why did the Minister support the Tertiary Education Commission’s decision not to pursue targeted compliance reviews of six institutions now that at least one of those, Quantum Education Group, has since been referred to the Serious Fraud Office?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Of the six organisations reviewed in the first round, only five were found to have no issues at all. It was therefore decided that it would be more cost-effective to undertake the Deloitte review that the member mentioned in an earlier supplementary question. This review found that the monitoring practices are designed well and made a number of additional recommendations to improve and enhance monitoring further. The Tertiary Education Commission will continue to monitor organisations it funds. It is using a regular auditing programme as well as additional tools like pattern-recognition software to identify any concerns, and I add, as I said in my first answer, this is the most robust monitoring by the Tertiary Education Commission of the over 730 providers than ever before.
Hon David Cunliffe: I again seek leave to table the report that the Minister has just quoted from, given that it is not a freely distributed document, and a member of her own caucus—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, the member sought leave before. It was denied by the House.
Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your advice. I sought leave to table a document. It is a document that the Minister’s answers themselves have relied upon. Leave was declined by a member of the House—in fact, the Leader—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I do not need to hear any more than that. That is the issue. I decide whether it is suitable for the leave to be put. Leave is put to the House; any member has a right to object. If that is the end of the matter, the member cannot continue to then contest the decision of this House; it has been made.
Hon David Cunliffe: How can the Minister have confidence in the Tertiary Education Commission when Audit New Zealand has recently audited a heavily qualified audit opinion that says that its accounts are so imprecise it cannot properly or robustly account for $2.8 billion of public expenditure each year?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I think it is important to put on record the exact issue that that member is referring to, because it is very wide of the comments that he has just made. The qualified audit opinion is a result of the Tertiary Education Commission not applying the requirements of new, highly technical accounting standards in relation to grant expenditure and financial statements in its 2014-15 annual report. The new standard needs to be applied consistently by the Ministry of Education, the tertiary education institutions themselves, and the Tertiary Education Commission, as it relates to the time at which revenue and expenditure is recognised by the various organisations in the funding chain. From the Crown’s perspective, these transactions should eliminate on consolidation. So, with extensive consultation that has been under way, the Tertiary Education Commission decided it was better to partially implement the standards and get it right for the next time.
Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table a copy of the opinion from Audit New Zealand, where it says the commission has not applied the requirements of the new public—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Was this information presented to the member at a select committee?
Hon David Cunliffe: The material was, indeed, presented—
Mr SPEAKER: Yes, so then it is, again, available to all members if they want it.
Hon David Cunliffe: What action is the Minister taking to protect whistle-blowers to the Tertiary Education Commission, following allegations conveyed to him in a letter dated 14 February 2016 that the Western Institute of Technology is using taxpayers’ funds to pursue a legal vendetta against both former and current staff members who have properly raised substantiated probity issues to the Tertiary Education Commission?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I cannot comment on that specific example. But what I will say is that in the first step where there is a whistle-blower, they are responsible to the institution that they have declared an issue with. It is for that institution to respond to that complaint. Outside of that, the broader issue around whistle-blowers is a matter for the State Services Commission.
Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table a letter to the Hon Steven Joyce, dated 14 February, which details a series of allegations against the Western Institute of Technology. It has been appropriately redacted so that it can be publicly released.
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular letter. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Mr SPEAKER: I put the leave; the member had an opportunity to object. We were not told where it was from, because it was redacted, but it was a letter to Mr Joyce. [Interruption] I will hear from the Hon David Cunliffe.
Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. All identifying particulars, names, and titles have been redacted from the letter on the advice of the Clerk of the House.
Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave again. Leave is sought to table that particular letter. Is there any objection? There is objection.
Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think we are in a difficult position, where you had already indicated that the document could be tabled. You cannot go back to a decision that you have already made. The leave was put, the leave was accepted, and you made the ruling. We cannot then go back and relitigate that. You have indicated that members cannot relitigate when a document is not tabled. They cannot relitigate when one is.
Mr SPEAKER: I think on this occasion, finally, the member makes a very good point. I put the leave, I waited, there was no objection at the time. Subsequent to my saying that it can be tabled, there was a reasonable question asked about whether it had been signed. Mr Cunliffe took the opportunity to clarify that it had been redacted for what I think are fairly obvious reasons. If members want to object, they need to object at the time I seek leave of the House. It was not done at the time; it has been tabled. I thank Mr Hipkins for his assistance.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr SPEAKER: No, I have made a decision.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I accept your ruling.
Mr SPEAKER: If the member accepts my ruling—a further point of order.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I think that sometimes the problem is—[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Sometimes the problem is that members seek to make a political point and therefore say too much about the document, or use the document to make their point, and that can be difficult. In this case the member was pretty succinct, but I was sitting here thinking: “Hello—got a letter. Who’s it from, and what is the situation? Where may that lead the House in a legal sense if there were redactions?”. But I accept your ruling.
Mr SPEAKER: I think that in future, if the member is thinking “Well, hello.”, he needs to act a little more quickly to help the House.
Climate Change Policy—Pacific Island Nations
12. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green) to the Minister for Climate Change Issues: When she said this week at the Pacific climate change conference that “Pacific voices are heard loud and clear at the negotiating table, and there are some things that we hold different views on”, what were the specific points of difference that she was referring to?
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Climate Change Issues): There is a lot of common ground in the priorities that New Zealand and other Pacific countries have on climate change. I was not referring to anything specific when I made the comment. The sentiment I wanted to reflect was that climate change will obviously have a significant impact, and is having a significant impact, on Pacific nations, and we recognise that. But we may, for example, currently hold a different view on climate-induced migration and the timing of when something like that might happen. The point I was endeavouring to make in the speech is that we may have a lot of things in common, but New Zealand at no time should presume to speak for our Pacific neighbours.
Marama Davidson: Does she agree with the Pacific’s united call for a moratorium on new coalmines?
Hon PAULA BENNETT: No, not at this time.
Marama Davidson: Will she support new ways for Pacific people to migrate to New Zealand in response to the call of the President of Kiribati, Anote Tong, for his people to be able to migrate with dignity?
Hon PAULA BENNETT: We have agreements with Pacific countries. I think that we will continue to see issues in that area—it is something that we are keen over time to progress. But at this stage we stick with our current policies.
Marama Davidson: Is not the major point of difference between this Government and Pacific leaders that the Pacific nations are struggling and fighting to stay above water, and our climate target does not do nearly enough to help them in that fight?
Hon PAULA BENNETT: The reality is that New Zealand is doing a lot to help our Pacific countries. We recently just announced more money, like $635 million, that we want to put in, and I see a lot of that—$200 million, as well—being spent in those Pacific countries. There are things that we can do and are doing now, such as more renewable energy there that we are leading—a lot of that work that the Minister of Foreign Affairs is leading throughout the Pacific countries. I do not think our emissions target is actually what is causing the problems in the Pacific nations. But we will play more than our fair share in that area, and we will help our cousins, as we should do.
Bills
Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill
Third Reading
Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Land Information) on behalf of the Minister of Health: I move, That the Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill be now read a third time. This bill formalises one part of a negotiated agreement that resolved a claim filed with the Employment Relations Authority around payment for travel time and costs for home and community support workers. The out-of-court settlement has led to an agreed minimum rate of payment and an agreed formulae to determine payment amounts. This bill formalises those arrangements and provides an enduring, affordable, and sustainable way to compensate support workers for the in-between travel they do when supporting older people, disabled people, and those recovering from injury or illness with their household management and personal care needs.
I would like to acknowledge the role of the settlement parties in working together throughout the passage of the bill to develop a piece of legislation that is clear and workable and delivers on the intent of the settlement agreement. The Health Committee has ensured a good outcome through its close engagement on the subject matter and its flexibility around process. The Parliamentary Counsel Office and other officials worked professionally and with considerable goodwill throughout what has been a very tight time frame, and I acknowledge their contribution.
This bill represents an important milestone in recognising the valuable work of people who provide care and support for many New Zealanders. It will benefit around 24,000 care and support workers who assist older people, disabled people, and those recovering from illness and injury with personal care and household management. This bill is a very positive investment by the Government in some of the lowest-paid care and support workers in the health sector. They will benefit from a total Government investment of around $38 million a year, or approximately $150 million over a 4-year period. This bill is a priority for this Government, and I am aware that some other countries are also dealing with this issue and will be watching our progress with interest. I am pleased to commend this bill to the House.
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I am very pleased to be able to rise and speak to the third reading of the Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill. I have to say I am a little disappointed that the Minister’s contribution was so brief in view of the fact that this bill is so historic and so life-changing for many of those who are going to be the beneficiaries of it.
I want to begin by congratulating those who had the courage to bring this bill to the House, because of the battles they fought to ensure there was a test case on behalf of hundreds of home-care workers in New Zealand. I particularly want to acknowledge Jenny Goodman and the Public Service Association, with the support of the Council of Trade Unions and others who backed her to bring case—a test case—to ensure that our home-care workers were going to be able to receive payment when they travelled from one job to the next. I think that if it does nothing else, it shows the value of belonging to a union. A union can take up on behalf of a vulnerable worker and workers the situation that they face and can put forward the fight for them, and that is exactly what happened in this particular case. We have a number of other cases that are being settled, and they have been driven by the unions that could see the unfairness of what was happening to their membership.
In fact, this bill has come about also because of a ruling by the Human Rights Commission. It has taken a long time to get to this point, but what I was pleased about was that once an agreement had been reached between the employers, the unions, the Crown, and those who are providing the services, then there was a rapid action here within the Parliament. The bill was introduced on 24 September 2015. It received its first reading on 13 October 2015, and was referred to the Health Committee. We reported the bill back on 15 December, just before Christmas, as one of the last actions of the Health Committee.
The Health Committee worked very hard on this bill and made sure it was reported back before Christmas, because there had been agreement on what should be in this bill, and we wanted it out of the committee, ready for debate and passage in this Parliament when Parliament resumed. So here we are debating the third reading of this bill on 18 February. That is fast in terms of what this House can do. We are very pleased that we are going to be able to finish this bill today. It will receive the Governor-General’s assent in the next few days and will become law.
There were not a lot of submissions to the select committee. That is because agreement had been reached—it had been thrashed out as to what this bill would achieve. But I did think it was important that these major submissions from the employers, from the companies and from the organisations that employ our home-care workers, were in unison in terms of what they said in their submissions. Access Homehealth’s submission said: “We support the Bill and believe it provides major benefits to both our, and the Home and Community Support Services (HCSS) sector, clients and employees.” Healthcare of New Zealand Holdings Ltd said: “We are supportive of the Bill due to the benefit it will bring to our employees (and clients). This Bill represents a significant positive change for the Home and Community Support Services (HCSS) sector.”
The New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women also made a submission. It had a wider interest. In fact, it said it supports the bill because: “we are committed to representing the interests of working women and advancing and empowering women in the workplace.” It liked the fact that this bill was going through but it also said it wants to see: “[an increase in] funding to Aged Care Providers to provide pay equity for all aged care workers in accordance with the Equal Pay Act 1972.” That is something that has not yet been achieved. So when we are talking about this bill we are part-way there; we are not fully there because we do not yet have pay equity for these workers.
These workers are vulnerable workers. These are overwhelmingly women workers, and these are women who work for the minimum wage—the minimum hourly rate. They go out and they work on behalf of our families: our old mums and dads, our grandparents, and people who are in need of care in their home and in the community. That is how we are able to keep so many people within the community—because of this army of women who go out and support them.
They support them in many ways. You know, for some people—and I am sure you will be aware of this, Mr Deputy Speaker—having a person come to your home to do some home help for you, or just to talk to you, can mean more to your overall health than anything else. Many older people are lonely in their own homes. They do not have a lot of contact with people, but when their home-care worker, their community worker, comes into their home and does work for them, talks to them, and becomes a friend to them, it has a double whammy for that person. So we need to value these workers, who do such a magnificent job for us.
So what does this bill mean? It means that those workers are going get payment when they travel between one job and another. What is interesting is that we have never ever doubted that those who travel from one job fixing your plumbing, to the next job fixing the plumbing up the road, should not include in the cost of travel in what they are paid. But we have not thought that it was important that those on low incomes, on the minimum wage, travelling in their old car, and filling it up using their money should be paid to go from one job to the next. This bill will ensure that they are paid at least the minimum wage when travelling between clients. They will be paid the minimum allowance of at least 50c per kilometre for that travel.
This bill does have a number of things in it. It removes the ability for employees to return this issue to the Crown. It also removes the right to claim back-pay. That was not decided by this Parliament; it was decided by the settlement between those who were the parties to it. They sat down and said: “How can we be fair to the taxpayer but also fair to those women who are providing this service and paying for their travel?”. So they came to an agreement. They could, I suppose, have gone and argued that there ought to be years of back-pay for the work they had done, and it would have amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars, I suspect. But they came to an agreement that the right to claim back-pay would be removed.
