Thursday, 31 March 2016

THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2016

THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 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, 5 April the Government will look to make progress on the Environment Canterbury (Transitional Governance Arrangements) Bill, the Māori Language Bill, the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill, and a number of other bills on the Order Paper.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I wonder whether the Leader of the House can confirm that members’ day will still be happening on Wednesday.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): The Government is always open to the Opposition forfeiting that day, to progress its own business, but that is the intention.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Welfare Reforms—Support for Families

1. ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Finance: What changes is the Government making to increase support for families in need from 1 April?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): From tomorrow the Government’s $790 million child hardship package comes into force. We are strengthening work obligations for beneficiary parents and providing additional childcare subsidies for low-income families, because the best thing we can do for these children is help their parents into work. Low-income working families will benefit from an increase in Working for Families of up to $24.50 per week, and for those who cannot get a job, benefit rates for families with children will rise by $25 a week after tax—the first such increase over and above inflation in 43 years.

Alastair Scott: How is the Government supporting the creation of jobs to help people move from the benefit into work?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I think one commentator said today, the New Zealand jobs machine just keeps chugging on—175,000 more jobs in the last 3 years, with a further 173,000 expected by 2020 and unemployment at a bit under 5.5 percent. At the same time, the annual average wage continues to rise. In fact, over the last 7 years, it has risen 24 percent compared with inflation of 11 percent. These conditions of moderate wage increases and robust job growth create more opportunities for people to move off welfare and into work.

Darroch Ball: Of the 110,000 families and 190,000 children that the Government says will benefit after 1 April, how many of those families will actually receive $25?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I cannot give the member the exact number. As I have said, it is an increase in Working for Families of up to $24.50. That depends, of course, on their income—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member, but if the member asks a question, I expect that he wants to hear the answer. Would he please listen to the answer without continually interjecting. I invite the Minister to finish his answer.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: —but in the case of families with children who are on a benefit, they will get an increase of $25 per week.

Alastair Scott: What other changes come into force on 1 April, cutting compliance costs for businesses and the self-employed, and what progress overall has been made since 2008 in reducing costs to business?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Probably the largest single area is in the payment of ACC levies. ACC’s finances have been turned round since the mess that they were in back in 2008, and the gains from this turn-round have been passed on to employers, the self-employed, and vehicle owners. From tomorrow, ACC levies will fall by $232 million. Over the next 12 months, annual motor vehicle levies will be cut by $218 million. In total, ACC levy cuts in 2016 will see New Zealanders $450 million better off. Levies today are now $2 billion a year lower since 2008—that is $2 billion per year lower since 2008. That is the same cost as reducing the middle tax rate from 30 cents to 20 cents.

Darroch Ball: How can less than a dollar a day for a family of five children make a real and meaningful increase in support for families in need?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: How much they get per day will depend on the family’s circumstances, but if they are a family on the benefit with five children, they will get the $25 per week. The member is free to ask them whether they think that is a waste of time or not. I suspect they will say that they welcome the extra $25, because in the world of very low family incomes, that is actually a fair bit of money.

Alastair Scott: What other changes is the Government making on 1 April to lift support for Kiwi households?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Alongside the big further cuts in ACC levies and the implementation of the hardship package, paid parental leave will increase from 16 to 18 weeks, which follows a boost from 14 to 16 weeks last year; the minimum wage will increase to $15.25 per hour—that is an increase of 3.4 percent and is directly benefiting 152,000 workers; and superannuation and veterans’ pensions will increase by 2.7 percent, affecting 600,000 superannuitants.

Antinuclear Policy—Support for International Response

2. METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “We have anti-nuclear legislation and New Zealanders wear it as a badge of honour”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister): Yes.

Metiria Turei: Why, then, has his Government repeatedly refused to vote for an international convention that would outlaw the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstance?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Because New Zealand just does not consider that that is going to be an effective way of achieving what everyone wants to achieve.

Metiria Turei: Given the Prime Minister’s previous comments that there is no point in trying to outlaw nuclear weapons if the US does not want to, is he not essentially saying that there is no point having an independent New Zealand foreign policy unless the US agrees with it?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No.

Metiria Turei: Will the Prime Minister, at the summit, promote New Zealand’s values and condemn the US’s refusal to support nuclear non-proliferation at this week’s Nuclear Security Summit; if he will not do that, why not?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is free to see what comments the Prime Minister has already made at the summit, and they will continue to represent New Zealand’s policy.

Metiria Turei: Will the Prime Minister refuse entry to American warships if the Americans will not say whether or not they have nuclear weapons on those ships?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member can be reassured that the Prime Minister will act in accordance with New Zealand’s antinuclear legislation.

Metiria Turei: Will the Prime Minister stand up for New Zealand’s antinuclear stance and support the United Nations resolutions on nuclear deterrence and disarmament, based on New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy and not just on how the US votes?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Of course the Prime Minister will stand up for New Zealand’s nuclear policy.

District Health Boards—Service Delivery

3. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statement that “Only National can deliver more services while reducing district health boards’ deficits”?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Associate Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Health: Yes, because in 2008 the deficits were $155 million and growing and they are now reduced to $66 million per year, and these are forecast to be less this year. In respect of whether only National can deliver more services—absolutely. Under National there are 110,000 more specialist assessments a year, and under that member’s watch, where she increased the budget by $3 billion, there were 7,000 fewer during her reign.

Hon Annette King: Why does he continue to make the claim that only National can provide more services, when Ōāmaru Hospital is being forced to reduce its bed numbers by 20 percent to meet a predicted 10 percent funding cut, and at the same time demand for services has almost doubled on what it is funded for?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I would continue to assert that because it is true.

Hon Annette King: Is he going to ignore the warning from the New Zealand Medical Association chair, Dr Stephen Child, who said the increasing pressure being put on the Ōāmaru community could have serious implications for quality of care, increasing burnout, decreasing job satisfaction, and increasing staff turnover?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: No, it is not true, because the health budget has increased by $4 billion since this National Government took office. Elective surgeries have increased by 50,000 under this National Government, and specialist assessments, as I have already said, have gone up by 110,000 per year.

Hon Annette King: If there are more services and funding, why did Dr Stephen Child, chair of the New Zealand Medical Association, say the funding issues faced at Ōāmaru Hospital are “a microcosm of the healthcare system at large”, which, as most thinking people know, is underfunded by $1.7 billion?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: As I have already said, the budget for health has gone up by $4 billion.

Dr David Clark: Answer the question.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I am answering the question, and that member knows that health services are a lot more effective and a lot more efficient under this National Government.

Hon Annette King: Is the way to provide more services and reduce deficits to serve up inedible hospital food, like the slop in this picture served to a woman after giving birth at Dunedin Hospital under the Government’s flawed hospital plan—

Alastair Scott: What’s that?

Hon Annette King: You are right—what is it? What is it?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has been asked.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Sorry, I did not catch the last part of that question. Could she just—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! On the basis—[Interruption] Order! On the basis that the Minister has not caught the full part of the question, I invite the member to ask it again.

Hon Annette King: Is the way to provide more services and reduce deficits to serve up inedible hospital food, like these slops in this picture served to a woman after she gave birth at Dunedin Hospital under the Government’s flawed hospital food plan?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: That member knows that the quality of district health board food is a matter for the district health boards themselves. There are nutritional standards that still have to be met, and at Southern District Health Board, as that member knows, there has been an increase in funding of over $134 million since this National Government took office.

Hon Annette King: When he said the new hospital food plan would provide food with nutritional value, is an example of his claim the wet, soggy, empty pastry case in this picture, served on a dollop of spud, given recently to a patient under the new, improved food policy his Government approved? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Can I just remind the Hon Annette King that when I rise to my feet that is the time to stop interjecting—I know the member was responding—then to sit down. Equally, can I again remind people at my right-hand side that when I rise to my feet interjections will cease.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I will reiterate for that member, because she did not understand the last answer, that the quality of district health board food is a matter for district health boards. There is some good food and there is some not so, shall we say, nutritional food, but it meets the nutritional standards that are prescribed.

Maritime Health and Safety—Taharoa Ironsands Mooring

4. CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First) to the Associate Minister of Transport: Does he have confidence in Maritime New Zealand’s management of the safety issues at Taharoa ironsands export operation?

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Associate Minister of Transport): Yes, I do have confidence in Maritime New Zealand’s management of the safety of the Taharoa ironsands operation. This is undertaken by the Director of Maritime New Zealand as an independent function of this role.

Clayton Mitchell: When was the Minister first informed that the Taharoa single-buoy mooring is far beyond its use-by date to be safe and far short of the required loading capacity to cope with the largest vessels ever to come into New Zealand waters?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I have assurance from Maritime New Zealand that the buoy that the member refers to is quite safe and adequate for the task that it is doing. There has recently been an audit, of which some recommendations came through, and of those 42 recommendations around 30 have been implemented, seven of which have been implemented by Maritime New Zealand.

Clayton Mitchell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question I asked was “When was the Minister first informed?”.

Mr SPEAKER: No, no. The question that the member asked was “When was the Minister first informed that the mooring was not safe?”. The Minister rose to his feet and said he had been informed that the mooring was safe. Is there a further question?

Clayton Mitchell: When will the buoy be replaced, as per the recommendations of the recent safety audit, given that Australian-owned New Zealand Steel has reported a half-yearly loss of $47.1 million and is currently looking to sell the operation?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: Those issues are completely separate. Maritime New Zealand safety rules do not care who the owner or user of a particular vessel is; the rules are the rules are the rules. As I understand it, there has been a lot of work and upgrading of the existing buoy, and the new replacement buoy has been ordered. I believe it is supposed to be in the country or, perhaps, in place by the end of this year.

Clayton Mitchell: What is the Associate Minister going to do about this known high-risk situation, which maritime experts are referring to as a ticking time bomb, and which they predict to be the next Rena disaster, but on a more devastating scale, considering that the three ships are more than twice her size?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: Most of the rhetoric that the member refers to relates to incidents prior to and including 2012, on a vessel that was not designed for this purpose. There have been three new purpose-designed vessels using the buoy and doing the loading since 2012. There has not been one incident—or even one near-incident—since 2012 with the process they are using for loading on the buoy.

Clayton Mitchell: Is he comfortable with the availability and proximity of equipment to respond to any marine disaster at Taharoa; if so, how does he rationalise the enormous time it will take for an oil de-bunkering vessel to reach the disaster zone?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I acknowledge that the member just does not want this operation to happen, and, quite possibly, for New Zealand Steel to close. But, yes, I am confident in the arrangements in and around any emergency or business-as-usual scenario for the operation.

Welfare Reforms—Support for Sole Parents

5. ALFRED NGARO (National) to the Minister for Social Development: What changes are being made on 1 April that will help support sole parents into work?

Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Social Development) on behalf of the Minister for Social Development: Tomorrow the $790 million child hardship package comes into effect, which will support more parents into work. Childcare assistance will increase from $4 to $5 an hour. Working for Families tax credits will increase by $24.50 for some very low-income working families, and by up to $12.50 for low-income working families, benefiting 380,000 children. To balance this increased support, sole parents with part-time work obligations will be required to look for 20 hours of work a week, once their youngest child turns 3, instead of 5.

Alfred Ngaro: How is the Government supporting sole parents while they look for work?

Hon JO GOODHEW: Tomorrow benefit rates for around 100,000 families with children will rise by $25 a week after tax—the first real increase in 43 years. Additionally, a funding boost in Budget 2015 means that an additional 40,000 places in work-focused case management are available, and all those on sole parent support can access intensive support into work. As we know that work is the best route out of poverty, it is important that we focus on getting parents off the benefit and into work. This extra support will help sole parents to do just that.

Business, Innovation and Employment, Ministry—Payroll Problems

6. Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) to the Minister for Economic Development: Who has provided payroll services to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment since it was formed in 2012?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): It is the same provider that provided payroll services to the largest of the forerunner agencies since 1999, which is the Department of Labour. The provider, which was identified publicly this morning, is Advanced Management Systems Ltd. The Department of Labour was the largest of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s four forerunner agencies, in terms of staff numbers, and it was migrated across in 2014. The Department of Labour signed a contract for payroll services with Advanced Management Systems back in 2004.

Dr David Clark: Does he expect to quantify the size of liability owed across New Zealand due to Holidays Act breaches; if so, when?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do not have any ministerial responsibility for doing that. My responsibility as Minister is the monitoring of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. In terms of the ministry, it is working on its scoping out of the solution to the problem at the moment, and I will keep the House and the public updated with that.

Dr David Clark: Can he give a categorical assurance to doctors, nurses, public servants, and all of Advanced Management Systems’ 50,000 other payroll clients—who are receiving $3.5 billion in wages annually—that they are not exposed to underpayment problems similar to those that have beset the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There are a couple of things there. Firstly, I am not responsible for Advanced Management Systems. It is more than capable of speaking for itself. In terms of underpayment, the member has to be a little bit careful because this is a calculation around annual leave, and it is about the calculation of ordinary-time earnings versus average weekly earnings. The member, I know, is disposed to hyperbole but, actually, this is a widespread, but not necessarily large, issue for individual employees.

Dr David Clark: What action has he taken since receiving advice on 5 October last year—nearly 6 months ago—to quantify how many millions of dollars his ministry owes staff in back-pay as a result of failing to comply with the law?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The ministry has been working on that issue, as I said, since October last year. [Interruption] Well, of course, the law was passed back in 2003 by a Labour Government that promptly forgot about it, so 6 months compared with 13 years is probably a reasonable time for them to work it out. I could say to the member that, actually, the Labour Government was warned that there would be issues when the law was originally passed back in 2003.

Dr David Clark: Can he confirm that pack-house employees affected by Holidays Act legal breaches announced by his ministry yesterday are additional to the 24,000 affected employees identified in the previous 20 investigations the labour inspectorate conducted?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Questions in regard to the labour inspectorate have to be put to the Minister for employment relations. The member is confusing the roles. It is very important that we keep it separate because the labour inspectorate has the job of regulating the sector. In terms of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, as the monitoring Minister I am responsible for the payroll. [Interruption] There are a few excitable ones over there, but I think that is the key point.

Dr David Clark: Given his previous answer, and when prominent employment lawyer Olivia Grant says that the majority of issues she is seeing relate to changes to the Holidays Act in 2011 following the Government’s full review of the Act in 2010, does the Minister understand this as a signal that he needs to step up and take some responsibility?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That was positively “Cunliffean”, that particular approach. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has been asked. You now need to listen to the answer.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Actually, Mr Speaker, can you get the member to repeat the question? It has been so long, I cannot recall it.

Mr SPEAKER: On that basis, I will invite the member to repeat the question.

Dr David Clark: Certainly. When prominent employment lawyer Olivia Grant says that the majority of issues she is seeing relate to changes to the Holidays Act in 2011 following the Government’s full review of the Act in 2010, does the Minister understand this as a signal that he needs to step up and take some responsibility?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, I did not hear what Ms Grant said, but I can tell the member that this is very clearly in relation to the Holidays Act 2003. It is in relation to the calculation of annual leave, which was not changed in 2010 at all. It was not changed in 2010; it was done in 2004. The previous Government was warned at the time that annual leave calculations would be very difficult, and so it has turned out to be.

Families—Paid Parental Leave and Other Support

7. JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Can he confirm the Government is helping young families get ahead by expanding the eligibility for paid parental leave from tomorrow, as well as increasing its length?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Yes, I can. This Government is increasing paid parental leave to 18 weeks and making more workers eligible for the scheme. Parental leave payments are being extended to casual and seasonal employees, as well as to adoptive parents. In addition, parents of pre-term babies will be entitled to a longer period of payment than the standard 18 weeks. The changes aim to make it easier for parents to stay connected to the workforce, better support Kiwi families, and help get children the best possible start in life.

Jonathan Young: What else is the Government doing to assist families from tomorrow?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: In addition to expanding eligibility for paid parental leave for families, from tomorrow the Government is outlawing zero-hour contracts, strengthening sanctions for breaches of employment law, and increasing the minimum wage to $15.25 per hour—well ahead of the rate of inflation. All of these changes are designed to give workers a fair go while ensuring employers still have access to the skills and labour they need to increase productivity and grow the economy.

Housing New Zealand—Paddling Pool Policy and Condition of Properties

8. Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister responsible for HNZC: Is he satisfied that the resources allocated to Housing New Zealand are being used in the best possible way?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister responsible for HNZC): Yes, generally, although it can always do better.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Why does Housing New Zealand require tenants to seek the permission of tenancy managers before putting up a blow-up paddling pool in their backyards?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member may be referring to a Housing New Zealand campaign called “The Summer Safety House”. Like all other landlords, it has to comply with the law. The law says that pools over, I think, 400 millimetres deep need to be dealt with properly. Housing New Zealand advises me that it makes no apology for the fact that it is now trying to comply with the law and that children in its houses will be safer as a result.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I seek leave to table the Housing New Zealand newsletter that went to tenants, indicating that they had to apply for permission for paddling pools under 400 millimetres—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The document has been described. Leave is sought to table that particular newsletter. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.

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

Hon Trevor Mallard: Does he think that an on-site inspection of each blow-up paddling pool for which permission has been sought, which I am assured by the Hutt Valley management of Housing New Zealand occurs, is the best use of Housing New Zealand staff time?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Housing New Zealand is in the best position to make the decisions about, in the first place, its compliance with the law, and, secondly, making sure it keeps track of the updates in the law, because the pool fencing law is being changed. I understand the member’s party is opposing that. Thirdly, Housing New Zealand needs to conduct itself as a responsible landlord regarding the safety of its tenants. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Before I call the member to ask further supplementaries, can I ask for a little more cooperation so that we can hear the answers that are being given, without the continual carping coming from a few members to my left.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Would Housing New Zealand staff time be better used sorting out the case they have known of for 2 years of—

Alastair Scott: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I believe only the questioner can use a visual aid, not anyone else.

