Wednesday, 6 April 2016

WEDNESDAY, 6 APRIL 2016

WEDNESDAY, 6 APRIL 2016

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

Australia—Speaker, House of Representatives

Mr SPEAKER: Honourable members, I have much pleasure in informing the House that the Hon Tony Smith, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Australia, is within the precincts of this Chamber, accompanied by a parliamentary delegation, which is present in the gallery. I am sure that members would wish that the Speaker be welcomed and accorded a seat on the left of the Chair.

The Hon Tony Smith, accompanied by the Deputy Speaker, was accorded a seat on the left of the Chair.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 3 to Minister

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to raise this matter now because it concerns the general view around question time being a time when the Opposition parties are able to hold the Government to account. In particular, I want to talk about question No. 3, which the Government sought to transfer to the Minister of Revenue. We did that on the basis that Speakers’ rulings 167/1, 167/5, and 176/5 all make it extremely clear that a question should be addressed to the Minister primarily responsible. That is a two-way street. Not only should it be addressed primarily to that Minister but also it should be answered by a Minister who can most reasonably provide the answer. In this case, the Minister of Finance has no direct responsibility for tax law. The question itself goes to the heart of tax law. Further to those Speakers’ rulings that I have mentioned, there is a ruling, 168/3, which prescribes pretty much how the official side of the House should deal with such questions. What is concerning us is that in not allowing this transfer today, effectively, Speakers’ rulings 167/1, 167/5, 168/3, 168/4, and 176/5 are being swept aside, and I think it opens up the very fine line between an Opposition party seeking information on a genuine basis, in order to inform the public, and simply making a political point. It would be unfortunate if the new ruling that is bound to follow this decision today fell in favour of the latter. I just record that we are very unhappy about this transfer. We do not believe it is in the best interests of the House and the people who should be informed by question time.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): The matter raised in the question is about a specific report, Tax policy report: Taxation of multinationals, dated 15 August 2013. I note that the recipient of that report is the Minister of Finance.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Speaking to—

GRANT ROBERTSON: Hang on. That is the fastest I have seen him move ever. The question was set down to the Minister of Finance, asking whether or not he had read that report. He is the only person who can answer that question—whether or not he has read the report and whether he signed the recommendations. I do note that, in full disclosure, the report also went to the Minister of Revenue, but that is not the Minister of Revenue we currently have. It was addressed to the Minister of Finance. He is the only person who can answer the question.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Responding to Mr Brownlee’s argument, the primary purpose of tax law is to set the rate, and that is most definitely in the Minister of Finance’s purview.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: I will allow one more contribution from Mr Brownlee, and then I want to tidy this matter up.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): Responding to the comment by Mr Robertson, there are a lot of Ministers who have correspondence addressed to them without having the responsibility specifically attached to it. I think that is quite common in the case of Associate Ministers receiving general correspondence about a particular portfolio but not having that particular delegation. Also, I would point out that the question being asked by Mr Robertson asks whether the Minister undertook a particular course of action. That is the point where the ministerial responsibility is not exercised. The Government has, I would hasten to point out, no problem answering this question. It is very straightforward. But it is the principle of how transfers can be done in the future.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank members for their contributions. In quoting a number of Speakers’ rulings, Mr Brownlee is correct in that, in most cases, it is the opportunity for the Government to transfer questions when it feels that that answer would be better given by the Minister with primary responsibility. In this case, I did invoke Speaker’s ruling 168/3 and did not allow the transfer, because of the very specific nature of the question. I have a copy of the report that members are alluding to. It is a report prepared by the Inland Revenue Department and Treasury. It is clearly addressed to both Ministers, and the recommendations that flow from the report were then to be signed by both Ministers. Mr Robertson does not want to know whether Mr Woodhouse, as the Minister of Revenue, received and read the report. He quite specifically wants to know whether Mr English received and read the report and then took action with the recommendations. Because it is a joint report to both Ministers, I determined that the only person who could satisfactorily answer the question that Mr Robertson has raised was the Minister of Finance, and on that basis I did not allow the transfer.

Tax System—Overseas Trusts

1. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his statements in relation to tax havens?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes, and in particular my statement from question time yesterday when I said it is ridiculous to suggest that New Zealand is a tax haven. We have a strong tax treaty and information exchange network that helps discover and prevent tax avoidance through exchanging information between tax jurisdictions. New Zealand has also been a very active participant in the OECD and G20 work to combat tax avoidance. We continue to be a strong voice in this area.

Andrew Little: When he says that New Zealand has “full disclosure”, can he confirm that he means a system where foreign trusts do not have their names revealed in a public database, do not have their trustees or settlors revealed in a public database, and do not automatically supply any financial information to the Government?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: “Full disclosure” is not that something is on a public database; it is that that information is available. The IR607 requires that the trustee is listed and that the trust’s name is listed. If any one of the 40 countries that we have a tax agreement with, or the 11 that we have a tax information - sharing agreement with want to come to New Zealand and ask for further information, we would supply that. In fact, actually, 20 jurisdictions have done that, and we have supplied it. In the case of Australia, we automatically supply the information to them.

Andrew Little: When he says the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) will supply information to any country that asks, can he confirm that Governments other than Australia cannot get any information at all unless they somehow know the specific name of the trust, and that those trust names are themselves secret?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: If a country with which New Zealand has a double tax agreement, or, alternatively, has an information-sharing agreement—[Interruption] It sounds like we are being attacked by drones, but anyway.

Mr SPEAKER: I will have that sorted out as quickly as I can.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: OK, all right. If any one of those—

Andrew Little: It is trying to get the trust information.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think it is a bumble-bee, actually. I am about to deliver the sting, if you give me 2 seconds.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We will just continue with the answer to the question, without interjections.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: OK. So if any one of those countries that we have an agreement with comes to IRD and asks for the information, we will supply it. Of course, it is for the individual country itself to decide what disclosure regime it wants to have. If it asks for the trust’s information as part of the declaration, then, actually, it will know the name. It is up to the country to decide whether it wants to know.

Andrew Little: Is it the truth that his weak rules on foreign trusts mean enforcement agencies have no idea which of the 12,000 secret trusts are being used by wealthy foreigners for tax dodging?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I would best sum it up by saying this: “The government has sought to develop policy that works for all concerned, one that enables New Zealand to co-operate with other tax jurisdictions while not disrupting the legitimate financial transactions of foreign trusts.” Those words came from Michael Cullen, when he put together the legislation that, I might add, we are talking about now, which was voted for not just by Labour and National but by New Zealand First. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I have called for order, Sue Moroney; I expect it.

James Shaw: If, for example, a Russian oligarch wanted to hide assets in a New Zealand foreign trust, could Russian tax authorities obtain full disclosure of the details if they did not know the name of that trust here?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot tell you whether we have a double tax agreement with Russia. You would need to put that question to the Minister of Revenue.

James Shaw: Is the Prime Minister saying that Covisory Partners in Auckland, members of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants, is wrong when it concludes that “New Zealand is actually a tax haven, at least in respect of certain trusts.”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In my opinion, yes, for a number of reasons, not the least of them being that the arbiter of whether there are reputational issues here is the OECD. It has not raised any issues in this area with us. In fact, despite what Labour said in the House about the OECD not giving New Zealand a clean bill of health, that is completely wrong. New Zealand was rated as—[Interruption] See, once again you are wrong, Grant—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The question has been answered, right at the start.

James Shaw: Is it not true that the same OECD report that he was just quoting, saying that New Zealand had a clean bill of health, also warned that improvements were needed around trusts with non-resident directors and assets, and that nothing has changed in the 3 years since that report?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That is not correct. The advice I have had is that the OECD raised a few minor points not specifically related to foreign trusts. They were raised, and those have actually been addressed.

James Shaw: Is he not concerned that, on his watch, New Zealand is building a reputation as a sunny place for shady people?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: We have, in New Zealand, followed tax rules that have been around for a very long time, since 1988. The disclosure rules that came in, brought in by the previous Labour Government, are robust. We are part of the OECD and other organisations that look at these areas. As I have said publicly over the last few days, if there are recommendations made either as part of the base erosion and profit sharing work we are doing with the OECD, or others, New Zealand is quite happy to adopt and accept those. But we have full disclosure to anybody for whom there is an agreement. And it will not matter how many times the Opposition says we do not, we do, and we have provided it to 20 jurisdictions.

Andrew Little: Why do foreign trust owners deserve more secrecy than New Zealanders who own shares or are company directors?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: We have tax rules in New Zealand that were established for foreign trusts, and, as I quoted from Michael Cullen earlier—and I quote it again—“the Government’s proposed foreign trust policy is another area where we worked extensively with affected taxpayers to produce good, workable tax policy.” There is nothing wrong with a foreign trust operating in New Zealand. We have a disclosure regime, and we are more than happy to work with, and are working with, the OECD on its base minimisation policy.

Andrew Little: Is it not the truth that wealthy foreigners take advantage of this special treatment to dodge tax at home, and the truth is he does not worry about that one little bit?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That is just fundamentally incorrect. Firstly, we are following the rules established by the—

Grant Robertson: Looking after your old mates.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, they are the rules established by the Labour Government, voted for by Labour and New Zealand First. Secondly, if any—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no point in answering a question asked by Andrew Little when I am getting that sort of barrage from the front bench of the Labour Party.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If our tax laws are—to use his words—world-leading and right, why is he blaming the last Labour Government?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, if they are not, why the hell did he vote for them in 2006? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! My patience is weakening on this particular side of the House. If I have got to specifically name people and ask people to leave, I will do so. It would be with reluctance.

Andrew Little: If there is full disclosure, as he claims, can he tell this House which trusts are being used to dodge taxes, which trusts are being used to launder money, and which trusts are being used to hide stolen assets?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member is posing hypothetical assertions.

Kiwibank—Sale of Shares to ACC and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund

2. DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Finance: Can he confirm that KiwiBank will remain 100 percent Government owned?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes. New Zealand Post Chair, Sir Michael Cullen, today announced a proposal that would see two additional taxpayer-owned shareholders, ACC and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, purchase 20 percent and 25 percent of Kiwibank. As these are both Government agencies, Government ownership remains at 100 percent.

David Seymour: Can the Minister guarantee that the rest of the banking sector will remain 100 percent privately owned?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Bill English, if there is ministerial responsibility.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes. As we have seen back in the global financial crisis, owning a bank can be a bit tricky, and when they are very large, even the New Zealand Government could not afford to own the other banks.

David Bennett: What are some of the potential benefits of the New Zealand Post proposal?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is a proposal at this stage, and final negotiations have yet to be completed. The New Zealand Post board, when it approached the Government, explained it would give Kiwibank access to extra sources of capital for future growth and deepen the commercial oversight of the bank. The Superannuation Fund and ACC would have an investment in a profitable local company. New Zealand Post would receive a return for the shares and use some of that to repay the debt that it built up supporting Kiwibank’s expansion. Some may be paid to the Government as a special dividend.

Hon David Parker: Is the Government willing to implement mechanisms that would prevent the onsale of Kiwibank shares by ACC or the Superannuation Fund to non-public shareholders so as to void today’s step, leading to the privatisation of Kiwibank in the future?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes. Part of the transaction is that there will be a right of first refusal, which means that when ACC or the Superannuation Fund decides to sell its shares, it must first offer them to the Government of the day. I can confirm for the member that the policy of this Government would be that if the shares were offered to this Government we would buy them.

Hon David Parker: Will the Government commit to using most of the special dividend that the Government will now be able to get out of New Zealand Post to fund the additional capital that Kiwibank needs to expand, or is he running down the Government’s ownership of Kiwibank to fund tax cuts?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: We cannot be running down the Government ownership of it because it is 100 percent owned by the Government today, and will still be 100 percent owned by the Government after the transaction. With regard to any capital that is actually returned to the Crown, we will apply that to the financing of other capital investments, which we regard as a higher priority. The owners of Kiwibank—that is, New Zealand Post, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, and ACC—will fundamentally make the decisions about whether Kiwibank can grow further and how it will capitalise that growth.

David Bennett: If the proposal goes ahead, how will the Government ensure Kiwibank remains 100 percent Government-owned?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I have said in answer to the other member’s question, the proposal includes a right of first refusal for the Government over any future sale of shares.

James Shaw: How can he guarantee that Kiwibank will remain in public ownership when he cannot control who future finance Ministers will be or whether they will choose to buy back the shares?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would welcome the capacity to control who future finance Ministers will be. But the Greens, however, cannot contribute to that because they consistently rule themselves out of getting into Government. So that will be a matter for the Government of the day. In the end, the guarantee of public ownership of Kiwibank is a matter for the public and the Government of the day, on any day.

Tax System—Multinational Enterprises and Overseas Trusts

3. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Did he read the report “Taxation of Multinationals” prepared by the Treasury and the Inland Revenue Department dated 15 August 2013, and did he undertake the action sought from him to agree to the recommendations contained in that paper?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes, and all recommendations in the paper were agreed to.

Grant Robertson: What action did he take on being advised by officials in that paper that “To protect our international reputation, it may be necessary to strengthen our regulatory framework for disclosure and record-keeping.”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The paper outlined a whole range of measures that could be taken with regard to the taxation of multinational companies. The action that we took, relevant to that particular proposal, was that a whole lot of other measures in the paper were important because they protected the New Zealand tax base, which we regard as our top priority. The Mexican tax base is interesting, but it is not our top priority. So we left the measures around those trusts, because, as the paper points out, it would require time, effort, and compliance from the Inland Revenue Department, with no benefit to the New Zealand tax base.

Grant Robertson: Is he saying by that answer that he does not put any value whatsoever on New Zealand’s reputation and would rather get alongside the mega-rich than protect that?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, New Zealand’s reputation for tax policy, as confirmed by the OECD when it did its report, is that we have probably the most comprehensive broad based - low rate tax system in the world—that is, no other developed country has a tax base with as few holes as New Zealand has. That report was about the taxation of multinationals in New Zealand. A large number of the recommendations have been implemented, and we decided that the Opposition’s view about New Zealand as a tax haven is pretty irrelevant.

Grant Robertson: Is it correct that New Zealand is the only OECD country that allows tax avoidance through trusts in this way?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not know about the rules for trusts in every other OECD country, but that is not what the OECD said. What it said was that we comply. As for the member’s assertion that, somehow, having trusts endorses tax avoidance—well, so does having companies, so does having sole proprietors, and so does having PAYE; the tax vehicle is not determinant of whether there is avoidance. Of course, it is the way that people use them that matters, and our top priority is how New Zealanders use our tax vehicles; not how Mexicans use them.

Grant Robertson: How is it possible that our foreign trust disclosure rules do not need to be tightened, when companies like Turner Hopkins advertise themselves by saying that New Zealand is increasingly popular with foreign trusts because “There are very limited disclosure obligations”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Whoever they are, they are wrong. The combination of the disclosure requirements and the information requirements around trusts, the application of anti - money-laundering procedures, the new introduction of the automatic exchange of information, which is coming, and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act regime mean that any foreign investor with a presence in New Zealand could be subject to anything from one to four compliance regimes. So I suggest that the tax advisers update their understanding of New Zealand law.

Student Loans—Overseas-based Borrowers

4. TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: What progress is the Government making in ensuring overseas-based New Zealanders meet their obligation to repay their student loans?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment): Very good progress. Since 2010 the Government has run an initiative to ensure overseas-based borrowers repay their loans, and that initiative is on track to reach its current target of lifting repayments by overseas-based borrowers by $100 million a year. Following a high-profile event in January, repayments by those borrowers have increased by 31 percent over the same period last year, with an additional 20,000 repayments made. It is just a pity that it took the first arrest at the border to achieve that spike in activity. Overall, overseas-based borrowers repaid $184.7 million in the last financial year. To the end of February this year, it has already reached $134 million.

Todd Barclay: Why is it important that overseas-based borrowers meet their obligations?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is important that overseas-based borrowers meet their obligations to taxpayers who have supported their tertiary study, so that we can provide the same support for the next generation of students. Just because a borrower is overseas, it does not mean that their loan will go away while they are not here. Unfortunately, too many have taken that view. It is also important for the overseas-based borrowers themselves to get their loans paid off faster and minimise the interest payments and penalties.

Todd Barclay: What measures are used to ensure overseas-based borrowers meet their repayment obligations?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Prior to the current Government starting the current overseas-based borrowers initiative, overseas-based debt was in the “too hard basket”, or worse. We still have a long way to go to get overseas borrowers fully up to speed, but we have brought in fixed repayment obligations and higher repayment thresholds, we have put in place ongoing information-sharing agreements between the Inland Revenue Department and the Department of Internal Affairs to collect details from passport applications, we have introduced the border arrest system for the most non-compliant borrowers, and, from July this year, we will have an information-sharing agreement with the Australian Taxation Office to share information on student-loan borrowers living in Australia without the Inland Revenue Department knowing. With the majority of overseas-based borrowers living in Australia, this new agreement will be a significant step forward and will help us to collect nearly a billion dollars’ worth of overdue debt.

Housing, Auckland—Affordability

5. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister for Building and Housing: Does he stand by his statement, “Well of course someone has to buy the houses and so of course they will be affordable to somebody”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister responsible for HNZC) on behalf of the Minister for Building and Housing: Yes, in the context in which they were given.

Phil Twyford: Does he still maintain that when the median price of new builds in Auckland has risen to $800,000, that that is affordable just because someone is buying them, even when many of those new builds are being bought by speculators?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Of course the overall aim of the Government policy is to enable low and middle income New Zealanders to be able to afford housing, and because Auckland is dealing with the legacy of decades of poor planning, it is taking some time to achieve that. But it would help if the member would stop opposing large developments in Auckland, as he has indicated today that he is opposing one.

Phil Twyford: When average Auckland prices rose $5,000 in the last month to $931,000, how does he expect anyone to afford them, other than wealthy offshore speculators?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member may be surprised to know that, even at those high price levels, the proportion of sales to first-home buyers in Auckland has risen quite a bit just in the last 12 months, from around 13 percent to 21 percent of all sales. But, as the member knows, we agree that house prices in Auckland are too high for low and middle income New Zealanders, and we would like to see that member supporting the large-scale developments, not opposing them, and also supporting the Government in trying to influence Auckland Council to produce a plan that will enable affordable housing.

Phil Twyford: When Auckland housing is among the most unaffordable in the world, with homeownership falling and 18 percent of Auckland’s homes still being sold to wealthy offshore speculators, is it not true that his housing policy benefits only the wealthiest 1 percent?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No. What benefits wealthy homeowners are the stupid planning processes that he and that party endorse—that is, planning processes that stop development, prevent more greenfield land being available, and make densification harder. When we solve those problems—and I hope with that party’s support—then houses will be more affordable for New Zealanders.

Tax System—Overseas Trusts

6. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Given his answer to Oral Question No. 1 yesterday, how does he stand by his statements?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Vertically.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yeah, challenged. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Now we will turn to a supplementary question from the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: When the media of the small Mediterranean island of Malta claim that “The New Zealand Foreign Trust regime is a sacred cow of New Zealand law, a veritable ‘Fort Knox’ of asset protection.”, are they wrong and he right?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member is referring to the legislation that created the rules around foreign trusts, which he voted for.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am asking the Prime Minister for an answer that concerns him and his behaviour yesterday.

Mr SPEAKER: If the question was clearer, I would attempt to help the member—[Interruption] Order! I had some difficulty hearing the question at the start because of interjections, so on this occasion I will invite the member to ask the question—I hope it is in line with the Standing Orders—and then we will proceed to the answer.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: When the media of the small Mediterranean island of Malta claim “The New Zealand Foreign Trust regime is a sacred cow of New Zealand law, a veritable ‘Fort Knox’ of asset protection.”, are they wrong and he right?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: On the advice I have had, yes, they are wrong, because of the disclosure regime New Zealand has.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If his acquaintances, the Prime Minister of Malta’s chief of staff and his Minister of energy, avail themselves through the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust and the Haast Trust of this “Fort Knox”, are they also wrong and he right?