The bill also means that the definition of “employee” is to be covered. So we now are pretty clear what an employee is. It also does something that we have not done before, and it is that we also included in the amendments that we made—and we made a number of amendments to the bill at the select committee—an amendment to include ACC in this legislation. Many of those who provide home services in the health sector also provide home services for ACC. That came from changes that the Health Committee made, and I am very pleased with that change as well.
This is a red-letter day for those who have been fighting for years for fairness for our home-care and support workers in respect of payment for travel. Let us not think, though, that this is the end of the story. I too would like to see pay equity for those many, many women providing this service. They are just as important to us as those we say are important in trades and in professions. They are the backbone of the type of health service we are going to be able to afford in the future.
I commend this bill to the House. It has the full support of the Labour Party.
SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am going to make this a relatively short contribution partly because I think it has actually been quite well articulated by the previous speaker, Annette King, and by others as this bill has gone through the House, but partly symbolically as well in so far as we have moved very swiftly as a select committee to get this bill back into the House. As was noted previously, it was brought back to the House just before Christmas and obviously is to be put into effect.
This Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill is ultimately a process that we as a Parliament are going through correctly and rightly. But as has been noted by other speakers—and I am sure it will come—this is putting into effect an agreement by other parties outside of the Parliament: the Crown, the district health boards, the employers, and, ultimately, the employees, particularly those represented through the unions, who work in home care. They got around the table, they discussed, they negotiated—I was not privy to all of the discussions, but I am sure there were many, many that were had to bring this agreement into effect. We as a Parliament have been asked to put that legislatively into effect, and from the very moment that it has come into the Health Committee, all the political parties—National, Labour, New Zealand First, the Greens—have worked incredibly hard to make that happen.
I just want to record my thanks to all the committee members, once again, for the work that they have done, to all the officials for the work that they took on and the advice that they gave us in a very timely manner, and to all the submitters—I found them very articulate and that they brought home very clearly what this is all about. Ultimately, this is about the home-care workers. I think it is just fantastic what they do—absolutely fantastic. So to them—thank you. Keep up the good work. We know that there is always more to be done, but we hope that this little bit of legislation is acknowledged for the import that it has.
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): Following on from what the two previous speakers said, this bill follows a claim filed with the Employment Relations Authority in August 2013. The claim asserted that the time that home and community support employees spend travelling between clients is work for the purposes of the Minimum Wage Act 1983. Because of the claim, the Ministry of Health entered negotiations with district health boards, providers of home and community-based care and support, and certain unions on behalf of members and non-members. The result is a good one. It is this settlement.
Labour is pleased to see the settlement of this case finally brought before the House after the Human Rights Commission ruling several years ago that travel time should be remunerated. The National Government has reluctantly bowed to pressure from unions and adopted Labour’s fair and sensible policy to pay home support workers for the time they spend travelling between clients. It is great that we are in the position whereby this House in its entirety is supporting this bill; it is just unfortunate that the Government dragged its feet on the way to doing this. We have to give credit to Jenny Goodman and the Public Service Association, which bravely took a test case claim on behalf of hundreds of fellow home-care workers.
Even with this progress, this settlement is still a long way from dealing with the historical underpayment of home and community support workers. Many of these people are on wages close to the minimum wage or on the minimum wage, actually, and, given the work they do, they deserve to be on a pay grade similar to nurses.
My colleague Annette King made the point around pay equity. Why is it that this valuable form of work in terms of home-care support is undervalued when you stack it up against other professions? This is an area that needs to be looked at in terms of pay equity. We know that the vast majority of people undertaking this work are, in fact, women. It is a highly feminised workforce, and these women deserve to be paid the value of the work that they are doing.
The wider funding of home support services also needs to be addressed, as home support remains the only service not planned and funded on a national basis. The lack of funding does push down wages in the sector. The lack of funding also means, as the Home and Community Health Association has stated, that “home and community support will increasingly become an option only for those who can afford it.” Many people in the last year have found their home support levels have been cut, and this should be of growing concern to all of us, given that we have an ageing population and that many more people, moving forward, are going to be requiring this type of care. If we cannot adequately fund it now, then what position are we as a country going to be in in 5, 10, 15, or 20 years’ time?
What is unfortunate is that the reality is that the Government has cut $1.7 billion out of the health system over 6 years, and the workforce is bearing the brunt of this gross underfunding—stretched to capacity. Stretched to capacity, and we are putting our workers in this workforce into dangerous situations because of that. There are still issues with the settlement. New organisations that join up will not be covered by this deal, and that is an issue that needs to be addressed.
I think it is important to note that the bill does not cover Part B of the settlement, which was the “Establishment of a Regularised Workforce and Review of the Home and Community Health Sector”. I can say, having been the research manager of a Pacific non-regulated health workforce development research project in the past, that that conversation around the regularisation of the workforce was something that was being had, I think, 6 or maybe 8 years ago and continues now. What we need is not only for the workers in this workforce to be paid adequately for the valuable work that they do but also for safeguards to be in place to ensure that they are protected.
Home and community support employees will receive payment from 1 July 2015 for time spent travelling between clients, and I just want to note, too, that from 1 July 2015 to 29 February 2016 the payment will be calculated using a figure that represents the minimum wage for the weighted average of the time spent travelling between clients. Also, I want to note that from 1 March 2016 the payment will be calculated based on the employee’s qualifying travel time, being the weighted average time per client visit assigned to the travel band applicable to the client’s location, and this will be prescribed in regulation.
I just want to go back to what was discussed earlier about the value of this workforce, and just again—because I do not think we can say it enough—say that this workforce, historically, has been undervalued and some attention needs to be paid to how we value this workforce better. Remuneration is definitely one part of that, but it is not the only part of that.
I want to point out that when we were undertaking the research on the Pacific non-regulated health workforce, one of the things that came up time and time again was that these women who were undertaking this type of work were doing so because of the fact that they had a heart for the clients and the people that they were working for. It was not just a matter of undertaking a job for the sake of undertaking a job; there was actually that passion and commitment to the work that they were undertaking and the care that they were giving to the clients whom they were looking after. So I want to acknowledge the fact that this is a dedicated workforce, and so that is another reason why we need to place value on this.
We need home carers and, actually, during that time when we were undertaking that study, that was one of the concerns moving forward—whether or not we would have the appropriate workforce to be able to cater to the needs of our ageing population. So it is not just about valuing them; it is also looking to the future and seeing how we can encourage more people to take up this type of work. As I said, remuneration is a part of it, but all of the working conditions that they are exposed to are a big part of making sure that they actually want to continue working in that workforce and that we can attract more people to work in that workforce.
As I said before, it is a highly feminised workforce, and this really does illustrate the issues with pay equity that we have in this country. I mean, if there is any workforce that we should be concerned about in terms of pay equity, it really is in the health sector and it really is the unregulated workforce.
So we are, as I said earlier, pleased to see that the settlement of this case has finally been brought before the House after the Human Rights Commission ruling several years ago that travel times should be remunerated for. It is just so unfortunate that it has taken so long for us to get to this point. Again, I want to give credit to Jenny Goodman and the Public Service Association, which has bravely taken a test case claim on behalf of hundreds of fellow home-care workers.
I will just reiterate something that Annette King said earlier, which is that this demonstrates, really, the importance of having a unionised workforce, being involved in a union, and being a member of a union, because, actually, for an individual to be expected to take up a case like this alone would be overwhelming for anyone. But to know that you have a union and know that you have support behind you to be able to do that makes it a lot easier, and it actually brings us to the point where we can have successful results like we do here today.
Labour is definitely supporting this bill, and can I just acknowledge each and every person who has played a role in bringing this to the House and ensuring its success. Thank you.
BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to be speaking in support of the Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill. I also just want to acknowledge the service providers, the support workers, the unions, the Crown, the district health boards, and everyone who has been involved in this piece of legislation.
To keep sick, elderly, and disabled people in their own homes for as long as they are able to stay there depends on having these wonderful people who go into their homes and do the great work that they do every day in supporting them. You know, the clients set their clocks by the visits. These people turn up, they have smiles, and they have a great attitude. I think it is great to see this piece of legislation going through to secure a better future for these health and disability care workers.
It has been a real pleasure to work with the Health Committee and with the other parties on getting to the stage where we are putting this piece of legislation in front of the House for the third time, and it is my pleasure to support it. Thank you.
DENISE ROCHE (Green): It is my pleasure to take the first call for the Greens on this, the third reading of this bill. I just want to go back and restate the purpose of the bill; I think everybody is pretty clear about what it is. It is, essentially, to give effect to an agreement that has been reached between the unions, the home and community support services providers, and district health boards to ensure that home support workers are paid for the time spent travelling between their clients. I want to remind this House that this came about as a result of negotiations after a case was taken to the Employment Relations Authority by the Public Service Association (PSA) on behalf of home carers, with home carer Jenny Goodman fronting that case. I thank her for her efforts, and the efforts of the PSA. Essentially, it was a test case for something like 20,000 home carers. The PSA took this case to say that the travel time between clients was work and that it should be paid for, when in most cases that time was not paid for. Essentially, the low rates of pay for the home carers would be basically slipping under the minimum wage if you took that time into account.
The home carers in this country care for something like 40,000 people who are chronically ill, are elderly, or are people with disabilities. They care for these people in their own homes. We must remember that caring for people in their own homes is actually incredibly good for those clients. It ensures that they have independence and that they have dignity. But we also need to recognise that caring for them in their own home with an underfunded, underpaid workforce is much cheaper for our health dollars. Why is it cheaper? It is cheaper because it is built on the exploitation of women workers—carers who invest emotionally in their clients and their clients’ well-being, but who are also low-paid and have limited, if any, guarantee of working hours from one week to the next.
Lodging the case with the Employment Relations Authority triggered negotiations because travel time is work—certainly in this situation. For example, it is like a previous case that the Service and Food Workers Union—or it might have been the Service Workers Union, as it was then—had taken with the disability service carers for their sleeping over, so that sleepover time was classified as work. That case, you may remember, resulted in huge back-pay claims for, again, what was largely a female-dominated workforce.
In this case, rather than let the Employment Relations Authority make the decision and potentially direct back-pay, the Ministry of Health, the district health boards, home-care support service providers, the unions—the PSA, E tū, and the Council of Trade Unions—sat down to negotiate the settlement. That settlement means that home-care support services and district health board home carers will not get back-pay. That back-pay is estimated to be around $261 million, for 6 years—back-pay for all those workers. It is likely that the deal that has now been negotiated for travel time is going to cost around $38 million per year, added to the health budget. But I think it is worth it because you cannot rely on exploitation to provide a service.
This bill will mean that home carers are paid at least the minimum wage for travel time. They will also be paid a travel allowance of at least 50c per kilometre starting in March this year, going up to 60c per kilometre in July. In exchange for this settlement there will be no back-pay, travel time payment or travel money. In exchange, there is Part B of the settlement agreement, which is not covered by this legislation. Part B sets up a director-general’s reference group, and I am glad to see that it will be set up. It is outside this legislation. What that director-general’s reference group is set up to do is work alongside the employers, the district health boards, and the unions and the Council of Trade Unions, again, to look at a transition to regularising the workforce, and for that workforce to transition to regular working hours. It is also to look at safe staffing levels. It is also going to look at training for carers to level 3 up and ensure that that qualification can be attained within the first 2 years. This is because it is not just about the home carers; it is also about the quality of the service that they provide, and, essentially, it is also about those qualifications being recognised as part of the pay scale. That is Part B of the settlement. It was the quid pro quo. I am glad to see that it is going to happen.
I think we have to recognise and thank the unions for taking this proactive approach of engaging in a conversation looking at the future—exchanging back-pay compensation for future benefits. I think that is the difference between an industrial relations lawyer, who could have taken the case and could have gone for back-pay claims—the difference between that and the unions is that they take the sensible, collaborative, and collective approach, looking for practical and pragmatic solutions. I think we need to note that these benefits will be passed on to home carers who are not union members. It is good that that happens, because otherwise they undercut those who are union members. We should really recognise that in lots of different sectors, unions negotiate pragmatic deals that benefit their union members but are also passed on to others in the sector. I also think that there are some limitations on whom this bill applies to. We need to be encouraging new home-care support services that may be being set up at the moment and that are not listed to come under this agreement, because otherwise they run the risk of undercutting other providers and forcing wages down in the tender process with district health boards.
I have to say that the underfunding of the aged-care sector—and others have mentioned this—is an ongoing problem that needs to be resolved. We cannot continue to provide a service that is, essentially, based on wages that are too low and services that are provided for free by a largely female workforce. I note that the next case being taken is that of Kristine Bartlett and the E tū union—the equal pay claim for a rest home worker. That too is subject to a negotiation by the unions with the ministries, to look for a way forward to ensure that we can pass on pay equity to the entire workforce. That is an ongoing situation, but I really, truly do want to see equal pay for aged-care workers within the next couple of years, at least. I will look forward to seeing that legislation come before us. In the meantime, I commend this bill to the House.
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): I am very pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the third reading of the Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill. New Zealand First definitely supports this bill, just like other parties in the House. It is sound legislation, and it should have happened years and years ago.