Hon Trevor Mallard: It is allowed to be held up by someone else so that I can point at it, surely?

Mr SPEAKER: No, it should be held up only by the member asking the question.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I apologise. I will start again.

Mr SPEAKER: We will hear the question first. [Interruption] Order!

Hon Trevor Mallard: Would Housing New Zealand staff—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I asked for quiet on the left-hand side when the question is being answered. I expect silence on the right-hand side when the question is being asked.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Would Housing New Zealand staff time be better used sorting out the case they have known of for 2 years, of my constituent who lived in a water-damaged, mouldy State unit with no power?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am advised by Housing New Zealand that it is having some challenge verifying the member’s assertions. The circumstances he describes are, of course, well outside policy. If there is any mould alerted, or water damage in a house where ill-health is involved, it is expected to be fixed within 12 hours, otherwise within—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I am sorry to interrupt. I asked for cooperation. The next interjection I get while the answer is being given, the member will be leaving the Chamber.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: —otherwise within 10 days. I might also say that often when these cases are brought up, what is left out is that the tenant is often refusing access. Housing New Zealand can deal with these problems only if tenants enable access, and I would hope that if the member’s case turns out to be genuine, the tenant will enable access, because he can be sure that the problem will be fixed. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I have given enough warnings. I now—[Interruption] Order! I give a very specific warning to Grant Robertson.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It has long been accepted in this House that it is different to interject between questions than it is during an answer, and that interjection from my colleague Grant Robertson did not fall within the scope of your earlier ruling, nor normal rulings.

Mr SPEAKER: The member should become more familiar with the Standing Orders. [Interruption] Order! Interjections are, in fact, not allowed. I allow them. I am relatively genuine and accommodating in order to allow a little bit of atmosphere during question time, but when I have called the member to ask a supplementary question and the interjection continues, particularly when I have been on my feet too often this afternoon trying to get some cooperation, then I have issued a warning that I will not hesitate to carry out if need be. I hope that is not the case.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Does he think it is reasonable for Housing New Zealand to relocate tenants from above the unit in this photo and do that flat up, the units on both sides of this unit and do those flats up, and leave the tenant in this flat without power from 2014 until February this year?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I must say to the member that given his description of those activities, there is something interesting, if not tricky, about this particular case if the circumstances are as he outlines. In the expenditure of some $300 million—in fact, more than that—in improving and lifting the quality of Housing New Zealand houses, it seems to me very unlikely that a cooperative, informative tenant was left sitting in a mouldy home without power for 2 years, in the middle of units that have otherwise been done up. That seems to me worthy of much more description of what might have gone on.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I seek leave to table two photographs of a unit in which this Government failed its duty of care—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need the description that has been given. I assume that the member is seeking leave to table the two photographs that he has used as visual aids.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I certainly am.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes. I will put the leave. Leave is sought—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that you do not like these points of order, but it would help the House enormously if we were to know that the photographs would be verifiable by an address being put on them.

Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from the Hon Trevor Mallard.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Housing New Zealand is aware of the address. It was aware of it in February.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This matter is easily resolved for me. I will put the leave and the House will decide. Leave is sought to table those particular photographs. Is there any objection to them being tabled? There is objection.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I seek leave of the House to table a file note on the case, indicating the names of the two Housing New Zealand officials who visited this flat in February.

Mr SPEAKER: The source of the file note?

Hon Trevor Mallard: It is my file note of the case. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The document has been described. I will put the leave, and the House will decide. Leave is sought to table that particular file note. Is there any objection? There is.

Darroch Ball: Supplementary to the Minister—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Again, I have called Darroch Ball.

Darroch Ball: Will he support New Zealand First’s “one strike and you are out for life” policy for tenants who contaminate their State homes with P; or is he happy with current Government process that those tenants can be back in another State house to contaminate it within 12 months of being evicted?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The question will be better directed to the Minister for Social Housing, but we do have concerns about the significant number of P-contaminated houses. It has grown rapidly. In the handover of stock to the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company tomorrow, for instance, it turns out that 17 of those houses are contaminated with P and are, therefore, unable to be occupied. I think it illustrates the challenge of dealing with some of our reckless, irresponsible, and criminal tenants. So I am sure the Government would consider support for firmer measures for dealing with such tenants.

Housing, Auckland—Building Consents and New Builds

9. JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to the Minister for Building and Housing: What progress has the Government made in growing the rate of new house construction, particularly in Auckland?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): New home construction data out yesterday showed 2,400 consents for February nationally—the highest February in a decade and the second-highest on record ever. In Auckland 787 new homes were consented in February—up 50 percent on February 2015’s 528. This rate was 300 a month when I became Minister and 200 a month when we became Government. The number of houses being built in Auckland has grown by 23 percent, 22 percent, and 30 percent over the last 3 years, making it the longest and strongest period of building growth ever in history in Auckland.

Jami-Lee Ross: What reports has the Minister received on the total value of residential and commercial building work currently under way in Auckland and New Zealand?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The value of total new buildings consented over the last year to February 2016 is $13.5 billion, made up of $9.2 billion in the residential sector and $4.3 billion of commercial work. This total is the highest ever in both nominal and real inflation-adjusted terms and reflects the level of confidence that there is both in New Zealand and in the building sector. In Auckland the value of residential building work bottomed out in the global financial crisis at $1 billion per year, but is now $3.4 billion per year and, again, this is the highest level ever of residential investment in Auckland in both nominal and real terms.

Jami-Lee Ross: What do the latest figures show about growth in the building sector outside the main centres?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The level of building growth is well above Auckland levels in a whole number of centres throughout regional New Zealand. In Whangarei, building consent numbers, year on year, are up 44 percent; Hamilton, up 20 percent; Tauranga, up 22 percent; Rotorua, up 90 percent; Palmerston North, up 40 percent; Wanganui, up 50 percent; Ashburton, up 20 percent; Queenstown, up 41 percent; and Invercargill, up over 20 percent. Regional New Zealand is also enjoying renewed confidence in the building and housing sectors, and that is good news for our whole country.

Phil Twyford: When does he expect to attain the levels of new builds achieved under the last Labour Government of 31,000 new dwellings a year compared with his best efforts, after nearly 8 years in office, of only 27,000, and by how many will he have to exceed the massive Labour new-build number to catch up on the 40,000 home deficit that Auckland has built up under his watch?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Either of those two supplementary questions.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Firstly, I would point out that in the last parliamentary term we built more houses than Labour did in its last parliamentary term. I would further advise him that the advice I have from Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment officials is that 36,000 new homes will be built in Auckland in this term of Parliament. That is more than has been built under any parliamentary term in Auckland and substantially more than what Labour did. I would also point out that, actually, at the core of Auckland’s housing problems are the dopey planning policies of the previous Government, which slowed down the supply of sections and contributed to the high house-price inflation. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! It was initiated by a very long question, I might add.

Phil Twyford: Does he agree with Bill English, who confirmed to the House yesterday that despite all of the Minister’s exaggerated promises of hundreds of new houses on Crown land in the last Budget, “none have actually been completed”, and is such a stinging rebuke from a senior ministerial colleague of his ongoing failure—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! We are now leading to a stage where that question is going to be ruled of order. The first part of the question can be answered.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member’s claims on what the Minister of Finance said yesterday are about as accurate as his figures on Chinese house buyers in Auckland—they are rubbish. What the Minister of Finance said yesterday is that in last year’s Budget we provided $55 million for my ministry to buy land to be able to provide new housing. We said then that it would take about 18 months for those houses to come on stream, and we stand by that. What I find extraordinary is that we are building more houses in Auckland than at any time ever, and the member still complains.

Family/Whānau and Sexual Violence—Review of Services

10. POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East) to the Associate Minister for Social Development: Is she reviewing family violence and sexual violence services as part of the Ministry’s line-by-line review of contracts?

Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Social Development): The line-by-line reviews, which are part of the Community Investment Strategy, are internal reviews of some of the services that the ministry funds. This does include both family violence and sexual violence services, alongside a multitude of other services funded within the community investment portfolio. This work will align with wider cross-Government agency work—in particular, the ministerial programme of work on family violence and sexual violence. The ministerial group is reviewing all aspects of Government spend in this area to ensure better intervention and results for victims and perpetrators. No decisions have been made yet.

Poto Williams: What percentage of family violence and sexual violence contracts does she expect will be cancelled or not renewed?

Hon JO GOODHEW: As I said in my answer to the primary question, no decisions have been made yet, and I will not be speculating.

Poto Williams: If she believes there is a duplication of services within the sector, can she advise where the duplication is, considering providers are struggling with over 100,000 reported family violence incidents each year?

Hon JO GOODHEW: The reason we are going through this line-by-line review is to ensure that what we get out the other end is better services that are more appropriately targeted to get results for vulnerable New Zealanders. I am not going to speculate or get ahead of myself or the work that is being done, and it would be mischievous to do so.

Poto Williams: Does she agree with the UN that New Zealand has the worst rates of sexual violence in the OECD, with a quarter of all women reporting a sexual offence; if so, is this the right time to be considering cuts to services?

Hon JO GOODHEW: First of all, I want to disagree with the premise of the member’s question, because I do not believe she was accurate in that. However, I do want to say that unlike previous Governments, we intend to do things differently. This Government will do things differently to make a difference in the end, but it is not a simple matter. We have said that the money that is currently in the community investment portfolio will not be reduced. The money will still be spent on services that make a difference, and that is what matters.

Poto Williams: Is it appropriate to be considering cuts to the sexual violence services when providers say they are underfunded and struggling to meet demand while receiving increased requests for help?

Hon JO GOODHEW: It is distressing to hear the member purport to say that we are doing something we have clearly and repeatedly said we are not. We are investing the same amount of money. What this Government wants is results, and that is what we think victims and perpetrators deserve as well.

Fishing Industry—Precision Seafood Harvesting

11. IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister for Primary Industries: How is the Government supporting sustainability in our fishing industry?

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): With Government support, Sealord, Sanford, and Aotearoa Fisheries have launched a new premium seafood category called Tiaki. Tiaki is a result of the $48 million Primary Growth Partnership programme called Precision Seafood Harvesting. This programme is developing a new net design that replaces traditional trawl methods. When fishing inshore species like snapper, Tiaki-caught fish are brought on board in pristine condition and undersized fish or unintended catch can be returned to sea with a much higher survivability rate.

Ian McKelvie: So how will the Precision Seafood Harvesting programme and the Tiaki brand add value to our seafood exports?

Hon NATHAN GUY: Customers here and around the world will know when they see the Tiaki label that fish have been caught and carefully selected in a new, revolutionary way. They will be able to use their smartphones to connect with a specially designed traceability app showing where the fish was caught and when. The programme is expected to deliver around $44 million in economic benefits by 2025. The recent announcement of 100 percent camera coverage of the Snapper 1 trawl fleet and the vessel monitoring system shows that industry and the Government are indeed serious about greater transparency of the commercial fishing fleet.

Refugees—Quota

12. DENISE ROCHE (Green) to the Minister of Immigration: Will he double the refugee quota?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): The Government is reviewing New Zealand’s refugee quota, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and I will be taking a recommendation to Cabinet shortly, in time for the new 3-year quota to come into effect on 1 July. I would point out that the Government has already made a commitment to accept an additional 600 Syrian refugees over 2½ years, outside New Zealand’s normal refugee quota.

Denise Roche: Will he, then, listen to the 20,000 New Zealanders who signed a petition to double the quota, and actually double the quota?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I have been listening very carefully to a wide range of views on the question of what New Zealand’s response in the refugee area should be, and they will inform the recommendations that go to Cabinet.

Denise Roche: Will he take up the offer of Church leaders and other community organisations that are willing to assist with refugee settlement so that New Zealand can immediately increase our quota?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I have been very encouraged by the offers of support and community engagement with the Syrian community, in particular in my home city of Dunedin, which will be the next refugee location. The issue of community sponsorship is something that has been taken into account in the next quota period.

Denise Roche: Should Kiwis be proud of this Government’s refugee record when New Zealand has slipped to 90th per capita in the world for refugees accepted, during the biggest humanitarian crisis since World War II?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The primary question is about the refugee quota so it is a little disingenuous for the member to then talk about New Zealand being 90th in accepting all refugees—they are different things. New Zealand is one of only, I think, 21 countries that take quota refugees and it ranks seventh in the world on a per capita basis, and I think we can be proud of that.

Denise Roche: Does he care that thousands of women, men, and children are fleeing from their homes every single day because of war while he pussyfoots around with this 3-yearly quota review; why is he keeping those people waiting?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: In rejecting the accusations of pussyfooting around, I would remind the member that there are a number of ways that countries can support the many millions of people around the world displaced by war and conflict. New Zealand has contributed significant amounts of money into some of those areas, including southern Turkey, where we are building schools and providing other support both through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and directly.

Bills

Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill

Third Reading

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery): I move, That the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill be now read a third time. Prior to the last election, the Government made it clear to the people of Christchurch that we would be looking to transition from the arrangements that we had post the 2011 earthquakes to a more locally led arrangement as Christchurch continued with its rebuild and recovery.

The first step was to transition the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, a Government department, into being a business unit inside the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The second significant point came in December of 2014 when I convened a board of local people from Christchurch, under the chairmanship of Dame Jenny Shipley, to look at what might be all of the aspects necessary to consider as we transition from very significant Government involvement in Christchurch to that local-led leadership. That board was made up of the mayors of the territorial authorities, the chair of Environment Canterbury, and a number of people who represented business, as well as the NGO sector. It was, I think, a very good process that enabled all of those people to put their particular considerations into the mix, measured against the needs of the wider community, and, of course, enabled us to hear from the mayors who were there in their own private capacity, including the Mayor of Christchurch, some of the concerns that those organisations might have post the arrangements that we might eventually have got to.

Eventually, there was the report brought down by the advisory board, which has been released in the last few weeks. That report, essentially, sets out the arrangements that were reflected in the bill when it was originally brought into the House about 6 months ago and then worked on the Local Government and Environment Committee over that period of time. In essence, what it does is create a new level of organisation in Christchurch that will be able to continue some of the work that was enabled by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act, but have it led by local people—have it led, essentially, by a combination of appointees from the Government and appointees from the Christchurch City Council.

That organisation will be called Regenerate Christchurch, and, over a period of years, it will transition from being a fifty-fifty Government - Christchurch City Council partnership into being a fully council-controlled organisation. I am pleased some very capable people have accepted appointment to the board of that organisation, and we look forward now to its establishing under a chief executive and getting about its work.

If there is a question about what its work is, it should be seen in the context of a city that suffered significant devastation in the earthquakes and has gone through a recovery where we have now got some plans and a lot of work being done in a reconstruction sense, but, essentially, because of much of that, we need to regenerate many parts of the Christchurch city that have, perhaps, not suffered the same level of damage but, none the less, have changed because of the circumstances the earthquake has brought along. So I look forward to some very exciting prospects for regeneration in Christchurch, for, essentially, urban renewal being brought to fruition through the offices of Regenerate Christchurch.

It should be recognised that the Government’s commitment to Christchurch remains around the anchor projects. There is a lot of talk about when we will hear about the convention centre, when the Metro Sports Facility is going to be done—and I know Dr Megan Woods asks me this all the time, but she also appreciates that the Government is actually dealing with a number of complexities, not the least of which is that the private sector contractors who will deliver those facilities do like to be paid, and paid somewhat handsomely. So there is a necessity to ensure that on behalf of the future owners, whoever they may be, those facilities are going to work and be suitable for the wider community use that they are intended.

In order to continue that process—and I can assure the House that there will be some announcements in regard to both of those two projects I mentioned in the very near future—there is an organisation established by the Government called Ōtākaro Ltd. I hope, Mr Tirikatene, that I got the pronunciation of that correct. I apologise for not pronouncing that word appropriately, if I have mispronounced it. I promise not to criticise you for some other butchering that you do of the language that I am more familiar with. But may I say that the body is being set up as a schedule 4A company under the State-Owned Enterprises Act, and it will have strong accountabilities, but it will have a particular role in the delivery of the commercial interests that remain around those big projects.

The big issue in Christchurch that—well, not the biggest issue, but one that a lot of people talk about often is what happens in the residential red zone. The arrangements that we have got is that right now Land Information New Zealand is acting as the manager for that land and, effectively, making sure that it is kept in a reasonable state. The ownership will be represented by Ōtākaro Ltd, but the decisions about what its future use may be will be led by Regenerate Christchurch. People may think that is a very convoluted way of doing things, but one of the important things to remember in all of this is that this bill before the House today was finally constructed by a cross-party arrangement, where members, largely from Christchurch, sat down with the bill, looked at what the city needed, and made some conclusions about the nature and shape of the legislation we need going forward. So although it may appear a little cumbersome, I am quite sure that it is the best we could have done, moving forward.

I think the mere fact that we do have significant support for the bill in the House today indicates the ongoing commitment of Parliament to assist Christchurch as we get back into the place that we have been in the past, and even better. Alongside those two organisations the city council is also setting up what, effectively, will be one a one-stop shop for investment, called Development Christchurch. Across the three boards there will be a cross-pollination of the directorates, ensuring that the three do work well. And I think we are going to be in reasonable shape in that regard.