Mr SPEAKER: There is no ministerial responsibility for that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: When Massey University’s Deborah Russell says “It’s shameful for New Zealand to be caught up in international tax avoidance … The loophole in our laws that allows New Zealand foreign trusts to escape taxation has been known about for years, but nothing has been done to shut it down. This makes us complicit in schemes to avoid tax”, is she also wrong and he right?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The OECD in 2013 gave New Zealand the highest rating possible in this area: “compliant”. We are following the rules that were established and voted for by that member. If the member was not coming to the House with big crocodile tears today, he would have voted against the legislation in 2006.

Forestry, Timber Processing—Hikurangi Forest Farms

7. STUART NASH (Labour—Napier) to the Associate Minister for Primary Industries: What reports has she seen on the conduct of Hikurangi Forest Farms in Gisborne?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development) on behalf of the Associate Minister for Primary Industries: I have not seen any reports on the conduct of Hikurangi Forest Farms in Gisborne. However, I have seen some limited media reports of some allegations being made.

Stuart Nash: How does she expect to meet her target, which she announced just last week, of growing the level of processed wood products that we export overseas, when the overseas-owned Hikurangi Forest Farms refuses to supply logs to local processing firms, at a cost of 50 jobs, even when these local mills are willing to pay export-equivalent prices?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think the member should be advised to be careful not to place himself in the middle of commercial transactions between two parties, because I understand from the media reports that there is a negotiation going on at some point. The member is in danger, potentially, of being used by one party, I think, to advance their cause at the expense of the other party.

Stuart Nash: What is she going to do to get Hikurangi Forest Farms to process more of its logs into value-added lumber products in New Zealand, given it promised to build a “state-of-the-art processing facility” in its successful 1996, 2006, and 2007 Overseas Investment Office applications to purchase land, but is yet to take any steps towards building one?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: My understanding is that that particular company is currently building a facility in the district that is going to create 22 jobs, and, potentially, 44 jobs. I do not know how that relates, in particular, in relation to an Overseas Investment Office application, but, again, I think the member has to be careful. If he is suggesting that we force private companies to sell their logs below other prices because it suits him, then that is a very interesting path to walk down.

Stuart Nash: Why is she prepared to stand up for a wealthy foreign investor, who purchased 33,000 hectares of our forests, but then broke their promises, flaunted our rules, and refused to sell logs to local mills, therefore costing jobs, over the interests of good, hard-working New Zealanders of the East Coast region?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think the House could be excused for thinking that those are the talking points from one party to a potential commercial transaction. I think the member is being used. If I were him I would pipe down, because he has been, basically, asked to advance the case of one private party on behalf of another, and I actually think he should take some care with that.

Stuart Nash: I seek leave to table an Overseas Investment Commission decision sheet from 16 December 1996, which states: “The commission was further advised that the company proposes to establish a state-of-the-art processing facility.”

Mr SPEAKER: On the basis that it is quite some time ago, I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular one-page decision by the Overseas Investment Commission. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

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

Stuart Nash: I seek leave to table a 21 February 2006 decision from the Overseas Investment Office on Hikurangi Forest Farms, which states “Hikurangi proposes to acquire the subject property to develop a timber processing facility.”

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular Overseas Investment Office directive. Is there any objection? There is none.

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

Stuart Nash: I seek leave to table a decision sheet from the Overseas Investment Office on Hikurangi Forest Farms from 15 May 2007, which states “Hikurangi proposes to acquire the subject property … to develop a timber processing facility.”

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular decision. Is there any objection? There is none.

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

Immunisation—Flu Vaccine and Infant Immunisation

8. JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to the Minister of Health: How is the Government supporting the protection of New Zealanders against influenza this winter?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Today I launched the annual influenza immunisation campaign in Porirua. More than 1 million New Zealanders get immunised against influenza each year, and this year we are aiming for 1.2 million. The influenza vaccine has two new strains to ensure New Zealanders are better protected this winter from the strains of influenza circulating around the world, and the vaccine will be funded for eligible patients until the end of July.

Jacqui Dean: Who is eligible for these free vaccinations, and does this include older people, given the demographics and cooler temperatures of some parts of the Waitaki electorate?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes. People over the age of 65 are eligible for a free vaccination, and of course that includes the Waitaki electorate. Vaccination is also free for New Zealanders with long-term health conditions such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, respiratory disease, kidney disease, and cancer. It is also free for pregnant women. In addition, children aged 6 months to 4 years with a previous admission for a respiratory illness are eligible for a free vaccination.

Jacqui Dean: Apart from influenza, what other steps is the Government taking to increase immunisation rates?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: As one of our six health targets the Government wants to see 95 percent of infants aged 8 months complete their primary course of immunisation on time. In the last quarter our nationwide coverage increased to 94 percent, the highest coverage that has ever been achieved. The Southern District Health Board, which covers part of the member’s electorate, made steady ground, reaching 94 percent coverage.

SuperGold Card—Travel Cap

9. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If he stands by his statement that his Government “has been leading the charge on really expanding the use of the gold card and the opportunity and advantages”, why has his Government capped the SuperGold card travel cost?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, I stand by that statement, and I am delighted that that senior member got the opportunity to use his SuperGold card on the Pētone to Wellington route this morning.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Two matters. One is that that is not an answer to my question about the capping of the travel cost. Second, I did not use any gold card this morning. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Mr Brownlee! The problem with the member’s question was that there were two questions in his supplementary question. The Prime Minister chose to answer one of them.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I accept your ruling, Mr Speaker, that the Prime Minister is required to answer only one of two questions, but that does not mean to say that he can answer a third that was not asked. That was out of order and it should be you, Mr Speaker, who stops the Prime Minister from doing that.

Mr SPEAKER: I did not hear anything that I thought was out of order from the Prime Minister.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. A question that asks whether he stands by his statement why something has happened is not two questions; it is just one.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have ruled it was two questions.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, you are wrong. It’s one.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, then, the member will stand and withdraw that comment immediately or else leave the Chamber.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise. Point of order.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have ruled on that matter. If the member wishes to raise a fresh point of order, I am very happy to hear it. But if in any way I consider we are just going over old ground and relitigating where we have been, then I will have no hesitation in asking that member to leave the Chamber.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am not going to let down the education system of this country by having you making it up as you go along. I would rather leave the House than do that.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, the member is welcome, then, to leave the House. [Interruption] The member will leave the Chamber.

Ron Mark: If his Government is leading the charge to help seniors who have contributed to New Zealand all of their working lives, why cap funding on free travel to SuperGold cardholders and force ratepayers to top up the shortfall—why?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: For a start off, I think it is important to have a few of the facts, which are, firstly, that when we came into office SuperGold card funding was $18 million, approximately; now it is $28 million. There were about 800 businesses using it; now there are over 8,000. The entitlements do not change. Yes, we are going to be driving better value for money for the providers that do that, but I think that is sensible. There is a review in 2018-19, and if the Rt Hon Winston Peters did not use his SuperGold card this morning on the train, why the hell did he have a SuperGold card photo-op?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The last part now will not help the order of this House. Supplementary question—Ron Mark.

Ron Mark: I will not ask why that was a pathetic answer.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just have the supplementary question.

Ron Mark: Yes, it is coming. If the Government—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Ron Mark.

Ron Mark: Thank you, Mr Speaker. If the Government cannot afford the free travel benefits of the SuperGold card, how can it afford to give full superannuation benefits to over 82,000 immigrants who have come here and acquired superannuation after 10 years, how can it afford to fund their free health-care, and how can he afford to give tax cuts to his wealthy mates?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There were a number of questions there. The last part is certainly not to be addressed in the answer; it is out of order.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As the member knows, the entitlements for the SuperGold card are not changing. The number of businesses using it is dramatically being enhanced, and I think the Government can be proud of its record in relation to the SuperGold card.

Ron Mark: I seek leave of the House to table correspondence from the Greater Wellington Regional Council that shows that the Government is capping the funding.

Mr SPEAKER: It is a marginal call, but I will put the leave and leave it for the House to decide. Leave is sought to table—how many letters? Can I just check?

Ron Mark: One letter.

Mr SPEAKER: It is one letter, as described by Ron Mark. Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.

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

Fresh Water—Ownership

10. CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Does he stand by the Prime Minister’s statement that in Aotearoa “nobody owns water”?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: Yes.

Catherine Delahunty: How can he claim that no one owns our water, when Ashburton council is trying to profit from selling the rights to bottle and sell fresh water to overseas companies?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Quite easily, because the Ashburton council is not selling water.

Catherine Delahunty: When a private company is right now advertising the sale of Canterbury land with rights to half a billion litres of water as “an outstanding opportunity for any major water soft drinks supplier”, does he really believe this company is not acting like it owns the water?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Yes, I am.

Catherine Delahunty: I seek leave to table a website advertisement, which has been taken down in most places, showing the private sale of the rights for half a billion litres of Canterbury water.

Mr SPEAKER: Am I clear in saying that it is a public advertisement the member is seeking to table?

Catherine Delahunty: Yes, that is correct.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, then, that is available for all members. [Interruption] I will not be putting the leave. Further supplementary questions?

Catherine Delahunty: You have got to have a go in this place.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just finish your supplementary question, otherwise I am happy to move on.

Catherine Delahunty: If he thinks no one owns water, then what did I just buy when I paid Coca-Cola $4 for this bottle of spring water taken from the Kaimai Ranges?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: She bought a bottle of water.

Catherine Delahunty: Who owns it, Mr Speaker? Supplementary question?

Mr SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Catherine Delahunty. [Interruption] Order! I do acknowledge the reaction is to an interjection. Would the member please just ask her supplementary question.

Catherine Delahunty: Certainly, I would be delighted. Will the Minister accept—[Interruption] If you want a drink, come and have one. Will he accept that if water were owned by tangata whenua and the public, overseas companies would not be profiting from the sale of water allocations in Aotearoa?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: It is well acknowledged by this Government that no one owns water in this country—that is the position going back many years across administrations—but Māori have rights and interests in water that are reflected in some of the excellent Treaty settlement negotiations his colleague the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations has negotiated.

David Seymour: If it is wrong to have property rights in water, then has the Minister considered rescinding our world-leading quota management system in fisheries?

Mr SPEAKER: I fail to see that there is a ministerial responsibility, but I will allow the Minister if he wishes to make it brief.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: The Minister has no responsibility for fisheries matters.

Broadband, Ultra-fast and Rural—Speed

11. BRETT HUDSON (National) to the Minister for Communications: What recent reports has she received on improvements in internet speeds?

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Communications): Two independent reports have found that the Government’s ultra-fast broadband and Rural Broadband Initiative programmes are continuing to drive significant improvement in speeds. In 2008 average broadband speeds were 2.7 megabits per second. The most recent Akamai State of the Internet Report found that in the past year average speeds rose 27 percent, to 9.3 megabits, with peak speeds of 43 megabits a second, meaning that there has been a tripling of average internet speeds since 2008. For rural users, the latest update from TrueNet on Rural Broadband Initiative connections has found that speeds are growing by about 7 percent per quarter. Those users under the first phase of the Rural Broadband Initiative are now able to access websites at a rate three times faster than they would otherwise have been able to, thanks to this National-led Government.

Brett Hudson: How will these better speeds benefit the people of Ōhāriu and wider New Zealand?

Hon AMY ADAMS: As the member is aware, Ōhāriu has the highest proportion of internet connections in New Zealand. For both Ōhāriu and wider New Zealand, faster broadband offers the opportunity for people to make the most of improving business productivity, provides smarter ways to receive health care, and ensures that our youngest New Zealanders are accessing the best resources anywhere in the world while studying. It connects New Zealanders with one another and with new markets across the world, and it allows our best and brightest to explore new ideas, services, and products. It is a vital part of the Government’s plan for developing a productive, competitive economy and creating more jobs for Kiwis and their families.

David Seymour: By how much has productivity in the New Zealand economy grown over the period the Minister cites?

Hon AMY ADAMS: Not being the Minister for Economic Development, I do not have those figures to hand, but if he wishes to put them down to that Minister, I am sure he can provide them.

Overseas Investment Office—Overseas Trusts

12. Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister for Land Information: Can she assure the public that the Overseas Investment Office has not approved any applications by foreign investors implicated in the Mossack Fonseca tax avoidance scandal; if so, how?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Land Information): The Overseas Investment Office is aware of concerns, and the Inland Revenue Department has requested information regarding one application connected with Mossack Fonseca.

Hon David Cunliffe: Are offshore trusts with New Zealand - based trustees or custodians, such as UnaEnergy Trustees, considered an overseas person by the Overseas Investment Office?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: It is quite clear in the Overseas Investment Act as to who is an overseas person for whom we require consent for them to purchase any sensitive land or significant business assets and fishing quota. It is someone who is not a New Zealand citizen or is not ordinarily resident in New Zealand, or an entity that is 25 percent or more owned or controlled by an overseas person.

Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table a media release by the Overseas Investment Office, dated 4 April 2016, entitled “Overseas Investment Office to provide clarity to custodian companies”, which remains silent—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no need to add anything further. If it is a media release from the Overseas Investment Office, it is freely available to members.

Hon David Cunliffe: When the Overseas Investment Office says it has taken a lighter touch in processing applications, does this include blind ignorance of potential tax evasion trusts and overseas criminals such as those potentially linked to Mossack Fonseca’s New Zealand partner companies?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I have said in this House before, the Act is very clear about the fact that it is a privilege to own New Zealand land and assets. We actually have one of the more robust regimes around the world, which makes sure that we get that balance right in knowing that New Zealand is open to foreign investment, but absolutely the criteria are clear. Good character is one of those criteria, and the Overseas Investment Office looks at that criterion very significantly. More important, it is not just a condition when the application is put forward. It is an ongoing condition of the consent. So if at a later point there is ever an issue associated with someone who has been given approval, then the Overseas Investment Office can and does take action with that breach.

Hon David Cunliffe: Can the Minister confirm that the Overseas Investment Office has in the last 5 years approved 99.85 percent of all its applications, and that it has too few staff and investigative resource even to routinely check whether the application conditions have been met; if so, why is the Overseas Investment Office pandering to the 1 percent of international high rollers who are playing fast and loose with New Zealand’s regulatory regime, as shown in the Panama Papers?

Mr SPEAKER: Either of those two supplementary questions, the Hon Louise Upston.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I am happy to report to the House that the Overseas Investment Office has a very strong regime. One of the parts of that is to make sure, in the very first quality control of the applications that are received—if he looks at the statistics for February alone this year, that member will see the high number that were rejected and not accepted for processing. What that does mean is that at the end of the day, of those that are accepted, yes, we will have a higher number of those approved, because those that will not get approved are kicked out at the very first touch.

Urgent Debates Declined

Kiwibank—Proposed Sale

Mr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from James Shaw seeking to debate, under Standing Order 389, the announcement today of a proposal to sell 45 percent of Kiwibank to ACC and the Superannuation Fund. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. The announcement is a proposal to sell part of Kiwibank, and I note that the chair of New Zealand Post has said it is “not a done deal yet”. Furthermore, the proposal would result in Kiwibank remaining in Government ownership. Finally, there is an opportunity to debate the performance and current operations of New Zealand Post during the upcoming annual review debate. For these reasons, I am not persuaded that the issue is urgent or important enough to warrant setting aside the business of the House today. The application is, therefore, declined.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. We can get the opportunity to debate Kiwibank anyway, because it is here. But has it not been interesting, just listening to the preoccupations of the Labour Party? For a party that is meant to be concerned about jobs and incomes, its overriding concern this week is to assist the tax authorities of Mexico and Malta and the Cayman Islands. We are seeing more outrage about whether or not Mexicans are using a financial structure in New Zealand than we are seeing about family violence, about the fact that too many young people still cannot find their way directly into work, or about any number of the other things that used to be the preoccupations of the Labour Party—used to be the preoccupations of the Labour Party.

What happened to Labour? We saw Dr Cullen at the press conference today. What happened to the kind of energy and focus he used to bring to this House around issues that mattered to the Labour Party? What happened to the capacity to make people feel like the Labour Party really did care for the needs and the pressures of low and middle income New Zealand? He could do it with some real force, and occasionally we listened—not very often, because he was often wrong, even though he was well intended. But at least he could do it. What has happened to that capacity?

Hon Steven Joyce: It’s gone.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, it is Grant Robertson, which does mean that it has gone—it does mean it has gone. A party that cannot seem to find itself getting motivated about the things that it used to care about has been reduced to directing what little passion it has at demanding that the New Zealand Government deal with tax avoidance problems in Mexico. That is where it has ended up. That is the Kiwi Dream—that is, apparently, what really does matter today! Well, it is an interesting issue—

Dr David Clark: Get a grip.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: There are a handful of people in New Zealand who have got a grip on it—

Hon Damien O’Connor: Get your head out of the sand.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: —and probably not the member for the West Coast. He probably does not have a grip on it. And, of course, we will have to pay some attention to how that issue rolls on with these revelations in the international media. But, in the meantime, the Government is getting on with much more important things, like keeping the New Zealand jobs machine chugging along.

We are in an economy that is strong enough for us to know that the people who will lose their jobs at New Zealand Post, which is a fading industry, and the people who will lose their jobs at Fisher and Paykel because it cannot be globally competitive at manufacturing electrical products—we know that they will be able to get other jobs in this economy. And they will not need a massively expensive, universal basic income to do it, because they do not need to be told by the Government that they are so hopeless that we have to guarantee to pay them, whether they are working or not.

Grant Robertson: Which you do now, so fair enough—good on you.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, that is Labour’s big, new, innovative idea. Let us find the people who are working and pay them—that is the new idea. That is the innovation. The new Labour Party superannuation: everyone over 18 gets New Zealand superannuation.

Meanwhile, we are paying attention to keeping the jobs machine chugging along, and working alongside those regional communities that are affected by the downturn in dairy prices, for instance, because their full resilience is going to be called on over the next 6 months or so. It is an important part of the New Zealand economy, but the good news is that as we work alongside them, more people are realising this economy is more diversified than everyone expected.

ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): Well, that comes from a Government that claims it has got so many ideas it can only talk about ours. That is what it has now come to, faced with big problems. Can it give an assurance that it will buy back the Kiwibank shares if they are offered up for sale by the Cullen fund or by ACC? It cannot even give that assurance.

And it talks about the young unemployed—the young unemployed have bloomed under this Government over the last 8 years. The average level of unemployment for the 18 to 24-year-olds is now up to 15 percent—that is a National Government achievement. But like with all of the National Government’s failures, those members always have to turn it on somebody else, so now we are responsible, somehow, for their failure to get to grips with the ambitions and the dreams of young New Zealanders. Those members are doing nothing, have done nothing, and will do nothing, which is why New Zealanders now know they need a change of Government if they are going to have a chance for the future.

There is one question that New Zealanders are asking this week: who is the National Government governing for? Who is it there for? Because what has become blatantly obvious to every New Zealander who cares is that that mob over there does not care about ordinary New Zealanders. They do not care. And we have Mossack Fonseca to thank for the fact that this Government’s abject failure to deal with the tax fraudsters and the tax dodgers of the world—it has done nothing about it. It has done nothing about it. We know what those members’ response is, so the Prime Minister is saying, “Oh, it’s all too complicated. Kiwis, don’t worry, you will never understand.”—of course, he does, because that is the industry that he comes out of. Doing dodges, doing dodgy deals, coming out of the finance sector—he loves that stuff. That is him. Of course we would not understand it.

Those members are arrogant, they are out of touch, and they do not care—they do not care. So they say: “Oh, don’t worry, we’ve got full disclosure.” Never mind that you will never find out who settles these foreign trusts, who the beneficiaries are, or how much the assets are worth—we will never know any of that under this Government’s full disclosure regime. There is no need for any of them to file a return, so we will never know exactly what is going on. And “Is it a tax haven?”, we asked, and the Government said “No, we’re not a tax haven.”, but this is what the experts are saying. This is what McVeagh Fleming, a reputable Auckland law firm, tells its clients: “New Zealand is not seen as a ‘tax haven’ country so the use of a New Zealand trust is generally not perceived as a means to avoid tax or as being tax aggressive.”, which is lawyer-speak for “Come ’ere, because you can be a tax dodger and we’ll be tax aggressive.” That is exactly what that is saying. And then, what do others say? Another one says: “It should be noted that New Zealand does not have a central trust registry, thus offering a considerable degree of privacy”—secrecy—“and flexibility.” This is the Government’s full disclosure regime.