As others have said, this legislation is the result of a settlement on behalf of the Public Service Association (PSA) and home support worker Jenny Goodman. The proceedings were lodged with the Employment Relations Authority in 2013, claiming that the time a community support worker spends travelling between clients is work for the purposes of section 6 of the Minimum Wage Act. We know that when tradespeople and sales reps are travelling between clients, that is considered to be their work, so it was only logical that this had to be related to the home support area.
We in New Zealand First are disappointed that it took a claim like this to get the Government to act on such an important issue. It is an issue that in this House we have all been aware of for a long time. We have received numerous petitions. There have been protest meetings, and demonstrations on the steps of Parliament. So it is no surprise that this was an issue that did need to be solved. It really should have been solved proactively rather than having to wait for a court case like this, because we all know that this settlement comes mainly from a desire to prevent court action and the payout of costly back-pay for travel.
This legislation is a start, but it needs to go further. In New Zealand First we are quite disappointed that the mileage rate remains at 50c per kilometre and has not increased in line with the Inland Revenue Department recommendations of 74c per kilometre, but it is a start. And we know that it is an area that does need revisiting. We are in support of this bill, as I said. However, we see this as only the start of a complete overhaul of the home-care and home support sector. We would really like to see staff properly recognised for the valuable work that they do, including receiving appropriate pay. We do remain concerned at the working conditions of care workers, and we know that, looking forward, a stable workforce is absolutely required.
We were very pleased to read that there will be an investigation into guaranteed hours of work. There needs to be that. It is not the support workers’ fault if one of the people whom they are caring for goes into hospital for some time, but it comes off their salary. There needs to be some recognition of training and qualifications, and, of course, as others have said, the rates of pay need to be looked at. We know of many workers who have worked in this sector for years and they have received very little in the way of pay increases. We are really hoping that this is going to be addressed within Part B of the settlement agreement. We know that this is an area that is going to be vital in the future because the number of people who are coming through who are going to require care is enormous.
We were pleased that all of the parties agreed to investigate the impact of a regularised workforce to ensure the sustainability and the stability of the sector. In its submission the PSA made some suggestions as to what would constitute a regularised workforce: firstly, guaranteed hours for the majority of the workforce; secondly, paid training to enable support workers to gain level 3 New Zealand certificate qualifications; thirdly, wages paid on the required level of training for support workers; and, lastly, a case load and casemix workload mechanism to ensure a fair and safe allocation of clients to support workers. As every other party in this House has done, we in New Zealand First support those recommendations. We will see that more and more people are going to rely on the support of home and community-based care and support workers.
New Zealand First would also like to thank those thousands of home and community-based care and support workers who work tirelessly every day to make their clients’ days just a little bit brighter, a little bit better. We know it can be really challenging work—it is not easy—but I know for a fact that these people are passionate about making a difference and they are highly skilled, and we should appreciate the very important job that they do. Their dedication in their work keeps many of our elderly—many of our seniors—out of rest homes. We all know that people want to live independently for as long as they possibly can, and this group of workers is absolutely essential to ensuring that this happens. So we acknowledge the fantastic work that they do—absolutely important. We were so pleased to see that ACC has actually been included in this settlement, because we know that those people who are looked after through ACC need the support, too—absolutely essential.
In New Zealand First we are very happy to support this bill, but we say that this should not be the end of the debate on the working conditions of our home and community-based care and support workers, and we will be looking to see that this is only the start of that journey. Thank you.
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): The Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill is an important bill. It implements a settlement agreement between the service providers—the support workers—and their unions, and the 20 district health boards and the Crown to pay for the time and costs for workers travelling between their clients. It is not only important to the workers themselves but also very important to their clients, who I know have felt for the people who come into their homes and support them so very well.
Along with other members, I want to acknowledge officials who have assisted the Health Committee and the Crown in the finessing of this bill. I actually want to acknowledge Barbara Stewart’s speech. I think that Barbara shows a great understanding, compassion, and an affinity for the needs and the circumstances around this. It might be rare to commend another member, but I do want to acknowledge and congratulate her on the approach that she has taken towards this bill, along, of course, with my colleagues on the National side.
Being electorate-based MPs, many of us have day-to-day contact with our constituents. For people like me, in a rural, provincial constituency, this issue around workers having to travel quite considerable distances between their clients has been a matter that has been of concern to us. So, I am very proud that the National Government has brought this bill to the House, and I support it, along with other members. Thank you.
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to clarify whether this is a 5-minute or a 10-minute contribution.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is normally the Green Party that takes the first call in this slot.
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: That is right. Yes.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is the Green Party expecting to—
Eugenie Sage: Mr Lees-Galloway can have 10 minutes.
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It would be my pleasure.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is your answer. Congratulations.
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Very good—thank you. Labour backs having an economy that works for all of us, not just for the privileged few; a country where our kids can hope to one day own their own home; a job that pays well; security to live a fulfilling life with the people we care about; and a world-class health system that is there for you when you need it. Labour, in short, stands for the Kiwi Dream, and it is our mission when we are in Government to restore the Kiwi Dream and security and opportunity for all New Zealanders.
It is not just the Labour Party that is the champion of the Kiwi Dream. It is the wider labour movement, as well—working people who have chosen to work together collectively through their unions to get a better deal and a fairer outcome for themselves and for other people working in their industry and across New Zealand.
This is a prime example of the labour movement at work—the labour movement striving to ensure that all New Zealanders can realise that Kiwi Dream. So I want to acknowledge the Public Service Association (PSA) and E tū for the work they did in bargaining with the employers, then taking the test case, and then sitting down with a centre-right Government and getting a positive outcome, not just for the union members but, actually, for everybody who works in this sector and for the people that they care for, and leading the way for other work that has to happen in order to provide fair pay and conditions for people working throughout the health care system.
I think this is a wonderful victory for working people, and it is a demonstration of the important role that unions still hold in the modern New Zealand workplace. Even during a period of time when the Government has changed the law to diminish the role of unions to make it harder for them to do their job and harder for them to get positive and fair outcomes for their members and for other workers, these unions—the PSA and E tū, supported by the Council of Trade Unions—have been able to achieve a fantastic outcome. And it is good for the industry as well.
Denise Roche made a very good point, and that is that this was a bargaining situation. Things were traded, and an absolutely legitimate claim for back-pay was forgone by those workers so that they could establish a system that is going to be fair for themselves and for future generations of people working in the home-care and community support sector. That is not the outcome you get when you get the sort of cowboy, “no win, no fee” lawyers. It is the outcome you get when employers and the Government work with unions, which have as much of a vested interest in the long-term survival and success of the industries that they operate in as the employers, the owners, the Government, and everybody else.
It is tripartism at its best—the Government, the employers, and the workers working together for a positive, win-win outcome that is good for everybody. So I want to congratulate everybody involved in getting to this point. Yes, there have been times when pressure has had to be applied. Yes, there have been times where people have had to go to court. There have been times when, perhaps, it has felt more like the parties were on opposite side of the fence than on the same side, but they worked through it. It took time. It took strong people like Jenny Goodman standing up and being prepared to put themselves in the public view, and eventually, after years and years and years of hard work, they got there. The fact that they got there under a National Government is no mean feat, and it should be acknowledged. They have done extremely well to get there at this point in time. What they did is they made sure that the public was on their side, and that, frankly, the Government of the day, no matter what colour it was, had no option but to work with them and to get the appropriate outcome put into place.
There is an aspect of this legislation that has not been spoken about all that much that I think is really important, and it is important in the context of the ongoing issues and the other matters that still need to be addressed. That is the fact that by virtue of the legislation that we are passing today, the home and community support workers are defined as employees. That is important, because not everybody working in New Zealand is entitled to the rights that we ought to be able to take for granted. Not everybody working in New Zealand is entitled to a minimum wage. Employees are, but contractors are not. Not everybody in New Zealand is entitled to join a union and to bargain collectively. Employees are, but contractors are not. So defining these workers as employees is actually astonishingly important because it provides them with basic rights that every worker in New Zealand should actually be able to take for granted.
I want to acknowledge that before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee right now is David Parker’s bill, the Minimum Wage (Contractor Remuneration) Amendment Bill, which would provide the right to the minimum wage to all workers in New Zealand. We also need to start work on matters such as dependent contractors—people who are called contractors but who are actually fundamentally employed by one employer. They are employees in all but name and in all but the rights that they get.
These are issues that this House urgently needs to address, and this legislation, in a limited way for these people, makes really important progress. That is another thing that we should celebrate, and we should use it as a prototype for future work to extend those rights and those privileges to other people working in New Zealand, as well.
This is a day to celebrate, and I do not want to hold this legislation up, so I simply want to end by saying that unions are relevant. Unions are still, even under this Government, gaining enormous successes for their members and for workers right across New Zealand, and today is a day on which we should celebrate unions and unions should celebrate the work that they are doing.
SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): As a member of the Health Committee it gives me enormous pleasure to rise in support in this third reading debate on the Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Bill. As others have already indicated during this debate and in previous debates, this is a bill that was given priority through the Health Committee. I am delighted to report that the select committee members worked collegially to bring an outcome back to the House in a timely fashion, so that the bill could be given its third reading early in this parliamentary year.
It is a very good bill. I know that the home-care and health workers in my electorate of Coromandel will be looking forward to its implementation. I commend it to the House.
POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Firstly, like previous speakers on this bill, I want to commend the work of home-care support workers. I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the work they do and the value that they bring to our communities.
Many of us have had our lives touched by the work of home-care workers, whether they are coming in to support elderly parents, people with disabilities, people at the end of their lives, people who are injured and are temporarily off work, or people who are injured and need long-term care. Being able to stay in your home with the people you love around you—you cannot put a value on that. You cannot put a value on what being in your own home brings to your ability to have a good quality life.
What support workers do in terms of supporting really good care—the best kind of care; supporting our families to be around their loved ones, supporting people to be in the homes and communities of their choice—is completely invaluable, and to acknowledge that we are going some way to recompensing them fairly is encouraging. Unfortunately, we are going nowhere near far enough, because the value they bring to the lives of the people they support is without measure.
I want to talk a little bit about the type of work that these home-care workers do. It is not just about keeping someone’s home clean and making sure that their meal is prepared. It is not just about home help or personal care. It is often very, very intimate care. It is often very high-level, highly trained care. I know that when I was working in the sector myself we had people who were able to support medically fragile children to be at home. We had people who were able to support a family to care for their loved one at the end of their life. There is nothing more personal than that. We had people who were able to support people with serious skin conditions to be able to bathe and dress and then be in a position to get on with their day.
Support workers actually provide for and facilitate people to live a life like you and I have. They are able to provide support for people to dress and to get on with their day, whether that is in education, in work, or in study. Without our home-care support workers our ability to do what we want to do, to have the choice to live the lives that we want to live, would be greatly diminished. I cannot speak more highly of that.
Previous speakers have talked about the agreement that had been negotiated and mediated and settled between the unions who represented the workers, the home-care providers, and the Crown agencies that fund the work. It is encouraging that what we are doing is really giving effect to what is already an agreement that is in place.
But there is another part of the agreement that I hope, some day, we will be able to effect—two things. Firstly, it is about regularising the work and ensuring that these workers actually have the ability to have security in their work and security of payments. Currently, because their work is client-based, they do not have that security. It would be great to have the ability to provide that security. The other aspect of the agreement that I really hope we would be in a position to support is the review of the sector as a whole. In previous speeches I have talked about why we are at this place now, putting into effect the travel time provisions.
What has happened over time—and it has been several years since I have actually been in the sector myself—is that there have been different forms of assessment for the needs of our clients. This is a process that I believe started with the Auckland District Health Board a few years ago when it was looking at the way we assess care for our older recipients of care at home. The district health board was looking at who was in the best position to assess the needs of clients and then deliver that care, and what came out of that process was the fact that we could assess someone’s care. Where in the past we may have been delivering, say, 2 or 3 hours’ worth of care into that home, we could assess that care and change the way we delivered that care to a shorter period of time. This meant that in the normal workday of a home-care worker, where previously they may have had two or three clients, now they might have five or six clients. The distances they are travelling and the time they spend travelling have, therefore, increased. I think this is a point to make for what may happen in the future as well—that, increasingly, our home-care workers will be required to become more mobile, not less.
I think this is a good thing that we have identified that the travel is actually work. It is an essential part of what they do and, increasingly, it will become more and more a part of home-care workers’ lives to actually be engaged in travelling as they service more clients.
There is not much more to say on this bill. I really am encouraged that we have traversed this with some speed through the House, that we actually gave it due consideration, and that the Health Committee was able to ensure that work with ACC was also included in the bill, which is very important. Our home-care workers are also often working with ACC clients and it would be unfair and imbalanced if they were not included in this.
Just on the final note, I want to say, again, I really acknowledge the work that support workers do. I hope that one day we value their work in the same way that we value the work of other people who provide types of support in our communities, such as our first responders. The work that first responders do has a value in our community, and I would like to see that we as a Parliament and as parliamentarians really try to set the bar high for our home support workers, that we raise the status of their work in our communities, and that they have some equity with the work that other professionals do. It is a great pleasure to support this bill, and I commend it to the House.
Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to take the final call on this bill. This bill implements the settlement agreement between the Crown, district health boards, service providers, and support workers. This is a very important bill. The home and community support workforce is a workforce of 20,000 people servicing and serving roughly 40,000 clients.
In the next few weeks, as part of the agreement, the second stage of the reimbursement formula will kick in—as of March. It is a formula that looks at time and the cost of travel. Time will be assessed as the minimum hourly wage times the qualifying time, with the qualifying time being 8 minutes and 30 seconds times the number of visits. The cost of travel will start at 50c times the qualifying distance. The qualifying distance is 3.7 kilometres times the number of visits. This bill goes some way to valuing the efforts of our home and community support sector. It does so by pay recognition, a formula that fundamentally measures time and distance.
I want to recognise what the sector does that is also valuable but cannot be measured by time and distance, and it will probably actually never be well measured in a formula of this kind: a smile, a warm touch, and human contact. These are all very important. They are not in the formula, but it is our belief they are just as important, and it is our hope that pay recognition goes some way to acknowledging this important sector and the invaluable work that it does. With that, I commend this bill to the House.
Bill read a third time.
Bills
Housing Amendment Bill
Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2)
Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (NO 2)
Third Readings
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Housing): I move, That the Housing Amendment Bill, the Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2), and the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. I would like to thank the Social Services Committee and the many officials who worked on these bills. I also want to thank ACT, United Future, and the Māori Party for supporting them.
These bills, of course, achieve three things. We have heard a whole lot of rhetoric over the last few days, most of which, actually, is not factual for the bills themselves. They authorise designated Ministers to enter into social housing transactions in the name of the Housing New Zealand Corporation and its subsidiaries. This will allow us to transfer homes, beginning with some in Tauranga and Invercargill, to community housing providers and to undertake the redevelopment in the Tāmaki community. The bills enable designated Ministers to enter into contracts to require that Housing New Zealand provides transitional services to those community housing providers to ensure that tenants’ needs are looked after during any transfer process, which is really important. We want to ensure that transaction processes work smoothly for the tenants, foremost.
The transactions process is new, both for the Government and for the community housing providers. The process is proceeding in a measured way so that potential participants have the opportunity to prepare and the rights of tenants are protected. Officials have received expressions of interest about both the Invercargill and Tauranga social housing transactions and in mid-March will announce a shortlist of bidders, who will be asked to submit a detailed response to a request for proposals issued by the Government. We are very pleased with the level of interest shown in these transactions.
There are safeguards in the process. Following exercise of the transaction mandate, Ministers are required to publicly notify the general nature and purpose of the use in the Gazette and present it to Parliament. This provides transparency and allows Parliament and citizens to assess whether the exercise is consistent with the purpose outlined in the legislation. The bills also clarify that the Public Works Act offer-back provisions do not apply to land held by Housing New Zealand and preserves this treatment for designated Ministers. It is important to provide certainty on this point to avoid delay for the social housing process. This amendment actually does not alter any existing rights; it merely confirms the current legal position. Importantly, the legislation does not remove any right of first refusal that iwi may have in relation to Housing New Zealand properties under Treaty settlements. We have been engaging with affected iwi since last year to ensure such a right is appropriately recognised.
The final aspect of this legislation is an amendment to the Housing Act 1955 to clear up a longstanding issue not directly related to the Social Housing Reform Programme. This legislation is an important but small part of our overall work to improve social housing. We are also opening up Crown land in Auckland for social and affordable housing developments; providing more emergency housing, with a $2.5 million funding boost to the sector; contracting with community housing providers to provide more social houses in Auckland; and freeing up social houses by reviewing the tenancies of those who can afford private rentals, or can even purchase their own home, and we have spent nearly $400 million on upgrading and maintaining Housing New Zealand homes just in the last year. This Government remains committed to improving the lives of tenants in social housing, and this legislation supports that objective. I commend these bills to the House.
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): This legislation is a charter for corruption. Paula Bennett stood here in the House today defending legislation that will give her and Bill English, the Deputy Prime Minister, absolute carte blanche—unfettered powers—to do any deal they like, with whomsoever they like, on any terms and conditions. It gives those Ministers the power to sell billions of dollars’ worth of land and public housing in this country to their mates, to overseas corporations, to public-private partnership companies, to merchant bankers, to property speculators—whoever—because they have defined “community housing provider” in the most open way possible.
Anybody can rock up to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and say “I want to register as a community housing provider.”, and then they are eligible to buy houses. There is nothing in the legislation to stop a public-private partnership company from the United Kingdom to rock up and register as a community housing provider. There is no requirement for it to be non-profit. There is no requirement for it to have any track record in delivering social services or community housing. Anybody can rock up and say: “I’m a community housing provider. I want to buy these State houses.” The Minister should be ashamed of herself.
This legislation clears away all of the normal legislative policy and constitutional safeguards that normally govern the process of privatisation or divestment. Paula Bennett and Bill English, on the basis of this legislation, will be able to sit down with merchant bankers from the other side of the globe and do any kind of deal they want. That is seriously a worry, given this Government’s members’ track record in negotiating. Oh, yes, they are masters of the universe! When they sit down with Warner Bros, with Rio Tinto, with Skycity—oh, what a proud, proud track record this Government has got of selling out this country. Oh, and I forgot the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. I forgot the TPP agreement, when they somehow overlooked the fact that 80 percent of citizens in this country wanted to protect the right of future Governments in this country to stop non-resident foreigners from buying our houses. But, no, they did not think that was material, and they failed to safeguard the interests of this country and this country’s citizens. They failed to prevent our land and our housing from being bought and sold by non-resident foreigners. They have got a splendid track record in selling out the interests of this country.
It was even more of a concern when Transparency International recently dropped New Zealand down its perceptions of corruption index, in light of the Oravida affair and in light of the Saudi sheep scandal. This will be the next thing. This will be the next thing that will damage that perception of New Zealand as a country that is free of corruption and that has integrity and probity in the way that we conduct Government and public affairs.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: So back to the legislation.
PHIL TWYFORD: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The second reason that the Labour Party opposes this legislation is that it represents the dismantling by John Key, as the Prime Minister, and Paula Bennett as the Minister for Social Housing of the social system of support that has given New Zealanders, young New Zealanders, a decent start in life and a roof over their heads, no matter how struggling mum and dad might be. It is a quintessential part of the Kiwi Dream that no matter who you are, no matter what side of town you come from, and no matter where you go to school or what mum and dad do for a living, you get a decent start in life. For decades, going back to the first Labour Government and, in fact, going back to the first public housing under Prime Minister Dick Seddon, public housing has been the way that we ensure that every kid in this country gets a decent start in life.
It is not perfect—no one will stand in this House and argue that it is—but it was good enough in the 1960s for John Key and his mother to get the support of the taxpayer. He got a decent start in life, and one of the ways that happened was that the taxpayer supported him through giving him and his mother a State house. But apparently now, under National Government rule in the 21st century, State house tenants, according to the Hon Paula Bennett, are bludgers and they game the system. They are fair game for that Minister to vilify them and demonise them at every opportunity she gets. Well, we do not stand for that. We stand for the principle that every New Zealander gets a fair go, and it is the job of Government to collectively do the things that we do together better rather than just allowing the market to reign.
What we object to about this legislation is that it is enabling the dismantling of a critical element of social support in this country, and Bill English, who is the architect of that policy—Paula Bennett is just the mouthpiece. She is actually just a not very effective human face of this policy. Bill English is the architect, and he wants this to be his legacy—this policy to dismantle social housing—because he does not see that there is any need for the Government to either own housing or provide decent social housing for our most vulnerable citizens. He wants the private sector to do it. Only this week, he was talking up the idea that international funds, the big private equity funds—companies like the retirement village companies, and he used Ryman Healthcare and Summerset as his examples—should get into running State housing and make a profit from it. He thinks they could make a really good profit from it. My question for the people of New Zealand is: how can big private companies make a buck off the back of the poorest 5 percent of the New Zealand community? The only way that they can do that is that the National Government is willing to pour unlimited quantities of taxpayer subsidies into their pockets. That is the only way it can work, and that is exactly what Bill English has in mind.
This policy that the National Government has of privatising billions of dollars of land and housing that has been built up and paid for by generations of taxpayers and State house tenants is the most sordid element of the National Government’s housing crisis, which is one of the things that has emerged under this Government that, when people look back on John Key’s time in office, will come to be seen as one of the hallmarks. It is the Government’s failure to do anything about an out-of-control housing bubble in Auckland that has driven house prices up by 25 percent last year. The average house price is now $930,000. That incredible price pressure on housing in Auckland has driven up rents. The average rent went up by $2,000 in Auckland last year. How can low-income working families find another $2,000? It is also the reason why we have seen a huge surge in families with children living in campgrounds, kids living their lives in cars and garages—this is life under the National Government in the 21st century. This is what it means.
The Government’s total refusal to do anything meaningful to rein in that housing crisis sits alongside its dismantling of State housing in this country as an act of criminal negligence. Housing is one of the most fundamental human needs. If there is one thing that the Government should do, it is to make damned sure that people have access to secure, decent, and affordable housing. But this Government has been negligent in its omissions and also negligent in its policies, some of which have actually made the housing crisis worse. We have seen in recent days in the media, on TV, radio, and newspapers the heart-rending examples of families who are homeless and living in overcrowded and substandard conditions.
This Government is very good at rolling out press releases and photo stunts and meaningless, cosmetic policies, but it will not do the obvious thing—it will not build more houses. It is the simple thing. We have a housing shortage, but this Government refuses to build more houses. Instead, what does it do? It embarks on a massive privatisation programme, selling the inadequate number of houses that it already owns instead of building new ones.
This policy is the wrong policy at the wrong time. It will make matters worse for this country’s poor and vulnerable families, and we oppose it.
TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): It is a great privilege to stand and support the third readings of legislation arising from the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill, and particularly to follow the abject and ideological nonsense that we have heard from Phil Twyford over the last 10 minutes.
There are 62,000—62,000—income-related rent subsidies. That is 62,000 commitments that this Government gives to those who are the most vulnerable, and we have made a commitment to lift it to 65,000 over the next 2 years. That is a commitment to those who are the most vulnerable. The question that this legislation debates and enables is not: “Who owns the roof?”; it is that the subsidy is there to enable more people to be able to live under a roof, and we are moving from 62,000 to 65,000—
Phil Twyford: Yeah, you want PPP companies, overseas companies, making a buck off State house tenants.
TODD MULLER: Mr Twyford is again on the wrong side of this. I agree that this will be, and is, a defining line between this side of the House and your side of the House over there, Mr Twyford. What this legislation enables, and what this legislation speaks to, is an innovative approach around delivering social services.
Are you caught in a paradigm that says “Only the State can own a house; only the State can provide it.”, when we have community housing providers that are already in existence? In Tauranga, where I come from, they are successful. They are providing care, and they are making a difference today, right now, in the community of Tauranga for people who need houses. But, oh no. For the Labour Party, if it is not Housing New Zealand, it is not good enough. Well, Mr Twyford, you go to Tauranga and you talk to those people. You talk to those people and say: “I’m sorry, but your innovation, your approach to the future, we don’t believe in.” Well, on this side we do. We back them, and this legislation enables it.
That is why I am so proud to be able to stand here and support an innovation and an approach that will deliver social housing. It will deliver it in partnership, Mr Twyford. Partnership—have you ever heard of that word? Partnership with people who care. Partnership with people who understand the real needs of people and can relate to and wrap around a whole lot of services that are going to make a whole lot of difference. I actually think that this is going to be a defining policy that we will look back on in time and say it has enabled huge change and huge, better, improved outcomes for the people of New Zealand.
I am very, very comfortable in supporting this. I have taken this policy to the people of Tauranga. I will continue to do it because I believe in it, it is good thinking, and it will result in better outcomes for my community. Thank you very much.
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): That National Party MP, Todd Muller, just asked whether Labour is caught in a paradigm where only the State can own homes. Labour believes that the Government has a major role to play with regard to housing and that we should not be hocking off $20 billion worth of assets that have been built up since that very first State house was built in 1937 at 12 Fife Lane in Miramar. This is not just about Labour; this is about generations of New Zealanders who felt that this was the right place for their Government to invest their money.
This legislation is further evidence that the National Government has lost its way. Its members are arrogant, they are out of touch, and they are ignoring the big issues facing everyday New Zealanders: jobs, wages, and, of course, relevant to this legislation, the housing crisis. It is a Government of broken promises. Under the National Government the Kiwi Dream is slipping away.
We have an economy stacked in favour of a privileged few while everyday Kiwis find it harder to get ahead. Our health care system is stretched to breaking point, with services slashed to the tune of $1.7 billion over 6 years, denying Kiwis the care they need. We have got an education system drowning our young people in debt. We have got rates of child poverty that are a national disgrace, with too many kids going without food, living in cold, damp houses, and relying on charity for basics like a raincoat or a decent pair of shoes. Last, but not least, we have got a housing market that has become a plaything for speculators, locking a generation out of the dream of homeownership.