The bill necessarily maintains a backstop position that is held by a Minister. We discussed that extensively in the cross-party discussions that we had, and recognised that no matter who is in Government or who the Minister is, when you have a bill that sets aside other provisions in legislation—in other words, some Resource Management Act provisions—it is appropriate that, in the end, a Minister of the Crown takes that responsibility.

In the time that I have got, I want to make some scathing criticisms of an article that appeared in the Christchurch Press this morning—no one will be surprised by that. Under the guise of analysis, an opinion piece continued the generally negative approach that that paper has taken to anything that is progressive in Christchurch and largely ignored the fact that this bill is so well supported. It was a great disappointment, but there was but nothing unusual in that.

I would like to conclude by thanking some people. It is always dangerous when you do that, because you may leave some people out. So what I want to do first is thank all of those people who have worked for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority over the years. I know that it has not been easy. Many of those people had their own homes damaged and other issues that they were dealing with in their lives as a result of the earthquake event, but they, none the less, put their heads down, and despite some of the critics of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, they have done a marvellous job for the city.

I particularly would like to thank John Ombler, the original establishment chief executive of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, who came back in at a difficult time, out of retirement, and has done a great job in pulling the team together, and, particularly, focusing the team on what, effectively, is their own endpoint. It is not an easy thing for anyone to do, and I again congratulate all of the people in the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority who have participated so positively in that wind-up. I also want to mention, just briefly, the late Michelle Mitchell, who was a very significant player in maintaining the focus we have on the psychosocial health in Christchurch. Part of her legacy will be the requirement set down by the transition advisory board that we do have an ongoing focus on that, and that has been reflected by Government announcements in recent days.

This is a good bill. It is a turning point for Christchurch. It does start the process over a short number of years to returning local leadership to our community.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call on the third reading of this bill and to continue Labour’s support for this piece of legislation, just in case, I say to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery, there are any questions in your mind. Our position has been very clear right from the beginning on this piece of legislation when it came to the House for its first reading. This had to be a piece of legislation that fulfilled the desire that was clearly evident in Christchurch for a locally led recovery. We listened very carefully at the Local Government and Environment Committee hearing and, in addition to the people that the Minister has acknowledged, I would like to acknowledge the people who took the opportunity to submit on this piece of legislation and to come to the select committee and present very ably their views..

I think there was some very good thinking that lay in these submissions, and it gave us the basis for many of the changes that we were subsequently able to make to this bill. As has been traversed on many occasions, when the bill was first reported back from the select committee Labour was not able to support it. We drew a very simple line in the sand, and that line in the sand was whether this delivered the kind of locally led recovery that the people of Christchurch desired, deserved, and needed for their city to be all it could be. The answer for us was no. But I would like to acknowledge the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and his willingness to work afterwards across parties to reach a point where we could all agree on the final shape of this bill that we are debating here in the House. So we are thankful to the Government for doing that.

While we are acknowledging people, I would like to acknowledge some of the work that has gone on at the grassroots in Christchurch over the last 5½ years. I think we have seen a remarkable 5½ years—I hope we never see the likes of it again—and the kind of creativity and innovation that has sprung up in the adversity that has been Christchurch and Canterbury over the last 5½ years is something that I and many people across this House will always celebrate. This was always our vision: that what we would have for the next phase of our regeneration is a structure that could capture and allow for this innovation, this creativity, and this energy that lay within the people of Christchurch and Canterbury. We wanted that to be what took us forward in the next 5½ years, not a heavy, top-down Wellington approach. So I am thankful that we do have a bill that can do that. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the advisory board that the Minister mentioned, ably chaired by the Rt Hon Jenny Shipley, which came forward with a good structure in which we could put in place this legislation.

The Minister has given a good description of what this legislation does. It seems somewhat counterintuitive to be saying that this complex web of institutions we are setting up to replace one Government organisation—the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority—is what we believe is going to take Christchurch forward in a faster and better way towards the kind of city we could be, but I believe it will. What we are going to see is a joint venture, a power sharing, between the city and the Government in the case of Christchurch City. I would like to acknowledge the mayor of Christchurch City, who is in the gallery today to oversee the third reading of this bill, for the work that she has put into this legislation. It is going to be through relationships, not only with Christchurch City Council but with Selwyn District Council and Waimakariri District Council, that we are going to see productive moving forward in our region. It is with the other strategic partners, with Ngāi Tahu and with Environment Canterbury, that we can make the most of what the next 5 years will bring. I hope they do bring some more movement, some faster movement, on those anchor projects, Minister. That is something that we do share, and I wait with bated breath for the forthcoming announcements around those.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh, breathe a little.

Dr MEGAN WOODS: I am breathing. I am breathing through my nose, Minister, and waiting—waiting. But one of the things that we are setting up is not only this joint venture between the city and the Crown but also, as the Minister outlined, another Crown entity that is going to take control of the residential red zone and the anchor projects, in the form of Ōtākaro Ltd. This, as the Minister has alluded to also, will be subject to normal public finance reporting requirements and scrutiny from this House. At the Committee stage of this bill we did raise some questions around the constitution of that company and the limits that need to be monitored in terms of that company and the way in which it operates.

What we have got now is a very useful structure for how we can take our city and our region forward, but what it requires now is an operationalisation. As I have been saying to many of the grassroots organisations in Christchurch: “Your job is not done. Your job is not complete here.” We have a good piece of legislation, but we still need community involvement more than ever. We still need that level of engagement, we still need that level of creativity, and we still need the level of vigilance that we have seen from the community in Christchurch over its future for the next 5 years as we enter this new phase of our regeneration. That is something that the Labour Party will commit to doing for the next year and a bit that it is in Opposition. It will continue to be vigilant in holding the Government to account, but these are structures that can work if we all work together and work for the betterment of our city.

We heard from many submitters in the course of the select committee’s consideration of this bill, but there was one recurring theme that just kept coming through time and time again, and that was around the time for local leadership. We heard from the Option3 group, which managed to get more than 100 submissions in to the process. It was a very tight time frame, but that group managed to get more than 100 submissions in. We heard from Keep Our Assets and Avon-Ōtākaro Network, all wanting greater cooperation between central and local government. I hope that they can find that this legislation fulfils their expressions in their submissions to an extent.

I am also very pleased that the Government has chosen to support the amendment in my name so we can put in place those protections for Hagley Park—we can put a symbolic kind of protection around it and say that generations of people before us have established this and protected it, and it is our turn to do the same now. I know that it is something that many people in Christchurch are very appreciative of, because it is such an important part of our city. We now face a very challenging 5 years ahead of us. We have gone through a challenging 5½ years, but the next 5 years are also going to be very challenging.

We still have many things to do if we are going to call our recovery a success. Many of these things are to do with organisations that are charged under this legislation. One of the changes that we got as a result of the Local Government and Environment Committee’s consideration, which I am very pleased to see, is that this legislation, unlike the Local Government Act, has the four well-beings in its purpose. So this is about the environmental, the economic, the social, and the cultural well-being of our city and our region. It is only by bringing those four elements together that we can have our city reach its potential. So I am very happy to see those in there.

We have a number of things to do. We still have a lot of very vacant land in our central city. I think that anyone who has taken a ride through what used to be central Christchurch in recent times will see some exciting new developments that are springing up. They are something that we all treasure, and we all look forward to seeing the next new thing springing up. But I think that we will also see room for improvement. There are many areas that we simply have to get going. We cannot have wastelands sitting in the middle of our city and our suburbs, which just sit there and have not been touched in 5½ years. I was heartened to read in Minister Brownlee’s favourite newspaper, the Press, earlier today that some movement on the Sydenham Heritage Church is going to happen, and the pile of rubble sitting on Brougham Street is going to move, 5½ years on. I think we will all heave a collective sigh of relief over that one. It is an eyesore and is just down the road from my house, so I am personally very grateful for that.

We cannot call the regeneration and the recovery of Christchurch a success until we have certainty and closure on the residential recovery of Christchurch. People still not knowing what is happening with their homes, what is happening with the Earthquake Commission, and what is happening with their insurance is a situation that cannot be allowed to go on. People cannot feel that their city is on the right path while they are still sitting waiting and having sleepless nights, not knowing what is happening with their very certainty and foundation in life. Labour is happy to support this bill. We have a framework; it is now up to us to make this work. Thank you.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Associate Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery): I too am very pleased to speak at this third reading of the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill. I am particularly pleased because this House has given this bill unanimous support. I think that is because there has been so much thought, so much technical advice, so many public submissions, so much select committee energy, and so much cross-party discussion to make this bill fit for purpose. I am also pleased that the House unanimously supported Supplementary Order Paper 159 put out in the name of Minister Brownlee, and the amendments in the names of Dr Megan Woods and Denis O’Rourke. Mr Brownlee’s, of course, was the result of significant cross-party discussion and it has added real value to the bill. Dr Megan Woods’ amendment enshrines the protection of Hagley Park. Hagley Park, of course, is close to the hearts of all Christchurch people, so that is appreciated. Denis O’Rourke’s amendment has added to the compensation, and clarified that, so that added value too. Denis, thank you very much.

This bill is designed to deliver the step change that we are all looking for—the step change from recovery to regeneration. Over the last 5 years we have been through the emergency response, we have moved on to rebuild and replacement—but those are all reactive things. We are now looking for proactive leadership in our city to regenerate for urban development and urban renewal, with a focus on betterment. I think that we need to make sure that we take every opportunity to make our city and its environment a better place—a better place socially, a better place culturally, a better place environmentally, and a better place economically.

The bill is also about working together as we move on from this 5-year recovery phase towards local control, local leadership, and local decision-making. It is about working towards a new business-as-usual, as in 2021. I say “a new business-as-usual”, because I do not think that Christchurch will ever be the same again. We are totally committed to new ways of thinking, new ways of working, and increased innovation and collaboration. But, of course, regeneration does not stop when the legislation expires in 2021. Regeneration is ongoing, and, hopefully, will be ongoing for ever. In 2021 Regenerate Christchurch will become a council-controlled organisation. It will be back in local leadership.

Over the last 5 years there has been an enormous amount achieved, and much of it in a very innovative way. New organisations and methods of making things happen have really been introduced. I think they say that necessity is the mother of invention, and if that is the case, certainly Christchurch has been very inventive. I just want to give three examples of that innovation, and the way that we are thinking differently.

Christchurch people are very supportive of “SCIRT”. “SCIRT” is the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have got you—thank you.

Hon NICKY WAGNER: They appreciate that over 90 percent of the horizontal infrastructure in Christchurch has been rebuilt in the city by the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team. But many are unaware of the unique framework that the team provides. It is a collaboration of five contractors, and it has become a very successful model that has been recognised internationally as best practice, and it is now being implemented in other parts of the world in response to disasters.

Similarly, “EPIC”, which is the Enterprise Precinct and Innovation Campus, is a cooperative enterprise as well. That provides shared office space and mentoring support. That has allowed over 20 IT and high-tech companies to cohabit in the same areas and it provides opportunities for those businesses to deliver synergies between them, and new ways of growing those businesses and creating jobs. It is a very exciting new project in Christchurch. And, finally, in the creative sector, Gap Filler, Greening the Rubble, and the Ministry of Awesome are all fabulous new creative solutions that have been developed by the people of Christchurch to do something different in our city, and they are new collaborative ways of working.

This new governance structure that the bill delivers is all about collaboration as well, and the purpose of the bill is to enable a very focused and expedient planning process towards the regeneration of our city. It recognises the local leadership of the councils—Environment Canterbury, the Christchurch City Council, the Selwyn District Council, the Waimakariri District Council, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu—and also Regenerate Christchurch, and empowers each of those to make decisions. It also provides for more community input into those decisions, and into the development of regeneration plans.

Regenerate Christchurch, as the Minister explained, is the new entity created by the bill, and it is a seven-member board jointly appointed by the Christchurch City Council and the Crown, with one member nominated by Ngāi Tahu. It will be the vehicle to drive this new collaboration and regeneration, and to transit the city back to business-as-usual within those 5 years. But I think the challenge for all of us is to support this structure, this collaborative structure, and to put aside any petty politics that we have, to discard any patch protection, and to swallow up any individual organisational focus, and have one ultimate test for all decision making. That test should be: is this good for the people of Christchurch? Is this good for the future of our city and its environments? I believe that we can answer these questions positively. If our decisions are evidence based and solutions focused, I think we will get the right outcomes, going forward.

This bill is an empowering framework. It underpins that step change that we are all looking for, and I think it is a framework that can inspire and encourage Christchurch people to get out there, to engage, and to actively work to create the city that we want. I think it is very clear—the city that we want. We want it to be safe. We want it to be beautiful. We want it to be people-friendly, vibrant, and sustainable. We want it to be a place full of opportunity, a place that attracts all generations, so that there is somewhere for all of us to live, to work, and to play.

I really look forward to working with everybody in this House, the stakeholders, the new organisations, and the communities—all the communities—that make up Greater Christchurch as we embrace this next stage of our journey, and our city regenerates for the future. Thank you.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I too want to join with others in this House to acknowledge the work that has gone on behind the scenes by Minister Gerry Brownlee; by the Hon Lianne Dalziel, who is present in the gallery today; and by various members from across the House who have workshopped what was a piece of legislation that Labour could not support when it first came back to the House, but, with the collaboration and the considered work that happened behind the scenes, is now something that has support from across the House. This is no mean feat, Minister, and I want to acknowledge your leadership in ensuring that that has occurred.

There are some changes that happened in that process, in that workshopping, that are quite significant, and I want to remark on what they are. What this legislation now provides for us, as locals, is some better input into the planning and the decision making around what the future of our city will look like. It is about the residents and the communities actually having a much bigger say and much bigger buy-in into the kind of city that we can create together. This bill actually forms the basis of that relationship between the Government, Christchurch City Council, the other territorial local authorities, Ngāi Tahu, Environment Canterbury, and the structures that sit together to ensure that our people have a say in establishing a positive and forward-thinking, forward-looking city.

The plans, as they have been developed, needed to have greater input from the people who will eventually have to live within the implementation of those plans, and there is recognition that work has already been happening in this area. In that regard, I want to point particularly to a piece of work that happened last year called the EVO::SPACE project, by Eastern Vision and Avon-Ōtākaro Network. What this particular piece of work demonstrated was the power of the positivity of a community to see beyond the rubble and beyond the open spaces, and envision what could become fantastic areas for recreation, sports, and other facilities within the residential red zone.

But there have been other people who have contributed to continuing to have a vision for our city, and I want to mention those who are specific to the eastern suburbs. They are people and groups like Renew Brighton and the New Brighton Project, the New Brighton Business and Landowners Association, and all of those community organisations, from Southshore right up to Kainga, that have a vested interest in ensuring that this piece of legislation is fit for purpose for the kind of future city and future community that they would like.

The changes that this bill has brought about have meant that there is a transfer of power from Wellington to locals, that there is a reduction in the use of emergency powers—though there will be some use of those powers required in the future—and that there is also greater local input into the decision making. So what does that mean for the people of the Christchurch East electorate? Well, specifically, the residential red zone and the New Brighton area have special letters of intent with regard to the significance of the regeneration plans. For the residential red zone, there are opportunities and decisions that can now go in place. I mentioned the EVO::SPACE project, where locals talked about the types of facilities that they would like within the residential red zone, knowing full well that at some point development will have to occur. They would like also to see the opportunity to have wide open spaces, to have rowing lakes, to have dog-walking parks, and to have opportunities such as may be presented by the Eden project.

There are still some decisions to be made. What happens to the New Brighton Road? Is there an opportunity to use some of this land within the red zone for flood mitigation? What will happen to the stopbanks along the Avon River, which are causing quite some concern at the moment? How will Regenerate Christchurch actually recognise and celebrate the people, families, and institutions that were part of that vibrant community before they had to lock up their homes and leave, all those years ago? For some, this is a very emotional part of Regenerate Christchurch, because leaving meant that they felt like they had been cleared from their land and their property. It is very hard for some members of our community.

I would ask, when we are looking at plans for the residential red zone, that we acknowledge there is significant emotional response to that land, and that we are sensitive in our plans because of it. We already know that the Waimakariri District Council has been able to work on the potential remediation of land. Is that going to be possible in the residential red zone? How long will the land lie vacant? As my colleague Dr Megan Woods said, it is something that makes your heart sad, to see that where there had been families, there had been communities, and there had been children, that land is now lying vacant and, other than the care of some local people, much of it is not cared for well. So what is to become of that land? What, also, is to become of the residents who were either uninsured, unwilling to leave, or unhappy with the offer that was presented to them by the Crown? Those decisions have not been made. At least we have an opportunity to revisit that.

What about the iconic and fantastic community of New Brighton? We welcome the opportunity to work specifically with those community organisations and individuals around the restoration of this iconic suburb and its importance to the eastern suburbs of Christchurch. We all know—we have often heard talk, over the passage of this bill, about New Brighton as it was in its heyday in the 1960s. It was the only place where you could shop on a Saturday—right through to the development, in the 1970s, of the pedestrian mall. Those of you who come to Christchurch will now see that the commercial heart of the area has been in decline. It has been in decline for some years. There is a great sense of hope, now that the Government is on board as that significant third partner, along with the Christchurch City Council and local stakeholders, that we will now have the opportunity to put into effect the master plan—the plans that have been designed for the community and by the community that will really regenerate the retail and commercial heart of New Brighton and therefore regenerate the retail and commercial heart of the eastern suburbs. There are many people to thank for their continuation of that vision, throughout these long 5 years.