And do you know what? Those members do not care about it. They do not care about us becoming a harbour for the tax dodgers and the wrongdoers of the world. They do not care about it—they do not care about it. And the only question then is exactly who is this Government looking after, because now it has become pretty obvious. We should not be surprised. This whole thing about tax dodging and inexplicable financial arrangements is exactly what John Key stands for. He does not stand for the hard-working New Zealanders, or for the hard-working New Zealand business people starting with their small businesses and trying to grow them, and trying to get capital finance so that they can generate those new jobs and generate a bit of wealth for themselves by doing things the honest way, which is what Kiwis are always good at.

Those members do not care about this stuff because that is not the world they live in. They live in a world that is about looking after the mega-rich and the mega-wealthy who add nothing to New Zealand. What has John Key said? “Let’s be the Switzerland of the South Pacific.”, he said. “Let’s get the European mega-rich down here. They can build their mansions.” And the rest of us? We will tug our forelocks and we will do as we are told and polish their shoes. That is the New Zealand future that John Key has in his mind. That is his vision for New Zealand.

It is not a New Zealand that is about hard-working Kiwis doing their best, and doing the best for the country they love and that we love too. That is the National Party vision. It is not about good things; it is about the dodgers and the shirkers and those who owe no allegiance to any country or to any people. We do not want a bar of it, and we will not have a bar of it because the Labour Party stands for those who do good things, for those who work hard, and for those who want a great country.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Look, I had a couple of days in Australia last week and, let us be honest, it is a marvellous country, that country. It has huge resources, the wonderful city of Sydney, and a very vibrant economy. It is growing quite well—actually, its growth figures are broadly similar to ours, although its Budget surplus is not so good. But the interesting thing, spending a bit of time in Australia, is that there is definitely some angst in the community and in the business community and some uncertainty, and one of the criticisms the Australian Government is currently being labelled with now is that it has not been crystal clear about its priorities and the sense of direction is somewhat lacking.

I do not know whether that is a fair criticism or not because I have not spent enough time there, but there is no question, in comparison, as to what the priorities and the sense of direction that is coming from this Government is, and has been for the past 8 years. I think that is one of the reasons for this Government’s success and for the country’s progress that we have made in the past few years. For the last 8 years now we have been consistent about what this Government has set out to achieve, and the starting point has always been to restore our finances and to have a sustainable Budget balance and well-maintained finances.

Why is that important? It is important because if people can stand back and make a judgment on the Government’s management of itself and say that what it is doing is broadly sustainable, then you can have much more confidence to invest, and it is ultimately only investment decisions by individuals and Governments either to hire a new person or to buy a new plant or to start a new business—that all relies on confidence. And you can have confidence if you can look at what the Government is doing and say that, well, what it is doing is economically sustainable. It is not going to have to lurch off in a new direction and change all its policies in order to get back into a reasonable state of affairs.

That is why business confidence fell in the final of the three terms of the last Labour Government. People looked at their budgets and saw that they were spending more and more, and that future budgets were going to be in deficit for the next 5 years. They knew something would have to change, and that undermined confidence. Restoring the Government’s finances has been essential to what this Government is about. We have achieved that. We are back in surplus, and that is a very important foundation for this Government to build on and for the country to build on. The second thing is about building a more productive and competitive economy, which is the relentless task of working through what it is that businesses in New Zealand need in order to employ more people, create jobs, deliver people higher incomes, and succeed on the global stage.

We have set out a very clear agenda of what we are trying to do through the Business Growth Agenda in terms of working in areas such as infrastructure, which is so important in Auckland, where I come from, where we have got a rapidly growing city that is prospering, doing well—

Chris Hipkins: Which electorate?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —the Epsom electorate, where I am based—and where the population is growing. We are struggling with keeping the city moving in terms of traffic congestion, and that is why investing in infrastructure—in roads and rail, particularly—is so important and why, if you have a strong economy, you can do that effectively, and that is what we are doing.

Also, in terms of investment law, we are hearing the Opposition members raging and gnashing about foreign investment into New Zealand. But it is so important. If we are to grow, ultimately we only get jobs, and we only get the higher-paying jobs, as a result of investment from people. If we limit ourselves purely to the money that we have saved ourselves in terms of domestic investment, well, then that is fine. We can grow, but we can only grow so fast. But if we want to grow faster, we need to also be able to draw in investment from around the world, and that is what we have continued to do.

Finally, the other area that the Government has been working on is building better public services. Ultimately, you cannot have a competitive economy if 35 percent of the economy, which is that which is run by the State, is not done well, and if it is inefficient and ineffective. You get good Government services only if you actually give people what they want and achieve success, whether it is in health or in education.

So when you look back at what this Government has done over the last 8 years, people know what we stand for and know what we are trying to achieve. We have laid it out, crystal clear, and we are making great progress. That is why New Zealand continues to have high levels of confidence and continues to do well. It is my hope that we will get the opportunity to carry on that work in the near future. Thank you very much.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): The leak of over 11.5 million documents in the Panama papers is further proof that there is something awfully rotten in the world of international finance. The PM’s response was to childishly claim that he is right and that every international commentator—including the UK’s much-respected economists—and tax experts everywhere are wrong.

The scandal has clearly claimed the Icelandic Prime Minister, and swirls around the Government of Malta and many others. Mr Key is clearly rattled when he resorts to curt statements like “I’m right.” on tax haven status, before blaming the previous Government—all in the same sentence, all in the same breath, and with him being well into his third term. Above board and foreign jurisdictions, he says, can ask our Inland Revenue Department (IRD) for information on their foreign-owned trusts in New Zealand. That is an answer worse than Wall Street. How would Germany be able to make an inquiry of our IRD if it did not have any registration or identification, and that trust is hiding under the veil of secrecy? It is moronic to say that. Unless it asks for every file, which the IRD will instantly plead privacy for, then it could not possibly know what it is looking for. It is a nonsense. If it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, quacks like a duck, and smells like a duck, it most probably is a corrupt duck.

The PM says that all is above board, there is nothing to look at here, and that he is right and everyone else is wrong. But in the same sentence he says to blame the last Labour administration. Today he said to blame me—that is, yours truly—and my smart, clever colleagues. If everything is above board, why would you blame the last administration? But it is not above board, and countless warnings have been ignored.

It is a bad look for the National Party, and yesterday’s and today’s body language tells you everything. Every front-bencher and backbencher is looking downwards. All of a sudden they have got some urgent written material to read. They are trying to escape public scrutiny. The PM was asked—

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Do not laugh, guys. This is not funny. The PM was asked: “Are any of your present and former ministerial colleagues involved?”. Twenty-four hours later, we want to know what checks he and his colleagues have made. Were any of his present and former colleagues involved? Twenty-four hours later, not a mutter, not a syllable, not a sound. But this is not going to go away. This we can say already.

This matter is not going to go away, and any National MPs over there, and others who need National to get more than 40 percent at the next election, should be refining their CVs. Brett Hudson is gone—goodbye, Ōhāriu. Bakshi is gone—goodbye, patsy questions. Jian Yang is gone—goodbye, our man in Beijing. Sadly, Alfred Ngaro is gone—no more kia orana. Paul Foster-Bell is gone—goodbye, cherub. Parmjeet Parmar is gone—goodbye, the Indian connection. Chris Bishop is gone—hallelujah, praise the Lord! Nuk Korako is gone—goodbye, “Never Nuk”. Jono Naylor is gone—goodbye Wellington, hello Palmerston North. Maureen Pugh, who just got here—hello West Coast, again. And “Jimbo” and Marama and Peter Dunne and Seymour—all gone.

But there is one great benefit from these Panama papers. Do you know what it is? More and more people are seeing the Prime Minister for what he really is like, and that is a good thing. More and more people in the National Party are seeing this man for who he is. He is running into some heavy weather, and is deciding to look around now for Rudolph. I can see in their faces the shock and fear of yesterday. But I can tell you one thing: New Zealand First is not in this Parliament to muck around. We have much worse coming on this. We will make sure it is sheeted home. The Prime Minister is at the centre of a cover-up. He is the veil of secrecy’s greatest defender, and he is going to take his party and a stack of people over there down with him. I say this sincerely, and so do my colleagues: the National Party voter deserves much better than that.

David Bennett: Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I have not called the member yet. David Bennett.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): There are not many times in life that you get an opportunity like this—to follow on from a dead duck like that last speaker, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. He listed more members of the New Zealand National Party than he can name in the New Zealand First Party. I will bet you he could not even list all of his members of Parliament if he tried to, even if he wrote them down—even if they were written down. But there are some names he left off that list. Where was Brendan Horan? Where was that fine member of the New Zealand First Party? Andrew Williams—another great member of the New Zealand First Party. Asenati Lole-Taylor—where is she? Where is the rest of the New Zealand First Party? When you need them, they do not stand behind you, Winston—they are not there.

Do not trust these ones. As soon as you left today, Mr Peters, the next man beside you—I cannot remember his name—

Jacqui Dean: Ron Mark.

DAVID BENNETT: Ron Mark. He stood up. He thought this was his chance to do question time. He was more important, and he wanted you out of this room. He let you go, Mr Peters. I would not trust him—just see what he did to the past deputy of the New Zealand First Party.

But we have got news for the New Zealand First Party: it is already in coalition agreement talks with the Labour Party and the Green Party. They have actually come to policy agreements. The New Zealand First Party, the Labour Party, and the Green Party have already worked out their manifesto. Let us look at this manifesto. The Labour Party is doing one of the big party policies of this manifesto.

Alfred Ngaro: What is it?

DAVID BENNETT: It is going to set interest rates. Andrew Little, with his great experience as a union leader, knows everything about finance and the world. He will set the interest rates for New Zealand. Andrew Little will tell all the banking sector that he knows best, and that his idea of what the interest rates of New Zealand should be will be the one that everybody has to follow. I would like to see him set those interest rates. I would like to see him actually make sure those interest rates happen, and I would like to see what sanctions he would do if those interest rates were not followed.

But there is more. There is James Shaw from the Green Party. His contribution to this manifesto is $100 million for Kiwibank. That is to make it a commercial enterprise so that it can become a fully commercial bank. When would $100 million get a fully commercial bank in New Zealand? That would not happen. All Mr James Shaw is doing is fiddling with the deckchairs amongst the Labour - New Zealand First policy arrangement. It is not going to work. If anything, it would cause Kiwibank to go into the commercial market of larger loans, and we all saw what happened to the BNZ last time. And Mr Peters knows all about that, because he was there.

The next part of policy that both the Labour Party and the Green Party have agreed on is the universal basic income—over $200 for everybody not to work. It is the way to say that just because you are a New Zealander, we are going to pay you over $200. I wish that approach would work for all New Zealanders, because we come to the fourth policy plank of the manifesto, which is the “Mr Winston Peters” policy plank, which is to say no to immigration, and also no to foreign investment. If a New Zealander is not a citizen or a resident permanently active in New Zealand, they will not be able to buy a home under New Zealand First policy. The Labour Party—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: That’s right.

DAVID BENNETT: That is right; you heard it there—you heard it there. The Labour Party has agreed. The Labour Party has said that it is going to increase the refugee quota but at the same time reduce the total migration to New Zealand. So all those migrants out there in New Zealand, remember that the Labour Party and the New Zealand First Party want to say no to bringing your family in, no to bringing your children into this country, and no to people who want to make this country their home, because that is their policy to stop immigration.

And the last part of their policy is greater taxes for New Zealand. We all know that the Labour Party wants to see greater taxes for New Zealanders, the New Zealand First Party wants to see greater taxes on New Zealanders, and the Green Party cannot wait to see New Zealanders pay greater taxes. We know what they are doing. They have created their manifesto. It is to say no to immigration, it is to say no to foreign investment, it is to say yes to higher taxes, and it is a policy that will never work. We cannot wait to see Andrew Little actually deciding how to set interest rates in New Zealand, and Winston Peters actually deciding who can become a New Zealander and who cannot. Thank you.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek an extension of time for that last speaker. We like a good joke.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member cannot do that. I wish he would bone up on the Standing Orders.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): New Zealanders ask a basic question of their politicians: “Are you on my side?”. They are not asking for much. They are not asking for the Government to tell them what to do or how to live their lives, but they want to know that the Government is there for them, and that if they do their bit and they pay their fair share, they will get a fair go.

What we have discovered about this Government over the last 8 years is that this Government does not subscribe to that. It does not subscribe to the idea that it is its job to be on the side of New Zealanders. The choice it is making about whose side it is on could not be more obvious. And we have seen it in the past. It is on the side of Mr Al Ali Khalaf. It is on the side of the Skycity directors. In the last couple of weeks we have seen just exactly who it is that this Government thinks it is working for.

We first saw it with the response of the Government to the scandal that is multinational tax avoidance in this country. Whether the amount of money involved is $500 million, as one newspaper investigation thought, or, as Craig Elliffe, the tax expert from Auckland University, said, it is a billion dollars a year—it is a big problem. But this Government would not know, because it has not even asked the basic question: how much are New Zealanders missing out on because multinational companies will not pay their fair share? This Government is not prepared to stand up for the New Zealand taxpayers, who pay their tax, who go home—the small business owners—and do the tax at night, and who pay their fair share because they want to be part of this society. But the National Government will not stand up for those people. It will not even bother to find out how much tax is being avoided.

Then we have the release of the Panama Papers. Let us be absolutely clear. New Zealand is donkey-deep in this—60,000 of these documents mention New Zealand. What is the Prime Minister’s reaction? He does the shoulder shrug. He says it does not really matter. He brings to bear the ethics of Wall Street. Well, I say to John Key, how about remembering the ethics of Hollyford Avenue? How about remembering the idea that we look after each other in New Zealand? We give people a fair go, we do not look after the most powerful, and we do not look after the mega-rich. We look after New Zealanders.

John Key has stood up and told us we are not a tax haven. Well, I have got news for Mr Key: he is the only one who thinks that. He is the only person in the last few weeks who has been saying we are not a tax haven. This is what was in the Australian Financial Review. It has a list of the countries that Mossack Fonseca operates in. It says that it is across 21 tax havens, and there is New Zealand.

In 2005, before he became the leader of the National Party, John Key said that he wanted New Zealand to look at how the experience of small island economies went, how they would go, and how we could replicate them. I am not sure that New Zealanders thought that he meant small-island economies like the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles, Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, British Anguilla, the Cayman Islands—that is the company that John Key’s Government is keeping. He even said in that article in 2005 that he wanted to have a look at how Jersey had built its economy off the back of offshore trusts.

That is not the economy that we want in New Zealand. We want an economy where people are not serving coffee to the 1 percent. We want an economy where we are actually making and building the things that will help people to have a share in prosperity, that builds wealth from the ground up, and that focuses on a productive economy. Instead, we have got a Prime Minister who shrugs his shoulders, who talks about the fact that the lawyers and the accountants earn $24 million from the fact that we are tax haven, and who wants New Zealand to be the Switzerland of the South Pacific.

John Key has lost his moral compass. He does not get the fact New Zealand is now on the world stage and having its reputation damaged day after day, and he will not lift a finger to do anything about that. That is because he has proved to New Zealanders that he is on the side of the mega-rich and the wealthy and the 1 percent. He is not on the side of ordinary, hard-working New Zealanders.

New Zealanders deserve a Government that gets alongside them, that supports the building of a productive economy, and that gives everybody a share in that economy. They will get that only with a Labour Government.

Debate interrupted.

Points of Order

Tabling of Documents—Leave Given for Incorrectly Described Document

RON MARK (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to start by apologising for interrupting the debate, but earlier, during question time, I sought leave of the House to table a letter that I described as being to the Greater Wellington Regional Council. I incorrectly stated that. The letter was actually to Local Government New Zealand. So I would like your guidance, and it may be that I need to seek leave again. The letter is dated 10 August 2015, from the office of Simon Bridges to Local Government New Zealand—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I can handle this with ease. The letter, from memory, was accepted and tabled. Is that correct?

Ron Mark: Yes, yes.

Mr SPEAKER: So the letter has been tabled. I think it just—

Ron Mark: Sorry, I have not tabled it. To clarify, there was no objection to my tabling the letter that I requested, but I incorrectly described the letter. It is to Local Government New Zealand.

Mr SPEAKER: I think, on that basis, the member could proceed to table it because I think that the inaccuracy is relatively unimportant. The document may be of information to members. But I think it goes to show how careful members should be when I ask them to describe documents with accuracy. In this case, I do not think it is necessary to put the leave again. The member can proceed to table that document.

General Debate

General Debate

Debate resumed.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): There is a reason that the member who finished speaking last, Grant Robertson, is in charge of the Wellington Town Belt Bill, because that speech was so beltway that it is just not funny. If workers were sitting at home watching Parliament TV they would be very concerned to know that the Labour Party has put that man in charge of the future of work in New Zealand. When we are seeing in this country and in this economy that 175,000 jobs have been created in the past few years, seeing more people getting into work, and seeing more people coming off the welfare queue and living a life of opportunity, it is hard to know what those members are going on about, because New Zealanders are far better off under this Government and they are succeeding better.

I grew up in a Labour-supporting household. I grew up in a household where there were freezing workers in my household; a household that believed that the Labour Party was the best party for them because supposedly—supposedly—the Labour Party was all about the workers and all about the future opportunities for workers. But when we hear speaker after speaker from the Labour Party not talking about everyday New Zealanders, but getting their heads in the clouds talking about things that are completely irrelevant to everyday New Zealanders, then people like my family—where they grew up, working in the freezing works, thinking that Labour was the party for them—are changing sides and they are moving over to the National Party because they are seeing that we are a party that actually supports workers.

The Labour Party of old used to be a party that supported free trade, but not any more. It does not support free trade. It does not support the jobs created through free trade. It does not support future opportunities for New Zealand workers. The Labour Party of old also used to be about encouraging people to work but now it is all about providing people free money, costing the taxpayer $40 billion - odd for the universal basic income. It would rather send the Government broke than actually encourage people to work. It is no longer about encouraging people to work; it is more about giving people money and coming up with policies to bribe New Zealanders to vote for it.

It also used to be the party of independent monetary policy. Now all of a sudden those members think they as politicians are better at setting interest rates than the Reserve Bank and the banks in New Zealand. Those members think that they are the best ones to decide how banks in New Zealand should be setting their interest rates. I do not think that there are many people out there in voter land who believe that politicians know better than the Reserve Bank, or think that politicians know better than people who actually set interest rates in this country. I am pretty sure that New Zealanders will be rejecting that idea as well.

Labour also used to be the party that welcomed migration. It welcomed people to New Zealand who wanted to come here for future opportunities and wanted to bring skills and investment or come here for training. No longer does it support migrants. It is now more interested in targeting people based on their last name. It is now more interested in targeting people based on which ethnic restaurant they work in, and I think New Zealanders are appalled by that.

We are seeing more people getting jobs in this economy. That is something that the Labour Party should be supporting and should be celebrating. It should be supporting our future opportunities for New Zealanders through free trade and through more investment in infrastructure, but it opposes, time after time, many of the things that we are doing. We are seeing more people getting jobs in the likes of the manufacturing industry, where Labour claims there is a crisis, but manufacturing has actually been growing for the past 41 months. The Labour Party opposes many of our roading projects, but 35,000 people have jobs through the roads of national significance programme. That is 35,000 people who would not otherwise have jobs.

New Zealanders are seeing improvements under this Government. New Zealanders are seeing more job opportunities under this Government. If I can agree with one thing that Grant Robertson said, it is that New Zealanders sit at home and say: “Is my Government backing me?”. The New Zealand Government is backing New Zealanders. The New Zealand Government is providing more jobs through having a better economic policy. We have seen better health services and better education services, and we are seeing crime rates coming down. We are backing New Zealanders, we are seeing better opportunities for New Zealanders, and we reject many of the things that the Labour Party is putting forward.

JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): The Prime Minister’s defensive reaction to questions this week about New Zealand’s potential status as a tax haven because of our limited disclosure for New Zealand foreign trusts tells us exactly what sort of person he is working for and whom he is backing, and what sort of leader he is. We heard this week from the Prime Minister that we have full disclosure on New Zealand foreign trusts, but he and the other members of the National Government are pretty much the only people who will make this claim.

When we look at Mossack Fonseca and the huge leak of documents that occurred, we can see that it was recommending New Zealand to wealthy clients because our foreign trusts have a tax-free status and light disclosure requirements. So, clearly, we do not have full disclosure; we have light disclosure, and, of course, there are a number of tax experts who have said this for many years and who have asked the Government to resolve this problem in some cases.