This legislation is only supporting that to happen. It is supporting that lockout of New Zealanders from that Kiwi Dream, not only to own their own home but to get into a home, and we know there are so many families who are currently not even in a home—living in garages, living in cars, and couch surfing because they do not even have access to a house.
I, like many other people in this Parliament, have talked about the fact that my family, like many New Zealand families, started off in a State house. That was the stepping stone to being able to then go on to buy a home. That was the stepping stone for my parents. That was the stepping stone for the parents of many people in this House, including the National Party leader, the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key.
The point of difference is that this side of the House never pulls the ladder up. We do not pull the ladder up on other New Zealanders who need the same opportunity, unlike members on that side of the House—and we have seen it done so many times. Time and time again they use their background, they use the challenges that their families were faced with, as a platform for trying to appeal to New Zealanders, and then they turn round and they remove that very same opportunity from the New Zealanders who require the same opportunities.
This legislation is an absolute disgrace and one that sums up the Government’s blind obsession with selling off State housing with absolutely no foresight. Government members act like they are the economic gurus of this country, like National is the only political party that knows how to manage the finances of this country, yet it goes ahead and makes the decision to sell the biggest asset that we own as a country—the $20 billion asset that we own as a country. It made the decision that that is worth hocking off.
But of course what we have to keep in mind is that privatisation is just business as usual for the Nats, regardless of the consequences, regardless of the fact that they are seeing every day—and I am sure they are, across the country—increasing levels of homelessness. They are seeing a number of New Zealanders coming through their offices—I am sure they are, like we are—who are getting sick because of the damp, mould, and unhealthy conditions of their homes.
They know that there is a shortage of housing. We all see there is a shortage of housing. Not only do we have a massive queue of people on that social housing register but we have thousands of New Zealanders who cannot even get on that social housing register because there is a shortage of housing. Those Government members try to say that selling off these houses is their way of addressing the housing crisis. It does not make sense. They are not increasing the stock of housing available; they are shifting the stock. They are shifting what belongs to New Zealanders and passing it into private hands. We will not support that on this side of the House.
I personally—and I know a lot of other people in this House feel the same way—am absolutely shocked that the Māori Party has made the decision to support this legislation. I do not know whether its members have been asleep during this whole process. I do not know whether they have seen the way in which the housing crisis has been affecting their community, but it is shocking that the Māori Party has made the decision to support this legislation. The National Government is selling out with regard to this legislation, and every political party in this House, including the Māori Party, has sold out on New Zealanders as well. What is the point of the so-called benefit of being at the table if it does absolutely nothing to stand up to the Government when it matters? This is an issue that the Māori Party should have stood up against the Government on. This is an issue that its members should have stood up for, for their people, but they did not. They have supported this legislation. That is on record now, and it will not be forgotten.
This legislation gives Ministers English and Bennett extraordinary and unprecedented powers to take direct personal control of selling State houses, exempting Ministers from normal legal requirements, and leaving the sale process wide open for corruption. Actually, I heard my colleague Stuart Nash last night in the House speaking about the fact that our brand as a country—which is so far removed from corruption because of the fact that people perceive us as not being corrupt—is worth around $20 billion. Well, is it not a coincidence that that brand being worth $20 billion is the same amount of money that our State housing stock is worth, because I tell this House that that side of the House’s selling out our $20 billion - State housing asset is basically selling out our brand. Those members are selling out New Zealanders, they are selling out the country, and they are selling out our brand.
The National Government wants the power to do dirty deals—flogging off billions of dollars’ worth of land and housing—and it does not want to be bothered with pesky public servants or the rule of law. National members are having secret meetings—and we know this—with merchant bankers, with public-private partnership investors, and with property developers who want to get their hands on these assets, and they refuse to release the names of these organisations. There is no transparency with what this Government is doing.
The Government is not accountable for the decision that it is making, and, actually, the legislation reinforces the fact that there is no accountability because of the fact that, despite the fact that the Ministers—so, Paula Bennett and Bill English—are going to have all decision-making power in respect of these transactions, none of the accountability or liability will fall on them if anything goes wrong in the transaction. All of the accountability and liability will fall with Housing New Zealand, despite the fact that Housing New Zealand has just had a National Government take all power for decision making off it.
How can that be right? How can that be fair? Anyone looking at that legislation when we were going through the Committee stage could see that. This is wrong. This is incredibly wrong and the National Government members should be ashamed of themselves. This legislation is the latest move by a Government desperate to offload State houses and keep its troubled policy afloat.
The National Government’s State house sell-off is deeply unpopular, and, as I said before, generations of New Zealanders believed in this investment. They believed that having their taxpayer money go towards State housing was the right thing to do. In the latest poll, 75 percent of New Zealanders and 60 percent of National voters opposed the Government’s plan to sell off State houses to overseas companies like Gold Coast - based Horizon.
In light of the housing crisis, we should be trying to solidify the availability of the number of homes available to low-income persons, not take them away. We on this side of the House have been accused of being ideological, but I will say we are not ideological. We are responsible, actually—we are responsible on behalf of New Zealanders, and we are responsible with regard to the asset that has been built up by New Zealanders. There is only one side of this House that has been ideological in this debate in respect of this legislation, and that is the National Government. It does not believe that the State should have any role in housing, and it has been so quick to make the decision to hock that housing off.
We will not be supporting this legislation in the House. I want to make it clear, as well, that the National Government knows that this is a deeply unpopular policy with the New Zealand public.
JONO NAYLOR (National): I think, over the last 3 days, as we have been through the second reading and the Committee stage and are now into the final reading, that this subject has been well debated. As I have been listening through the debates that we have had, I am little bit disappointed that the Opposition parties just want to talk about the way things have always been. They are not interested in being innovative. They are not interested in actually providing a better service for people. They just want to do what we have always done and hope that it somehow does the right thing.
Government MPs have had a number of accusations levelled at them over the last few days. The first one—and we have just heard it again from Ms Sepuloni—is that we are being ideological. Well, actually, the ideology has come from the other side of the room. There has been an accusation that we say the Government has no role to play in social housing. No one has said that the Government should not have a role in social housing. In fact, with what we hear from the other side, you would think that the Government members would be the only people who should be involved in social housing.
There is some simple maths that could be done, and if the Opposition members are prepared to engage in that, I will just simplify it for them a little bit. At the moment there is a certain number of social houses in New Zealand. If the Government was to sell some of those houses to other people who use them for social housing, the amount of housing stock that we would have for the use of people who need it would remain exactly the same. If, however, the Government then uses the capital that it has received from the sale of some of those houses to buy some more and improve its housing stock, guess what—guess what? New Zealand ends up with more social housing.
The policy of this Government is to increase the number from 62,000 to 65,000. We think that we can have better wraparound services. This Government is committed to good practice. Good practice does not put ideology or sticking to old ways at the forefront.
This puts the people who need social housing the most at the centre of what we are proposing. This is good legislation. It will make social housing in New Zealand more flexible and more responsible so that it will better serve the needs of those people in New Zealand who need it.
MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koutou katoa, Mr Assistant Speaker and the House. I stand to take the third reading speech for the Green Party today for this legislation arising from the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill, which is most definitely legislation to privatise State housing. It is legislation that is shamefully exploiting the current housing crisis to do so, under a guise and under an excuse of the provision of social housing. This legislation is an absolute travesty of good governance, and I am proud, as the spokesperson for social housing in the Green Party, to strongly oppose this legislation. We have already seen—as many members have pointed out—exactly how this Government treats our lower-income people, and we have already seen how this Government favours the upper 1 percent. We do know, and we do have good cause to understand, that this legislation will again favour public and private companies and private developers.
I want to raise one of the things that one of the previous Government members talked about, which was partnership. Partnership with whom? This legislation will strengthen partnership with offshore corporations and with private corporations. Where is the partnership with communities? Where is the real partnership with the people of New Zealand? For example, in Glen Innes, the lower-income people have been displaced from their communities, under this Government, to free up land—nice land, next to water—that now has houses costing upwards of $600,000, with most being much more expensive. That is what has happened to Glen Innes, and those people absolutely do not feel that this Government has worked in partnership with them at all. I also want to acknowledge many of the elderly and sick from the Glen Innes community, who have been at the forefront—who have been at the forefront—of their community’s campaign to have a voice, and their community’s voice says they have not been part of any partnership process under this Government. So why do we need any other reason to understand that this legislation is absolutely a flog-off of State housing in favour of private ownership and in favour of the upper 1 percent? This is not at all a solution to the current housing crisis, and because the Green Party proudly upholds our core values, including social responsibility and appropriate decision-making, it makes me even more proud to say that we strongly oppose this legislation, which goes directly against those founding kaupapa of the Green Party.
I do want to turn, also, as the spokesperson for Māori affairs, to concentrate in terms of the impact on Māori. Māori have never collectively benefited from privatisation of State assets. We operate—traditionally and proudly, and to this day—as a collective, and Māori have never collectively benefited from privatisation of public and State assets.
Carmel Sepuloni: Kia ora.
MARAMA DAVIDSON: Yes, I will say it again. So I too ask why the Māori Party is supporting this unprecedented transfer of public ownership assets into private ownership. I would have liked to see those members take a call. I do understand that some of their excuses for supporting this legislation include the very tiny possibility that some State housing land and assets may be taken by iwi. That is the tiniest possibility. That is not enough of a justification to support this legislation in terms of the trade-off of giving so much unprecedented power to Ministers for privatisation.
In my role as Māori affairs spokesperson, I will say that that is not enough—not enough by far—justification for the Māori Party to support this legislation, because we know that privatisation has never collectively benefited Māori. We also know that the houses are in such a terrible state that iwi might not want them, but they are not getting them returned to them for free. They will have to buy them, and they do not have first right of refusal to buy them under this legislation. Also, they will be up against competing, offshore, larger megacorporations that have resources beyond what we can imagine. So I highlight that there is such minimal justification for anybody who thinks they are supporting Māori aspirations to be supporting this legislation. The trade-off is far too huge for Māori people collectively, and collectively Māori have always traditionally been held strong because of the way we operate together. So I want to be very clear and I ask whether that is what the Māori think this legislation will enable iwi to do. Have those members actually read this legislation?
I did want to come here and make those very clear statements on behalf of the Green Party. We absolutely oppose this unprecedented, extraordinary transfer of power to two Ministers to be able to do what they wish with our public legacy, with our public State homes. That absolutely—as I mentioned yesterday—does open this Government up to allegations of corruption. So not only are we flogging off a legacy—a proud, generations’ worth, foundation legacy—of ensuring that families have a good, safe home to live in but we are also flogging off a legacy of good governance. We are also flogging off a legacy of New Zealand doing the right thing for our people. So, absolutely, we are opposed to this legislation. Then I did want to highlight again and be very clear, as the spokesperson for Māori affairs in the Green Party, that I say that this legislation absolutely does not support collective Māori aspirations. So I ask the Māori Party why it is supporting this legislation. Thank you.
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): If there was ever legislation that truly defined the character of this Government, it would be this legislation. Despite the protestations from the members on the other side, it is National Party ideology to the core. It is that Government’s intention to privatise everything it can get its hands on, and now State houses and land held for those purposes are up for sale as soon as possible to anyone it can find who will buy it.
If there was ever legislation that evidenced the failure of this National Government’s housing policy and programme, it is this legislation. It demonstrates a failure to regulate the housing market and to moderate the housing market, producing a deep and now intractable housing crisis—especially in Auckland—and that, of course, places massive pressure on social housing facilities. Yet the Government’s priority, strangely, is to sell off State houses, instead of investing in more State houses and upgrading them.
This Government says it wants to involve the private sector, who is anyone who will cooperate to do the Government’s job for it, and it will transfer housing assets to them, but all the legislation is actually doing, in fact, is changing the name of the owner of those assets. That is all it does. It does not actually increase the housing stock. It does not actually improve the quality of that housing stock. It makes no contribution whatsoever to stopping or reversing the housing crisis that we have here in New Zealand today.
The legislation empowers the Minister to direct the sale and transfer of Housing New Zealand Corporation homes for stated housing objectives, but the real objective—the real objective—is just privatisation, which is business as usual for the National Government. The means for that is a direct executive power for the Minister—in fact, far too much direct executive power—sidelining and usurping the role of Housing New Zealand and creating far too much scope for what could amount to corruption, with no checks and balances and no accountability. This Parliament needs to be vigilant about just that kind of legislation because, clearly, this Government will not be. There are at least 2,000 houses to be fast-track sold by this method—potentially billions of dollars—so we do need to be careful about where the money goes, who gets those proceeds, and what they are going to be used for.
The Housing Amendment Bill says that the proceeds “must be paid to a Crown bank account”—a Crown bank account—and that is actually all it says about that, and I have heard nothing from the other side about this, either. There is no information about what the Government’s mandate for that money will be, and no information about what it is going to do with that money or how it could be used. Nick Smith made an attempt in his speech yesterday to explain it. He said that Housing New Zealand has a house-building programme for which the money could be used. But that is not what this legislation says. We actually have no idea from the legislation or from what members opposite have said about what this money is going to be used for at all.