Just in conclusion, I want to say that I have valued the opportunity to talk with those people who will eventually go on to run those organisations, particularly Development Christchurch, and that they have sought the views of not only local people but local community leaders in the eastern suburbs. I really welcome the opportunity of seeing those plans enacted. On that note, we are very pleased to support this bill. Those of us in the eastern suburbs of Christchurch know that there has been a lot of work to get the legislation into a shape that we are comfortable with, and know that we can work together with the Government and our local politicians for the future of our city. Thank you.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): As chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee that shepherded this bill through the select committee process to its third reading, it gives me great pleasure to rise and speak in this debate this afternoon. I am very conscious that I am the first non-Cantabrian to be speaking in this third reading debate. As a non-Cantabrian and one who has, over the years, not had an awful lot to do with Christchurch, other than the occasional business visit or holiday trip, I have had an opportunity to get a real understanding of the destruction, of the tragedy, of the loss, and of the heartache that was Christchurch and Canterbury 5 years ago.

Five years ago that region was still in emergency mode. It was a region that was coming to terms with the physical impact, not to mention the emotional and traumatic impacts, of the earthquakes that took place 5 years ago. Then, of course, the region moved into a period of recovery. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority transitional legislation was put in place. It was important legislation that was designed to ensure that the big decisions that needed to be made quickly and competently were done. Those decisions, by and large, I think, have been decisions that have stood Canterbury and Christchurch in good stead. But we have now got to a point where regeneration is the focus, and regeneration is what this bill is all about.

It has been an interesting learning curve. It has been an interesting part of the transition and knowledge-gaining for me, as a non-Cantabrian, and, I suspect, for some of the members of the committee who were not physically close to Canterbury over that 5 years but were there emotionally, in heart, and supporting what was going on there. The select committee got to a point where we were not able to resolve all the issues that were before us and that confronted us as a committee.

I want to acknowledge the very good work that took place subsequent to the committee’s report back to the House. I want particularly to acknowledge the Hon Gerry Brownlee for his work in bringing together Opposition parties and leads from Opposition parties to further work with the Mayor of Christchurch, with Environment Canterbury, and with other organisations, to ensure that we were able to collectively get to a point today where it looks like we have unanimity across the House for what is a very important piece of legislation for Christchurch and, indeed, for all New Zealand and New Zealanders. Without a strong, vibrant, growing Canterbury, the rest of the country cannot succeed in the way that we all want to.

I want to acknowledge the presence of Her Worship the Mayor of Christchurch, in the gallery this afternoon, and thank her for not only her work and commitment to this process but also her generous hospitality when the Local Government and Environment Committee met for 3 days, sitting in her council chamber and hearing passionate pleas and great submissions from a large number of people who wanted to express their points of view to the committee. It was a pleasure, indeed, to be able to do that, and I want to thank her for that.

This piece of legislation sets up a new governance structure—an important governance structure that will, I hope, lead to a bright, vigorous, optimistic future for Canterbury and for Christchurch. I get a real sense that, in a way, this is going to be a significant piece of history that will be completed here in this Parliament this afternoon, because it is a piece of legislation that will provide a decision-making process that will ensure that, in years to come, Christchurch and Canterbury have a real sense of optimism, of hope, and of positivity about the city and the region in a way that 5 years ago most of them could not have even begun to think about. I think it is a credit to everyone who has been involved in this process that we have come as far as we have.

It is one of the most ambitious enterprises that we, as New Zealanders, have ever embarked on—the rebuild of Christchurch and Canterbury. I think it is something that we can all take some pride in. It has not been without its hiccups, its speed humps and testing moments, and I am sure that in the future there will be more yet to come. But I think that what this piece of legislation does is it puts in place a genuinely community-based, collaborative, local decision-making process that will ensure that those important decisions for the Greater Christchurch region will, in fact, be made with the best interests of all concerned at front and centre of that decision-making process.

It is a very great privilege to have been part, in a small way, of this legislative process. I am looking forward, in years ahead, to visiting Christchurch again regularly to see the progress that continues to be made, and I look forward to, in many years to come, maybe being able to take grandchildren and even great-grandchildren to Christchurch and Canterbury to see the work that has been done as a result of this piece of legislation being passed by the House. I commend it with great pleasure to the House.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am very pleased to be speaking in the third reading of the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill. The Green Party supported the bill when it was introduced but then withdrew that support at the select committee in response to the public submissions and our better understanding there of the way in which the bill failed to provide enough local leadership to Christchurch, and to the extensive ministerial powers. So I am very pleased with the work that the Minister has engaged in, subsequent to the select committee, with Opposition parties and with the Christchurch City Council to deliver a much better bill.

It is in the next phase of post-quake recovery that in Ōtautahi Christchurch we have got a real chance to build a sustainable, creative, and people-centred city. We can create a city that is so much more than just a reconstruction of buildings, of infrastructure, and of transport links. We can create, in Ōtautahi Christchurch, a city that could lead New Zealand in the way that residents live, work, and play, and the way in which visitors enjoy the city. We want a vibrant, liveable city—one that attracts visitors, investment, culture, and that is really lively.

And so the anchor projects have been a source of frustration. We want to see some of the money that was proposed to be spent on the stadium, for example, not being spent on a potential white elephant but on creating a much more liveable city. It has been disappointing that the city council has had to slow the work that it has been doing on building new cycleways because of the financial constraints that it has, in part, because of the reluctance of the Government to renegotiate the cost-sharing agreement.

But this is a day to celebrate the changes that have been made in this piece of legislation, and the changes in the framework for Ōtautahi Christchurch going forward and the new governance structure there. It is providing the basis for ensuring that we live in a beautiful city; one that weaves its past—the central role of Ngāi Tahu—into the present and future, and that recognises the many diverse cultures that now call this city home, that celebrates its wonderful position in a stunning natural landscape on a floodplain created by the Waimakariri River, sheltered by the Port Hills, threaded by the Ōtākaro Avon and Ōpāwaho Heathcote rivers, and beside an estuary that hosts so many different bird species.

It is a beautiful location, but some of the last 5 years have felt quite oppressive in Christchurch. One of the pieces in this bill that I really welcome is schedule 6, with its long list of legislative instruments that the bill is revoking. Some of those emergency orders were obviously necessary, but others that overrode due process under the Resource Management Act and other legislation reduced the ability of citizens in Christchurch to have a say in major decisions influencing their future and their city’s future. So this bill is, in part, giving the city back to the people of Christchurch so that we can have much more influence on the major decisions about the city’s future.

I, like others, would like to acknowledge the work of the Christchurch City Council and the Mayor, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, because I do not think that if Opposition parties had not been working alongside the council and saying to the Government and the Minister “We need to make changes in this bill”, we would have been successful. The Christchurch City Council has had a crucial role in highlighting the need to restore local leadership in Christchurch to the city council, to Regenerate Christchurch, and to the other councils—Selwyn District Council, Waimakariri District Council, Environment Canterbury, and, of course, Ngāi Tahu.

So now we are providing the legal framework, the governance structure, but much will now depend on how Regenerate Christchurch and how the city council, in particular, use the opportunities that this bill provides to involve the community in strategic decisions and planning for the future of the residential red zone, the central city, and areas like New Brighton. There are certainly provisions through the regeneration planning process, and there is quite a lot of flexibility there to engage in different sorts of consultation, and that is something we would encourage Regenerate Christchurch to do. We note, as the Minister did, that some significant powers still remain in clause 42 to override existing Resource Management Act plans and policies, regional land transport plans, and council bylaws. The Minister has called these powers a backstop and we—and I am sure the community—will be watching quite closely as to how those are exercised. If they are done wisely and in a circumscribed way that may well be fine, but we do not want them to compromise the opportunity for much more public engagement through the regeneration plan process.

We have seen through Share an Idea an outpouring of creative and thoughtful ideas from Christchurch citizens about their vision for an accessible, green, and sustainable city, and it has been the community that has sustained that vibrancy and that feeling through projects such as Gap Filler and Greening the Rubble. It is these community, collaborative, gravel-led projects that have put Christchurch on the map internationally. There are the Pallet Pavilion, the Luxcity festival, the mosaic chair, and Greening the Rubble sites around the city. It has been those projects that have helped give us hope post-quake, rather than the big anchor projects led by Government.

One of the areas of the bill that I think we should all celebrate is the fact that the definition of “regeneration” includes improving community well-being and it also provides for resilience. That is a much-talked about phrase these days, but making Christchurch a more resilient city must involve planning for climate adaptation, planning for sea-level rise. That must be a central part of the regeneration planning and it must ensure that we have commercial and residential buildings and infrastructure development taking better account of sea-level rise, better account of more extreme weather events.

We heard in select committee this morning from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment that Christchurch has more homes on low-lying areas that are at risk from sea-level rise—some 10,000 homes—than either Auckland or Wellington. The city council, looking to the future, tried to introduce some planning provisions that sought to control development in areas of potential coastal hazard. The Government and the council withdrew those in the light of the response from property owners. It is too hard to leave it to local councils to have to deal with how to respond to sea-level rise on their own. There needs to be more national leadership here, and this a role where central government has to work in partnership with local councils and not just leave it to the councils.

We were very pleased to hear the Minister’s comments in the Committee stage about the former coastal wetland at Bexley, which was reclaimed and built on against the advice of the Department of Conservation, that he was reasonably supportive of that returning to its natural state. Areas like Bexley wetland, the sand dunes along the coast, and the margins of the estuary are really important in providing resilience and in giving the city a buffer against intense storm events, against more flooding; giving it the flexibility about where to locate stopbanks along the rivers and ensuring that there are areas where the water can go in those intense storm events. So we have to ensure that that is part of the regeneration plan for the residential red zone.

As Poto Williams has said, EVO::SPACE and others have already done a lot of public consultation to surface a lot of community ideas about what should happen in the residential red zone. In the Green Party we are committed to the Avon/Ōtākaro park becoming a reality. We think that should connect the city with the sea, the city with the eastern suburbs, and would strengthen Christchurch’s identity as a beautiful, creative, and enjoyable city for residents and visitors. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do this with the land in the residential red zone. The future plans for that area need to acknowledge the residents who lived there and have had to leave homes in there and have those demolished. It needs to provide not just for formal sports facilities but also for a lot of informal community gardens, restore the mahinga kai sites, recognise wāhi tapu, and look at some detailed feasibility studies on projects like the Eden Project example.

We also need in the regeneration a much greater commitment to sustainability principles being implemented in new buildings so that they are more energy efficient, they make much greater use of wood, and they are more friendly to be in. There is a great opportunity to use wood in the rebuild; we have not seen that. But I am pleased that the Green Party can now support this bill and acknowledge the work of the Minister and the Christchurch City Council and other Opposition parties in achieving good changes to the bill.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): Everyone in Christchurch is looking forward to a new, regenerated Christchurch following the initial recovery process. Now is the time to get things done. We need to see those major projects getting going. We need to see the red zone recycled and we need to see comprehensive urban renewal in the east of Christchurch and we need to realise some wonderful opportunities for recreation in many of the areas that are to be re-planned and rebuilt. But there is always a tension between getting things done and public involvement. As people from Christchurch in this room know, Christchurch people tend to have interminable debates on things like this, and so there is a need to provide for them the opportunity to do that, but at some point you do have to make a decision and get things done. I think this bill sets out a way in which all of that can happen.

At the outset, New Zealand First had seven objectives. Firstly, we wanted to ensure that the processes for initiation and approval of plans would be locally led and not Crown-dominated but would nevertheless protect Crown interests. Secondly, we wanted to ensure that the city council and Environment Canterbury would have the right to participate fully in the development of those plans. Thirdly, we wanted to give plenty of opportunity for public input, in the same way that they got through processes like Share an Idea. Fourthly, we wanted to make sure that the processes would not be secretive but would be open and informative. Fifthly, we wanted to see that the opportunities to enhance the environment and the residential values of the city would be fully realised. Sixthly, we wanted to ensure that the process would be a much speedier one than has so far been evident, without, as I have already said, compromising the collaboration needed between the parties and the provision for public input. Seventhly, and lastly, we wanted to ensure that the process did bring the public along with the parties through good communication and through good consultation.

I am pleased to say that I think that this bill is going to deliver on all seven fronts. The amended bill will now provide for much better public information and opportunity to comment than has previously actually been the case. There will be a much better process for the initiation, consideration, and approval or revocation of regeneration plans, because Regenerate Christchurch is the body that will initiate, lead, review, and advise the Minister on those plans. It is a genuine partnership between three Crown directors: three city council-appointed ones and one nominated by Ngāi Tahu.

It is important that all parties involved have faith in the board of Regenerate Christchurch because, in fact, legislation can only go so far. That board must provide firm leadership and be bold and visionary and push things ahead, but, of course, it must take the public of Christchurch along with it. Only Regenerate Christchurch can be a proponent for the red zone plans under the bill. It may be a proponent for plans for the Christchurch district, as the other strategic partners may be. Statements to the Minister of the views of those parties on an outline plan will be made public on the internet, so that will make it very accessible. There are similar requirements concerning the views of parties to an approval of a draft plan.

I believe that of special importance is the fact that the Minister, in approving or declining an outline plan, must have “particular regard” to the views of Regenerate Christchurch and the other partners. Those words are repeated elsewhere for approvals of final plans and for revocations, and I think these are very important words to limit the executive power of the Minister and, most particularly, to preserve the credibility, and the leadership functions especially, of Regenerate Christchurch and the local councils. The development of outline plans, I believe, is really the crux of the process, because that is where the ideas start and get pushed ahead. The process for those plans, for the Christchurch district and the red zone, has a number of requirements under the bill.

There is a requirement for a clear statement of intentions and scope, so that people will know what it is all about and there are good opportunities for public engagement, and there are requirements to show how the costs are going to be met. That is often overlooked, but it is a very important requirement. A proponent must seek the views of its partners, and Regenerate Christchurch must get the consent of Ōtākaro Ltd, as landowner, but that company cannot refuse consent, except for reasons that are consistent with the purposes of the Act, and I am sure it would be held closely to that requirement. The requirements prerequisite to ministerial approval are also very important. There must be a recommendation by Regenerate Christchurch for a plan for the Christchurch district containing advice, a statement of the views of the other partners, and, also, advice on how the views have been considered and addressed. There are similar requirements for approvals and amendments and for revocations.

We must all have confidence and faith in Regenerate Christchurch as the lead entity for the council and Crown partnership. What it means is that there will be joint responsibility and the joint commitment of resources by both the city and the Crown, and that is of extraordinary importance. There may be a letter of expectations as to what the council and the Crown require of Regenerate Christchurch in terms of strategic direction and priorities. I think it is very important that that happens. It may happen under the bill, but I think it is very important that those two parties get together soon, produce that letter of expectations, and make it public. That is a very important part of the process, in my opinion.

Finally, I want to say just two things: first of all, it has been a great pleasure to see a consensus on a good bill, and I enjoyed taking part in that process. I think it will ensure a very robust process, focusing, as it must, on regeneration, and I think it will mean that we will get a proper balance between redevelopment and the wider public interest, especially the public’s interest in achieving an excellent environment and a vibrant and viable community—especially in the east of Christchurch. In addition to that, there are some extraordinary opportunities for excellent recreation facilities, in the areas of the red zone in particular. It is very important that those have a very high priority, as I am sure they will.

The second and final thing I wish to say is simply that I and New Zealand First wish Regenerate Christchurch well in its journey, because it is a journey upon which nothing less than the future of our second-largest city depends. Thank you.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is an honour and pleasure to rise in wholehearted support of the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill in its third reading. There is a saying I reflect on: when Canterbury rugby is doing well, the All Blacks are doing well. I think we can take that one step further and say that when Canterbury is doing well, the whole of New Zealand is doing well.

I would like to extend my support and thanks to all New Zealanders who have stuck up for Canterbury and continue to give us valuable support. I would also like to acknowledge the support and unwavering commitment that the Hon Gerry Brownlee and the Hon Nicky Wagner have provided to Canterbury as it has faced some tough times and looks to rebuild. I think that what this bill represents is a Government that has listened. It has listened to other parties in the House. It has listened to the Christchurch City Council, and it has listened to the strategic partners, like, in my electorate, the Waimakariri District Council. But most of all it has listened to Cantabrians on the ground, and I think the bill reflects that.

What we are doing here, as the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Act expires in the next month, is providing a new legal framework, and that new legal framework will provide clarity. It will provide expectations of the Christchurch City Council, of the strategic partners, and of the Government. But overall, and underpinning this, and, I think, more important, is it provides the people of Canterbury with confidence as we move from recovery to regeneration.

I would like to make a few points in my call today, and one of them—and it is demonstrated and reflected in this bill—is that we need to include strategic partners. It is vital that we include strategic partners such as the Waimakariri District Council, the Selwyn District Council, and Environment Canterbury. They need a bigger part in the regeneration plans. Greater Christchurch and how we view that has completely changed, with population growth and shifts. In my electorate, Waimakariri District is now the third-biggest district in the South Island. Now it goes: Christchurch, Dunedin, and “Waimak”. So we need integrated systems when we look at things like transport.

Many people growing up in Christchurch will appreciate my story of the old days, when travelling from Bryndwr to Belfast was like a day trip. You would pack your lunch to go over the Styx Mill Bridge, but now Belfast would arguably be in central Christchurch. What we need to think about is how we connect towns like Rolleston, Rangiora, and Kaiapoi. So when we hear things about transport, like the Cranford Street extension getting voted down, to the detriment of commuters not only in north Christchurch but in North Canterbury, who very much need reliable travel times, it is great that strategic partners will have increased input into these regeneration plans.