We have, of course, Michael Littlewood, professor at Auckland University and tax specialist, who told the National Business Review that “the Government … has denied that New Zealand is a tax haven, which for anybody who knows how this works is not a plausible denial”. His Auckland University colleague, well-known tax expert Professor Craig Elliffe, told Newstalk ZB that New Zealand is, in effect, a tax haven “in this area of foreign trusts”. Professor John Prebble, an expert in taxation law at Victoria University, wrote in 2009 that “Since the enactment of the country’s international trust regime in 1988, non-residents have come to rely on New Zealand as a safe haven for their funds, a haven that will not suddenly tax those funds”.

Over and over again, there are a number of tax specialists who say that it is the case that we do not have full disclosure, and yet the Prime Minister comes into the House and insists that we do have full disclosure. That suggests to me that he is not completely honest with the New Zealand public, and he thinks that by insisting that black is white over and over again he can hide the problem and his failure to deal with it from the New Zealand public and voters. This is not the actions of a real leader.

Of course, he did admit in the House, after saying that we do have full disclosure and that “There is nothing to see here—no problem.”, that the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has not been working on the problem because it is not a priority. So which is it? Do we have full disclosure already, or is it not a priority because the Government’s priorities are to focus on tax evasion in New Zealand by New Zealanders—probably those who are not on incredibly high incomes—rather than stopping New Zealand from being used as a tax haven by the rich and powerful?

Finally, the Prime Minister said that we already have full disclosure and the IRD has not been working on the problem that does not exist because it is not a priority, and then he said that full disclosure would be “barking mad”. A proposal that would enable other jurisdictions—our tax partners—to find out which people who evade tax overseas are using New Zealand foreign trusts would be “barking mad”. Of course, he did that by mischaracterising the Greens’ bill and falsely claiming that it would require the publication of IRD numbers, which is not the case—not the case.

Who is John Key really representing? Who is he working for? In the first place, when he came to power, we had tax cuts for the wealthy, primarily. Since he has been in power, we have had protection for property speculation because the Government has failed to implement a capital gains tax, despite Treasury saying in 2010 that it was desperately needed. He has been saving landlords money with no minimum requirements for a warrant-of-fitness standard for rentals. He has been weakening the protection of workers for Hollywood. He has been subsidising oil and gas exploration and wining and dining oil and gas executives, inviting them to rugby games, and inviting them to come and open up New Zealand’s shores to pollution—climate pollution.

There is such a gap between the rhetoric of this National Government and the reality of who it is actually working for, but we can take its actions to see exactly whom it is working for.

MELISSA LEE (National): I would like to begin my contribution by talking about some Kiwis. Some people might not recognise me as a Kiwi. They might actually consider that if I go to a house auction, I might be Chinese. But I am, in fact, a Kiwi. I am a very proud Kiwi indeed, and I would like to acknowledge an amazing young Kiwi lady. This week she won a major golf tournament, and I think this House should congratulate and acknowledge Lydia Ko, the youngest player to win two major women’s championships in golf. Lydia, of course, became the No. 1 ranked professional female golfer in February last year, aged just 17 years old. This year, in 2016, she was voted the Young New Zealander of the Year, and we must say we are very, very proud of her. As Ms Anne Tolley said, maybe she will not be allowed, by some people, to buy a house because she just happens to look like a Chinese person.

I think we live in a great country. This Government, under great leadership by John Key, is building this country and growing our economy. We are actually getting known in international circles, and not just because we are doing such great work but also because of our product. I had an opportunity to visit Korea last year and I visited the kiwifruit growers in Jeju Island. It was amazing—they have 100 hectares of kiwifruit-growing land. This is about investment by Zespri. It had a long-term vision about what it wanted to do with New Zealand kiwifruit. It wanted to grow the taste buds of the Korean market so that Koreans will become used to the kiwifruit, and it wanted an opportunity for Korean growers to grow them off season for our producers so that kiwifruit will be available all year round. That means more kiwifruit will be sold from New Zealand to Korea.

With the amazing work by our former Minister of Trade and now the Ambassador to the United States, the Hon Tim Groser, we have a Korean free-trade agreement. What that means is that in the next 5 years the tariff, which was set at about 45 percent for kiwifruit, will be going to zero. We were paying in excess of $20 million a year just in tariffs for kiwifruit, and what an amazing thing that is. Not just that—that opportunity has meant that we are giving opportunities for Korean growers to have better job prospects. Often, orchardists and farmers in Korea are not earning as much compared with New Zealand farmers, and our helping them grow more kiwifruit means that we have more opportunity for more people to like kiwifruit and it ends up with New Zealand exporting more kiwifruit, as well.

I also want to talk about another Kiwi, and that is Kiwibank. Today’s announcement about Kiwibank is a great commitment that this Government has made to stable economic management. It is a bottom line of this Government that Kiwibank will remain 100 percent Crown-owned and to support the transfer of shares inside Crown agencies. What that Crown-owned model actually means is that ACC and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund will hold minority shares in Kiwibank, which will continue to be under majority control of New Zealand Post. Kiwibank was originally established as a niche market banking unit in New Zealand Post, but it is now a market competitor in the banking industry and it is growing. It needs a little bit of capital injection, and I think selling to ACC and our Superannuation Fund and getting the funds to grow its business means that it will actually improve its services and improve its market share.

The decision by the Government also shows a great example of better service practices being applied to Crown-owned enterprises, and, no doubt, those members opposite will support this great opportunity. After all, Sir Michael Cullen is their former Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First advocated for the freeing of capital at Kiwibank back in 2008. So I am sure that those members opposite will be voting for this bill, as well. I am happy to lend support to the Government’s bottom line to keep Kiwibank 100 percent Government-owned and an active part of the New Zealand market.

Also, I want to—oh, I need to wrap it up—thank the New Zealand Police. In the last couple of weeks we have had issues with Asian students being attacked, and police have acted very quickly and many arrests have been made. I think that we need to congratulate the police on the amazing work that they continue to do for New Zealanders.

CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I just want to touch on a couple of things that the previous speaker, Melissa Lee, just said. She talked about the importance of being a Kiwi and being respected as a Kiwi. I just think it is really unfortunate that a few years ago she made it very clear that she does not respect the Kiwis in South Auckland, accusing them of getting off the motorway in Mount Albert and committing crimes in her neighbourhood. Let us not forget that. She also talked about the international reputation that New Zealand has gained under the National Government. Well, the international reputation that we have gained under that Government is absolutely an embarrassment to this country. The international reputation that we have gained because of that Government is along the lines of what John Oliver has put out there. Let us just see what that is: the world now knows that our Prime Minister urinates in the shower. That is fantastic for our international reputation—thank you, National Government!

In the past couple of days there have been revelations about the world’s most wealthy elite using our country as a place to hide its money, and that is a shameful indictment on John Key and his National Government. To make it worse, in recent weeks we have had it brought to our attention that multinational companies are not paying the tax, or their fair share of it, that they should be. When we look at that, we have to feel a little bit concerned as New Zealanders, because on the one hand we have people not paying their fair share, and on the other hand here we are as a country struggling with record high levels of child poverty and struggling with record low levels of homeownership. We have got $1.7 billion here that has been, effectively, cut from our health system, we have got an education system that is drowning our young people in debt, and while New Zealanders are dealing with all of that the world’s wealthy elite is getting richer off the back of New Zealanders and New Zealand.

What is absolutely shocking is that, despite knowing all of this, John Key refuses to acknowledge we have a problem with foreign trusts and refuses to crack down on multinational companies and the tax that they should be paying. He admits that what they are doing is ethically wrong, but says it is still within the confines of our law. There is an easy enough solution, the rest of the country would think: review the laws surrounding foreign trusts and tax. The Prime Minister has said on a number of occasions that the foreign trust legislation was introduced under Labour in 1988, but those members are the ones in Government. They have had 8 years to fix it. It was brought to their attention—it was brought to the attention of the country under their watch. It is John Key and his National Government’s responsibility to address the issues.

The solution seems simple enough: review the legislation. But John Key is not about meaningful solutions. As Gordon Campbell recently wrote about in an article, he is about crisis management ploys, and over this issue he has been running the gamut of those ploys so predictably. In fact, how about we describe what those ploys look like? The first ploy that Gordon Campbell describes is the “no problem here, move on” ploy. “I don’t think it’s embarrassing,” the Prime Minister said, and “the OECD also had a review of its tax regime in 2013 and they gave New Zealand a clean bill of health”—repeated in almost all media reports. The actual truth is that there has been a continued call for change from the Opposition parties, from the Inland Revenue Department, and from that same report that he talks about, the 2013 OECD report. There have also been calls from professors of taxation, including one from the University of Auckland, who said “the revelations showed New Zealand’s laws were out of date and the rules needed to be tightened.”, but the Prime Minister continues to ignore them.

The second crisis management ploy that the Prime Minister is well-known for is muddying the pool with irrelevance. We saw that today, actually, with Bill English taking a page out of the Prime Minister’s book. When he was talking about the tax issue, he quickly said: “Here is the Opposition concentrating on this tax issue. Why is it not concentrating on family violence and youth unemployment?”. They are three completely different issues. That Government should be over everything. The Opposition has to be over everything. We should not be muddying the waters by trying to mix them up.

The third ploy for crisis management is blaming Labour, and we have seen that all week, with the Prime Minister saying that the issues we are confronted with are because of the fact that Labour introduced this legislation, but yet, on the other hand, he says there are no issues. It was 1988 when that trust’s Act was introduced. I was 10 years old at the time, but of course it is my fault! It is my fault and it is not the Prime Minister’s fault, despite the fact it was brought to his attention and he has done nothing to fix it.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It has been a fascinating debate, and gee, I have got to say there have been some weird and wonderful things said, but what I thought I might just concentrate on for a moment is talking about some of the good stuff. I thought I would just do a quick little whip-through—

Dr David Clark: And that’s the end of your speech, then?

ANDREW BAYLY: —just for you, Mr Clark. First of all, 3 years ago we had an $18.4 billion deficit. Through the good work of the Minister of Finance we turned that into a half-billion-dollar surplus last year, and of course we are hoping for a surplus this year, knowing we have recorded a $900 million surplus at the end of January this year. Secondly, we had a growth rate of 2.3 percent last year, and we are forecasting—well, actually, Treasury is forecasting—a growth rate over the next 3 years of about 2.7 percent. Most economies around the world would love to have growth rates like that.

Running surpluses means that we will be able to increase spending in those crucial areas like health, like education, and like security, and, of course, it does mean that we can repay debt. Of course, many people do not do the work on debt. They think New Zealand has a relatively high rate of debt, which is, of course, totally incorrect. At the moment our debt to GDP ratio is 25.2 percent, which is a very modest figure even compared with Australia, and certainly miles below what the rates are in America and in England and Europe. Anyway, we are aiming to get it to 20 percent by 2020.

What I like is that we continue to invest this extra money we are generating into health care. Last year we put in another $400 million to take it to $15.9 billion, the biggest vote item in our Budget. Then we put another $300 million into education, taking that to $10.8 billion—lots more money into the important things that count. We are seeing also how this is flowing through into the economy—how businesses and how people working in jobs are benefiting. We are seeing manufacturing recording its 41st monthly increase in confidence and growth, and we are also seeing the services sector, which, unfortunately, this Opposition never seems to focus on, and which by the way accounts for just under 70 percent of our economy, growing at its strongest rate in the last 7 years. What it is also meaning, coming down to the people working, like all of us—the wage growth rate last year went up by 3.1 percent.

Paul Foster-Bell: How much?

ANDREW BAYLY: By 3.1 percent—wages increased by 3.1 percent, even though we had inflation of only 0.1 percent. So wage earners are benefiting, and that is the way it should be—that is the way it should be—because they are the hard-working people of New Zealand.

One of the things I would like to just remind us of is how we continue to grow the economy. I would say that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is an important ingredient. Of course, we have got an Opposition that is vehemently opposed to it, even though those members know in their heart of hearts that it is a great thing for New Zealand. What it does is it creates an immediate gain to all our businesses—our hard-working businesses—by accessing 42 percent of all the markets and people of the world and by reducing tariffs. So it does not mean any additional costs to export to somewhere like America, if we are successful in getting the TPP agreement. What it means is that those companies that choose to redirect their exports to those markets will immediately benefit from it.

I think these are the types of critical things that will help move New Zealand even faster forward than it currently is. I have got to say it has been a pretty good row to hoe up to today. Thank you very much.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): We did not hear from the prior speaker, Andrew Bayly, that we have got youth unemployment of 15 percent. Actually, youth unemployment in parts of South Auckland in respect of minority groups is close to 50 percent. The underemployment of youth is even worse. We have got the lowest homeownership rate that we have had in New Zealand since 1951 and the highest ever house prices in Auckland—averaging now around $900,000, which most people cannot afford. What is this? Why do we not hear that from the National Government?

This week’s events, more than any in recent weeks, have shown that this Government is of the 1 percent, for the 1 percent. What are the advantages that the 1 percent in New Zealand get? Every time that there is a tax cut in New Zealand under this Government, it gives it disproportionately to the 1 percent. Actually, the last tax cuts went 40 percent to the top 10 percent of income earners—even more disproportionately to the top 1 percent.

Overseas websites and New Zealand service firms’ websites advertise New Zealand as being a haven for big money. What do they say the advantages are for “1 percenters” investing in New Zealand? They say we have no stamp duty, no land tax, no other capital tax, no tax on capital gains, no minimum capitalisation rate for their property purchases, and no charges for water if they are going to use it, even if they are bottling it like has been proposed down in Ashburton and is happening up north near Napier. So all of those things you do not pay in New Zealand if you are investing here. Effectively, overseas investors in New Zealand come and if they are buying land assets they pay no tax.

That is bad enough. What happens if you are a multinational and coming into New Zealand to invest? Well, again you pay virtually no tax; you bludge off other taxpayers. Those companies are owned by the 1 percenters overseas and, again, they bludge off other taxpayers in New Zealand. They come here and they pay no tax. The examples are legion. Bunnings is an Australian-owned company, with shops up and down the country competing with Mitre 10, which is New Zealand - owned. Bunnings pays no tax; Mitre 10, which competes against it, has to carry the cost of paying tax because it does. Apple, Google—these companies pretend that their transaction is in an overseas jurisdiction when, in actual fact, it is New Zealanders who are buying their services in New Zealand. The Government refuses to plug these loopholes because it is of the 1 percent and for the 1 percent. The Prime Minister’s instincts, because he is of the 1 percent for the 1 percent, is to introduce the ethics of Wall Street to New Zealand, and occasionally he comes unstuck like he has this week because he sticks up for these terrible practices.

Those things that I have spoken of until now are bad enough, but even worse is what has been disclosed in the Panama Papers, where we have got money-laundering, we have got stolen assets, and we have got tax evasion—not tax avoidance, but tax evasion—by rich “1 percenters” overseas using New Zealand to do it. And what does the Prime Minister say? Well, he says all his normal things—the normal things that have been listed by Gordon Campbell. His first defence is always: “There is nothing to see here.” He says that there is no problem. He pretends that we have got full disclosure when, in actual fact, no one knows what they do not know. They do not know who the beneficiaries of these trusts are who are laundering money, hiding stolen assets, or evading tax, because they do not know they are the beneficiary of the trust. They do not they are the settlor of the trust. All that is public is the name of the trust deed—the Inland Revenue Department gets that—and the name of the trust. But it could be “Fictitious Trust No. 1 Ltd” and the trustee could be “John Smith of Auckland” acting in a professional capacity. And what does the Prime Minister say? He says that is full disclosure. It is not. It is New Zealand being used for “1 percenters”, in this case for nefarious purposes.

The Government allows “1 percenters” to drive up the value of our land prices so that houses and farms are no longer affordable for New Zealanders. This Government acts in the interests of the 1 percent, not in the interest of those in the middle, who end up having to pay more tax than otherwise and who end up having to pay higher asset prices than they would otherwise have to. This Government is for the 1 percent, of the 1 percent—bringing Wall Street ethics to New Zealand.

I think that New Zealanders are waking up to that. They do not like that. That is not the New Zealand they want to live in. That is why you see the media saying the five excuses of John Key: “There is no problem here—move on.”, muddy the pool with irrelevancies, blame Labour because it passed the legislation in the 1950s or whenever it was—

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for RNZRSA Clubs from Special Licencing Requirements for Anzac Day) Amendment Bill

First Reading

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I move, That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for RNZRSA Clubs from Special Licencing Requirements for Anzac Day) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. This very simple bill creates an exemption for RSAs from trading hour restrictions under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 and local alcohol policies, where these may also apply. It does not seek to confer any additional rights to sell or supply alcohol beyond those that an RSA’s licence would usually provide for. It simply removes the costs of up to $500 for special licences at the 181 clubs that serve around 105,000 RSA members nationwide, along with their families and wider communities.

This is a measure that is very deliberately focused solely on the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association and includes those RSA clubs that may be embedded in other clubs, as is the case in this region with the Petone Club. I may hold liberal views on alcohol licensing but I am very much more comfortable with a half-day on Anzac Day, prior to lunchtime, being reserved as a day for national commemoration, in sober and solemn observance, than I am with restrictions on alcohol on other days. I am unapologetic that this bill does not apply more widely, for instance to sports clubs, which still retain their current ability to apply for a special licence if they have a legitimate reason for doing so. It is also intended to apply only on 25 April, Anzac Day itself, and not the Mondayised holiday.

It is ridiculous that RSAs have to pay for expensive special licences to serve a harmless tipple with gunfire breakfasts. The tradition of the gunfire breakfast following the dawn ceremony has been an integral part of Anzac Day since at least the 1920s and the addition of a shot of liquor, often rum, to the coffee at that breakfast recalls the repast taken by the soldiers before battle. This is an important tradition and it should be preserved, not persecuted.

We all know that the RSAs are highly trusted, often small, and voluntary organisations that serve a very valuable role in our communities. They commemorate the military service and sacrifices of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders over the past century. We owe so much to our veterans: our very lives and lifestyle and status as a free and democratic country in which it is the people who have the real power. So I am delighted that we have been able to progress this legislation today.

I want to put on record my thanks to other parties for their cooperation on this sensible and timely bill. In particular, can I thank Kris Faafoi, Trevor Mallard, and Chris Hipkins; James Shaw and David Clendon; Clayton Mitchell and Barbara Stewart; Peter Dunne, Marama Fox, and David Seymour for their agreement and advocacy within their own parties so that this bill could be passed, through a slightly abbreviated process, to help RSA clubs save costs this year rather than waiting for another 12 months.

I also pay tribute to the architect of the 2012 legislation, the Hon Judith Collins; the current Minister of Justice, the Hon Amy Adams, who has been an excellent sounding board and very generous in tasking her officials; the Leader of the House, the Hon Gerry Brownlee; and the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, the Hon Craig Foss for their support. The chief whip—never forget the chief whip—Tim Macindoe has been very supportive, along with Nick Bryant, Anna Mitchell, James Christmas, Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Wood, Tim Workman, Logan Morton, Joshua Whitford, Beth McEwan, and my colleagues Brett Hudson, Simon O’Connor, and Scott Simpson, who have been particularly supportive of this bill.

I would also like to note that this bill has been strongly supported by the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association. When it was drawn last year the RSA had expressed a hope that it would pass in advance of Anzac Day this year. The year 2016 is the centennial of the RSA, so this bill makes a very welcome 100th birthday present for one of our most valued institutions.

I would like to acknowledge Bruce Johnston, the president of the Karori RSA, where I am proud to be a member, along with Nancy McDonald and Rick Steven, who ensure that I remember to submit my membership renewal each year. I would like to thank David Moger, the chief executive, and also Grant Marris, the business development manager at the RSA, as well as their entire team at their national office who have assisted.

Finally, I want to concede that there were some drafting errors with the original bill. It did not take into account that RSAs operate predominantly under club licences, so I intend to table a Supplementary Order Paper, which I have had some assistance with in preparing from the Parliamentary Counsel Office and the Ministry of Justice, at the Committee stage to correct deficiencies in this bill. Apart from those small tweaks, I think it is an otherwise necessary and practical measure and I commend it to the House.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Can I congratulate the member Paul Foster-Bell on having his bill drawn from the ballot and can I thank all of the members on the Business Committee for agreeing to expedite this through as quickly as we can so that the bill can be passed into law before this year’s Anzac Day.