We do know that if Housing New Zealand was the recipient—and if it was, by the way, to be the recipient, why is that not in the legislation specifically? But if that was to be the case, then how do we know that it will still be used for new social housing, or any social housing purpose whatsoever? Even if Housing New Zealand did get the money—and we are talking potentially about billions of dollars here—will that money, or even part of it, actually go back to the Government as a dividend from Housing New Zealand, or even as a special dividend of a very large amount? How do we know that would not take place? There is nothing in this legislation about that. Members opposite have said nothing about that. So what we could find is that these properties will be sold off and the money just goes back into the Government’s funds to be used for other purposes, or just to create an artificial surplus in this year’s Budget. I would not put it past the Government, in fact, to do exactly that. If that happened it would be a disgrace, because Housing New Zealand and the Government should be spending all of that money and more—a lot more—on the provision of new and better State-owned social housing in New Zealand. The sector is crying out for just that investment.
So the Government should be spending much more—much more than even the sale proceeds from these properties—on housing in New Zealand, and yet some members opposite have pretended that they are doing a great job. Well, I am sorry; they are not doing any job at all, nor can they expect the private sector to do so, because it simply does not have the resources or the capacity to do it in this country, when you look at the size of the crisis that we have now. We can be sure that this Government’s real intention is simply to sell as many State assets, including State houses, as possible. The result will be to deepen the housing crisis, because no new State houses will be built as a result of this legislation.
Lastly, I want to refer to the parts of the legislation that refer to the objectives, because that is the crux of this legislation—those objectives. It simply says, in new section 50E(1) in Part 5A, inserted by the Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2): “The Minister may enter into a contract, … if the Minister considers that the entry into the contract is for the purpose of any 1 or more of the social housing reform objectives:”. And then in the following subsection: “(2) A transfer contract may be on any terms and conditions (including as to consideration) that the Minister may agree with the transferee.”
These are very, very wide powers. The Minister can sell to anybody, on any terms, and, in reality, for any reason whatsoever. All the Minister has to do is relate it to the specified social housing reform objectives. They are pretty wishy-washy. They are pretty general. They refer to, for example, social housing being of the right size and configuration, social housing tenants being helped to independence, and the fact that there is more diverse ownership or provision of social housing. How could any of those objectives justify the sell-off of State houses or land held for those purposes? Another objective says that there is to be more innovation and more responsiveness to housing tenants and communities. Another one refers to the supply of affordable housing. It does not even say “social housing”, just “affordable housing”, and yet this legislation is supposed to be about social housing.
What we will see is properties like the Redcliffs School, which the Government wants to sell, being gazetted as State housing land and then being gazetted under this legislation as being for sale—referred to, in terms of the objectives, as affordable housing—and then sold off to anyone, as the Government thinks fit because nobody really knows what affordable housing is.
I say this, finally. This is just privatisation. You can see it from the objectives. You can see it from the Government’s record. And it is wrong. This Government should be investing more, not selling.
Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): I am taking a short call to support the legislation arising out of the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill at its third reading. Just like the previous contributor, what I have seen is that the members from the Opposition are accusing this Government of selling State houses. What they have done is they have just picked one component of this legislation, the component that suits their politics.
But New Zealanders can see through that. New Zealanders have already worked that out. They are not going to be drawn into their argument about State house ownership. This is going to backfire on them—it is definitely going to backfire on them. This legislation is about housing people in a timely manner.
I have come across many cases where people are really desperate to get into social housing. Actually, very quickly I would like to describe a case. This couple—a wife and husband team—are both in advancing years. The husband is suffering from Huntington’s disease. The disease has advanced to the stage where the symptoms are quite visible. He is not able to look after himself properly; his communication is already affected. There is a wide spectrum of signs and symptoms already visible. The wife works full-time. They are renting a house. The wife knows that she will not be able to continue in her job because she will be required at home to look after her husband full-time. This wife and husband team desperately need to get into a social house. They do not care whether their social house is owned by Housing New Zealand or by a community housing provider. All they need is a proper house, a proper social house.
There are people with ongoing needs, and we should be able to support them. By providing a proper house in a timely manner we are providing them with the opportunity to live with dignity. We all agree that we need more social housing. We need quality houses. We need houses of the right configuration, and we need houses in the right places. That is why this legislation is important. I support this legislation, and commend it to the House. Thank you.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Metiria Turei—5 minutes.
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): The suburbs of this country were built by the State at a time when housing in New Zealand was at an all-time low—this was in the 1930s—and when people were living in slums. The Government of the time—the first Labour Government, if I remember rightly—committed to ensuring that all New Zealanders, every New Zealand family, would have access to a decent home because having a decent home is critical to a family being able to stay well and be well, to them having stable work, and to having a well-functioning, orderly society where we know that everybody is doing well. That is what housing provides—that security and stability for everyone.
Over the last 10 years in particular, we have seen a radical revision and erosion of that principle—an erosion of the principle that housing is a right and that the Government has an explicit and very important role in helping to provide stable, secure housing for New Zealanders. What we have seen is that the Government has allowed the private market to take control and, as a result of the private market having total control over housing provision, we have seen not only increasing amounts of homelessness but also a massive increase in the cost of housing. This is to the point where there are thousands of older people who have children who are in their early 20s—a bit like my situation, actually. I will put myself in this category. I do have a child in her early 20s who is looking to have a family and to settle down, who has absolutely no opportunity—her or her partner—to buy a decent home in which they can start their life. No opportunity at all, because they have been locked out of housing.
These are the families. They are perfectly ordinary families, like yours and mine. They are not just those at the very bottom but perfectly ordinary, middle-class families who are locked out of housing because this Government has not ensured that the housing supply has continued at a rate that means that everybody has the same opportunity for security and stability in housing that we and our parents had. Do not forget that our parents built the security of their lives—often through Māori Affairs home loans; through the cheap borrowing that was possible—through the State housing system, which was designed to provide for the middle and working class, just as it was for those at the very bottom.
We have lost the value of housing as a human right, as critical infrastructure, and as the right of our children to a secure life. This legislation erodes that even more by making two Ministers of the Crown the private landlords, effectively, for 60,000 tenants in this country. There are 60,000 families now renting, essentially, from two Ministers. This legislation allows the Ministers to sell those homes, those State houses built by our parents and grandparents for our children, to anyone they choose—anyone at all. There is no obligation that those State houses stay for State housing purposes, for the people who need it most—no obligation. These Ministers can sell to any corporate entity anywhere in the world—to any major international corporation—which may not have any involvement in New Zealand, may not understand the New Zealand community, and has no commitment to making sure that housing remains for the security of our families for the time to come. This is what this legislation does. It is the absolute end of the process of the erosion of housing for New Zealanders.
We hear a lot of rhetoric, so let us be really clear here: middle-class working New Zealanders have been locked out of the housing market by this Government. Those at the very bottom end, who need help the most, have no security in their homes now, and we will see the privatisation—the selling off—of one of the major assets that our grandparents and parents built for us and for our children. This legislation should not proceed. Thank you.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Marama Fox—5 minutes.
MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Nei taku hōhā te whakarongo nei ki ngā tangata e whakaparahako i te ingoa o Te Pāti Māori i runga i tō rātou whakahē i tō mātou tautoko i te Kāwanatanga nei. He aha te take e pēnei ai? Nei taku kōrero atu ki a koutou.
[Greetings, Mr Assistant Speaker. Here is my exasperation after listening to people vilifying the name of the Māori Party because they oppose our support for this Government. Why are they like this? Here is what I have got to say to you.]
I come with some frustration at those who want to deride the name of the Māori Party because we dare to have an independent voice that allows us (1) to vote against the Government but also (2) to vote with it, when we feel that we must. And this is the reason why everyone is asking “Why is the Māori Party voting with the Government over this?”—I am here to tell you. This is not a vote for the wholesale sell-off of the State housing stock; for us this is a vote of rangatiratanga because we have been asked by iwi around this country to support this legislation to ensure that they can get into the social housing market. And why? Because Housing New Zealand has done an appalling job of looking after our people and they believe that they can do it better. Actually, we believe they can as well. This is about ensuring that they have the right to treat their tenants in the way that they feel is respectable and where they can be nurtured in a state of manaakitanga.
People say: “Well, who are you talking about, Marama?”. Well, here is what I am talking about: Kahungunu Executive Ki Te Wairoa Charitable Trust, Mangatawa Papamoa Blocks Inc., Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Porou Trustee Ltd, Ngā Pōtiki-a-Tamapahore Trust, Ngā Rau Tatangi, Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga Trust, Whai Maia Charitable Trust, and Waiohiki Community Charitable Trust. These Māori organisations have come to us and asked us to support this legislation so that they can better cater for their people.
I will give you an example of why that is so. I have been called up and down this country by tenants of Housing New Zealand to intervene on their behalf when they have been treated less than respectfully. I have been called into other people’s electorates because they cannot get an MP on the end of the phone who will respond to them. So when I travel to Auckland to speak with the family of Tame Nēpia, who is a paraplegic who has been evicted from his home and has been given no alternative place to go to, I go to advocate on his behalf. I get him into a new house, and it does not have a secondary ramp on the fire exit for him. So we ask: “Can that be fixed, please?”, and the answer is “No. Actually, we’ll give you a fire extinguisher and fire blanket.”, and that needs to be OK for this man in his wheelchair. That is not OK, and that is absolutely the reason that we support the devolution of 10 percent of State houses.
So let us get this clear: this is not a wholesale sell-off of all State housing. We have agreed, actually, before we start jumping up and down over here, to sell only a small percentage of these houses so that we can have options for our people, because we do not want our people to be stuck under the thumb of the Government for the rest of their lives. If they can have a provider that understands their complex needs, that might put a Whānau Ora navigator alongside them to assist them out of that situation into homeownership, then that is exactly what we want. That is what the Māori Party has done.
So let me tell you the things that we have advocated for. We have advocated for the warrant of fitness trial on housing. Five percent of the housing stock—which, extrapolated out across the whole of the Housing New Zealand stock, is about 60,000-odd homes—failed miserably the trial Housing Warrant of Fitness test. It is going to cost about $34 million for this Government to ensure that those urgent repairs are carried out on those homes. I have had calls from people who tell me that their home is infested with rats. They cannot get Housing New Zealand to come and respond to them. I get calls from people who tell me that Housing New Zealand has just painted straight over the black mould, and that their child has been hospitalised.
I have no problem at all—no problem at all—in supporting this legislation, which provides other people such as these iwi organisations the opportunity to show that, actually, we can do it better than that.
STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): We heard one of the previous speakers saying that this legislation defines what the National Party and the National Government stand for, and I totally agree. It does. It is right in the name of the original bill—“Reform”. It is about social housing reform, and the speaker whom I have just followed, Marama Fox, also said it is about choice. I totally agree that it is about choice. But it is making change.
When you reform you make change, and there are some people, particularly the more conservative, who do not like change. It is difficult for them to accept. I understand that, and although I have empathy with that view, we cannot stay where we are, doing the same old things all the time, or we will get the same results.
We have heard lots of speakers say today that Housing New Zealand houses are not up to scratch. Well, that is right—in some cases, they are not. That is what this is about: dealing with it. This is about getting out there and getting other choices, and what will come with other choices will be innovation. What this legislation is about is putting what is important at the centre, and what is that? The people who need social housing. It is not about the people who own the houses; it is about the people who need the houses. On that note, it is with great pleasure that I commend this legislation to the House. Thank you.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Meka Whaitiri—5 minutes.
MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. I rise to go on record and say this is a sad day for this country when we are passing this legislation. This National Government has failed the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. It has failed to build affordable homes. It has failed to keep social housing supply up with social housing demand, but instead it has brought this legislation to the House, which, effectively, gives two Ministers the authorisation to sell off $20 billion of our State housing estate.
This is a classic unnecessary piece of legislation. It is poorly written and it undermines the role of every public servant who works in the Housing New Zealand Corporation. Last night we debated this legislation for some 5 hours. It was an opportunity to go part by part, clause by clause. I am thankful that the co-leader of the Māori Party, Marama Fox, came up and took a call, but when the detail hits the road, that is the time when I would have wanted to hear from the Māori Party—to hear why it is backing what is a thin veil of privatisation of social housing.
Let us call it what it is: it is a sell-off. It is a sell-off of our heritage that my parents and my grandparents have fought for and worked for and contributed to. On that side of the House they are saying: “Look, you Opposition people, we are building ’em. We’re going to build them.” Well, why have you not built them? Why have you not built them already? You have been in power for 8 years.
I want to make it really clear that Labour is going to work with iwi, hapū, and whānau that want to be in the social housing game. We are. I also know that when that member mentions some housing, providing social housing is a very complex undertaking, and I want to make really clear that any iwi, whānau, and hapū are well supported in providing the services that they believe that they want to get involved in. The State has a role in supporting them.
In my electorate I have several of the groups that she mentioned, and I know every single one of them. I also know the downside of providing social housing for some of my iwi in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, and it is the fact that many of their tenants do not pay the rent. So they are in tension around whether they kick them out because they are actually whānau. This just goes to the heart of the complexity of managing social housing, but Labour is committed to doing that with iwi. But for us to hear in this House that the Māori Party is supporting the absolute sell-off of our $20 billion social housing estate, that is a crime—that is a crime.