I also want to make a point around social well-being being included as a purpose of regeneration. I think we need to make special note of that. International research shows that years 3 to 7 are some of the most problematic for psychological and social recovery, post disaster. So it was great to see the Government respond with an extra $20 million recently for mental health services. In the last Budget we allocated $16 million, which is still available, for counselling services. Overall it was great for me to bring the health Minister into Waimakariri, to see the work that the schools are doing in a town like Kaiapoi, which was hard-hit with the first earthquake, in helping students around issues like anxiety and stress. But I would like to make the point that MPs are here to help. If anybody knows someone who needs further support, they should get in contact with their local MP.

Just a final point. There are plenty of young Cantabrians who will go on their OE this year. They will get out there and discover a wider world view, and they will realise how competitive cities are around the world. They are competitive for tourists, for a skilled workforce, and for businesses that will provide jobs and growth. We need to take this opportunity to be aspirational and ensure that we have the chance of building the best new small city in the world. We should take that with both hands and ensure that the new Christchurch, the new Greater Christchurch, and the new Canterbury is an exciting place to live in, work in, and visit.

I just want to finish by saying that it is fantastic to see that this bill has cross-party, unified support. We are one region. We are Canterbury, and very proudly we are one-eyed. Thank you.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is with pride and honour that I stand to speak on the third reading of the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill. As has just been said, it is really pleasing to see unanimous support for this bill in the House. There is no one questioning the absolute importance of this bill and of doing our best in this House to be able to support the people of Christchurch to move forward. I want to start this short contribution by acknowledging that it was just over 5 years ago that Christchurch was hit by a quake whereby the place that so many people loved and are so parochial about was destroyed, and we will never see that place again. We lost thousands of homes and 185 lives. That is no small thing that Christchurch has been dealing with and we as country and this Parliament have been trying to deal with.

In the wake of the quakes I think we have discovered a new spirit in Christchurch, and we have seen some communities pulling together in truly inspirational ways. I think of the communities in Lyttelton and Addington in particular, who just came together and totally looked after each other in the time of crisis. I think of the Gap Filler organisation and of people who just came together and dealt with the depression and the bleakness and the loss with creativity and an energy that people around the world have been looking to and being inspired by. It is that energy that the Green Party is so keen to see harnessed to be able to deliver the new city of Christchurch that will elicit the same passion as the old Christchurch did.

It is pleasing to see the Government come to the table and bring a bill to the House, with Supplementary Order Paper 159 at a late stage, that actually does recognise the vision of the people of Christchurch. It is an interesting thing to me that we are talking about the shift from recovery to regeneration. I understand that frame of the shift of moving forward and looking forward, but I also look to the Share an Idea campaign and the thinking that was happening quite soon after the quakes—or while the quakes were ongoing and quite present in people’s lives. People were in that place already, as well as dealing with the immediate crises and shock.

So it is very pleasing to see that this bill with amendments, which we are voting on tonight and passing into legislation, does increase the ability of local people to shape the future of Christchurch, and, very significantly, that Regenerate Christchurch is at the heart of the new model and represents a partnership between the Crown, which still is required to contribute a significant amount of money to this rebuild and local governments. I refer to local governments as the council and Kāi Tahu in this sense, in that it is a board with four appointees from central government, three from local government, and one from Te Rūnanga o Kāi Tahu.

When this legislation was initially reported back, that group Regenerate Christchurch did not have enough power, but through the Supplementary Order Paper introduced by the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery after significant negotiations with a range of people across this House, including my colleague Eugenie Sage, that has changed. That cannot be anything but a benefit for Christchurch. When we have seen the incredible ideas and the vision of the people of Christchurch right throughout these last 5 years, we would be stupid not to be harnessing their capacity into this next stage. It is an absolute pleasure to be able to help move this forward.

We are, and we do, remain unhappy with the retention of extended powers for a range of Government Ministers, which is present in clause 42 and enables them to override district or regional plans under the Resource Management Act or the Local Government Act, plans or bylaws, or regional transport plans. We think that degree of power is unnecessary at this stage. However, we are pleased—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member. I have been trying to let her know that her time has expired.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your good grace over the last 24 hours in allowing me calls. This piece of legislation—and there will be many markers as we see Christchurch get back up on its feet—is a very important marker for the city of Christchurch following the earthquakes of 5 years ago.

This piece of legislation, I think, proves the worth of the legislative process here in this House. People may wonder why we have second and third readings, and why the Government does not just say what it wants to do and get on with it. But I think that this process, especially from our side of the House, proves that the legislative process is a good one here in this House, because this piece of legislation has taken an interesting route through this House.

Introduced 6 months ago, we supported the bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee. At the select committee there were changes made that we were not happy with, and through the good work of the Minister—and I acknowledge the Hon Gerry Brownlee—and various members of Parliament from the Opposition, and I acknowledge my colleague Dr Megan Woods, we have landed at a piece of legislation that every member of this Parliament will be in favour of. I think that is a very important note to make around the future of Christchurch, because there is no dissent. Everyone in this House is reasonably happy—and I think quite happy—with this piece of legislation that will frame the rebuild of Christchurch, a city that I grew up in. I think credit should be given to the Government and Mr Brownlee for looking around this House and saying: “OK, how are we going to make this work, if you are not happy with it after select committee?”.

Significant changes have been made to allow more community input, more consultation, and I think that will make it better in the fact that the people of Christchurch will feel much more connected to a rebuild that will happen over the next 10, 15, or 20 years. So I acknowledge the part that the Government has played and that it has been willing to work to a consensus where everyone in this House is happy with the legislation. One of the points that we are very happy with, as I have mentioned, is the ability for the community to have much more input. In the stages from the earthquake up until now, I think it is widely known that there has been some criticism—that they feel like they have been dictated to from Wellington. Not having spent enough time down in Christchurch to gauge whether or not that is fair—I think members from Christchurch on our side of the House may say that. But in this piece of legislation the people are given much more opportunity to have more of a say in how their city will look over the next 5, 10, 15, and 20 years, which we thank the Government for.

Also set out in this piece of legislation is an addition, post select committee. It is the inclusion of the four “well-beings”, which, despite being removed from the local government legislation, have, I think importantly, been included in this piece of Christchurch legislation. It is not just a matter of rebuilding the buildings in the city; it is about the heart of the city as well, and the soul of the city. The regeneration of Christchurch will take into account the environmental, economic, social, and cultural well-being that we on this side of the House think will be very important to the social cohesion and growth of Christchurch, so we thank the Government for taking that on board as well.

To again point towards a change that was made at the Committee stage by my colleague Dr Megan Woods, the protection around Hagley Park is to ensure that green space right in the middle of the city cannot be affected in any way by any changes or any rebuilding that might go on as part of the process as we look to make Christchurch a much stronger city. I think that is important. It is a very important recreational space, whether you play cricket, rugby, or hockey, or whether you are walking through the botanical gardens. The people of Christchurch value that space, and I think it is something that is relatively still the same as it was before the earthquakes. They want it to stay that way. It is a place that they value very much, and the amendment from my colleague Megan Woods ensures that and protects Hagley Park.

To finish up, because I have got very little time left, I would like to wish Regenerate Christchurch all the best, because it has got a very big task on its hands. I again thank the Minister for being willing to work towards a consensus that this House is happy with and that therefore, I hope, will serve the people of Christchurch much better.

NUK KORAKO (National): Tēnā koe, e Te Mana Whakawā. Huri noa i Te Whare nei, e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Ā, ki a koe e te Tumuaki o Ōtautahi, e Mayor Dalziel, e mihi atu ki a koe.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Acknowledgments to you all throughout this House. To you, the Mayor of Christchurch, Mayor Dalziel, greetings.]

It is indeed an honour—and it is with great humility—that I stand and make a short contribution to this historic bill, the Greater Canterbury Regeneration Bill. We have heard from both sides of the House from the first reading all the way through to now, this third reading. One of the things that was spoken about right at the beginning, and then we have seen this right the way through, is what we call kotahitaka. We have indeed worked together to actually build—if you could use the analogy—a waka. Basically, we saw the terrible aftermath of the February 2011 earthquake and then we entered that dark period of the emergency, and then from there we came out of that into that part that we called the recovery, and then we continued to move into the light and then to the rebuild. And we are definitely finishing that journey of building this final part of the waka, which is regeneration.

In doing that, I want to acknowledge that, first of all, you need someone to actually lead this. You need someone to actually be able to lead everyone through those dark times and then into this world of light. So I acknowledge everyone here, but particularly the Hon Gerry Brownlee and also his able associate, the Hon Nicky Wagner. But it would not have happened also if we did not acknowledge those who were on the ground, the major stakeholders who also led it. So I need to acknowledge, first of all, our mayors—the previous mayor, Sir Bob Parker, and then moving through to our mayor of today, Lianne Dalziel—and also others, when we talk about the leadership of Environment Canterbury with Margaret Bazley. The others that I want to just quickly talk about—that major stakeholder too, which is part of it—are Tā Mark Solomon and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. Bringing all of those things together, they wove that really important part of kotahitaka, moving together to this final part, which we will see completed today.

When you look at mana whenua, right from the beginning when the Crown stepped in, when everyone came in behind, there was always that original acknowledgment about one of the major stakeholders in acknowledging Ngāi Tahu. As a Ngāi Tahu member of both Tūahuriri and Rāpaki, I know that our people were very, very appreciative, and they came in behind, and that is where we all worked together. So I hear these words today of wāhi tapu, mahinga kai, mana whenua, but we also have to remember that there are mātau waka. These are other Māori from other parts of New Zealand who actually live in Christchurch. So these, too, need to be acknowledged—even our Pasifika whānau from Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. So they also came in, and we led the way through and brought them with us. The other part is tauiwi—those who actually are non - New Zealanders, immigrants, new immigrants who came in. They are all part of this process. So bringing all this together, when we look at what has been achieved, this is a historic bill. It has been a pleasure to be part of helping to weave this to its final destination and helping to guide it.

One last point here: we cannot forget the 185 victims who actually perished during that terrible time of the February earthquake. So we remember them also today, I am sure, and also their families and friends, whom they left behind. This bill will continue the really important and good progress, and it deserves, as we know it has, the unanimous support of this House. On that note, it is such an honour to be part of helping to build and see the final conclusion of this historic bill. Kia ora, e mihi atu ki a koutou.

[Thank you, and acknowledgments to you all.]

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a great pleasure to speak at the third reading of this bill, and also to follow my whanaunga Tūtehounuku Korako, and the eloquent speech he just delivered. To continue on the Māori flavour, the Māori analogies, I would like to start off by quoting a famous Māori proverb. This is probably a bit deeper than Mr Doocey’s saying, but this famous Māori proverb is: “Ka mate kāinga tahi, ka ora kāinga rua.” Basically, what that signifies is: when one house ends, a second one arrives—or something good emerges. I guess we can apply those sayings in many contexts in life, but I believe that is particularly appropriate here, because we are entering a new phase. This is a significant transition in the ongoing journey, the ongoing progress of Christchurch. So I think that is most appropriate. Before Mr Brownlee rolls his eyes about all this Māori stuff, I do—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s very unkind.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Well, no, actually, I do want to mihi to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery for leading this piece of legislation, and indeed to all of the partners, in particular, Her Worship the Hon Lianne Dalziel, the Mayor of Christchurch, and all of the strategic partners and everyone who has been involved in this, including the cross-party participation that had led us to this point. But I do acknowledge the Minister, because, to adopt another nautical analogy that Tūtehounuku mentioned, the leader of the waka is called the kaihautū. The meaning of that word is to stand in the breeze and not fall over. Mr Brownlee has been the kaihautū. He has been able to stand and lead this waka and not be blown over.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: It would take a very big breeze.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Exactly. It would take a big breeze, but he has held the waka down and he has led this waka through to this next phase of, we are hoping, more calm waters. Christchurch has been through significant—significant—change and upheaval and trauma and all sorts over the past 5 years, but we are entering into this step change whereby we are transitioning the ongoing regeneration work through to the local council and indeed through to the local community. So we do commend that.

I would like—as the member for Te Tai Tonga, obviously—to note and also endorse the provisions within this piece of legislation that affirm Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu as a strategic partner. I think it is wonderful that through Canterbury earthquake recovery legislation we are able to see a continuation of the evolving Treaty partnership and the roles that mana whenua can play as part of the whole community in the ongoing recovery and regeneration of Christchurch. So I do acknowledge those provisions and the fact that there is an opportunity for te rūnanga to appoint a board member to Regenerate Christchurch.

There are other things. I am excited by what Ms Eugenie Sage mentioned about restoring the mahinga kai site of Te Ihutai. I do want to mention that again as a possibility for the redevelopment of the red zone area, because Te Ihutai—for those who do not know, there is a long history, but it was land that was granted as a fishing reserve for specific landowners in Christchurch that was within easy access to the Heathcote and Avon estuary. That land was taken away under the Public Works Act in 1956 for a sewage treatment works, which is still there today and provides a valuable service to the whole of Christchurch. There was never adequate compensation to the owners of Te Ihutai around that whole series of transactions, so I would hope that with these new opportunities that are emerging some recognition can be given, perhaps to restore a mahinga kai site, but especially to grant the owners tūrangawaewae within the city to exercise their kaitiakitanga, because that is, in a sense, all Te Ihutai are asking for: to have that opportunity within the city for those lands that are obviously now used for other purposes, and have long been so.

Can I also mention my colleague Megan Woods for the great work that she has done, in particular the protection for Hagley Park—reaffirming those protections, and I acknowledge the Government for supporting that amendment. I think that is very important, but we also know that actually North Hagley Park was a Māori reserve back in the day. The Christchurch provincial government—when it was that back in those days—granted that as a Māori reserve there, but subsequent Crown actions turned it into the Hagley Park that we know today and that we all enjoy and we all love. You could not have got a better location for a big marae than right there on North Hagley Park, but alas, it is protected, so it might not happen. We do know there was a magnanimous gesture from the Christchurch City Council back in the 1970s, where they said “We need to have a national marae. We need to acknowledge and have a marae for all the community and make it a national marae.”, and the great council of that day said “Yes, let’s do it.”. Guess where it put it? It put it right by the sewage ponds on the land that was taken away from Te Ihutai. That is what it did. But we still value that important asset today, which is Ngā Hau e Whā marae, and the great service that it provides to the community of Christchurch and in particular the east of Christchurch.

I would like to, sort of, add a little bit of flavour from a Māori perspective, particularly from a hau kāinga perspective, to the wonderful array of different views and local views that are all part of the great city of Christchurch. I am very proud, as the member for Te Tai Tonga, to see all the progress that is being made. It is a bit slower in some areas than others, but I am sure that with Regenerate Christchurch and with Ōtākaro—oh, that is another matter. I would like to acknowledge the members for their efforts in the pronunciation of Ōtākaro, in particular the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and various other members for at least having a mental probing to at least attempt to make a proper pronunciation of that name.

And I have actually inquired as to the meaning of Ōtākaro. It is a very secret name, so secret that we were not actually able to determine its origins, but I am sure it will come out in some korero. I do acknowledge all the members for supporting the use of Te Reo and the pronunciation of Ōtākaro—just like Pūtaringamotu, which is the centre of the Ilam electorate of Mr Brownlee over there. He does a pretty good job on that one as well. I do support this bill. We look forward to the next 5 years and beyond, to see the future development for the great city of Christchurch. I can only endorse this bill and commend it to the house. Kia ora tātou.

JOANNE HAYES (National): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am thrilled to be standing as the last speaker on the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill. I am thrilled because once this bill receives Royal assent, then the work can begin for Christchurch—the regeneration plans can begin.

For me, Regenerate Christchurch offers a lot of potential, especially—what I want to mention—around the future vibrancy of New Brighton. That area has waited, and waited a long time, and finally—finally—things are going to start happening for them. I want to thank the people who have worked diligently there: the people of the New Brighton Business and Landowners Association, led by Paul Zaanen and supported by all the businesses in that area. They have done a lot of work and a lot of planning, working alongside the council, and working with other community groups and organisations in the Christchurch east area. But this is much broader than New Brighton. It will affect the whole of the eastern area—an area that, residentially, was severely affected by the earthquakes, where whole suburbs were wiped out. But, in saying that, new suburbs are growing, they are popping up, and things are looking pretty good for the east so far.

I want to take this time to also acknowledge our Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery, Minister Brownlee, who has worked really hard on this bill, supported by his capable and dedicated Associate Minister, Nicky Wagner. Together they have driven this and worked across the Parliament, worked across all the parties—I want to thank Labour and the Greens and New Zealand First for their support as well, and the Māori Party, United Future, and ACT. I also want to acknowledge the support of the Christchurch City Council, and acknowledge the mayor, Lianne Dalziel, who is sitting up there in the Speaker’s gallery—kia ora and welcome, again.

I just want to say that in 5 years’ time, from today, the fifty-fifty partnership will go and the Christchurch City Council and the people of Christchurch will once again take ownership of their beautiful city, which is yet to develop into the beauty that it is going to be. This is a very good bill. It is led by hard-working teams across Parliament. I am very privileged to stand here, to be the last speaker, and to commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill

Second Reading

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Revenue): I move, That the Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill be now read a second time. As the title of this—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Can we have a bit of politeness for the speaker, please, Mr Lotu-Iiga.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: As the title of this bill makes clear, this tax bill addresses three diverse aspects of the tax system that, together, make the system fairer. A strength of the New Zealand tax system is the fact that taxes are applied fairly and evenly, and there are very few exceptions. Policy settings, therefore, also aim to continually address inequity in the system. The proposed new residential land withholding tax and the GST measures in the bill are two such examples. I will recap the contents of this bill briefly.