Can I acknowledge the growing significance of Anzac Day in New Zealand—and I do believe that it is growing in significance for New Zealanders—and the enormous role that RSAs play up and down the country. Many of those RSAs are now quite small organisations and they struggle to get together the money—up to $500—to get a special licence in order to do what they have always done on Anzac Day. This was never intended by the Parliament when these laws were changed in the first place.

This bill simply corrects an anomaly. It removes a huge burden off the shoulders of RSAs, which never should have been imposed with it in the first place, and allows them to continue to do what has become an important part of New Zealand tradition in commemorating Anzac Day in the way that we currently do.

I want to also acknowledge the importance of getting the wording around this right, so that all of those RSAs that are now part of another organisation, or cohabitate with another organisation, are also covered by this bill. I think of the RSA in Upper Hutt, which is now part of the Upper Hutt “cossie club”, or sits within the Upper Hutt “cossie club”. I think of the Naenae RSA, which is part of the Park Avenue Bowling Club. Those organisations should also be covered by this. As a result of Supplementary Order Paper 168, which Paul Foster-Bell will move in the Committee stage, they will be covered by this, as well as those stand-alone RSAs such as the Taitā RSA, where I am proud to be a member, because I think that all RSAs should be able to commemorate Anzac Day in the way that they always have.

We have agreed to a truncated process for this bill so that it can be passed through the House as quickly as possible. In that spirit I will end my contribution there and simply commend the bill to the House.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I think it is probably true that all parties in the House will be supporting this bill today—certainly, that is what I hope to be the case. But I do want to, in this first reading contribution, express some concerns about process.

I well remember the debates in this House on the 2012 Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill. In particular, I want to recall the testy mood of some of those debates and what happens when a complex piece of legislation is going through the House with a Government that is not very interested in actually talking with some of the experts in the community and across party lines with some of the Opposition parties. As a result of that the Government, in various forms, has had to come back to this House on a number of occasions with fix-it-up legislation. And that is a situation that could have been avoided.

So the question that springs to mind—and should spring to the mind for the public—is: although this is indeed a weakness of the legislation that Paul Foster-Bell’s bill is dealing with, why was this not dealt with in 2012 or in any of the intervening 4 years? So that is the first concern about process. It is a downside of rushed legislation, or legislation that occurs with inadequate consultation across the House.

I guess the second point that I want to raise is: when this shortcoming of the bill—or the Act as it was by that stage—came to light, why did the Government not step in to remedy that shortcoming? Why was it made a question for a member’s bill instead? This is a classic situation, surely, for the Government to introduce its own bill, because the Government gets to control the process of a bill through the House. It is the Government that is in a position to determine the place of legislation on the Order Paper and how quickly it can move it through all of its stages in the House.

So it would have been appropriate for a Government bill to remedy this problem. But instead what we see is the way that the Government has used members’ days and the members’ ballot. It has tended to use that members’ ballot in a way that enables Government members to put in bills that ought to be Government bills and are, largely, non-controversial pieces of legislation that are intended simply to reduce the odds of an Opposition member’s bill being drawn from that ballot. Although I totally understand that that is within the rules of the House, it is not the spirit in which members’ days should proceed. Myself, I have two important bills: one that is about protecting endangered native species, and another that is about overhauling New Zealand’s antiquated and obsolete adoption law. The chances that those bills have of being drawn are diluted by the Government’s choice of using members’ day to advance, effectively, bills that it ought to be advancing itself.

The third point is the truncated process that both speakers so far have referred to and that on this occasion we are forced to agree to—because if we do not agree to that truncated process, this bill cannot take effect before Anzac Day this year. Both of the most recent examples of fix-up legislation to the Act have featured both of these characteristics: a member’s bill when it should be a Government bill; and a truncated, or amended, process when, actually, better planning could have seen a bill proceed in the proper way.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I am rising on behalf of New Zealand First in support of Paul Foster-Bell’s bill—Supplementary Order Paper 168 is coming up, in the next reading—the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for RNZRSA Clubs from Special Licencing Requirements for Anzac Day) Amendment Bill. God, I am sure we could shorten that a little bit, but that will come up in the Committee stage as well. Goodness me! That was about 1 minute just to get through the title.

It does come as no surprise to us that we are back here having this discussion, which we said would happen in just August of last year. It is like “déjà voodoo” or a glitch in the matrix. There is a bit of a glitch because we are coming back to something that we said would need to be readdressed in this House. This is about the sale and supply of alcohol. The architect, as it was so eloquently pointed out by Paul Foster-Bell, was, of course, Miss Judith Collins, the honourable Minister there. It does have some serious flaws in it that we need to readdress, and we would be certainly suggesting strongly that this Government bring the entire bill back so that we can have a look at some of these unintended consequences that have been pointed out.

This bill, the sale and supply of alcohol bill, is starting to resemble more of a Monty Python skit or, potentially, a little wee skit from The Muppet Show where Kermit the Frog would sing about “Lydia oh Lydia, the tattooed lady”, because there is so much legislation being put now into this legislation. There are a number of blotch marks that for years to come we will have to go back through and refer to with regard to the sale and supply of alcohol. We are talking about the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2015 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Bill, and of course now we are talking about the Anzac Day bill.

We do support the common-sense approach to let the Anzac supporters, to let our RSA members, to let those people who do support and hold and cherish the values of those returned service people have the simple act of having a drink and a celebration. It is a celebration of the life that they have given up. It is a celebration of the lives that they fought for, for us to all enjoy, and absolutely this is one of those moments in time when you could not have anybody other than somebody who is on a different planet think that this is not a special occasion.

However, the current legislation does allow some interpretation to go a little bit askew. For some reason, we have had in the past some amendments put into these agreements, these licensing agreements for special licences, that do not allow, for example, pool tables to be used at a special event, or that the event must be ticketed for, or the fact that you cannot have live music being played through because the purpose of the event is for a celebration of the Anzac commemoration, or Anzac Day as it was.

So this bill does address that. It goes even further, to say that if there is in your local alcohol policy a one-way door policy, it will be negated in this policy. That does make sense. It does also allow drinking to establish itself at 4 o’clock in the morning. The overarching liquor licence says that the standard hours of operation, unless there is otherwise a good reason, are 8 a.m. until 3 a.m. Many of those councils have opted out of that and they have actually shortened those hours even further, but again, rather than having an interpretation of a council or the police or the health department saying what is right, this is exactly what New Zealand First is saying. It should come back to the House for a proper review, to make sure that the rules that apply in one area, under one council, actually apply across New Zealand, to give us some sort of continuity and some consistency. It takes away that ambiguity.

We do acknowledge that there are 181 registered RSAs around New Zealand and that breaks down to some 104,000-odd members. Anzac Day is a day of celebration, as I have already outlined. My family and I will be attending those Anzac celebrations, as we do, and we certainly would like to see this bill speedily read through the House today so that come the 25th of this month, Anzac Day can be celebrated, and all Anzac Days forward from here, without the sort of hassle and bureaucratic nonsense that has to be gone through in applying for a special licence, which is what has been happening up until now. Thank you.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Here is how one gives a short speech. I support the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for RNZRSA Clubs from Special Licencing Requirements for Anzac Day) Amendment Bill. I congratulate the member in charge of it, Paul Foster-Bell. I comport with my colleagues who raised questions about why it is necessary to be in the House amending the legislation for the second time within a year so that normal community activities can be accommodated where a special licence has been inadequate to do so. Finally, I believe that these truncated processes, although I have supported them in the past, are something that we in this House should be very cautious in our use of. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Second Reading

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I move, That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for RNZRSA Clubs from Special Licencing Requirements for Anzac Day) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

Clauses 1 to 4

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I plan to make a very short speech in the Committee stage, and I will not bother reading the bill name, because that will take up too much time. Can I commend the member in the chair, Paul Foster-Bell, who has put forward this bill. I want to point to Supplementary Order Paper 168, and to new section 47A(2), which sets out in the legislation that RSAs that are licensed and registered with the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association will be able to be open between the hours of 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Anzac Day itself. It seems odd that we have to come to this Chamber to do that, but it is, in fact, that we are correcting a piece of legislation, and I acknowledge—

Paul Foster-Bell: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I apologise to the member for interrupting. The point of order is that the clauses contained in bill all be taken as one question for the purposes of the Committee stage.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You are seeking leave for that purpose?

Paul Foster-Bell: Yes.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is not. Leave is sought that clauses 1 to 4 stand part, and the question is that clauses 1 to 4 stand part. Kris Faafoi—as a continuing call, with 4 minutes and 15 seconds to go.

KRIS FAAFOI: I am glad; that will make the process even more efficient. There will be many presidents of RSAs around the country who will be happy that this piece of legislation will go through this Committee in the manner that it is today. It will ensure that they will get to have a beer, if they want to enjoy a beer, or a drink on the morning of Anzac Day and not have to go through the rigmarole of having to apply for an exemption or a special licence for that purpose. It will save RSAs around the country a fair bit of money, especially if they are a smaller, struggling RSA.

I found myself in the good position of sharing a beer with one of my local RSA presidents last Friday, who was one of the RSA presidents who called me and said it was my job to try to help sort this out. So I do acknowledge Roger Kingsford, the president of the Porirua RSA, and also acknowledge the president of the Titahi Bay RSA, which is my local RSA, John O’Hara, who at Easter also told me of this issue. It is one of the smaller clubs that I spoke of, and $265 within the jurisdiction of the Porirua City Council is a lot of money. So they will not have to face that financial burden in the future because of this.

I would like to thank the member again. I acknowledge the process we have to go through to speed this through, but I do think it is a good thing that we can have this law in place by this Anzac Day so we do not put extra pressures on our RSAs around the country.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I am putting forward Supplementary Order Paper 168 in my name, which has been tabled and circulated. I am moving that it be adopted, because the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for RNZRSA Clubs from Special Licencing Requirements for Anzac Day) Amendment Bill as originally drafted worked on the assumption that RSA clubs use general liquor licences. In subsequent conversations, including conversations with the RSA and others, it was made clear to me that there is a range of arrangements in place. Many actually operate under club licences. There are some who still operate under royal charters; there are a few remaining royal charters in existence. The Supplementary Order Paper does, in fact, deal with that particular detail.

It also deals with some other small technical and drafting matters. There are a number of clubs—and members have alluded to this so far in the debate—that operate by subletting or are under the auspices of another club. An example locally in our region is the Petone Working Men’s Club, which houses the Lower Hutt Memorial Returned and Services Association, but there is a range of different arrangements in place, including some that are within Cosmopolitan Clubs, others in sports clubs, such as bowling clubs, and some even sublet commercial premises. So the Supplementary Order Paper does deal with that particular issue. I make no apology for seeking to retain the primacy of the RSA as the institution that preserves the memory of the sacrifices of New Zealanders at war, rather than expanding it more widely to the bowling clubs, the rugby clubs, and the other service organisations, which can continue to seek a special licence should they wish to commemorate Anzac Day with the service of alcohol.

One complexity in our local licensing law is the issue of the local alcohol policy. Some localities have rolled out their local alcohol policy, and they have put in place local default opening hours that supersede the national default. Other localities, including here in Wellington, have yet to implement their local alcohol plan. So this Supplementary Order Paper takes care of both situations. Whether or not they have yet rolled out a local alcohol plan, the RSAs within a locality will be covered.

Also there is the issue of the one-way door policy, which my friend Clayton Mitchell brought up. It is absolutely clear to me that the legislation we have in place was designed to deal with early morning pub crawls and bar hopping. It is a very different situation from that where members of the RSA and their families, and the wider community might want to come into the club rooms, perhaps leave their coats, go outside and lay a wreath, take part in a solemn Dawn Service observance, and then go back inside for the gunfire breakfast. We have a gunfire breakfast locally here in Wellington this year, thanks to the work of the Hon Maggie Barry, the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. It will actually take place inside the Arras Tunnel, it might interest the member to know. So it will be very large and quite expensive to put on, but it gives an all-weather option for those who are going to that big Dawn Service.

But for those in small community RSAs, such as my local RSA in Karori, it is a practical measure that prevents door-hopping policies blocking what is a harmless activity in observing that gunfire breakfast. I think that Clayton Mitchell’s Supplementary Order Paper, which deals with the name of the bill, is actually a sensible one. In my Supplementary Order Paper there was also a streamlining of the name. I am agnostic as to which option is best, but it is sensible to streamline the name to make it a bit less of a mouthful to say. Thank you.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I want to take just a quick call in the Committee stage of this new legislation. I have to say that Supplementary Order Paper 168, which came through last night, was quite hot when it was first handed to me. None the less, it does make some sense.

Just getting back to the point I made in the first reading, with regard to a Monty Python sketch or a scene out of The Muppet Show, when we were talking about “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady” sung by Kermit the Frog—this is exactly what we are talking about here in amending section 44 of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, to amend the “Permitted trading hours for premises without relevant local alcohol policy”. It says here: “In section 44(3), after ‘(Rugby World Cup 2015 extended trading hours)’, insert ‘and section 47A (Anzac Day trading hours for licensed RNZRSA clubs)’.” It goes on and does the same thing in section 45, amending the “Permitted trading hours for premises with relevant local alcohol policy”. It says: “In section 45(3), after ‘(Rugby World Cup 2015 extended trading hours)’, insert ‘and section 47A (Anzac Day trading hours for licensed RNZRSA clubs)’.”

And that, to me, is not what the intention of legislation is about—doing on the fly amendments and changes. That is an indictment. It is a blotch on the paper of our Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. We would certainly urge the Government to readdress this issue about common-sense policy around the simple act of having a drink for an occasion.

The police are getting no blame from New Zealand First for the stance that it takes, because, of course, the legislation is open for interpretation. Where the police lay its decision making, with regard to the issuing of a special licence, is very risk averse. Understanding the situation of the New Zealand Police, being so under-resourced as it currently is—as the Minister of Police will no doubt one day agree to, and will actually service the police more adequately. It would certainly help that situation, for the police to be able to resource special licensing conditions, to make sure that order is kept within our communities.

We do put forward Supplementary Order Paper 170. The simple fact of saying Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for RNZRSA Clubs from Special Licencing Requirements for Anzac Day) Amendment Bill—I can hardly get through it before I need to take another breath. It would certainly be better said by saying the “Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Anzac Day Extended Hours for RSAs) Amendment Bill”. So, hopefully, we can change that when we go to put it to the vote.

We certainly will be supporting this bill all the way through, to get some common sense into the art of having a beer and celebrating the people who have given their lives, given their time, and given their services to their country, and to the values that they hold—principally, the New Zealand way of life. Thank you.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 168 in the name of Paul Foster-Bell to clause 1 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We move to Clayton Mitchell’s amendment to clause 1, as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 170. This is now out of order, as it is inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.

Clause 1 as amended agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 168 in the name of Paul Foster-Bell to clause 4 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 4 as amended agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Anzac Day Trading Hours for Licensed RNZRSA Clubs) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Tēnā koe, e Te Mana Wakawā. I move, That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Anzac Day Trading Hours for Licensed RNZRSA Clubs) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. In seeking to have this legislation passed, I would like to remember my grandfather Thomas Gordon Bell, who served in the Home Guard during the war. As a farmer he was considered unavailable to go off to serve overseas, but he did his duty by protecting the shoreline of New Zealand from the threat—the very real threat—of attack from Japan. I would like to remember my great-uncle Leonard Bell, who went off to the deserts of North Africa in the Second World War and saw some horrendous things there. He was fortunate enough to survive the battles, returned to New Zealand and lived a long life here, and was a lifetime member of the RSA. I would like to remember my great-great-grandfather Ayers Robert Foster, whose name I bear, who served in the First World War in a number of theatres.

Hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders over the course of the last century have sacrificed much, often their lives, so that we can live free in this country. This legislation is the very least that we can do for the organisation that represents the interests of those veterans, the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association, in this, its centennial year. So, not wanting to prolong this debate any further, I commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Can I join Paul Foster-Bell in making a brief contribution in this third reading debate to commend the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Anzac Day Trading Hours for Licensed RNZRSA Clubs) Amendment Bill to the House. Like Paul Foster-Bell, when Anzac Day rolls round I too think of the people who have come before me, in my family, who have made contributions in those many battles that he mentioned. When I walk into some of the RSAs in my electorate and, in fact, around the country, I reflect on the enormous contribution that those previous war generations have made to the building of this country. They went off to war and, in many cases, they then came back and they continued to work hard for the betterment of this society. They built the RSAs, and it is those very RSAs that we are now working here in the House to protect, and to defend their right to hold their Anzac Day commemorations in the way that they always have. So I think it is appropriate that we do so in this House. I think it is appropriate that we do so in the spirit of bipartisanship that we have seen around the House today. I simply commend this bill to the House.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): In my contribution on the first reading, I spoke about the process for this bill, which I consider to be profoundly unsatisfactory. I assure the House that the Green Party will be working to ensure that it does not set a precedent for other legislation. I want to talk now about some of the substance.

The reason for the special treatment that we convey in our law for Anzac Day and, in particular, for the morning of Anzac Day, is the need to commemorate the war dead and those who sacrificed much on our behalf, to express our respect, and for a ritual, indeed, of respect. The reason that RSAs wish to be able to serve alcohol on Anzac Day morning is also that respect and commemoration. So the exemption that would normally apply on Anzac Day morning ought to be reversed for the position of the RSAs.

In general, the Green Party has been concerned about trying to strike the correct balance in alcohol legislation between autonomy over an individual’s body and their freedom of choice, and protecting society from the harm associated with alcohol.

In general, in alcohol-related legislation, we are concerned to minimise the harm caused by alcohol, and one of the ways that that can best be done is by restricting the number of outlets and the number of hours that alcohol is available to the community. There is clear evidence that that reduces the harm that eventuates from the consumption of alcohol. So we believe that the Act that this bill amends did not go far enough in restricting supply—I want to place that on record.

I also want, in this contribution, to contrast our position on this bill with the position that we took on the last bill amending the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, which was the one to remove entirely the need for special licences in relation to Rugby World Cup games. That bill applied to all licensed premises, and made a very major extension in licensed hours, and we believed that that extension went too far. In contrast, this bill applies to only a very small subset of licensed premises and makes one brief annual extension of licensed hours, and we believe that that is appropriate.

I want to just briefly note our concern that the explanatory note of this bill is quite dismissive of alcohol-related harm, and we believe that that is inappropriate. There are many people who are returned service people, who came back from the War, or came back from their active service, having sustained a damaged relationship with alcohol—or, indeed, with other drugs—and I want, in this contribution, to salute those RSAs and other organisations that are actively taking steps to try to reduce that damage and reduce that harm, and that implement effective harm-reduction steps in their licensed premises. I believe that they deserve this House’s support.

In closing, I want to record that the Green Party, along with, I think, every other party in this House, does not begrudge those returned service people a drink on Anzac Day morning. So to them, I say “Cheers.”

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): This bill has certainly been speedily expedited through the House today, and for good reason. There are occasions where we feel the need to put things through rather quickly.

I just want to point out to the people in the House, and people at home, that there is a large number of New Zealanders who actually believe that Anzac Day is the one true public holiday that should be hero-ed about all others. There are some different faiths, backgrounds, and religions that have apathetic approaches to other days we put down as special days for trading, etc., but Anzac Day is a day that really does represent our history, and to acknowledge that history and the tradition of Anzac Day that goes on and follows it—this bill actually allows that to continue.

Actually, it gets into the enablement of a celebration of life and of the sacrifices made by our returned service people. Of course, those people who are currently in that situation are now supporting our country’s position, both nationally and internationally, with our navy, our very small air force, and, of course, our army. So for that reason I think this bill goes a long way, and, certainly, to speed this through the House today makes good sense.

We have said before—in fact, in August of last year, when we were talking about the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2015 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Act—that we need to get this legislation in its entirety back into the House for discussion, and we find ourselves, 7 months later, having the same discussion, writing more little wee codicils and more little wee additions into a piece of legislation that is clearly not fit for purpose. We hope that the Government hears that message loud and clear, and we hope that it actually does something about it as we move forward.