Jono Naylor: That’s not what she said.
MEKA WHAITIRI: No, and I am saying it. I am standing up and I am voicing it on behalf of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, which has a social housing shortage. I have over 140 people in Hastings waiting. I have 150 in Gisborne waiting. These people are real and I deal with them on a daily basis.
I want to express that I am rather excited and heated about this, but I deal with social housing needs almost 90 percent of the time, throughout my electorate. There are not the houses there—there are not the houses there. I implore the Government that the solution it brings to this House is not going to build social housing. We are privatising this—we are privatising it. If the Salvation Army says no go, if Presbyterian Support New Zealand says it is no go, and if some iwi are saying no go, then that to me says we are going to get the private sector to deliver social housing.
That is why I stand. I stand to be counted. This is a sad day in the history of this House. The very estate that many of our forebears have worked and saved for is going to go at the stroke of a pen, and we are left to trust that the private sector is going to deliver social housing. That is why I cannot support this legislation, and that is why this side of the House has got heated, as I can show. This is not legislation we should be backing. Kia ora tātou.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Jenny Salesa—5 minutes.
JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Thank you for this call, Mr Assistant Speaker, on the third reading of the legislation arising from the Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill. The Labour Party strongly opposes this legislation for very good reasons. Labour supports the Kiwi Dream. The Kiwi Dream includes growing up in a country where our children have a roof over their heads, a country where all our children can hope to one day own their own home. It is pretty simple really. Our people do not ask for very much: a job to do, somewhere to live, someone to love, and something to hope for. That is the Kiwi Dream, in the words of Norman Kirk. But under this National Government the Kiwi Dream is slipping away. We have an economy that is stacked in favour of the rich and the privileged few, while everyday New Zealanders are finding it harder and harder just to get by each day.
Under this National Government we have an entire generation who have been locked out of the dream of owning their own homes. Around 1937, mainly as a result of the Depression, the Prime Minister at the time—a Labour Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage—began to build State houses on a large scale for the very first time in the history of New Zealand. Why? Because he cared—because the people of New Zealand at the time needed to be housed. There was a huge need for housing at that time, and the Government of the day stepped in. It stepped in because it cared enough. If this Government cared enough it could do something about this. If this Government had the political will to address one of the biggest issues of today—housing—it could step in and do something to solve this problem.
Fast forward 80 years to today—2016—and you see that the No. 1 issue of today is still housing. The No. 1 issue that I see is housing. Families who do not have a house are coming to my office in Ōtara, South Auckland, asking for my help with housing. My colleague Meka Whaitiri has just spoken about that fact that 90 percent of the people who come to her office do so because of housing.
Last Friday I spoke with a Māori family with nine children. They are just about to be evicted. They are just about to be made homeless. They came seeking my help. Last Friday, on the same day, I saw another Māori family: a mum with four kids. They have been homeless for 2 years. They have been on the waiting list—on that waiting list, off the waiting list, on the waiting list again, and off the waiting list—and this time they have been on that waiting list for 3 months. Still they are homeless, moving from garage to garage. We have also been helping a baby who is less than 12 months old. This baby has spent half of her life—6 months—in hospital, mainly in the neonatal intensive care unit.
So you see, we collectively as a society still pay. When people are homeless we pay, one way or another. Whether it is the hospital bill of this baby who has been 6 months in a hospital, whether it is for educational facilities when families move from school to school, or whether it is for justice, we still pay. Why do we not just do the decent thing, which is to provide housing?
I hear my colleagues on the other side of the House saying: “Yes, we need more houses.” I heard the Minister Nick Smith yesterday saying that, yes, we need more houses and, yes, we need more quality houses. Well, will this legislation actually end up giving us more State houses? No, of course not. Will it actually give us more good quality houses for the State? No, of course not. Housing will end up in the private sector. What this legislation does is it allows the Minister of Finance, Bill English, and the Minister for Social Housing, Paula Bennett, to have unfettered powers. It enables them to bypass the normal way—bypass the Public Service. This legislation allows them the personal power to conduct any negotiations, strike any deal, sell the State houses to whomever they wish.
I leave the House on this note. The departmental disclosure statement—
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry. The member’s time has expired.
JOANNE HAYES (National): I stand to be the last speaker on this absolutely wonderful legislation. I just want to say—what Marama Fox talked about was opportunities for Māori. I also heard that in Christchurch East. I was asked to go and visit the rūnunga there, Te Rūnanga o ngā Mātā Waka. They saw opportunities for their whanau to be able to participate in social housing in the Christchurch East electorate.
This is great legislation. I have been sitting here listening to some of the twaddle from the Opposition benches and, to be honest, I am really quite surprised about the whole kōrero that comes across from those benches. It has nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with the great work that we have been doing in reforming social housing in this country, because it needed to be done. It needed to be done. Housing New Zealand Corporation, with all the work it was not doing, was something that needed to be addressed, and so we have come in and we are addressing that system. The people within the families who will be accessing social housing in the various cities are getting better homes—homes that are designed so that they can actually have two bedrooms, three bedrooms, or whatever is necessary for their families and the growth of their families.
Of course we are going to need more houses. This is a country where the population is growing. Have we not stood here in this Chamber many times and heard about how many people are actually coming into New Zealand? With the new people who are coming in from Syria—the people whom we are taking in—they are going to need housing as well. Of course we are going to need housing. It is going to be one of those things that is going to be ongoing for this country, and this National-led Government is addressing every area that it can in the Budget, within the constraints of our economic growth.
This is great legislation—this is great legislation. It is led by a great Minister, Minister Paula Bennett, and also Minister Nick Smith as well, who is in there behind it. I am proud to stand here and commend this legislation to the House. Thank you.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Housing Amendment Bill, the Housing Corporation (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2), and the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Social Housing Reform) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.
Ayes 63
New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.
Noes 56
New Zealand Labour 30; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.
Bills read a third time.
Bills
Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Debate resumed from 17 February.
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I think this debate will be something of a change of pace after that heartfelt and intensely debated third reading of the legislation around social housing, or what we would call the “State House Sell-off Bill”. This is a whole different kettle of fish, the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill, and I am glad to have the chance to make a few comments on it this afternoon. I want to add to remarks that colleagues have already made about this bill and acknowledge and pay tribute to the work of both the Hon Dr Nick Smith, the Minister for Building and Housing, and the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee, because this bill is a bill that the House can together, I think, take some satisfaction in passing.
The legislative story of this bill goes back to the former Minister for Building and Construction, the Hon Maurice Williamson, who brought a bill to this House to upgrade and reform the whole system for the assessment and strengthening of earthquake-prone buildings. It became pretty clear soon after the bill was publicly aired that there was a lot of concern around the country that it was going to have some pretty drastic effects on many businesses, particularly those in older buildings, that it would have a very negative impact on some small towns that have big heritage sectors—I am thinking particular of Wanganui, which is a good example, or Ōāmaru, another one—that saw the impracticability of meeting the new standards. There were genuine fears, I think, that the bill, as it stood then, could have resulted in large swaths of New Zealand’s built heritage going under the hammer, and no one wanted to see that happen.
On the other hand, Canterbury and, to a large extent, really, the whole country is still really feeling the kind of psychic aftershocks of the Canterbury earthquakes and are determined—and I think every member of this House is determined—that we have to do everything that we possibly can to minimise the future risk to life and limb and property caused by quakes in these Shaky Isles. Mayor Lianne Dalziel was interviewed on National Radio very shortly after the Valentine’s Day quakes took place and made the comment that it appeared that the damage to property and risk to life and limb were pretty limited, even though that was a significant shake on Valentine’s Day, because there had been so much change and repair and strengthening. So that, I think, was a good metaphor, if you like, for efforts that have been made to put the country on a much sounder footing after the quakes.
The problem with the original bill here was that it was, essentially, a one-size-fits-all approach. There was public clamour, and then, I think, Nick Smith took over from Maurice Williamson as the Minister responsible for this bill, pledging to really go back to the drawing board—
Dr Megan Woods: He did.
PHIL TWYFORD: —and that is what happened. The select committee really deserves credit. The difference between the original bill and the bill that has been reported back by the select committee is substantial. It is substantial. A lot of thought has gone into it, and we have seen a risk-based system, which breaks the country down into different areas and then applies a new formula for determining the time frames for earthquake-strengthening work to be done.
The 15,000 to 25,000 earthquake-prone buildings nationwide will still all have to be upgraded, but the country is split into zones according to the assessed risk of a big quake, and then the time frames for assessment and strengthening are varied accordingly. What that means is that affected buildings in areas of relatively low risk—Auckland, Northland, and Dunedin, for example—will now need to be identified and assessed within 15 years, and strengthened within a further 35 years. That is a 50-year time frame. Heritage buildings, which were one of the big concerns—the original bill could have seen the loss of many heritage buildings—can get a further 10-year extension. That means that we are looking at the possibility that a heritage building in those low-risk areas could get a 60-year time frame. In medium-risk areas like Hamilton and Tauranga, the time frame will be 10 years for assessment, and 25 years for the strengthening to actually take place. High-risk zones like Wellington and Christchurch will keep the existing time frame for strengthening of 20 years.
I think the other thing that deserves special mention is this new category of priority buildings. I want to, as my colleague Megan Woods did, pay tribute to Ann Brower, who was the survivor of the unreinforced masonry and parapets and facades that fell on to the red bus and led to the deaths of 35—sorry, not of 35 people on the bus; of a number of other passengers on the bus she was the only survivor, but 35 people died from falling masonry, facades, and parapets on the day of the big quake in February. Ann Brower appeared before the select committee. She really made the case, in a very, very effective way. As a result of that, this new category of priority buildings has been incorporated into the bill, which covers all the buildings with unreinforced masonry, parapets, verandahs, and so on that could fall on to the footpath, streets, or public spaces and be such a grave threat. I think that those are the main comments that I want to make.
The other thing that I think is worth mentioning—and the Minister commented on this in his opening remarks—is that educational facilities that are regularly occupied by 20 people, such as hospitals and emergency services, also get special treatment here, and are required to be fixed up within the shorter time frame. Thank you.
TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise to speak to the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill, and echo the sentiment of Mr Twyford. I think this is going to be quite a different debate, but I do want to acknowledge his comment around the passions that everyone brought their own perspectives to in the previous debate. Perhaps just in starting—I was reflecting, as Mr Twyford spoke, that everyone in this House will recall where they were on the day of the February earthquake those years ago. Apart from the horror of what we saw, I think deep down we knew that this was going to be something that would stay with us for the rest of our lives, but it would also be an event that would ripple out to impact the whole country over a raft of different areas. As often is the case when you have tragedies of this moment, life changes for ever, in a sometimes not subtle way.
The regulatory response—the policy response—to earthquake-prone buildings reflected, I think, the public mood. Initially, there was an understanding—Mr Twyford used the word “clamour”, and I think that is fair—and an expectation by the public that this would never happen again, and that we would do everything we could to minimise the risk to people should an earthquake of that severity strike. Of course, invariably, that took the form of an initial bill that was very comprehensive—arguably, a one-size-fits-all. As the Local Government and Environment Committee began to reflect on the submissions from New Zealanders, I think we saw that it was indeed not an appropriate and commensurate response to that age-old question of how you balance safety to people with the sheer cost of compliance to do that, and what the impact would be to individual families and businesses and communities around the country.
I think I would echo the sentiment that has been expressed thus far. I think with this bill, through the very good work of chairman Scott Simpson—but everybody across the committee, from all sides, has contributed to a bill that is thoughtful, that is considered, and that I think lands at the right balance between protecting life and limb and enabling economies and individual families to be able to fund the changing requirements that this bill sets. As I said, this is all about balance.
I would like now to perhaps give a couple of examples of where I think the balance has been landed in the right place. Firstly, we included a new section 133AA into clause 23, which looked to exclude certain buildings from the framework of earthquake improvement: certain residential housing, farm buildings, retaining walls that are not integral to the structure, fences, monuments, bridges, wharves, and the like. Those are some examples of where we reflected on the various submissions and decided to pull those out of the obligation. But to counter that, an example of where we tightened it, in new section 133AA(2), we clarified that hostels, boarding houses, and residences of two or more storeys of specialised accommodation should be included, because of the nature of the businesses that are provided in those structures and the increased potential risk to people.
As has already been discussed by previous speakers, informed by good data we were enabled to develop a risk-based approach that split the country into three, from a high-hazard factor, to a medium sized risk factor, and a lower sized risk factor. For those listening in Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty—or at least the western Bay of Plenty where I come from—our area has been landed at the medium sized seismic risk, and, of course, as you would expect, Wellington, Christchurch, Gisborne, and Napier are higher. We now have time frames to mediate, from 15 through to 35 years, depending on the particular time frame.