Tax for the proceeds of the sale of New Zealand residential land by offshore vendors can be difficult to collect from foreign owners with no, or limited, presence in New Zealand. The proposed new tax—the residential land withholding tax, or RLWT—is, therefore, intended as a means for collecting tax on that sale. It is proposed that the residential land withholding tax would be payable from 1 July 2016.

The second major component of the bill proposes that GST be applied to cross-border remote services and intangibles supplied by offshore suppliers, including e-books, music, videos, and software purchased from offshore websites, to New Zealand - resident consumers by requiring the offshore supplier to register and return GST on these supplies. This would come into force on 1 October 2016.

This bill also contains a proposal to allow certain information on student loan borrowers living in Australia, including current contact details, to be shared between the Inland Revenue Department and the Australian Taxation Office. This will help the Inland Revenue Department to keep borrowers engaged with their obligations and improve the collection of any outstanding payments. A number of other measures in this bill also focus on student loan borrowers, including simplifying the process for the approval of charitable organisations for the purposes of the student loan scheme.

I want to acknowledge and thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee, under the able chairmanship of David Bennett, for its consideration of the bill and its recommendations, which improve it. Firstly, the committee recommends changes that will ensure the residential land withholding tax will be appropriately targeted at offshore vendors. Secondly, the committee advocates the introduction of exemption certificates for offshore land developers that meet certain criteria. This will ensure that the residential land withholding tax does not impede the supply of new housing. Exemption certificates will also be available for offshore vendors disposing of their main home, which will reduce compliance costs.

The residential land withholding tax proposal is part of a suite of measures introduced by the Government to improve tax compliance amongst property investors. Following submissions from the public, the select committee has made recommendations on one aspect of those earlier measures: the requirement for a person who is an offshore person to have a functioning New Zealand bank account in order to apply for an IRD number, which supports identity verification. The committee’s recommendations will ensure that certain compliance costs are mitigated while maintaining the integrity of the requirement for identity verification. I have directed my officials to explore the issues raised by submitters, with any subsequent amendments that may be required being included in a future tax bill.

On the GST measures in this bill, the committee made a number of recommendations mainly aimed at reducing compliance costs and simplifying the proposals. The main recommendation was to introduce a transitional provision for some fixed-term contracts, such as contracts of insurance, that span the date of the rule’s introduction. The effect would be to suspend the usual GST rule, which treats periodic payments as successive supplies and applies GST to each payment. Instead, such contracts could be treated as not successively supplied for the term of the contract, or for 396 days, whichever was earlier.

I should point out that the feedback from the public has been supportive of the proposals, and it pointed out that the proposals are in alignment with OECD guidelines and similar rules that apply in other countries, including the European Union and the proposed rules in Australia. I want to thank those submitters, and the Finance and Expenditure Committee for its consideration of the bill and recommendations on points raised by submitters. The bill has been improved by that feedback, and it gives me pleasure to commend it to the House at its second reading.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): The Minister of Revenue is right in that we are supporting this bill, but we think this should go a lot further than it actually does. There was a lot of robust discussion in the Finance and Expenditure Committee around how to make things fair. I do agree that we have a broad-based tax system that is relatively easy to understand, but what this bill has done is bring a level of inequity into the tax system, which I think absolutely needs to be sorted. Let me give you one example of this. What this bill does, as the Minister pointed out, is charge GST for online services and intangibles like e-books, like computer programs, like music, etc. What the Minister did not say is that it is actually applicable only to companies that have a New Zealand revenue of $60,000 a year or more, which, in the scheme of things, I agree is not that much, but it is still reasonably sizable.

But the thing the bill does not do, which a number of New Zealand retailers have been asking for for quite a long time now, is charge GST on tangible goods. New Zealanders can still buy items of clothing—and not e-books but physical books—or anything else online, and these are not subject to GST. My concern about this is it actually provides a competitive advantage to companies that are not located in New Zealand. I think one thing we need to do in the 21st century is to make sure that New Zealand companies do not suffer because they are actually based here. I mean, this is a point in time when we can buy anything we want online, and we accept that. It is a part of the economy; it is a part of the way of doing things. But when New Zealand companies have to charge, from the very outset, 15 percent more than a company located overseas, then there is something wrong, and that is simply because companies overseas are not charged GST on New Zealand sales. What we would have very much liked to see was this bill extended to include goods that are tangible, like clothes.

The Minister said that he has asked his ministry to do work on certain areas of tax. Well, what I would very much like to see—what we on this side of the House would very much like to see—is the ministry doing a whole lot of work around the cost of compliance, the revenue generated, and the economic benefits, etc., etc., of applying GST to all goods from companies that are bringing more than $60,000 worth of merchandise into this country. I know that this would be supported by the vast majority of retailers. The competition is not the bloke down the road; the competition is the fellow on the computer who is two clicks away. I think, when we talk about fairness in our tax system, what we absolutely need to do is apply the fairness test not just to New Zealand companies but to overseas companies.

Of course, this brings us into the issue—which is huge at the moment—about international companies paying their fair share of tax. You know, when we have a journalist from the New Zealand Herald—a journalist, and all credit to him, but not an Inland Revenue Department (IRD) official—highlighting the fact that there is at least $500 million of tax per year that is being avoided, then we have an issue. There are learned tax experts who say that that figure could be as high as $7 billion—$7 billion of tax every year that is being eroded from our baseline due to aggressive tax planning, and in some cases it is illegal. But let us not talk about illegal; let us just talk about aggressive tax planning.

We need to understand the quantum of this, but what this bill has done is actually legitimise tax not being charged on items that are still coming in. So there are a whole lot of people around the country, I have no doubt, who will breathe a sigh of relief. I have no doubt Alastair Scott buys his shirts online from a London retailer, just down the road from where he used to work. But—

Alastair Scott: Lambton Quay.

STUART NASH: Well, Todd Barclay, then—whoever. All I am saying is when we talk about fairness, we have to actually walk the walk. It is not good enough to just talk the talk.

Another part of this bill allows the New Zealand tax department and the Australian tax department to talk about student loans and talk about defaulters. We do know that there are about 15 percent of student loan borrowers who live overseas. The vast majority of these live in Australia, I am told, and ex-students overseas owe about $3.2 billion. It is a lot of money. I must admit that if students are defaulting on their loan, it is hard to have a little bit of sympathy for them, and the reason I say that is they signed a contract. They signed a contract with the Government when they took that money—when they drew that money down as part of a student loan commitment—and part of that contract was that they would pay it back.

Having said that, I think we are burying our heads in the sand if we say that the current situation is viable. We need to come up with a solution to get a lot of these ex-students, these student loan borrowers, to come back into the system. At this point, the penalties and interest have blown their loans so far out of the water that a lot of them feel as though they cannot come back to New Zealand when they want to. Again, I would urge the Minister to talk to his officials, to instruct his officials, to see whether they can come up with a solution that would allow these overseas borrowers to come back into the system, where it is a win-win. At the moment, if you are not engaging with the tax department, then the tax department is not going to get any money back. So no one is winning with the situation we find ourselves in.

One of the other things the bill does is it means the Commissioner of Inland Revenue now has to hold a register of overseas charities that New Zealand student loan borrowers can go and work in but be treated as resident in New Zealand. It may seem quite small, but it is actually quite a big deal. The reason I say that is there are a number of student loan borrowers who want to head overseas and work for charitable organisations. If they do that and they do not know whether their charity is part of this register, then they will end up being charged interest on their student loan. This way, because they are deemed as being resident in New Zealand, no interest is charged. It is quite important.

But the really big thing here is actually in the name of the bill, and this is the residential land withholding tax. This is, I suppose, the Government’s way of implementing a capital gains tax when there is no capital gains tax. The interesting thing about this is that it is one of three bills. We had a number of submitters talk about this. Most of them said it really is not going to work, and that 2 years is not long enough. The IRD itself recommended 5 years. It is reasonably easy to—“avoid” is the wrong word, but again, when we are talking about aggressive tax planning, and there is a lot of that going on, you can just hold on to the property for 2 years and 1 day.

But what this does mean, I suppose, at the outset—and it is why we are supporting it, as something is better than nothing, I suppose—is that an overseas resident or an overseas company or trust, or, I suppose, an overseas entity, that is purchasing property in New Zealand but then seeks to sell that property within 2 years has to pay a resident withholding tax. The tax agent will usually be the conveyancer, but not always. The tax has to be paid and then passed on to the tax office. There was a lot of debate about this. In terms of what we were operating under—and we were very clear that this was going to be the 2 years—it was not open for debate at all. But I think we ended up with an “elegant” solution. It is not ideal—2 years is just not long enough.

So there are three messages that I would like to leave. First and foremost, this, I hope, is just an interim solution, because we do not think it is really going to solve the problem in any way, shape, or form. Secondly, the IRD has a lot of work to do to get this bill to the stage where I think it represents fairness in the tax system. We need the IRD to do a lot more work around the cost, the revenue, the compliance, etc., of actually charging GST on tangibles that New Zealanders are buying in an ever-increasing amount, because this is part of the 21st century. They need to be paying GST on goods sold to Kiwis. The third point is I would love to see the IRD do more work on how to bring back ex-students who have student loans but have disengaged from the tax system simply because the penalties and the interest on the original student loan amount have blown out to such a point where these ex-students feel as if they cannot re-engage with the tax system—so they will not come back here.

We all know what we absolutely need in this country is our young people who have been educated here—so we have paid for their education—to head overseas, get their OE, come back, and contribute. So there is a lot more work that the IRD needs to do on this, but we are supporting the bill. Thank you very much.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): It is good to see this bill back before the House, after a good period of time at the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Those who listen to the debates on tax bills will know that David Bennett usually gives this speech as the first Government speaker after the Minister. I thought of trying to do an impression of David Bennett, but I just could not manage it—I just could not manage it. So I will go for the calm and nicer version of the speech that Mr Bennett would probably have given.

This bill, as has been outlined, pretty much goes through a range of mechanisms, but primarily we are making amendments to the student loan scheme to have greater information-sharing with Australia. It also has some measures that help to supplement the brightline test that this House has previously passed. It also has some changes around GST for online services. Those are the three main areas that this bill covers.

We had quite good debate in the select committee. I think there was quite a lot of cross-party working on these issues. There was general support for many of the measures. Of course, as Mr Nash has outlined, there are some disagreements about how far we should go or whether we should do it in a particular way, but, generally, the committee worked quite constructively in coming up with some solutions to some areas that were raised in submissions. Can I just say at the outset of my speech thank you to the officials who were supporting the committee members on this bill. Thank you also to the submitters who fronted up. We always get some very high-quality submissions from tax agents and firms that work in this area on a day-to-day basis. They always provide high-quality advice, and it is always appreciated by the committee. Can I also say thank you to a very unsung heroine of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, Therese Turner, who does a huge amount of work advising the committee as well.

A big part of the committee’s time when we were considering this bill was spent around the definition of an offshore person. The way in which the bill was drafted initially, effectively one shareholder or 1 percent of a shareholding in a company could have led to the company triggering the offshore person test, which would have meant one person would require 99 other people, the shareholders of the company, to be subjected to a residential land withholding tax with regard to their purchase. We felt that was a bit unfair, it was going too far, and we should amend that. The definition also would have hit those with a trust. For example, one beneficiary of a family trust, when there could be hundreds or dozens of other beneficiaries—one beneficiary living offshore could have triggered it as well. We felt going for a 25:75 test was more appropriate, so the committee recommended that. Where 25 percent of the shareholding of the company is offshore, that is acceptable, but anything over 25 percent is the point at which it should be triggered. So the test now is 25:75 between offshore and onshore with regard to this test.

Generally, though, this is about providing greater compliance with the brightline test that this House has already passed. Rightly or wrongly, whether you want 2 years longer or whether you want a full-blown capital gains tax, the House has passed a 2-year brightline test to ensure that people pay tax appropriately over and above the intentions-based test that we already have. The House has put in place a brightline test. We now believe that it is appropriate to have this residential land withholding tax as well, to ensure that those living offshore comply with their tax obligations. This will make it easier for them to comply and also ensure that we are able to collect the tax appropriately. That is why we are going down this route and, generally, I think we have landed in a good space.

With regard to paying the GST for online services—yes, there is that debate about tangible versus intangible. This bill tackles only the intangible—intangible goods with regard to offshore companies. Again, I think we have landed in a good space. I think there is a general view from New Zealanders that paying GST for online goods and services is reasonable and is accepted. If you are providing an online service and you are based in New Zealand, you currently have to go through the GST regime. If you are an offshore company right now, you do not. That is inequitable, and that is something we should sort out. It is a lot harder, though, when you come to tangible goods, because there are a whole lot more complications at play, and there is also the difficulty of collecting GST. It is actually easier when it comes to online services because it is a lot clearer as to those online services. That is why this bill tackles only that aspect.

Finally, on the student loan scheme, yes we do have some compliance issues with regard to student loans. Again, we are making further changes to make it easier for the Government and for the Inland Revenue Department to follow up those people who are not complying with their student loan scheme obligations. We have already seen some examples recently of some other measures—for example, people being arrested at the border. These are having a bit of an impact on people who have not paid their student loans. This element, this change, will give us greater information for us to be able to track those people living offshore in Australia with regard to their student loans. I have to say, though, that the solution to student debt is not to give up on student loans and give people a free tertiary education, which is what the Labour Party has proposed. That would have perverse outcomes and would not work, and would blow out the Budget over and above the $20 billion - odd it wants to spend on the universal basic income. Again, it is a bit of a joke.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee did a good job of looking at this bill. I think we have come up with some sensible suggestions and changes, and I commend it to the House.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Here we are again in the House debating a piece of tax legislation and wondering what might have been—what might have been if the Government had actually said: “Here’s the opportunity. A tax bill has come up, and we’re going to take the opportunity to do what the Minister said at the start of his speech, which is to have a tax system that’s fair, that’s simple, and that’s easily understood, with very few exceptions.” If only that were what we are debating tonight, because, once again, we have a piece of legislation from the Government that goes a little way in a couple of areas to improve the situation, but does not do that to the extent that I believe anyone who came to the select committee and made a submission would think was sufficient—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Sorry, the member is very experienced—well, not a new member, anyway—and he knows that he does not stand rudely like that.

GRANT ROBERTSON: As I was saying, what could have been with this bill is that we could actually have gone down the path of creating that fair system, and the irony of the Minister’s comments is that—as I will address in a few moments—there are, in fact, a large number of new exceptions being created by this. So he stands up in the House and says “We are all about having a fair system with very few exceptions.”, and the bill actually creates a series of new exceptions, in large part to deal with legislation that has only recently been passed by this House.

What I would like to have seen in this bill was some focus around the unfairness of multinational tax avoidance. It came up in the committee’s discussions as part of the issue that I will come to in Part 2, around GST on online purchases and the unfairness that is, in fact, being created for New Zealand retailers. This could have been the opportunity. The Government sat on its hands on this issue, as it has for the last 8 years, plaintively waiting for a multilateral solution, which is part of the solution, but completely failing to do what it could do in New Zealand to make sure that every company pays its fair share. The people who are coming home from work listening to this debate pay their fair share of taxes and the companies, the small businesses, and the retailers who came to our committee pay their fair share of taxes, so why should the large multinationals not do the same? But that opportunity was not taken up in this bill, and this speaks volumes for what the reality of the Government’s commitment is to having a fair tax system where every person pays their fair share.

What we did get was, in large part, a discussion about the changes around the residential land withholding tax, and also around the changes for GST on cross-border services and intangibles. They are the two parts of the bill that I am going to focus my comments on today. Firstly, on the residential land withholding tax, I do want to come back to this issue of exactly what it is that we on the committee looked at and decided to make some changes to. The first of those is around the definition of an offshore person, because in the first two pieces of legislation that were part of the Government’s package to do as little as it possibly could do to manage the huge housing crisis that we have, particularly in Auckland, there was the creation of the brightline test. As my colleague Stuart Nash has said in respect of the brightline test, Bill English brought it in. He did not know what the impact was going to be. We finally dragged it out of the officials that they think the Government will make about $5 million. They have also told us at various times in the committee that the Government has probably spent around about $2 million setting the system up—so we are about $3 million ahead at the moment.

As Stuart Nash also said, what we also heard in various submissions on the earlier bills was that, actually, what we would see is people whose change in circumstances forces them to sell a house within 2 years being affected by this bill, but not a genuine property speculator just waiting for 2 years and 1 day and then selling up after that. So it was a weak, Clayton’s response to this, but, in doing so, a definition was created of what an offshore person was. This was necessary in order to be able to tell who it was who would be subject to these rules under the residential land withholding tax.

The problem is that the definition of offshore person was far too broad, and that was eventually acknowledged by the Government after hearing from a series of submitters. In fact, just about every submitter who came to the Finance and Expenditure Committee—all of the large accounting firms, small accounting firms; virtually everybody—said: “This system that you’re setting up here is going to be too complex. It’s not going to work. The compliance costs are going to be such that you’ll actually shut out some people whom we might actually want to be coming here and developing properties.”

So there is a series of changes proposed by the committee around the definition of offshore person, but it seems very strange to me that we are amending legislation that we passed only months ago, and that really came to fruition in the question of the need for a bank account requirement for offshore persons. All manner of issues were raised with us in submissions about this, around the practical difficulties of this. We talked about non-resident seasonal workers. We talked about people who had already been through the anti – money-laundering processes in New Zealand and who had already done the work that was required of this. There were already exemptions available from the requirement to have a bank account for non-resident suppliers of remote services. All of these issues were actually raised when the original legislation went through, and yet here we are—we find ourselves amending that legislation only a mere matter of months later.