We really have not a lot else to add to this except to say that New Zealand First does support this bill fully. We look forward to having an Anzac Day of celebration. We hope that the weather is good. It is a hundred years since the establishment of our local RSAs, and I hope that everybody continues to drink responsibly and celebrate the day as it was designed to be, not just this year but also in hundreds of years to come, for the people who have given their service to this country. Thank you.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill

Third Reading

ALFRED NGARO (National) on behalf of Hon Dr Nick Smith (National—Nelson): I move, That the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill be now read a third time. Can I, first of all, just acknowledge the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for RNZRSA Clubs from Special Licencing Requirements for Anzac Day) Amendment Bill and my friend and colleague Paul Foster-Bell. It is a bill that has obviously had wide support, and I congratulate him on getting it through. It is a rare thing, as I have been told. As a member of the Te Atatū RSA and the RSAs out in west Auckland, I know that they too will salute that bill, which is really important. So I acknowledge the fine work that he has done, as well.

The bill that I will be speaking on, the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill, like the bill around the sale and supply of alcohol, talks about the legacy of service and sacrifice of those who served their country. The bill that I will be speaking on, on behalf of the Minister the Hon Nick Smith, is a private bill that he brought to this House, and I give the Minister’s apologies because he cannot be here with us this afternoon. My speech will not be long, but it will cover the essentials that he has requested me to cover, including acknowledging those who have been part of bringing this bill to the House, and the intention behind it.

Christian Churches New Zealand is an association of more than 30 Churches. This began some time ago in Nelson, in 1844. The Christian Churches movement began in the early 1800s in both the UK and the US, out of a concern that the more traditional Churches were too rigid and authoritarian. It was at that stage that those Churches at that time felt that it was important that they should congregate together and to have Churches that were more accessible, and also, I suppose, that met some of the needs that were more community and communally orientated. That was the reason for the forming of this Christian Churches movement, as well.

Its focus is on unity and the teachings of the New Testament, so, in a sense, the Christian Churches movement grew rapidly in New Zealand. New congregations were formed in Auckland in 1845, in Dunedin in 1858, and in Christchurch in 1870, and by 1885 it had grown to 25 churches across the country. Mr Assistant Speaker, I do beg your indulgence, because the Minister was quite clear that he would like to acknowledge some of the foundational aspects of this bill and those who have been involved, and so I will be talking just a little bit about that, as well.

Initially, each of the church properties was vested in each autonomous congregation, in the name of the Church elders. This was not entirely practical, and in the 1920s a conference of Churches decided to have a legal entity that could own all of those properties. In April 1924, at a convened conference of delegates from the Churches, a board of trustees of certain members of the Churches was set up, with the intent that the board should hold, as trustees, the lands of those Churches that wished to vest the land and their properties in the board and also all real and personal property for Church extension purposes.

In that sense, what has also come out of the work of those founding members and those who have been actively involved in those 30 congregations is that the congregations actually have more of an outreach focus. Not only was it to be unified but, in a sense, the ramifications and the confinements of the trust, as it was constituted, allowed them to deal only with properties, and yet we know that a lot of the work in these Churches was not just about properties. It was also about the outreach ministries that they have. It could be everything, not just from Sunday schools that they delivered on Sundays, and the Church services, but often these Churches have other social services that are involved, like budgeting services, kindergartens, and after-school programmes that are run, potentially with an out-of-school care and recreation contract. These are a number of the services that are being run by these Churches and by these congregations.

The intent, then, was to be able to give them more flexibility to broaden their reach and the scope of their ability to be able to make a difference in those communities, in particular. The legal entity was incorporated as the Church Extension and Property Trust Board of Associated Churches of Christ in New Zealand. There was some doubt about the legal capacity of the board to hold these properties vested within it, so the private Act was passed by this Parliament in 1929.

The reason for this bill is that the Associated Churches of Christ Church Property Act of 1929, which governs the management of these Church properties, is outdated and needs modernising. As I was explaining, a number of these Churches—I have talked to some of them about their activities that were important in order for them to be able to, I suppose, demonstrate their relevance to their local communities. Hence this becomes an important part of their evolution and change as a Church, to become more relevant to the needs that they face within their congregations as well.

This bill repeals the Associated Churches of Christ Church Property Act, which dates back to 1929. The core of the changes proposed in this legislation is to enable the new trust, which those 44 Churches have agreed to establish, to have a more modern governance structure and to be able to manage their Church properties in a more flexible way. I also want to reiterate that some of the Churches were unsure about different matters that may be affected by this change. I just want again to reassure the members of those 44 Churches who may be listening about, for instance, the matters not affected by the transfer of property rights and obligations.

The bill provides that the dissolution of the old board and the transfer of those property rights and obligations to the new board are not to be treated as placing a person in breach of, or default under, any contract, or in breach of trust, or in breach of confidence, or as otherwise making the person guilty of a civil wrong, and are not to be treated as entitling a person to (a) terminate or cancel or modify a contract, an agreement, or an arrangement; or (b) enforce or accelerate the performance of an obligation; or (c) require the performance of an obligation not otherwise arising for performance, and do not release any surety wholly or in part from all or any obligation; and (d) do not invalidate or discharge any contract or security. These were issues of some concern that I know were raised, and so I hope that by clarifying these in my speech, it will give some clarity and confirmation to those who seek it.

The other thing, too, is the dissolution of the old board. I think that is important. The bill provides that on the commencement of this Act, the old board is dissolved and the Registrar of Incorporated Societies must, as soon as practicable after commencement of this Act, remove the name of the old board from the register of charitable trust boards, kept under Part 2 of the Charitable Trusts Act 1957.

I want to finalise this part of my speech, again to give some clarity to those members who are listening. I turn to the part where it talks about the records and registers. The bill provides that neither the Registrar-General of Land nor any other person charged with the keeping of records or registers is obliged solely by reason of Part 2 of the bill to change any name in those records or registers or in any document.

The bill also provides that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, an instrument, whether or not it is an instrument of transfer, is sufficient proof, when presented to the Registrar-General of Land or any other person charged with the keeping of any records or registers, and that any property, rights, or obligations have, under this bill, become the property, rights, or obligations of the new board if the following requirements are met: (a) the instrument has been, or purports to have been, executed by the new board, and (b), the property, rights, or obligations in question were the property, rights, or obligations of the old board immediately before the commencement of this Act.

I know that was a little bit tedious, but again, it is just to give clarity and confirmation to the 44 Churches and their members who may be listening out there.

I just want to conclude my speech by noting that probably the most significant change in this bill from the 1929 Act is that the Act put quite a narrow constraint on the property trust board to be able to spend the funds and the revenues of those properties only back on property, in the view that 44 Churches have today the ability to be able to exercise their outreach ability into their communities.

Can I finally just acknowledge the Hon Ruth Dyson, who is the chairperson of the Government Administration Committee, and the deputy chair, Sarah Dowie, and also all the members who are on the committee for their work on this bill. I would also like to acknowledge the new trust solicitor, Mr Viesturs Altments, for his work on bringing this bill to the House. This bill is simply about letting those 44 Churches have a more flexible ability to manage their own property. I commend this bill to the House.

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, otirā tēnā koutou e ngā mema o Te Whare nei. It is a privilege and pleasure to stand for the third reading of the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill. I sat on the Government Administration Committee for this bill and I am absolutely certain that the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust, along with the 30 congregations that own 44 properties, are very pleased that we have finally arrived at this day, when we have the third reading of this bill.

As the previous speaker outlined, there has been a long history, from 1844 right through until today. I want to focus on a couple of parts of that history. First of all, there was the agreement in 1929 to have the Associated Churches of Christ Church Property Act. Of course that was an Act that was absolutely suitable and appropriate for 1929, but not so much for 2016. I want to acknowledge the trustees who had the tenacity and the courage, I guess, to start that process in 2012, to get us to where we are today. I want to congratulate them.

The new terms of the new trust are considerably wider than the ones the previous trust had. They will enable the trust not only to deal with the property issues but also to have the ability to use their funds as they see fit, for the purpose of encouraging the promotion of the Christian faith. So I want to congratulate them again on getting this bill through the processes of the House.

There were only two submitters on this bill during the select committee process. One of the submitters wanted to include a sunset clause in the bill, but on the advice of the officials the committee decided not to put a sunset clause in, and that is basically because there may be a something in the future. One of the parishioners might leave a bequest to the old trust in a will that has already been written, and that will now still be able to go to the new trust. That piece of legislation needs to stay to the book for that purpose, and for other purposes as well.

I also want to acknowledge the Government Administration Committee, led by the Hon Ruth Dyson. This is one of those bills that had consensus across all of the parties on the committee, which is not like every single bill that comes through the House. It is a good thing when we are able to help organisations—in this case, a group of Churches—to achieve what they want to achieve. I suppose, for me, the issue is around Churches in a modern society as well. I can quite understand why this legislation has been put up. It is not an easy issue for Churches to deal with, and there are many, many things in a changing society that Churches have to deal with. I think this is part of the solution of addressing those wider issues for the Christian Churches.

As I mentioned, the new trust does give them wider powers. I think that one of the big issues for Churches today is, obviously, the diminishing congregations and the ageing congregations, and it is an issue that all Churches are dealing with. I see this as perhaps part of addressing the organisation of the Christian Churches for the future. I do not propose to extend this contribution on this bill unnecessarily. I think the people who are affected by this bill have waited long enough. I am pleased to commend the bill to the House.

Hon CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui): It gives me quite a lot of pleasure to stand up and speak to the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill, because it emanates from a Church that I was born and raised in, the Associated Churches of Christ in New Zealand. In fact, I note that the initial proponent of the bill, Mr Steve Baigent from Nelson, was a member of the Church of Christ at Annesbrook, which was the Church that I attended as a young fella. In fact, it was in his mother’s garden, as a 4-year-old, that I met my future wife, then aged 2—she does not remember.

Phil Twyford: A bit young to propose.

Hon CHESTER BORROWS: I did not ask her out on that occasion.

It is interesting to reflect on the impact of Churches across New Zealand in those days, the 1950s and 1960s, and where it is today. This is a Church—they called it a brotherhood in those days; an association is, I suppose, the more polite term these days. They are a smaller group, they are not as recognised as some of the bigger churches that we have in our community, but, in fact, they had a big impact, particularly on rural New Zealand, in those days. They emanated in New Zealand from the Nelson region, and a number of Churches sprung up around there. Their raison d’être was evangelism, but also to seek unity across the Churches, and that was the whole reason why they stepped out of the parent Church that they came from—to actually understand that there was a need for society to see all Christians as one, rather than as peddling a particular doctrine that seemed to be more divisive than bringing people together.

They were one of the five Churches negotiating towards Church unity in the 1970s. There was a high lay involvement within that Church, and a lot of us can remember as kids—me particularly—being in the back of the little Morris Minor as it struggled over the Tākaka Hill to go and deliver the message in places like Bainham and Tākaka, or driving down to the coast from Stoke in Nelson to deliver a couple of sermons on a Sunday before coming back and our parents getting on with work the next day. There are a few connections, too, within the House. My cousins the Hon Annette King and Hon Christopher Finlayson—their forebears were instrumental in starting congregations at Spring Grove and in Richmond. Those Churches exist today and continue with some strength.

As noted in the report that came back from the Government Administration Committee, there are others, too, who have come up through that Church and made a huge contribution to society. I think of Sir Garfield Todd, who emanated, again, from this Church and then went on to become the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, as it was back then prior to the Smith regime. The Todd family is one of the families that have been involved within these congregations over generations. Another is Fred Hollows, who trained in the ministry in Dunedin, at Glennleith, before he embarked on his ways in respect of helping those with eye problems and became absolutely noted.

The Church also worked in other countries—I would just note the connection with Southern Rhodesia again—it started a mission school at a place called Dadaya, and that was where a number of our members who were educators and also men of the cloth went to work in the mission fields over there. I guess one person we would like to walk away from is Robert Mugabe, who was a student at that school, funnily enough. I think he has shaken the dust off his sandals, because he does not seem to be adhering to the principles of the Associated Churches of Christ just now.

It is a Church that, over the years, has continued to give an awful lot to the communities in which it served, and around the country there are about 40 different congregations. There was one, for instance, at Lower Hutt, and former Labour member for that area Trevor Young was a member of that congregation at Naenae. I remember as a young guy listening to the men and women in the church who would bring their thoughts before the congregation. It was not so much pastorally led as membership led, and so each of those men and women were given the opportunity to stand up and speak, to lead lessons, to teach and to pray, and to work for their communities.

It was very much—and still remains very much—a Church that tends to put its money where its mouth is, and that is what lies behind this bill. The fact is that the legislation has tied up a lot of the Church’s assets in a way that means they cannot be used for its principal goal, which is ministry. In effect, what this Church is saying is that it wants to free itself of those assets and use that money towards the ministry to which its members feel they have been called.

It is sad to note that, maybe, Christian Churches have not been their best advocates around the country, maybe around the world, for some time now. But it is great to be able to sit back and to look at a group of people who do feel a sense of vocation—we would call it in secular terms; others who may adhere to a faith would call it a calling—to get involved within their communities. No doubt every one of the members who are sitting in this Chamber today actually came here for a reason. Many felt that they came here because they wanted to make a contribution, and, in respect of where that will of wanting to make that contribution comes from, largely Christians are over-represented within this House as a slither or a slice of the general population of the country.

I think it is important to note that these sets of values that drive us on, whether or not we pin them to a particular religion or particular creed, nevertheless are important ones. People who give of themselves in community service and do so from a sense of service and public service actually hold the thread of our communities together. That is why when we go into the various NGOs or those community groups that we visit on a regular basis we see people turn up time and time and time again. We might see the same faces at five or six organisations that we might visit within our electorates on a weekly basis, and these people are giving because they not only see the need but hear a call and feel a sense of calling towards contributing to their communities in that way.

I think back, as I do, to a number of the personalities I saw working and operating within their churches and within their communities as part of this particular Church. I do have a sense of gratitude for where those people have taken my family and me personally—on a walk towards exactly where we find ourselves today, and where each of us in the House does, as I have just reflected. The fact is, as soon as you get a few years on you, you tend not to notice those sets of values around the community and its subsequent generations, but nevertheless it is there. We have to then quiz ourselves and wonder about how well we are at communicating that sense of calling or that sense of vocation that leads us to contribute to our communities in the way that we do. If it is not being passed on from generation to generation or neighbour to neighbour, then we have to ask why not.

So I commend this bill to the House and I acknowledge the fact that here is a group of people who recognise they are asset-rich and need to do something about it. They realise that they did not belong to that particular organisation to acquire assets or acquire land to build edifices to some faith that is actually meaningless outside of those edifices. But, actually, they joined a particular movement so that they could turn it towards the people who had needs within their community and to reflect the faith that they had taken on for themselves. Often we scoff at people who do things from a sense of faith. Often we find people laughing behind their hands at those who might believe in something as simple as a Christian faith. In actual fact, the people who adhere to this Church and all those other churches do so from a sense of what we would call, in a secular way, goodwill or public interest. But we know what drives us and I am here today in this House to endorse that sense of call and that sense of worth in a community. I commend the bill to the House.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I am delighted to stand in solidarity with my colleagues on this side of the House, as well as other members of this House, in support of this bill. I have no hesitation whatsoever, and I am pleased that by the sounds of those who spoke at the Committee stage of this bill there is unanimous support from all sides of the House. I am also pleased to hear from the Hon Chester Borrows, who is a member of this organisation. It is always good to get the personal side and get the personal stories related to this, rather than just reading from reports.

I do not have any hesitation whatsoever; I stand in support of this legislation. I will tell you why. It is a simple matter for me. The other day I listened to a story related by Professor Clayton Christensen, who teaches business at the Harvard Business School. He related a story about how a Marxist economist from China was coming to the end of his term on a Fulbright fellowship at Harvard. The professor had asked him whether there was anything he had learnt that was unexpected or surprising. This Chinese scholar immediately said that there was. He had suddenly realised, by being in America, how critical religion was to the functioning of democracy. He had learnt that the Government’s role is not to observe and determine what everyone does but that it was to create a framework where everyone voluntarily obeys the rules.

He said he believed the reason for that was religion and that religion had this critical role to play in encouraging people to voluntarily—and most people do, at most times—obey the rules. He had observed that people would go to church on a Sunday, somebody whom they respected and admired would teach them, and what he observed was that, by and large, where religion had an influence, most people recognised that they were not only accountable to one another but were accountable to their God. So I want to relate that story in order to recognise the work of this particular association of Christian Churches and recognise the value of them changing the legislation so that it brings things up to date for them and recognise that they have this asset that, undoubtedly, they do not necessarily want to use for purely real estate purposes, but to promote their religion and their faith.

I was delighted to know that the other day my colleague Carmel Sepuloni took my place at the opening of the Religious Diversity Centre that was done here in Parliament. I regret sincerely that I was not able to be there, because a lot of the inter-faith groups and organisations from Auckland were there. The establishment of that centre is going to be critical for New Zealand going forward, because in our history, in addition to the indigenous religion—in addition to the Rātana movement—we also have Christianity, which has been a part of our history. Whether we go to church or not, I think it is important that we recognise that it is part of our history.

Moving forward, we have also got to recognise that New Zealand is growing; it is becoming a critical member of the international community. As such, we are also seeing more and more people from other parts of the world who are also bringing their faith. It does not matter whether it be Muslim or Buddhist or Jewish faith, what is important for us is to acknowledge and recognise that. I think that we have the basis and the foundation here in New Zealand where we are able to accept that everybody has the right and the freedom to believe in those things that are dear to them—in fact, to believe in their own God. I think the work of this organisation that we are debating about is showing to us that it wants to do good going forward.

Largely, we see that many church organisations today—for example, the Salvation Army, the Methodist Mission, and the Catholic Church—all have an arm that is doing critical work in our communities. They are not just preaching the gospel, if you like, in the four walls of the church building, they are out there practising what they believe and engaging with the people and supporting people as best they can.

It is for those reasons that I do not necessarily need to know the details of this legislation, but I recognise that what the Christian Churches is doing is, basically, upgrading the legislation that has governed and has given powers to its board so that there is clarity and there is an ability for the new trust board to take on the new role, utilise the assets it has accumulated over time, and recognise that those who have gone have also been able to contribute their worth, if you like, into the work—and I think it is very important work.

Just in concluding, I think that there have been several surveys that have been released that show that, by and large, New Zealand is declining in terms of having a faith, whether it be God or believing in anything else. I have to say that there is a younger generation who seems to be yearning for something more than themselves and who seem to be appealing to the churches. I would hate to see this country of ours reach a situation where fewer people are attending church or fewer people have a belief in God, and then see us clash with those who do not. I would hope that, irrespective of what faiths, what beliefs, people have—even those who may not believe in God—we in New Zealand would continue to uphold our Kiwi way of recognising that people have the right to believe. I think we can disagree; we can have the arguments, but be prepared, also, to respect that we can agree to disagree and continue to recognise that we are all human beings belonging to this world of ours, of the race of humankind.

Thank you for the opportunity.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call in this third reading debate on the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill, a private bill that stands in the name of my friend and colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith. This bill has been canvassed quite widely throughout the different stages that we have debated so far, and in this third reading debate. I will seek to make a few points during this call, but first I want to put on record my thanks for the indulgence of the House that was given for the previous matter—that is, for my Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association alcohol bill to be moved to the top of the Order Paper, ahead of this bill. As a private bill, this would usually have sat ahead of members’ orders of the day. So I would like to put on record my thanks to the House for that.

This bill, as was put in the words of my colleague the Hon Chester Borrows, is dealing with an organisation that has become asset-rich, but which needs to focus on its activity. There are many examples of these sorts of organisations that we could look at. I have the pleasure of representing the Pacific region on the executive committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. That is one example of an organisation that, unfortunately, for a few years at least, has devoted something like 70 percent of its resources to administration, property, clerical matters, and HR, and only 30 percent of its resource—of its subscriptions that it collects from its members—to activity, to delivering programmes on democratic good governance. In a similar way, over the course of time Christian Churches New Zealand, formerly known as the Associated Churches of Christ, has developed this issue whereby it has buildings that may not be in the right place, or necessarily the right size, to accommodate its changing membership numbers. This asset is tying up a considerable amount of capital that could be devoted to its mission and to service and to providing the charitable services that it offers to its members, its parishioners.