We have, of course, the priority buildings across the country identified, and if you are responsible for a priority building—a hospital, or if you provide emergency services, or educational facilities are a great example—and you are in those medium or high seismic risks, your time frame to be able to get this all remediated is halved, as it should be. I think if you are a priority building, as listed, it is important that the investment goes in sooner rather than later, to ensure that your risk profile is reduced. So in conclusion, this is a good bill, and I think it reflects the best of our angels, when we can collectively as a House and as a select committee circle round something important, and deliver an outcome that is good for New Zealand. Thank you.
EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. He mihi nui ki a koutou. I am very pleased to take a call on the Building (Earthquake-prone Earthquake Buildings) Amendment Bill for the Green Party, and I would certainly like to acknowledge the 185 individuals who died 5 years ago on Monday. I think we were certainly very conscious of them in all of the work that we have done on this bill. It is certainly a bill, as Todd Muller said, that is a good bill. It improves the system for managing earthquake-prone buildings, it defines them, and it establishes national time frames and procedures for strengthening them. We in the Green Party originally opposed the bill as introduced, and that was primarily because of the provisions in it around unreinforced masonry buildings and the exemptions in relation to access provisions for people with a disability, when building owners were strengthening their buildings. There have been some quite major changes in both those areas, so we are very pleased, now, to be able to support the bill.
As an MP, I am certainly very grateful to the members of the royal commission on the Canterbury earthquakes. The commission did a very in-depth review and a very substantive report, which provided the basis for this legislation. I particularly acknowledge everybody who appeared before the commission, particularly the families, friends, and workmates of people who died or who were injured in the quakes. The commission, in its report, identified some quite significant problems in the Building Act, both in the way it was drafted and in the way it was being implemented. It highlighted that there were some gaps in information, quite big inconsistencies and variability in local practice with the way the Act was applied, and that there was very poor understanding of risk across the country. It was the commission that provided options for reform, and some quite detailed recommendations for change.
This bill was introduced to Parliament in December 2013, and it has been before Parliament for over 2 years. That has enabled a very thorough, comprehensive, and consultative process by a select committee, and I think it is a process—because it enabled two opportunities for public submissions, both on the bill as introduced and then on the interim report of the select committee, and the recommendations that officials were bringing back to change the bill—that has resulted in these significant changes. I think it is a process, with these two opportunities for submissions and the consultative approach that the Ministers took—both the Hon Maurice Williamson and the Hon Nick Smith—that other legislation in this Parliament would benefit from.
The committee heard some 121 submissions. We were able to hold hearings in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, and then issue that interim report. I particularly acknowledge the number of submitters who put a huge amount of work into very detailed, constructive, and informed submissions—they had a major impact in changing this bill. They were from earthquake survivors, local authorities, property owners, engineers, scientists, and GNS. The Green Party would particularly like to acknowledge the role of the science community and earthquake engineers. I think it would benefit legislation if we heard more from Crown research institutes like GNS when we were developing legislation. In the Green Party we were very pleased that the Government rejected the approach that the employers and manufacturers association and the Wellington Employers’ Chamber of Commerce were recommending. They were saying that the market was already pricing the risk posed by earthquakes, so there was not any need to regulate. We certainly believe there is a need to regulate.
We would also like to acknowledge—as others have done—Dr Ann Brower, because it was her advocacy on unreinforced masonry buildings and, in particular, parapets, facades, verandahs, and the like that was quite compelling in influencing the select committee at that interim report stage to then go on and change the provisions in the original bill. In the bill as introduced there was a failure to give sufficient priority to reducing the risk of loss of life and of serious injury from these features of unreinforced masonry buildings like parapets and verandahs.
That was really disappointing to the Green Party, and we had to work quite hard with others in the select committee to get that changed, because the royal commission had already noted in its report: “the majority of deaths due to the collapse of [unreinforced masonry buildings] in the February earthquake occurred in public places outside the buildings that failed, due to the out-of-plane collapse of facades, gable ends and parapets.” So it was disappointing that officials did not recognise that in the bill as introduced. It was Dr Brower and others such as GNS who argued, of course, that it was much cheaper and more cost-effective if building owners focused on repairing these features, like verandahs and parapets, as a priority, given that that would be cheaper than repairing and strengthening the building as a whole.
We are very pleased that that has been changed, but there is still a shortfall here. This is that the provisions in new sections 133AC and 133AD, inserted by clause 23 of the bill, require councils to use the special consultative procedures of the Local Government Act to consult their communities on which thoroughfares—whether they be roads or footpaths—and which unreinforced masonry buildings should be priority buildings for the purposes of having the faster time frame for strengthening them. In our view, and also in view of the royal commission, it is an engineering and a technical exercise as to whether unreinforced masonry features should be strengthened. It should not require councils to consult with their communities using those quite detailed procedures under the Local Government Act. It should be an engineering and a structural assessment rather than a consultative process.
It is interesting that these unreinforced masonry buildings are a special category of priority buildings, because for the rest of the priority buildings the councils just get on and do this assessment; they do not require consultation, and we think the unreinforced masonry buildings and their features should be in that same category. I guess one of the other issues, in terms of the consultative requirements, is that it imposes more cost on councils. That is ironic given that the Minister who is in charge of this bill, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, has also been very critical of councils for their cost regimes. So we think that these unreinforced masonry buildings and their features should have a similar status to the other priority buildings that the bill sets out.
The other issue that we are very pleased has been amended is in relation to the provisions requiring the provision of facilities for people with a disability when buildings are strengthened—but my colleague Mojo Mathers will discuss that issue in more detail. The only other remaining issue that we have some concern around is the methodology that is going to be used to identify earthquake-prone buildings and how that has been left to subsequent regulations. That methodology, I think, is of interest to councils around the country. There has been quite a lot of discussion about it. Councils such as Hamilton have already done quite a lot of work and developed a methodology to identify these buildings, and it would be good if officials had been able to produce the regulations before the actual bill is passed.
But I think, in conclusion, that the way the select committee dealt with the bill—and I congratulate the chair, Scott Simpson, on his chairing in a consultative and cross-party way—did significantly improve the legislation. We are very pleased to be part of a Parliament that has worked hard to significantly change and improve the bill and, I hope, provided a policy basis for work to strengthen buildings so that we are not again in the position that people were in in Christchurch. Thank you.
RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I think I have said it before and I will probably end up saying it for the rest of the time I am here in Parliament, for this term anyway, that it is difficult coming in at No. 7 to speak on a piece of legislation that you are supporting, where pretty much all of the speakers before you have capped and hit all the main issues that we have dealt with. But I think I will not absorb all of the House’s time, I simply wish to say on behalf of New Zealand First that we have appreciated the way in which the Local Government and Environment Committee was able to function through the submissions process on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill.
We recognise that this piece of legislation, unfortunately, has come to the House on the back of the Christchurch earthquakes. Those are something that those of us who lived outside of Christchurch may well be forgiven for not comprehending how seriously these issues impacted on the people of Christchurch, but that we do know did result in some deaths that, arguably, in hindsight—with the benefit of hindsight—might well have been avoided, had we had some different regulations in place at the time, and something that more resembled the piece of legislation that we are passing now.
We recognise that the bill was introduced in 2013, that what is now before the House is substantially different from that piece of legislation that was proposed, and we are very thankful for that—thankful to all of those people, those organisations and entities that took time to submit and to make known their views to the select committee. We are thankful to the select committee members that they looked at this dispassionately, without any political views and perceptions or objectives at all, and that the Government took those recommendations and pretty much has enshrined them into the legislation.
I think, for myself, I come from local government and was in local government at the time this bill was introduced into the House, also as one who had family who lived in Christchurch who were very much caught up in the earthquakes: a son who was first on the scene and, as a police officer, dealt with three fatalities within 10 to 15 minutes; a son-in-law who was a squad leader in an urban search and rescue team—Scott Shadbolt, firefighter, who was subsequently awarded the highest valour award that the Fire Service is able to give anyone. In fact, he is one of only three firefighters ever to receive that award, for his actions in the Christchurch earthquake, and, in fact, is the first recipient for 103 years. With a brother-in-law who is also a team leader in urban search and rescue, I guess I am privileged to get a very good first-hand understanding of what occurred that day and the subsequent days, and the reasons behind some of those fatalities. So it is, in a funny sort of way, satisfying to be able to stand here in the House and see a piece of legislation go through the House that redresses those issues.
I have got to say, I have got to hand it to the urban search and rescue teams. Those teams are made up of a large number of professional engineers, tradespeople who are also firefighters, and those who are not necessarily firefighters but who are members of urban search and rescue because it is their desire to serve our people in times of need such as this, and they bring their professional skills to bear. Many of those people were able to see first-hand the impact of unreinforced masonry, of high facades that had no support, and the consequences of them being shaken loose from those parapets and left to fall. Those firefighters and police officers will live with those memories for the rest of their lives, so I hope it will be satisfying to them to know that the House has seriously considered the consequences and has done its very best to move legislation that prevents these things ever happening again.
I also want to compliment those who submitted and made it very clear to the select committee that the first priority had to be dealing with that issue. The select committee listened and, thankfully, so did the Minister and the Government. There were also submissions that came through from the rural community that resonated very well with New Zealand First, particularly with myself, because at the time that this legislation was introduced into the House there was a bit of panic out there. There were all sorts of views developed as to what the costs were going to be, and in rural, provincial New Zealand people were saying: “We simply cannot afford to strengthen these old buildings; we’d be better off driving a bulldozer straight through the centre of them and starting again.”
You had to accept that, but one of the problems was that for many rural, provincial towns, those very buildings that we were talking about were part of the nature and the character of the town. They were historic. They may not have had an historic rating by Heritage New Zealand, but they certainly were historic and of importance to those small rural communities. We had some very good presentations from rural communities and Local Government New Zealand, which pointed out that if you applied zealous building standards in rural, provincial New Zealand, it might well be that a facade could fall, but for golly’s sake! The impact of a facade falling in Pongaroa at 2 o’clock in the morning would be somewhat different to the impact of a façade falling at 2 o’clock in the morning in Courtenay Place—the number of people on the street and the traffic, and the risk of injury in those outlying rural areas. When one also considers that many of the buildings in outlying rural New Zealand—and we had this sort of conversation with the Racing Board, as well, about the racecourses, the buildings and facilities, and the grandstands out in places like Woodville and other rural, provincial towns—the risk posed to those people out there, given the frequency of occupation and the frequency of use, compared with the risk posed to metropolitan New Zealand was quite, quite different, and the committee had to consider that.
I think recognition needs to be given to the Minister, and Cabinet had to consider that as well. It is pleasing that all of those concerns were factored in. It is pleasing, and I think it speaks well of Parliament and of the select committee, that those factors were given recognition and that some rationale and common sense were brought to bear. The cost to some of the property owners in rural, provincial New Zealand when the legislation was first introduced—the costs that they thought they were going to have to bear—were thought to be astronomical. Some of them did go ahead and strengthen to the standards, which subsequently we may look back on and say, well, that was a bit of overkill in the light of this legislation.
But the focus on cost and risk, and a pragmatic view has, at the end of the day, prevailed, and for that I think the select committee can, rightly, be very, very proud. I will just conclude by saying that New Zealand First does support the passage of this legislation. We are very pleased with the way in which it moved through the select committee process and very pleased with the way that it has been represented in the House here today. Thank you.
PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare. I think in the light of the cross-party support—in fact, the universal support—in this House for this piece of legislation, I will not add too much to what has already been said, other than to perhaps add my voice to the congratulations to the Minister for Building and Housing, the Hon Nick Smith, who has arrived at a very practical and sensible and pragmatic solution that successfully balances the need to maintain the safety of the citizens of this wonderful Realm of New Zealand against the costs that can come with earthquake strengthening.
I particularly welcome the assignment of different time frames for strengthening to the different areas, based on risk. We here in the capital—and we need to bear in mind that Wellington is the second-most seismically active capital in the world—have the shortest period of time to reinforce our buildings. That will impose some pressures, particularly on inner-city apartment owners, who have made representations to me. But I am certain that measures such as the prioritisation of buildings that lie on essential routes to the airport, for instance, or to hospitals—prioritising those buildings for strengthening is important. It may well save lives. It may save lives even during the lifespan of members of this House. It is an important measure. It is very sensible. I think also that exclusions for farm buildings, wharves, monuments, and war memorials—those buildings that are not regularly and frequently inhabited—are very sensible. For this reason, and for the others that have been mentioned by members, I commend this bill to the House.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. I am calling Mojo Mathers—5 minutes.
MOJO MATHERS (Green): It is my pleasure to take a call on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill, and I wish to start, as others have done, by acknowledging the immense destructiveness of the Canterbury earthquakes nearly 5 years ago, which caused such a huge loss of life. I also note that last week’s significant aftershock was both an unwanted reminder of the trauma of the original earthquakes and a very timely prompt of the importance and urgency of getting on with strengthening our buildings across the country. We are now pleased to be voting in support of this bill. The bill is a testament to the value of good process, genuine collaboration, and cross-party cooperation, and I am pleased to have been involved in that process. I believe that this bill is a better bill because of it. It is a more workable bill that will get better results as a consequence of the decisions taken. Thank you.
Debate interrupted.
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.