So on that count, I do agree with Jami-Lee Ross that the select committee did a good job—[Interruption] I know, that is the second time in my whole parliamentary career that I have done that too—that is, agree with Jami-Lee Ross. This is the second time, and it is because the Finance and Expenditure Committee did actually do a good job of identifying those issues that there were with the bank account requirements and coming up with some changes to those.

I do at this point want to pause and also endorse Jami-Lee Ross’ comment about the support we had from officials and also from the committee’s independent adviser, Therese Turner. We are incredibly well served as a Parliament by Therese’s involvement, giving us advice alongside the advice from the Inland Revenue Department, and they usually manage to come together with some good advice for us. So there are changes there, both around the bank account requirements for offshore persons and the definition of an offshore person.

But I think what this highlights is the way that the Government has gone about addressing what is a significant issue in terms of housing in New Zealand. We have heard in the House in the last couple of days the Government attempt to minimise the issue of affordability of housing in Auckland. We had Nick Smith say that housing has never been more affordable in Auckland than it is today—a statement greeted with appropriate derision by anybody who actually lives in Auckland, when you are living in a city where the house price to income ratio is now 9:1. That is out of control. We are 40,000 houses short, and the best that the Government can do is a tinkering around with this brightline test. It is pathetic, it is hopeless, it is going to bring in only about $5 million a year, and we now have yet another piece of legislation amending the amendments to try to make it make sense and make it possible for those who have to administer this to do so. We support those amendments because at least we should make the pathetic policy National has put up work, but it is only a tokenistic effort.

I want to devote the rest of the time for my speech to Part 3 of the bill, which is the amendments to provide for GST to be applied to cross-border services and intangibles supplied by offshore suppliers to New Zealand resident consumers. There is no doubt that this is a step forward. This is an issue that has been hotly debated, and I think that most members of Parliament would acknowledge that retailers—particularly main street retailers—in their communities have been calling for some fairness in the system. The people who will be happy with this today are the likes of Spark—the people who compete with Netflix and others, the providers of those intangible services, the iTunes of the world. That is good.

We are starting to provide some fairness for those suppliers—good on them—but it was not easy to listen to the submissions of people like those from Retail New Zealand, who came to the committee and said: “Why won’t you extend that same fairness to us and to our members, who are the people who actually get out there and sell that?”. How crazy is it that an e-book has now got this GST applied to it but the hard-copy book has not? It is the same thing—it is the same book—but GST is not being applied fairly.

Hon David Cunliffe: Ridiculous.

GRANT ROBERTSON: How ridiculous is that? In the end, it is because the Government just could not get the hard work done. It shies away from the hard work in the taxation area when, actually, it should be getting in there alongside New Zealand businesses, the small to medium sized enterprises that keep New Zealand going, and giving them a fair go. I applaud Retail New Zealand and the other submitters who came to us with good quality submissions.

When we get to the Committee of the whole House stage, I will also draw attention to a couple of other submissions in this area that offered practical ways of making this happen for all forms of trading, both in terms of intangibles and tangibles. We had a previous speaker, Jami-Lee Ross, say it was too difficult. It is not. We had submitters come to us to tell us exactly how it could be done and done efficiently, and we will raise those issues in the Committee of the whole House.

So we will support this bill. It is, once again, a series of timid steps by the National Government members when they could actually be coming to the House with legislation that does create a fair and simple tax system where everybody pays their fair share. That should be the goal of the House, and I hope we will see tax bills that do that in the future.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be talking on the second reading of the Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill. It is very nice that the previous speaker, Grant Robertson, agrees with much of what we are trying to achieve here, and I thank him for that contribution. Of course, as we have all heard, this is an omnibus bill and covers three key aspects: resident withholding tax, GST aspects, and student loans.

I want to focus a little bit on the GST, but it is worthwhile just going back with regard to the resident withholding tax element of this bill. I think it is just worthwhile reminding people that this is actually the third leg of our treble. We have already brought into play the brightline test, we have brought in the requirement to get an IRD number and a bank account number, and, of course, this is the third bit, which is around resident withholding tax, to make sure that New Zealand is actually able to capture the tax that is due to the Inland Revenue Department. It is a prudent measure in terms of putting in place a mechanism that collects the money at the time of sale. The conveyancer does that on behalf of the Government and does it in a way that means that sufficient money is kept in New Zealand when there is a foreign buyer involved in selling residential land. I think it is a very pragmatic step.

A lot of people said: “Well, it doesn’t raise any money.” That is not the intent of this part of the treble. It is about putting in place a package that means that for foreign owners buying residential land there is now a good cascade of legislation to make sure that those transactions are handled in an appropriate way. If they are selling residential property within 2 years, they do have to pay tax, and we have got a record of who is buying and selling.

In terms of the GST element I think this is a very good piece of work, particularly with the help from officials. We are obviously trying to even up the playing field for the retail sector in New Zealand—an important part of our economy and business. Of course, what we are trying to do here is deal in a pragmatic way with how goods or services are provided by offshore entities to New Zealand businesses. I think it is important to note that this is focused on “B to B”—business to business—to make sure that those foreign firms, if they are selling their services or goods in New Zealand, include in that purchase price the GST.

That should be payable to New Zealand, and, of course, what we have put in place is a minimum threshold that means that if a foreign business is selling more than $60,000 a year, then it will have to register. Of course, that means that there is an account of that. And for those types of services loosely described as remote services, I think it is worthwhile to talk about what we mean. Remote services include digital—and the previous speaker, Grant Robertson, spoke about this; video, music, software—and more traditional services including legal and accounting or advisory skills. It is really important that we put in place these measures, and it is all part of that move towards making sure that New Zealand businesses and retailers can compete. So I think it is a very good omnibus bill and I thoroughly commend it. Thank you very much.

JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The Green Party is supporting this tax bill. It is largely uncontroversial. It does fall well short of the changes that would be needed to have a fairer, simpler tax system that creates a smarter, greener New Zealand where everyone has the same opportunities, which is what the Green Party would like to see. But nobody would have expected that from the National Government, I think—any substantial changes that would actually create a fairer, greener New Zealand. Unfortunately, the last 7½ years have shown that all it is really interested in doing is tinkering around the edges and protecting the status quo.

But this bill—and a lot of credit has to be given to the officials and the well-informed submissions we received at the Finance and Expenditure Committee—does make some completely reasonable changes, although they are small. The three main changes in this bill, which have been mentioned by other members here today, include, of course, the residential land withholding tax, which is bringing in line the rest of the tax system with the new changes from the Government’s brightline test bills, which were a package of bills, the goal of which was to reduce property speculation. Unfortunately, that package of bills is woefully inadequate to actually create a fairer tax system and reduce the harmful tax loopholes that currently exist, which incentivise over-investment in property rather than in the productive sectors of the economy, and which have led, in part, to the rapid increase in house prices in Auckland, which is now spilling out into other parts of the country. So this part of the bill is simply enacting the residential land withholding tax so that offshore buyers, at the point of sale of the house, have a certain amount withheld to ensure that they do meet their tax liabilities here in New Zealand.

The problem with this and the rest of the package is that the brightline test applies only to residential land, which I think is going to be a very difficult test to apply in practice because any land in New Zealand, really, could be used for residential purposes if people go through the right resource consent applications to get consent to do so. It does not make sense that you would gather tax only on residential land when there are capital gains that are realised on other types of land. So it is a really bizarre distinction that the Government has introduced in its brightline test.

The other really obvious problem with the brightline test package is that it applies only to properties that are bought and sold within 2 years. Of course, the vast majority of OECD countries have a comprehensive capital gains tax that usually excludes the family home, which is the Green Party’s policy for New Zealand. For those that have holding periods, the average holding period is 5 years. Many countries have longer holding periods, and that is how you can effectively reduce this perverse incentive to invest in property, where, ultimately, it is usually windfall gains that people are receiving. There is no reason why the income they receive from that windfall of having bought a property and sold it at the right time, during a property boom, should not be taxed just like any other income.

At the select committee, we heard a lot of submissions on this. I think it is quite tricky to apply the residential land withholding tax. There is a certain amount of bureaucracy that is created by it, and that is why it is unfortunate that the rest of the package of the brightline test does not apply to more properties. I think it would make it much simpler and easier, and it would make more sense, to have the residential land withholding tax apply to all property sales because, obviously, if overseas buyers are investing in property in New Zealand and making money off that, it makes sense that they should have to pay tax on the income that they receive from that windfall. That is part of how we have a fairer, simpler tax system that gives opportunities to everyone and creates a thriving economy.

In respect of the capital gains tax, I cannot overemphasise the importance of taxing capital for achieving a whole range of good outcomes for New Zealand, one of which is more innovation and investment in the productive sectors of the economy, research and development, etc., rather than just throwing all of our money into property, and also, from a fairness point of view, ensuring that housing is available to all New Zealands and that it is affordable for all New Zealanders. It is actually really seriously exacerbating inequality to not have something like a capital gains tax, or even an annual capital tax.

The second change that this bill makes is providing for GST to be levied on online services. A number of members in the House have talked about that today. The Green Party can support this in principle because it does make sense to ensure that all goods and services have GST applied to them. In our changing, more globalised economy, people are able to purchase more goods and services from overseas using the internet, and it makes sense that GST should apply to those so that we are not disadvantaging New Zealand businesses that are selling goods and services here in New Zealand. They have to pay GST. It makes sense that online international purchases should also have GST applied to them. But, unfortunately, this applies to only about half of the problem. Actually, it might be significantly less than half the problem because it is only online services and not goods, and in particular low-value goods, that are purchased from overseas. So that is something that the Government still has to deal with. We heard from Retail New Zealand and other submitters that there was this shortcoming in the bill.

I will raise one other issue, which, unfortunately, we did not hear about in the select committee, but my colleague Mojo Mathers has raised it with me. I am interested in seeing whether there are other ways the Government could be resolving this issue, and that is that for the many, many New Zealanders who have hearing impairments or who are deaf, like my colleague Mojo Mathers, Netflix is actually pretty much the only service that is fully captioned because the Government is not requiring captioning of television programmes here in New Zealand or adequately funding it. Many deaf or hearing-impaired people are limited to using services like Netflix, so of course this is going to make it more expensive for them to access those services. There is also the problem of Netflix and similar companies that provide these services cracking down on access to content. We have access to less content here in New Zealand than many other countries have. People like to use a virtual private network to access Netflix in the United States because there is a wider variety of content.

This is an issue that I think the Government really needs to be engaging with because New Zealanders are missing out here, and, particularly, hearing-impaired New Zealanders are going to have to be paying more to watch content that is captioned because the New Zealand Government is failing to deal with the captioning issue here in New Zealand. Obviously, I do not think that it makes sense to exclude Netflix from having to pay GST simply because of this problem, but we should be trying to address the problem with content and captioning here in New Zealand. National really is not taking any steps in that direction that I can see.

Finally, there is the student loan information. This was tricky for the Green Party because, to be quite frank, we do not agree with the policy of loading up students with debt in order for them to have an education. We do not think that is how you build a smart, green economy—forcing students to take out large amounts of debt, which they then have hanging over them for many years after they finish their degrees. We think that we should be providing students with opportunities to get an education. If you do not have that debt hanging over you after finishing your studies, then there is the possibility for you to take risks, to be entrepreneurial and to use the information and skills acquired during your studies to do things that are going to make New Zealand and the world a better and more exciting place. That is good for our economy. So it does not make sense to crack down on students, but that is not the subject of this bill. This bill is tightening up some aspects of it. It is allowing information sharing between Australia, the Inland Revenue Department, and the Australian taxation office.

I would have to ask this question, particularly because only last week the Government admitted it has no idea of the amount of tax that it is missing out on from multinational companies that are avoiding paying tax: why are we putting so much effort into chasing down students who owe money simply because they got an education here, rather than pursuing the estimated half a billion to a billion dollars a year we are missing out on because multinational corporations that are operating in this country are avoiding paying tax? I would like to see more information sharing and work through the OECD to solve the problem of tax avoidance and tax evasion, rather than have us crack down on students. But there is one good provision in the bill, which includes streamlining the rules applying to borrowers who work overseas but are entitled to interest-free student loans because they work for approved charities. I think that is a good thing. So, ultimately, the Green Party supports the bill.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): With regard to GST on online services, we in New Zealand First say that the Government has taken far too long to rectify a situation in which overseas firms have a clear advantage over New Zealand retailers. New Zealand firms have been lumped with GST while overseas firms have not. Government complacency has caused the strangulation of New Zealand small to medium sized businesses, threatening their very viability. Actually, Retail New Zealand had to point out to the Government that small businesses are increasingly under pressure, especially in heartland New Zealand, from a GST regime that needs urgent attention. New Zealand First could not agree more with that, and, as a result, this Government’s legacy to small business is actually just one of neglect. While New Zealand firms are ignored in that way, multinational companies are still getting away with billions of dollars’ worth of business that could be going to New Zealand small to medium sized businesses.

We know, from consultation with New Zealand business people, the frustration that they feel, and that has been caused by this tax in relation to the exemption for intangible goods. We do not understand why for so long we have had tax on DVD downloads but not on actual, physical, hard-copy DVDs, for example. Amazon, which, as most know, is the largest source of online purchases overseas from New Zealand, must comply with this type of tax requirement all over the world, but not in New Zealand, and yet it is already set up to comply with these sorts of requirements; it is just waiting to be told to do so here in New Zealand. It is prepared to pay its tax, and not only on e-books but also on hard-copy equivalents. There is no good reason why the Government in New Zealand should force New Zealand firms to have to meet their obligations while firms based overseas selling exactly the same goods should not have to do so. Overseas companies are, therefore, getting a huge competitive advantage over New Zealand companies, and we say that must stop.

We also know that there is an argument that the Customs Service is not adequately resourced and set up to ensure full compliance for those intangible goods, but that is actually a lame excuse for doing nothing about a serious problem affecting New Zealand businesses. It ignores the reality that two-thirds of our online purchases are from 20 big online retailers and all of them are ready to comply, putting the tax on at the point of sale. The Customs Service would actually only have to do mandatory sampling for compliance, and it would not have to open each and every parcel at the border, which some seem to be suggesting. So we do not see that compliance would really be any problem at all.

Turning to the residential land withholding tax part of this bill, we say that this is at best naive and, really, is just a piece of puffery so that the Prime Minister can say “We are doing something to address this problem.” but, in fact, nothing really is being done. This bill and the other brightline test pieces of legislation achieve nothing more, really, than just window dressing. Government estimates of tax to be collected were as high as $17 million, but other numbers provided to the Finance and Expenditure Committee suggested that it could actually be as low as $1 million. So it is not really a very big deal. But the legislation will, in fact, be incredibly expensive to impose on the business community. The Inland Revenue Department thinks that there might even be a negative return given the costs in resources that would be required. If you couple that with the fact that the cost of conveyancing for ordinary Kiwis buying and selling houses would almost certainly go up because of the additional costs imposed on conveyancers and lawyers, you can see where all this is leading—not to a very good place. Some people have actually suggested that those costs could go up by as much as $200 per transaction. When you are imposing more costs for little or no benefit, we say that is actually lunacy.

There has been a lot of discussion about trying to define just what an offshore person might be, too. We have found that it is a lot harder than anyone might think, and it is another reason that makes nonsense of this bill. Even if this residential land withholding tax might possibly change some overseas buyers’ behaviour—although we have already seen evidence that it has not and is unlikely ever to do so—the reality is that this bill does nothing to close the loopholes. Techniques such as option fees will invariably be used to disguise the purchase price and therefore reduce the residential land withholding tax. A separate chattels agreement that uses an inflated value to consequently deflate the property value could be used, again lowering the residential land withholding tax commitments.

There also remains the serious debate on who collects the moneys from the sale of a property first, which is an important matter. Does the real estate agent get the money first, or does the lawyer or conveyancer get the money first? Does a council recovering unpaid rates and selling a property collect what is owing to it first? We think that whole area is a minefield that the bill does not adequately address, especially if the overseas investor has a portfolio of properties in New Zealand. I would like to give an example. If you imagine five or six properties and for some unknown reason the owner has to sell one within the 2-year time period, the withholding tax is calculated on the profits of the sale. So what if this property is managed so that the mortgage on the property is restructured so that it is actually 100 percent of the value the property is being sold at? It is easily enough done. That means the property has gone up in value since it was purchased—almost certainly—but because the vendor has a mortgage on the value that it is being sold for, they are making no profit from the sale of the property for tax purposes. It gives you an idea of just some of the things that can happen that this bill simply does not address.

For all of those reasons New Zealand First cannot support this bill, because we say that it would simply achieve little or nothing and it would just be another factor increasing costs for people dealing with property, with no gain. So we will be voting against it.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): I rise to take a short call in support of this bill. I would like to just address a couple of points. The first point is the tax rate that applies to the income that is derived from the churning of houses across the country. The tax rate is the lower of either 28 percent, if you are a company, and 33 percent, if you are an individual, or 10 percent of the sale price. I wonder what that tax rate would be if the Labour Opposition’s universal benefit idea was introduced, where $11,000 is given to every person in New Zealand, naming everyone as a beneficiary. I would be interested to hear from the Opposition what the tax rate would be in this piece of legislation if its universal, bad idea was introduced.