I would like to refer to a member of Christian Churches New Zealand that is based in the area I seek to represent as a National list MP, Wellington Central. In Karori we have St Anselm’s Union Church, which, I think, provides an excellent case study of why this legislation is necessary. St Anselm’s Union Church is at the far end of Karori, on Mākara Road as you head out to Mākara Beach. It is named after Saint Anselm, a former Archbishop of Canterbury who was actually born in Italy in the year 1033. At the age of 26 he moved to Normandy and accompanied William the Conqueror over on the Norman invasion of Britain. He became the archbishop at the age of 60. Uniquely, he was declared by popular acclaim to be a doctor of the Church and then a saint, rather than by a formal appointment process within the Church hierarchy.

St Anselm’s Union Church, named after Saint Anselm, is a small, Christian community. It is there to encourage, according to its mission statement, the development of a dynamic and living Christian faith, to share its faith with others in the wider community, and to work for peace and justice for all. Whether you are a person of faith or someone who is irreligious, I think we can admire the fact that it is seeking to work for peace and justice for all and to deliver a community service to people in their area. The Churches of Christ were traditionally, of course, a laity-led organisation, but St Anselm’s Union Church is presided over by a minister, the Rev. Geraldine Coats. I think it is also interesting that St Anselm’s Union Church is one of the more liberal Christian communities that we have here in Wellington. For instance, in September 2014 it formally expressed the concerns of its congregation about a decision taken by the General Assembly of the New Zealand Presbyterian Church, a stance in relation to whether people who are in relationships outside of marriage could serve as preachers or ministers. St Anselm’s Union Church certainly marked itself out as one of the more liberal communities.

The amenities that it offers the community are highly valued. For instance, there is a craft group that attracts a regular following. Its community hall is hired out to groups to offer a wide range of different social and hobby activities. The Church’s main service takes place on a Sunday at 10 a.m. but it also has very interesting guest lectures, and I would point to two series of guest lectures that were provided by Professor Lloyd Geering, a member of the Order of New Zealand and so one of our 20 greatest living New Zealanders, and also, I believe, the only person to have been convicted in a heresy trial in a canon court here in New Zealand. Professor Geering offered some very interesting lectures. “What we owe to Ancient Iran” was one of them. This was talking about the Zoroastrian religion and how that fed into modern Christianity. We also had “What we owe to Ancient Iraq”, talking about the laws of Hammurabi and the 12-based Sumerian numerical system. This is the ancient system of counting by twelves, which, actually, our system for measuring time, the calendar, our directions on a compass—much of our modern system of counting—is derived from. Then there was an interesting series of lectures called “The Greening of Christianity”, on ecological morality, I suppose. These were allowing the parishioners at that Church, but also wider members of the community who wanted to come in to listen to them, an opportunity to think more widely and to learn something new from a professor and one of our 20 greatest living New Zealanders. I think we can all agree that that was a very useful amenity that was offered to the community there.

In its mission statement, St Anselm’s Union Church points out that it seeks to draw people into a caring Christian fellowship by providing meaningful worship, the study of the gospel, community activities, a creche, and children’s programmes. I think the creche and children’s programmes that are offered in both their kitchen area and the hall are highly valued by members of the community in Karori. These are the sorts of activities that, through this bill, we are seeking to underpin by empowering the property trust board of Christian Churches New Zealand to be able to deliver services rather than focus on administration. I would note that there is nothing in the Church’s mission statement that talks about the maintenance of property and rates and keeping the power switched on, and all of those issues that one has with properties. Its mission statement outlines the activities that it is seeking to deliver to its people.

This bill supports the Church in that goal of giving individuals an opportunity for spiritual growth rather than tying up the management and the administration of the Church in dealing with property trusts that have become outdated. This is a bill that has been through the select committee. I am now on the Government Administration Committee, although, unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to sit on that committee while we heard the two submissions—there were only two submissions on this bill. One of the submissions supported the bill as it is. There was another submission calling for a sunset clause to be inserted, but the committee, on consideration, decided that on balance the sunset clause was not necessary.

Why is this legislation needed? There are a couple of good reasons why we do need to enact this. Firstly, there has been a name change. What was the Associated Churches of Christ in New Zealand is now Christian Churches New Zealand. It has changed its name, and the original enabling legislation, the Associated Churches of Christ Church Property Act 1929, deals with the organisation as it was then named. There has been a change in name, and as we know from recent disclosures from Panama, the issues around trusts can be quite contentious. I do not think this is one of those issues. This is a trust that no one will have an objection to. It is a trust that seeks to underpin the Church and the valuable work it does. I think the issue around the naming of the Church and the renaming of the Associated Churches of Christ in New Zealand did need to be dealt with.

Also, the legislation is, effectively, bringing the Church under wider general charitable trust law. I think that is a positive. In a previous era almost every organisation, every school, and even some individuals wanted their own private piece of legislation. Rather than giving updated private legislation continually to organisations, I think it is actually better lawmaking to do as we are doing here in bringing this organisation under the auspices of having a charitable trust, which is governed by general trust law rather than a unique and specific piece of legislation. There were also some doubts as to the board’s ability to legally hold the properties that have been vested in it because of those name changes that relate to when the private bill was first enacted.

I think this is a very clear and good piece of legislation, and I commend it to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I am pleased to rise and take a short call—I do not think I will feel compelled to take the full 10 minutes—on the third reading of this bill. I have listened with some interest to the history and the stories that have been told in the House tonight, and it is always nice when the House is in agreement on a bill and there is a sense of working together to solve problems. It is a novelty, and it is a pleasant one.

Christian Churches New Zealand began in Nelson in 1844—so I am adding my piece of history to everyone else’s—and a Church was opened the following year in Auckland, and my understanding is that the movement grew significantly through the 19th century until the point where we now have 44 progressive Churches around the country. The Minister sponsoring this bill, Minister Smith, has spoken positively of the role of the Church in his community in Nelson, and we also heard from the Hon Chester Borrows this evening about his upbringing, noting that it works with youth and families providing very real and much-needed support, as well as opportunity for spiritual enlargement or enlightenment, as we have just heard now.

The bill is a private bill that was introduced last year by the Hon Dr Nick Smith. It enables the repeal of the Associated Churches of Christ Church Property Act of 1929, enabling the dissolution of the Associated Churches of Christ Church Extension and Property Trust Board, which means it will be able to transfer all the property, powers, and legal obligations of that trust board to a new charitable trust, which is now called the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board. This bill gives that trust the legal power to do that, and it will also deliver a more modern governance structure and give it more flexibility in how it uses its resources and delivers on its mission.

I think it is important to acknowledge that Christian Churches New Zealand, from a decision at its conference in 2013, asked Parliament to introduce this legislation and make these changes to enable it to be more flexible on the use of its property or the proceeds from the sale of that property, because the existing Act on our statute book from 1929 gives an impression that the trust is restricted in the use of the money or proceeds from the sale of property only towards other property, and the Churches want to be able to use it for other charitable Christian purposes. The Churches have met every year since 1905 in this country, and continue to have annual conferences. It was at that conference that the Churches and the owners of these properties thoroughly debated and supported the changes that have now been through the Government Administration Committee process and are in front of the House.

I personally do not really understand the historical context that required legislation to govern Church activity. I always thought, you know, rather baldly, I guess, that there was a separation between Church and State and that the business of a Church had no place in this House. But that was how things were done back then. There was legislation governing a whole range of organisations, including some of our Churches. So that requires this Parliament to introduce legislation to repeal those Acts or to amend them, which is what we are doing here. In my view, it is not our job to make comment on the wishes of the Church. Our job is purely to consider the quality of the legislation and how it might interact with other legislation or in practice, not to make comment on the intent or the delivery of the Church role. That is its business, and it is not appropriate in my view for us to be commenting on that.

Through the select committee process there were, as has been mentioned, only two submissions, and there was not a huge amount of detailed discussion or dispute through the select committee process. I guess the most gnarly issue was about whether there should be a sunset clause to this bill, to take the Act off the statute book all together, and the decision was to not do that because there may well be people who have left provisions in their will to leave money, or property, indeed, to the Church as it was known previously in the legislation, and if a sunset clause were introduced that might mean that that money or property ended up in trust and not going towards the Church. That would defeat the purpose, and, again, would not be something that Parliament or the Church would have intended. So the bill is as it is, without that sunset clause, and the Green Party is very happy to support it, because it reflects the intention of the Churches and their desire to move forward. Thank you.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): It is a great pleasure for New Zealand First to be able to support this private bill with the impressive name of Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill. There has been a long history of trusts and legislation for the purpose of holding property for the Associated Churches of Christ in New Zealand. Other speakers have canvassed that history very accurately, and it is not necessary for me to do so again. Suffice it to say that originally the focus of the old trust and legislation was on the holding of Church property. That is what it was set up for, and that is what it did: simply that, nothing much more. It was very narrow in its focus.

But obviously over time things change, and they have in this case. They change as a result of events that happen over many years, and also they change as a result of the changing of attitudes. Some of the events that drive change for issues like this are, for example, the two world wars, which would have changed people’s attitudes and changed the focus of Churches in what they were there to do and what needs of the community they attempted to carry out. I know personally that in Christchurch, for example, where I live, the Canterbury earthquakes of 5 years ago have also been a driver of change as far as many of the churches in Christchurch are concerned, because many of them were destroyed or damaged and have been since demolished as a result of the earthquake. Many of the Churches have decided that they will not rebuild all of those churches, or will not repair all of them, and instead will use the proceeds of insurance and the proceeds of sale of property for other purposes, in order to meet their changing needs. So you can see that events do actually act as a driver for change, even in respect of issues like this, for trusts that hold Church property.

The other things, as I have said, that drive change are attitudes and the needs of the congregations because, more and more, Churches have acted to meet the social needs and the educational needs and other needs—community needs—of their congregations. So I feel that there has been quite a strong change over many years—less towards investment in property and more towards investment in those other social purposes—and I think that is a very good thing because it reflects the needs of the people who rely on those Churches for those purposes. So it is understandable then that this private bill is coming to us to seek changes that the Churches of Christ in New Zealand have asked us to look at, because it is pretty clear that the definition of the powers in the current legislation and the trusts set up under that are far too narrow for current needs, and something needs to change.

So we need to solve those doubts, create more clarity, and create wider powers for the trustees in order that they can do the new things that are required of them in this day and age. It is pleasing to see that the Churches of Christ back in 2013 got together and decided what those needs were and what they wanted for an updated piece of legislation and this bill is, ultimately, the outcome of that process.

The bill itself really does only two things. One is to create a clear legal power to enable the transfer of the property from the existing trusts to the new trusts to be established as a result of this legislation. The second thing is to create broader powers for the trustees to do the new things that I have already spoken of earlier. It will allow, as a result, the Churches to consider a wider mission not only in terms of buildings but in the use of their funds for the other activities of the Churches so that they can do the things that they now wish to do.

New Zealand First thoroughly approves of those two new purposes in this bill and we wish the Churches well in using their resources for those wider purposes. The bill and the new trusts will allow the trustees to invest in different ways from those they were empowered to do in the past. We think that is very appropriate.

I am also pleased to see that the Government Administration Committee has done a good job in listening to the two submissions it had and reviewing the fine detail of the bill and reporting that back to the House, as it has done. So New Zealand First is very happy with the detail of the legislation and its purposes and we will therefore be very pleased indeed to vote in favour of the bill.

MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): It is a pleasure to take a call on this, the third reading of the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill. I have been able to follow this bill right through the whole process, as a member of the Government Administration Committee, and of course I would like to recognise and acknowledge the chair, the Hon Ruth Dyson, and my colleagues who sit on the committee with me. I would like to acknowledge Sarah Dowie. She was the deputy chair at the time, but she has moved on to another committee and has been replaced by the very able Mr Paul Foster-Bell, who comes on to the committee as the new deputy chair.

I would like to acknowledge my colleague Brett Hudson, who also sits on the committee with me; Mojo Mathers from the Green Party; and Adrian Rurawhe, who made a very good speech and took a very good call earlier; and of course my good friend and parliamentary rugby team-mate Kris Faafoi.

Phil Twyford: Haven’t you missed somebody, Mark?

MARK MITCHELL: No, I think I have got everyone, Phil. I know that in the Committee stage, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, you gave me a fair bit of latitude in terms of talking about some of the Churches that are affected by this. I think that is actually really important and I think I will come back to that. But one thing that I would like to do also is acknowledge the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who is the original sponsor of this bill.

Going through the list, I would like to acknowledge some of the Churches that are in his electorate. There is the Annesbrook Church of Nelson. There is the Unite Church in Nelson, which I know is heavily involved in youth missions and youth counselling, so I want to acknowledge them and the work that they do in the community in Nelson. I know there is another one—the Richmond Church of Christ in Nelson. I do want to acknowledge them, as through the members and the members of the more than 30 congregations—obviously it was their local member, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who originally sponsored the bill and brought the bill, which is an important one, to the House.

I would just like to maybe go over a little bit of the history again. Christian Churches New Zealand was the name given to an association of more than 30 congregations throughout New Zealand. Until 2012 they generally described themselves locally as Churches of Christ. Together they are still known legally as the Associated Churches of Christ in New Zealand, and of course as part of this bill there is going to be a name change.

Christian Churches New Zealand congregations are autonomous but they act together through their regular national conferences, and I think this is very important. If you were actually to make contact with any of the Churches or if you were living in a certain area, for example Nelson, and you happened to be moving to Invercargill or Tasman or Auckland or Tauranga, they already have a very strong network, so you are able to enjoy what would hopefully be a seamless transition from one congregation and one Church to another—one of these Churches that are very aligned in what they are doing. I have to say that as a dyed in the wool Catholic, I got a little bit of ribbing—

Paul Foster-Bell: A Roman?

MARK MITCHELL: —that is right—about taking calls on this. But you know what? At the end of the day, actually, we are all bound together by Christian faith and that is what is important.

Carmel Sepuloni: The end of the day is night-time.

MARK MITCHELL: To be honest with you, I find it actually very rude that there are interjections—on a bill like this—coming from the whip of an Opposition party.

Carmel Sepuloni: Oh, you’re exaggerating! That’s ridiculous.

MARK MITCHELL: No, no, I am not exaggerating. This is something that is actually pretty important to people. Two of your members have got up and made very good contributions and you are sitting there making fun of it, and that actually indicates a lot about the way that you guys think. It is poor. It is very poor. I can guarantee you right now—

Carmel Sepuloni: It’s pathetic.

MARK MITCHELL: —no, I am serious—that there are people sitting at home watching people stand up and speak to this, which is fundamentally very important, because, do you know what, the way that they use their assets, the way that they administer, the way that they deal in their communities is fundamentally very important to them. So I would ask that you keep your comments to yourself and that you have respect for the House and allow everyone to get up and make their contributions. Thank you very much.

The global family of Christian Churches and the Churches of Christ now extends to more than 185 countries. It was begun in the early 1800s in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America. It evolved largely from a concern growing strongly through the Enlightenment era that the Church had become rigid, authoritarian, and divided, making the meaningful preaching of the Christian message more challenging for them, of course.

Christian Churches’ pioneers felt strongly that the whole Church would be more effective if it showed unity and I believe that was a very important step. I believe that actually unity, wherever you find it, always provides a very powerful message. They felt that the whole Church should be more effective and that they would return to and use the New Testament for their model. They intended that their message should be one of reform within the Church but, eventually, they were forced to become a separate movement in themselves.

Just talking about the history of these Churches, if you go back and look at, for example—and we heard a very good contribution from Chester Borrows, who is very strong in his Christian faith. So I want to acknowledge that and talk about one of the Churches in his electorate. It is the Riverside Christian Church. That Church had its first meeting and was founded back on 28 April 1867. I think why this is quite a good example is because at that time they had no assets at all. They rented a hall and they had their first meeting there, but, as time progressed, they started to accumulate assets and, of course, it was important for them to know exactly how they could use those assets and the best way to be able to administer in the community that they were working in. That is why this bill is so important, because we are allowing and we are giving them the flexibility.

As Chester Borrows alluded to, some of these ministries do not want to have all their capital tied up in assets. They want to be able to free some of that up to be able to actually perform the missions that they do. I think this Church has actually got some members who are leaving fairly soon for Papua New Guinea on a mission there. So if they are able to free up some funds to be able to support those types of missions, these are very important things to them.

The Churches of Christ was established in New Zealand soon after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, again going back to these very early dates. The first congregation was actually in Nelson, which I think probably gives it some real added value and meaning to Dr Nick Smith. In 1944 other cities were added: Auckland in 1845, Dunedin in 1858, and Christchurch in 1870. By 1885 they actually had 25 Churches that had joined as part of the group.

The first dominion conference was held in 1901 in the capital city, here in Wellington. National conferences became annual gatherings by 1920. They provided opportunities for stimulus and inspiration and enabled the Churches to work together on home mission projects, ministerial training, Christian education, women’s work, examining public issues, and they also were able to produce a national paper.

Along with other mainstream churches, the Churches of Christ experienced a drop in numbers and, of course, over the years there would be an ebb and flow. Numbers would decrease and then increase again, which is very common with a lot of different organisations. This led to a simplification of structures and a focus on development. New Churches have been established and the movement as a whole is growing, which is a very positive thing.

Initially, property was in the name of the elders of the congregations, which was common because obviously in the very early years they were starting to slowly accumulate assets and often these Churches were driven by a small group of people, so it was not uncommon for them to be registered in the name of these original elders and leaders within the Churches. On 18 April 1924 in Dunedin, at a duly convened conference of delegates from the Churches, a board of trustees of certain members of the Churches was set up. So that was the original board of trustees.

CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): It is a privilege to speak in the third reading of the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill. I think that everything that needs to be said about this bill has really been said. I would like to correct the member who just spoke before me, Mark Mitchell. I was interjecting earlier, but I was interjecting in support of the bill and in support of the wise words that he was sharing with the House. So it is disappointing that he took those interjections the wrong way. Perhaps he did not hear. I would not like to think that he was just demonstrating a lack of integrity, as he was trying to extend the debate further than it needed to be extended. I will just take it that he did not hear what was being said. So I will accept his apology. Thank you very much, Mark Mitchell, for the apology, and I move on back to the bill. There is not, as I said, much else to be said. I just want to say that Labour does support this bill. I acknowledge all of those on the Government Administration Committee who have worked hard on this bill and all of those involved in the trust who have done a great deal of work to bring us to the point that we are at now. Thank you very much.

BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a privilege to be able to rise in support of the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill in this, its third, reading. It would appear from the contributions that have been made across both sides of the House that this has unanimous support across the House. As another member, Ms Logie, mentioned just a little while ago, that it is actually a very good thing to be able to sit in this House and contribute in these debates where we are united and each, as she said, is looking to work together to find a solution, a solution to what is a real and genuine problem for particular people or groups in New Zealand. In this case, of course, it is Christian Churches New Zealand, an association of more than 30 congregations throughout New Zealand. I would make note of the Tawa Union Church in the electorate of Ōhāriu, which will be affected in a positive way when—with the confidence I have, and I think we all share—this bill in enacted.

If we look at the history of this, which I think is really important, when a group of Churches comes together with a notion to do good across their communities inside any well-formed and, particularly, any well-functioning democracy, the idea that people or groups will coalesce and provide services and assistance to people in need is something, actually, that underpins that well-formed and well-functioning democracy. We had a case here that dates back, I guess, around 90 years, if we look at the history of this, where these Churches saw a need or a desire to do good in their communities, and they coalesced around a notion that if they had at the time—they were thinking in terms of property; assets—they could put those assets to good purposes, to benefit perhaps those who might share similar views but certainly those who were perhaps a little less fortunate, a little less privileged, or with certain needs.

If we look back—I think it was in April 1924 in Dunedin—a conference of these Churches came together and agreed that they should have trustees who would be certain members of the Churches, and that they should form a trust to hold and manage the real estate assets that they would settle, and to make sure that they were used for the works they wanted to do. The reason that had come about was that initially, when they started these works under the use of these assets, or the shared approach, they held the property in the names of the elders of the congregations. In many respects you would look at that and say that was not perhaps unusual for the nature of Church operations of the time, but, actually, I would suggest that the need for change, or the identified need for change, in the 1920s, was underpinned by a changing society. If there is anything, of course, that we have witnessed in our time, and throughout human history, it is the evolution of our societal groups and the way that they change the way societies operate, the way they govern themselves, the way, if certain people are going to work together, you do that effectively to deliver the outcomes you want in a way that can be adequately managed.