The second point I would like to address is the point made by Stuart Nash. He asked for some sort of leniency for those students who are owed money to the Government, simply because they live in Australia. It was also picked up by the Green speaker Julie Anne Genter, who asked why we are chasing these students. Well, it is pretty straightforward: it is because they owe the money. They owe the money to the taxpayer, and why would they not, and why should they not, repay the money that is owed to the taxpayer? After all, the contract was signed by the student, and just because they live in Australia it does not mean they do not understand their obligations as a student.

I will leave it at that. I have addressed a couple of points raised by the Opposition, and I commend this bill to the House.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support this bill, the Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill. My colleague Julie Anne Genter spoke expertly on two of the big parts of the bill, which are the Netflix tax, if you want to call it that—GST on online services—and the brightline, not-a-capital-gains-tax, kind of capital-gains-tax tax.

What I want to touch on in my short contribution is the student loan changes. There is one that is pretty uncontroversial—I think everyone in this House could agree with it, even the New Zealand First Party—which is the technical clause to make it easier and quicker for the Inland Revenue Department to recognise overseas charities. But the part that I have a serious problem with, and I think most New Zealanders would, is the student loan information-sharing changes with Australia. Sure it sounds good—sharing information with Australia. But why is the Government trying to share information with Australia, and what is the purpose and the rationale behind it? It is simply to crack down, to scare New Zealanders with student loans who are coming back to New Zealand.

What we know about this Government is that it is prepared to arrest New Zealanders with student loans at the border to try to crack down on them. This is a Government that this week, we heard in this House, does not have a clue, is doing hardly anything about it, and has not acted since 2012, I believe, for the $500 million to almost $1 billion in corporate tax not being paid, but, gee, if you do not start paying back your student loan straight away, you might get arrested at the border. This legislation is all about trying to facilitate information so that the Government can track down people with student loans living in Australia. I think this is the wrong way to go about it, because what we also know is that this was intended as a scare tactic to arrest New Zealand graduates with student loans at the border—a scare tactic. We know there are 130,000 New Zealand student loan borrowers overseas—130,000—and 70 percent of them, according to some estimates, are behind in their payments, but this Government in 3 or 4 years has arrested a single person. It is a scare tactic.

The risk, of course, is that it works and New Zealanders are scared of coming home. We have had the New Zealand University Students’ Association say that the Government risks having student loan refugees. What we see is brute scare tactics. If the Government was actually looking at sharing information with the Australian Government, what it should be doing, and the most effective way—unless it cares more about petty short-term politics than actually bringing back income into the New Zealand Crown from those student loan borrowers—is to ask why on earth do we not work with the Australian Government so that all those hard-working Kiwis working in Australia and paying taxes could be paying off their student loans through the Australian tax system. The Government just throws its hands up in the air and ignores it and says that it is in the too-hard basket. It would rather focus on the short-term politics of arresting New Zealanders at the border. It would rather ignore the massive elephant in the room, which is the billion dollars in tax being avoided—a billion dollars that we cannot be spending on schools and hospitals or investing in an innovative economy because the Government is more focused on scaring the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders with student loans if they go through the border.

When it comes to the last point, which is the idea that we should be looking for more constructive and positive ways to help New Zealanders to pay back their student loans, the Green Party extends its hand to the Government. Why on earth can this Parliament not work together to find ways that do not rely on just the sticks to scare New Zealanders with student loans? Why can we not find the ways, the incentives—the carrots? The Green Party will always work with any party in this Parliament on ways that we can get constructive policy together.

We are supporting this bill because we want to see New Zealand businesses get a fair go when it comes to the tax system. We think that we need to be looking for solutions for the growth in online services. That is why we are supporting it, but we are supporting it with massive reservations because the policy intent of the student loan section is simply to continue the scare tactics, which are not real solutions when it comes to the student loan problem that this country faces.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Greetings to all members of the House. I am honoured to take a call on this second reading of the Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill. The bill introduces amendments to the Student Loan Scheme Act 2011, the Income Tax Act 2007, the Goods and Services Tax Act 1985, and the Tax Administration Act 1994. If there was a bill that could address those particular taxes to create a fair, innovative, futureproof piece of legislation, this was to be it. But, unfortunately, the Government has not delivered on that opportunity at all. Unfortunately, it has been dragging its feet on applying GST to products bought from overseas, and it is failing to back small and medium sized businesses in this country, and that goes beyond the reach of a lot of small businesses in achieving the Kiwi Dream.

Despite National being in Government for 7 years, the best it can come up with is a bill that clearly does not address those critical issues when it could have, at the front end of the administration, and it does not go deep enough. It does not go to help small businesses in New Zealand, which clearly deserve a better deal. Although we should not be surprised at this kind of treatment from the National Government, it has completely lost its way. For example, charging GST on remote services is only one step in the process. There are not many Kiwi companies competing with iTunes or Netflix. Consequently, as an upshot, all this starts to look like it is a tax grab by the National Government rather than an attempt, again, to create a level playing field. The Government needs to stand up for main street businesses, especially small, family-run businesses, and not just those online.

Then we come to the residential land withholding tax. Its intent is to ensure that the brightline test tax on residential property sales is paid by overseas buyers, and that is yet to be proven. It is something that is a necessary part, but again the criticism of this bill is that it does not go deep enough. We do think that it has been a bit half-baked and the opportunity to be innovative has been lost. We on this side believe that addressing the housing crisis through this particular part of the bill will probably not be met, and it is unfortunate that for many, many Kiwis around the country their dream of homeownership will again be beyond their reach. The criticism that the bill has not been well-thought-through goes to, obviously, the Minister of Finance himself admitting that he was not quite aware of the impact on that particular part of this bill.

But it is to the student loan situation that I want to turn my attention a little bit. As a mother of two teenaged boys who have started their first year at university—and I do not expect them to go overseas when they complete their studies—it prompted me to do a bit of research around the student loan situation that is currently facing this country. What I found from getting some information from the library is that there is a trend of student loans clearly going up in this country. In the year 2010-11 what it has said is the closing balance—that is, the total of what is owed at any single point—is just over $12 billion. Fast forward into 2014-15, and the closing balance was $14.8 billion.

So there is clearly huge uptake of student loans in this country, and we should be investing in our young people—we should be investing in our young people—but the point around the exchange with Australia to ensure that we are sharing information is that our young people are not just going to Australia. They are going to other parts of the world, and if we were to make this futureproof to ensure that all students who take out loans enter into a social contract with the Government to pay that money back—they are not just going to Australia; they are going to other parts of the world—it would have been an opportunity for the Government to ensure that we had exchanges with other countries where our students reside.

It is on that closing note that we support the second reading of this bill and look forward to when we get into the Committee stage so we can test some of those clauses in the bill. Kia ora tātou.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): This bill is the latest piece of tax legislation aimed at making our tax system fairer and simpler. We are a party that is in favour of a broad based - low rate tax system, and we have improved fairness in our tax system over the last 5 years on a number of different fronts. Two-thirds of the value of the 2010 income tax cuts went to reducing the bottom two tax rates, helping families and households get ahead, and those earning less than $60,000 a year are generally expected to pay a proportionally lower tax rate than they would have done 5 years ago.

I just wanted to make a few remarks briefly in relation to student loans. Meka Whaitiri and I probably share something in common. Although I do not have sons who have just started university, I have just paid off my student loan. As a student who has just paid off a student loan—I am proud to say that I have done that—I think that we have got a very generous system for student loans in New Zealand, much more so than in other countries. I think that we need to be, obviously, keeping an eye on how the loan rates are increasing, but it is something to be proud of at the same time because it means more people are getting a higher education. More people are getting higher degrees, which means that more people can earn more and have better outcomes for their families.

Just finishing that short contribution, it is great that this bill is going through its second reading, and I look forward to seeing it progress further through the House.

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): This bill is one that contains a number of sensible enough changes and we will be supporting it in the House. It does get on with some amendments that are required to make sure that our tax law maintains its status as being broad based - low rate, and that general approach to taxation has served us well over many, many years.

Of course, on this side of the House we will see another opportunity to make the tax system fairer and more productive overall fall past because there are a lot of things that are not in this bill that could be in this bill. There could be attempts to stop the distortions we have in our economy that see people speculating in the housing market rather than investing in the productive sector. There could be a number of other measures, but I want to speak mainly—the Assistant Speaker will be pleased to hear—about what is in this bill. That includes a number of changes to the student loan area. The problem is evident. When people repay their student loans, they should feel good about that. They should not feel jealous of others who run overseas and flout the law. That does happen. I have certainly heard of instances where people have thumbed their nose at authorities and said that if you are living overseas and you can get away with it, you should be able to get away with it. Frankly, I do not think that cuts the mustard. I think that people who borrow against a scheme with a certain set of conditions should be expected to repay their loan, so I want to take perhaps a slightly more positive tone and congratulate the Government on making some small steps in that direction.

The suggestion of information sharing with the Australian tax authorities sounds sensible enough to me, and also the change where it is required now that, instead of formal notification, the Inland Revenue Department will accept notification in writing—it is logical. We have moved on from the days when you had to have a carrier pigeon or a royal herald deliver a letter, and there is a definition around “formally notifying” that makes it complex, currently, for an email to suffice as a communication. These kinds of updates are sensible; we should welcome them. They are common sense when we are now accepting that an email is a legitimate form of communication.

Other recommendations in the bill—and I was going through a number of them—are about clarification. They are ones where the bill is simply making sure that there are not either loopholes or misunderstandings, and there are a large number in the area of student loan legislation that are proposed. For anybody watching at home, the first portion of this explanatory document—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

Dr DAVID CLARK: —is devoted to that particular task of making sure that the law is clear for people to understand. That is a good thing and it should be affirmed.

The issue of GST is also raised in the bill, and GST on online purchases is tackled in a minor way. The Government has been tepid on this, to say the least. When I was the tax spokesperson a couple of years ago, there was a process set up to come to a view on this. It was pushed out past the election in order to avoid any controversy. The Government certainly could not be accused of leading on this issue. It could not be accused of leading on many issues, actually, except for maybe in the area of payroll debacles at the moment. Generally, it ducks for cover. It is a Government that seems to like managing decline rather than having bright new ideas. In this instance it is allowing for GST to be collected on downloads, and that is a step in the right direction. It, of course, does not address the issue that many retailers in New Zealand have that purchases—you know, if you buy a $50 pair of sneakers or a book from overseas, it does not attract GST. This does nothing to change that, so this bill does not tackle the issue that really is confronting retailers in New Zealand. I think retailers across the country will be very disappointed that after so many promises and such a long process, with soft noises from the Government, the issue has not been tackled. We will see retailers continue to struggle against offshore competitors that do not pay tax in New Zealand and do not have that additional charge required to capture that tax applied to them.

That GST issue is an issue that could and should be dealt with, and it is good to see the Government sticking a tepid toe in the water to address it. It is good to see those tidy-ups on the Student Loan Scheme Act. But, overall, as I say, the Government is dragging its feet. This GST on products issue has been around for a very long time, and it is another example, in my mind, of this Government tilting the field away from small business. Those people who risk their shirts every day, who have a second mortgage on their house to try to get a retail business off the ground, are disadvantaged by the tax law as it stands. This Government seems to have it in for small business, in my view. There have been fewer small businesses created on an annualised basis under this Government than under the previous Government. It has introduced legislation that requires employers to collect overdue child support earnings. That is a burden on a small business owner, when they know the personal details of their employees that they otherwise would not have known. The Government has introduced a lot of red tape for small business. Here we have, again, an opportunity to level the playing field that it has not taken. So small business, again, is disadvantaged against the multinationals, which will avoid paying tax on the items that small businesses must pay tax on when they sell them in New Zealand shops.

But we should not be too surprised. This measure is the best that the Government can come up with, despite being in its eighth year of Government. It is too little, too late. But, as I said, we will support it, because it is a step—albeit a small one—in the right direction. We just think that small businesses in New Zealand deserve better. They do deserve better. There are not many Kiwi companies—and I think that others have touched on this—that are competing with iTunes or Netflix. The issue that the Government is tackling is not one that is facing many New Zealand businesses right now. The issue that is facing most New Zealand businesses has not been tackled in this legislation. The family-run businesses in the main street—they are the ones that are going to continue to be disadvantaged by the un-level playing field that National maintains.

This Government does seem to have an aversion to doing the difficult things. It certainly is letting the Kiwi Dream slip. Homeownership—we now have the lowest homeownership rates in New Zealand since 1951. It does not seem willing to tackle the big issues. It seems prepared to fill up the odd gap here and there in this legislation but not to take on the really big issues of what a fairer tax system would look like overall.

What would a system look like that ensured everybody paid their fair share of tax, not just hard-working middle New Zealanders who go to work every day and those who take the risks and own a small business? The Government does not seem willing to tackle those issues that would ensure that New Zealanders had a growing prosperity, rather than—as we have seen—an almost zero increase, in real terms, in wages across the country. The only increase in our GDP in the last year, we have learnt in recent days, has been as a result of immigration. There has been no increase in terms of wages in New Zealand. That is a sad reality, and it will not change if we do not take on these bigger issues.

As I have said, we will support the bill itself. We will support the small changes that are fingers in the dyke, I guess, of the current system, because it would be worse without them, but it is hard to be inspired by the kind of legislation we are debating here, on a Thursday, which bears the title Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill. It is the small stuff, and this Government seems to be focused on the small stuff. I hope that it can do better. I wish that it would lift its aspirations and look to create the Kiwi Dream, like a future Labour Government will do.

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I support this bill.

Amendments recommended by the Finance and Expenditure Committee by majority agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Taxation (Transformation: First Phase Simplification and Other Measures) Bill

Second Reading

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): I move, That the Taxation (Transformation: First Phase Simplification and Other Measures) Bill be now read a second time. This is a small tax bill, but with a major purpose: to help bring about a simpler, more certain tax administration system for New Zealand. In this context, the proposals contained in the bill represent a small but important step towards enabling the Inland Revenue Department to progress its business transformation programme. This multifaceted programme of reforms will, over the next few years, modernise the way the tax system is administered, using updated business practices and new technologies to make it easier for people to manage their tax affairs.

To that end, the bill proposes to deal with some of the more immediate legislative obstacles to reform while taking some steps to make other rules simpler for taxpayers in the interim. Measures to simplify the tax rules for employee share schemes, for example, are designed to make the rules less onerous for employees participating in these schemes. These are schemes where an employer offers its employees shares in the company as part of their remuneration package. The practice is often used to encourage staff retention and motivation. Under the current tax rules, the value of these shares is treated as an income substitute, but is not subject to the usual PAYE rules. Instead, employees who receive share scheme benefits must file a tax return and account for the tax on the value of the shares themselves. This can act as a deterrent to participation.

To simplify the rules, proposals in the bill allow employers to choose to withhold tax on an employee’s behalf as part of the PAYE return. I want to thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for its recommendations to make improvements to the bill in relation to employers offering such schemes. For large employers, the committee has recommended that the time when an employee is treated as having received employment income from a share scheme under the current proposals in the bill be deferred, to give employers more time to meet their compliance obligations under PAYE rules. It has also recommended that the scope of the proposals be resized so that employers need only focus on arrangements that are directly between the employer and the employee. For example, the committee has recommended that the obligation to disclose via the PAYE system the value of share benefits received by former employees should remain with the former employee, rather than with the employer. The recommendations acknowledge the potential compliance costs of the proposals and helpfully seek to balance them with the need for change.

The remaining proposals in the bill focus on removing certain obstacles to reform of the tax administration system and on simplifying certain interactions between taxpayers and the Inland Revenue Department to make them more efficient and to make it easier for people to manage their tax affairs. They include removing outdated requirements for certain communications between the Inland Revenue Department and taxpayers to be in writing or to be delivered by post, and allowing documents such as tax returns to be filed under an electronic signature. Other proposals in the bill will simplify current processes for taxpayers and allow the Inland Revenue Department to share certain information, to provide better services to its customers. These and other measures proposed in the bill open the way to a new, modern tax administration system, one that will make it easier for people to get their tax right and to receive the social policy payments that they are entitled to.

I want to thank those who submitted on the bill, and I thank the committee. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.

Voting

Party Vote—Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): I seek leave to change New Zealand First’s vote on the Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Is the member now proposing that he vote for the bill? The member voted against the bill.

Darroch Ball: I am seeking leave for the party vote to be recorded.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): You did not call for a party vote, though?

Darroch Ball: Yes, I am seeking leave.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I seek leave for the records to be amended to show that—[Interruption] Take it again? Right, we will do it again. Going back—and this time we will get the correct bit of paper—does the member want both votes, or just the second one? [Interruption] I seek leave to go back and, once again, attempt to sort this out. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Finance and Expenditure Committee by majority be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That question be agreed to.

Ayes 108

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Question agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 108

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Bill read a second time.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 109, Noes 12.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Is this a point of order in relation to the declaring of this ballot?

KRIS FAAFOI: Yes. I seek leave to change our vote to 31. I am told that we are voting only 31 at the moment.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I think we will grant leave. I will put it back. It does show the problem with members who do not call a party vote at the right time, when members are leaving. [Interruption] Both votes 31, not just the second one—right. The result of the vote on the amendment is now Ayes 108 and Noes 12. The result of the vote on the second reading is now Ayes 108 and Noes 12.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I seek leave for the House to rise now, rather than interrupt what will be a scintillating speech from the first Opposition speaker on the Taxation (Transformation: First Phase Simplification and Other Matters) Bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Putting aside any misleading of the House, is there any objection to that? There is not.

The House adjourned at 5.59 p.m.