In 1929 the Associated Churches of Christ Church Property Act was enacted. That Act created the trust—which we will in fact be disestablishing it once this bill is passed—that could administer the joint assets, if you will, the assets owned by this congregation of Churches and could ensure that those assets were put to the use, to the purpose, that the assembled congregations had. Just as that Act was born of perceived need for change in governance to make sure that there was a better structure for the works that the congregations were doing, we see now, if we fast forward approximately 80 years, the same need arise. If we look at the operations of the congregations today, the way that they might best use the assets they hold, and the constraints that the current trust and empowering Act place upon them, it actually creates a situation where the congregations together might hold sufficient assets to do a great deal of good work across the country but they cannot always use those assets in the way that they feel would provide the best and most good to those in most need.

For instance, although there is held to be some ambiguity around the language of the empowering legislation as it currently stands, the wording does create doubts as to how the funds held by the board might be applied for the furtherance of the work of the Churches, but there is believed to be a strong presumption from that legislation that the funds received are on trust for the purposes of real estate only. If we consider that, as we have done through the stages of this bill, including the select committee process and the Committee of the whole House, and have canvassed it, that actually can—and I think it is a perception across those congregations—present constraints on the works that the board and the Churches can do for those people whom they are looking to serve. There was a parallel drawn in the Committee of the whole House, I recall, which said that where you hold an asset and you are simply looking to convert that asset, which might be—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Brett Hudson has 3 minutes and 56 seconds remaining, if he wishes.

BRETT HUDSON: I have to say, there is so much to say and so little time. Just before the break, I was drawing the parallel that had been raised in the Committee of the whole House about constraints when you have a certain fixed asset that you can use and yet your desires and needs might better militate towards a different form of asset. If one is in a position to transform an asset from one form into another, you can unlock all sorts of good potential. This is the issue that is currently the case with this trust, which we will address through the passage of this bill.

The parallel that was used in the Committee of the whole House was actually an item that this Government, this party, campaigned for in 2014 and then executed once re-elected, and that was the mixed-ownership model, principally, but not exclusively, with our utilities companies. So the assets, in many cases, were fixed. They were generators, machinery, the ability to produce electricity, and yet there was a feeling, as a Government, that we could deliver services to our citizens in other forms if only we could convert those assets from physical assets like real estate into other liquid assets like cash, which is precisely what we did by converting 49 percent of those physical fixed machinery assets into cash, which is now being used for schools, ultra-fast broadband, and for roading—things that are providing services to citizens and unlocking potential across New Zealand.

That is precisely what this bill will enable the new trust to do with the assets—not only with the assets they own today but also with assets they convert, if they choose to, into some other forms. Today we said there was a very, very strong presumption that the funds they had had to be held in real estate. This bill will enable them, should they choose to, to convert some or all of those into other assets, and they could be cash assets, they could be other forms of machinery, they could be assets that will help them to deliver the services to their constituent parties, to the people in need, to the people that they have existed to serve for so many decades.

I think that is an extraordinarily powerful thing. It is something that I wholeheartedly endorse. I think the whole House is unanimously supporting it. I was hoping that there might just be an epiphany on the other side of the House and that in doing what we are doing with this bill—

Simon O’Connor: A religious term.

BRETT HUDSON: —thank you—and permitting them to convert an asset into a more usable form, they might realise that what this Government did with the mixed-ownership model was indeed a very powerful and enabling thing.

I will just move on to another part of this bill, because I think it is very, very important. When we are changing one structure to another, it could potentially introduce risks. So while we are transferring all of the properties, the rights, and obligations within that, we are being very careful to ensure that any actions that are under way or could otherwise have been placed under the old trust structure are either still going to be continued or still be available to parties who might wish to bring them under the new structure. So in that sense, nothing will have changed.

That has a couple of very important consequences. It does mean that the new trust will not be able to exit unfairly from agreements it might have in place with suppliers—agreements that those suppliers are relying upon. It will not be able to introduce new performance criteria, but, equally, the trust itself will be protected because those suppliers cannot use this change as a vehicle to exit their contractual obligations to the previous trust. I think it is an absolutely wonderful bill. I am glad it is going to be enacted.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. After a long night last night in the House here speaking Te Reo Māori, I thought today I would practise my English. I rise to make a short contribution on this particular bill, the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill. Given that so many members across the House, in particular from the Government, are really keen to talk about the Christian heritage and the proud Christian heritage of New Zealand, I thought I would just take them on a short history lesson.

In 1814 the first sermon was given at Ōihi Bay by Te Matenga, otherwise known as Marsden, and he delivered that with the support of Ruatara. So it precedes the 1844 opening of the particular Church down in Nelson. Further, in 1840, just before the Church opened in 1844, some members might be interested to know that article 4 of the Treaty of Waitangi, supported by Bishop Pompallier, allowed for religion here. Admittedly, it was rather narrow in its view but it said in article 4: E mea ana Te Kāwana, ko ngā whakapono katoa o Ingarangi, o ngā Wētēriana, o Roma, me Te Ritenga Māori hoki e tiakina ngātahitia.

[The Governor says that all English religions, Wesleyan, Catholic, and Māori beliefs, as well, are protected simultaneously.]

So what that did was it allowed for the Churches to take their place here in Aotearoa. Then, of course, we have, in 1844, as the members from across the House have already mentioned, in Nelson the Church was open.

Moving to this bill, we stand in support of this particular bill. We think it is just a positive way forward. I am reminded of another Māori whakataukī that says “Ka pū te ruha, ka hāo te rangatahi”—it is about time that the old net was put to the side and the new net goes fishing—and that is what this bill provides for the Church. As the bill indicates, it empowers these Churches to move on into the future, and, indeed, it will help them support a lot of the good social aspects that the House has talked about this evening. So I want to rise in support of it.

I will not talk too much longer. But I do want to, in conclusion, just thank the member for bringing the bill to the House and the select committee for the hard work that it has done, and, as mentioned earlier, for the collegial nature of the debate—and, of course, the progression of this bill from the beginning to now. Thank you.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to speak to the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill, to take a final call on this bill. I actually unexpectedly spoke to Part 1 of this bill and became interested to know a little bit more about it a wee while ago. So when I was in Nelson working with my colleague the Hon Nick Smith, I took some time to visit the Christian Churches headquarters and was fortunate enough to be shown around by the Church archivist. I was taken to the Annesbrook site in Nelson, and that is the headquarters for the Church, where all their archives are. It had not always been there, this wonderful structure that I will tell you about; it had been in various locations over time before being housed in the Nayland Road intermediate school, and then it moved to its current site in Saxton Road.

The current Annesbrook Church, the headquarters for the Christian Churches, was built in 2002 with a mix of community funding and lottery grants funding for which they are very grateful. When I visited this site—it is really a wonderful facility; truly a community facility—I saw a beautiful sound-proofed auditorium able to take 700 to 800 people, a children’s playroom, an infants’ playroom, there was a youth room that becomes a dance studio complete with ballet barres on the side, there was a kitchen, and there were outside seminar rooms for teaching and education. That is important because Annesbrook Church is also a large ministry development centre, and it is also an approved tertiary institution. In fact, it is one of the main theology colleges for the upper South Island.

The Christian Churches work has both national reach, including managing four large-scale campsites for youth work around the country, and international reach. I would like to read out some of the achievements that the Christian Churches have done from a letter that was sent to me. “For 170 years this small denomination of always less than 5,000 New Zealanders has quietly gone about ministry to local communities, made a tremendous impact in emancipation in Zimbabwe, and punched above its weight in ecumenical affairs. It has spawned mayors, members of Parliament, prison and defence chaplains, missionaries, and welfare workers. Two, in particular, have been in the international spotlight. The late Sir Garfield Todd was the only missionary in the world to become a Prime Minister, in Southern Rhodesia, and knighted by the Queen after a New Zealand Government initiative.”

Sir Garfield Todd was born in New Zealand; he is a New Zealander. He was born 13 July 1908. He worked, in his student years, at his father’s brick-making business. After university at Otago University, he went to the Glen Leith Theological College, took his holy orders in 1931, and was then assigned, from New Zealand, to missionary work in South Africa. When he was there, he then took up public life from an empathy he felt with the Africans, whose interests he had overlooked as a superintendent of the Dadaya Mission School. So he is a person who had been supported by the Christian Churches—a New Zealander who then went on to do wonderful things.

Another person who had been supported by the Church was the late Ronald O’Grady. He is the founder of EPCAT International, which is End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes—again, another really good cause that the Church has been around. Locally, in Nelson, Tony Barnett, the hospice chaplain, was crowned “Nelsonian of the Year” by the Nelson Mail. Again, he has strong involvement with the Christian Churches as well. It is noted to me that even Fred Hollows, the noted Australian eye doctor, passed through its Bible college in Dunedin.

The Church’s work continues overseas. It continues in Zimbabwe, where it is very proud to have done 80 boreholes to date, an orphanage, a 700-student boarding school, and microfinance for subsistence farmers. It has quite a large congregation in Vanuatu, and its work following the recent cyclone disaster has been quite strong.

I think this congregation and this body of work by these people is really important. They have really contributed to New Zealand history over time. I think the final sentence in this letter that was sent to me, outlining these achievements, says it all: “Being autonomous congregations, the 24 current churches need a property trust board to be able to combine their resources for training, missionary outreach, and church ventures.” I agree with those sentiments, and I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Wellington Town Belt Bill

In Committee

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is none.

Preamble, Parts 1 to 4, schedules 1AA to 6, and clauses 1 and 2

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I am pleased to begin a couple of calls that I hope to take now, and then perhaps a couple later on, to both introduce the bill back into the Chamber, through this Committee stage, and to highlight some of the core elements.

The first thing to say is that we come to the Committee tonight with this bill, towards the end, now, of a very long process. I am going to seek the indulgence of the Committee to give a little bit of a history lesson around the town belt, to set the context for what we are doing. But the history I am talking about at the moment is the history of the piece of legislation. As I said in my first reading speech, my particular personal involvement in a piece of legislation to protect and enhance the town belt goes back to the period around 2001, when the Hon Marian Hobbs, the then member for Wellington Central, was attempting to do exactly what we are doing tonight: to provide a strong legislative basis to protect the town belt in perpetuity, and to provide the ability to enhance it. It is now, some 15 years on from there, that we finally find ourselves in the House with a piece of legislation.

My involvement in that 2001 stage was not the beginning of this. I do want to acknowledge in the Chamber tonight that in the gallery are people who have worked for decades to support and enhance the town belt: the Friends of the Wellington Town Belt group—and I am particularly thinking of Joan Quinn, who is in the gallery tonight—and others as well, who have done so much over so many decades to ensure that Wellingtonians have the facility, have the beauty that is the town belt available to us. I want to acknowledge Joan particularly, and all of those who have worked on the town belt.

This is a local bill, and, therefore, I am introducing it and have it in my name on behalf of the Wellington City Council. This is an initiative of the Wellington City Council to protect and enhance the town belt. Many councillors and staff have worked hard on this bill over a long period of time—and their lawyers, I might say. I want to acknowledge, in the most recent triennium, councillor Helene Ritchie, who has led the council in terms of its consideration of this, and also Michael Oates, who has been with it throughout its gestation period, as an official at the council. These are the people who make bills like this happen, and I think it is important that we acknowledge them at the outset.

The Wellington town belt, as most members of Parliament will know, is the horseshoe-shaped green space that encircles the city. Its life began, I might say, a little before the Town Belt Deed, which we put into law tonight, was signed. So that was 1873. The New Zealand Company, as it began its process to establish Wellington City, wanted from the outset to have some green space. John Ward, the New Zealand Company’s secretary, made this instruction in 1839: “It is indeed desirable that the whole outside of the Town, inland, should be separated from the country by a broad belt of land which you will declare that the Company intends to be public property on condition that no buildings be ever erected upon it.” That is from 1839.

What then followed, as has been the history of the town belt, was not quite exactly what was intended. From 1840 onwards, things began to look a little different than the New Zealand Company had intended. Clearly, there was a series of issues around the use of the town belt, because—we have had a few conversations about the New Zealand Company as we have gone through this legislation, and I do not think that the New Zealand Company can get away with looking completely altruistic with their creation of the town belt, for two reasons that I want to talk about.

The first of those is that, actually, part of the motivation of the New Zealand Company was to drive up land prices inside the city of Wellington by having an area of land that could not be used, because that actually would help. That was sort of how the New Zealand Company operated from time to time. But, quite clearly, the other core element was that parts of this land were, in fact, already under the ownership of those iwi who had been here for some time.

It is very important, at the outset, to acknowledge Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Ruanui, Taranaki, and Ngāti Tama, whom we collectively call Taranaki Whānui, and also Ngāti Toa Rangatira. Both Taranaki Whānui and Ngāti Toa Rangatira were the occupants of this land—the inhabitants of this land. It is without doubt that through the Treaty settlement processes for both Taranaki Whānui and Ngāti Toa Rangatira—we recognised the Taranaki Whānui in the Port Nicholson settlement legislation.

The Crown recognised the breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi that led to the acquisition of lands that are included within the town belt. A process was gone through, and I do want to acknowledge here all those who were part of the Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust, who were able to see that the town belt was now such an iconic part of Wellington that they desired it to remain in that place. So in this legislation—which, Mr Chair, I am sure you are pleased I am going to actually speak directly to now—we do make a specific acknowledgment of the role of tangata whenua in the management of the town belt, and we do something that is unusual in legislation, which is that there is a preamble that runs through the history of the town belt and also explains exactly the process that those iwi went through, and who had their own ahi kā over particular areas within the town belt. It is important, and unique in many ways, that this is what we now have in terms of the town belt.

I do want to acknowledge again, at this point in the process, the importance for mana whenua of this land, and the partnership that the Wellington City Council has been engaged in for some time through the Wellington Town Belt Management Plan. But in law we now have a process by which the management of the town belt and the role of tangata whenua is specifically recognised.

As I was saying on the history of the town belt, land has been alienated from it. The original idea was a 632 hectare area of land. Little by little that was whittled down, for various reasons—some legal, some not. The Public Works Act eventually had a say, and we have ended up where we are today, with approximately 400 hectares remaining in the town belt as it is today.

But it is important to acknowledge that in the early times of the city, land was lost from what was wanted to be the town belt, and for me, that is one of the great strengths of this piece of legislation. We now have the capacity to add land to the town belt—to enlarge the town belt, and perhaps get it back to the status that was originally envisaged. What we will do as we pass this legislation, when it goes through its third reading, is we will add another 120-odd hectares immediately—immediately on the passing of this legislation. That is something for this House to be proud of—that, actually, we will be adding to the town belt straight away, and creating the facility to continue to add land to the town belt over time.

In the process of the bill going through the select committee we had to take out one small parcel of land that we were going to add, which is still the subject of first right of refusal under some of the Ngāti Toa settlements. It is a small parcel of land, but it was important we kept faith with that. Subject to that settlement going through, we will be able to include that final parcel of land. But an additional 120 hectares is, I think, very, very important.

The early stages of the piece of legislation are the preamble, and it is also important to note, in this first call, the principles of the town belt legislation, which are the management and partnership with mana whenua, and that the town belt must be protected and enhanced—that is it. If any future council or any future Government intended to do something that did not protect and enhance the town belt, that would be against the law, and that is why I have been so passionate about getting this piece of legislation before Parliament. It is not because the Wellington City Council has not done a good job of managing the town belt over the years, but that we do now have a legal instrument that says the town belt must be protected and enhanced, and defines the fact that it must be kept as a public recreation ground and defines what that is. I can come back to that in later calls for those who want that.

The town belt is also to “be accessible to all and for all [Wellingtonians] to enjoy,” to “be available for a wide range of recreational activities,” and for “community participation in the management of the Wellington town belt to be encouraged and supported.” They are the core principles, and they are the things that underlie why a piece of legislation like this is so important. I will return, in a later call, to some details.

BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise and talk in this Committee stage of this Wellington Town Belt Bill. The member in the chair, Grant Robertson, canvassed, quite broadly, the history and purpose of this piece of legislation, and I would just like to take the opportunity now to acknowledge again that, unless there has been some sudden change of heart across the House, and I do not think there has been, this is a bill that does have broad support—in fact, unanimous support—across the House. I think Mr Robertson is to be congratulated on the work he has done to shepherd this, and to be commended for his perseverance. He is sponsoring a bill on behalf on the Wellington City Council that is going to receive unanimous support.

The reason I say these things—and we can be completely non-partisan about this—is that, taking the liberty that Mr Robertson took, I will talk a little bit about why this town belt bill is so important. As we know, and we can all acknowledge in this Committee, Wellington is, without question, the finest city in all of New Zealand, and in doing this we are going to protect a very important part of our city and it is what makes our city the city that it is, which is that green belt. I mean, there are many great things about Wellington. There are the interesting and challenging elements of a hillside city, there is the beautiful harbour, and there is just sufficient air flow to keep air pollution away. It is, indeed, a great city to inhabit and, for some colleagues across the Chamber, to visit from week to week.

The town belt has long been a feature of our city. It has been a good showcase, actually, for the heart of the city, and I would remind us all that although we might dwell and work in the concrete jungle, such as it is, we enjoy, as all New Zealanders do, the green outdoors and the generally pure nature of New Zealand. So I am extremely pleased that this bill is going to receive endorsement across the House because I do believe that that town belt is not only a feature of Wellington; it is something that we should treasure and we should protect.

The particular clause in the bill that I want to refer to is clause 23. The bill as originally introduced was going to provide some carve-out mechanisms from the Public Works Act, and although I do not cast any aspersions at all on the council or on any others in the drafting of the original bill, I do think that it is a far better bill for the removal of those carve-outs. It is providing protection to the town belt but also ensuring that where there are requirements or desires that would ordinarily fall under the aegis of the Public Works Act—for roading, primarily—not only is there the ability to do that but it is also under the same terms and conditions for those same works anywhere else in the country, because it is important that they are maintained here as well.

There is an odd thing in the bill—and, like with any bill or any potential piece of law, everything is open to interpretation. But, certainly, one reading of the original bill as it stood is that it could have been seen to permit the Wellington City Council to negotiate to sell elements of the town belt, had it chosen to, but it would have been required to object to any attempt to acquire it compulsorily. You might argue that you take a different view on that, but it is just an oddity in terms of a bill that was meant to protect the town belt that we might have had a situation that would seem counter to the things that were intended. So the change to clause 23, aside from ensuring that the Public Works Act provisions will apply, also removes that potential source of interpretation, or, some might say, misinterpretation.

So we are left with a bill that I think absolutely achieves the purpose that Mr Robertson pointed out in his contribution, which is to protect this thing, which is not only a thing of beauty but a showcase of Wellington City, and to ensure that it is more effectively, coherently, and properly governed by bringing together all of the provisions of management and governance under a single Act, rather than the separate pieces of legislation that currently exist.

Also, I would share Mr Robertson’s point about the ability to add to the town belt. I agree with him that introducing about 140 hectares of additional land to begin with is a wonderful thing, but what we have done is, effectively, struck a balance. The amendments that I referenced that will mean that the Public Works Act and compulsory acquisition will still apply are balanced by the fact that the council and the citizens of Wellington will still have the provision to add to this town belt, should they choose to do so in the future. So I think we have seen a wonderful bill come into the House.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Kia ora, Mr Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to speak in the Committee stage of the Wellington Town Belt Bill. I would also like to just add my congratulations to the member in the chair, Grant Robertson, for his role in shepherding this bill though the House, and also the wonderful people who have been so passionate about this kaupapa within the Wellington City Council and across this great city of Wellington.

This is a wonderful bill. As I have said previously, I do wholeheartedly support the bill. For everyone who visits the city of Wellington, a striking feature is the town belt. There is history in those bush-covered hills. I am so pleased that Mr Robertson spoke about, obviously, the immediate history, in terms of the trust deed and the length of time and the technical issues that have given rise to a long overdue modernisation of the administration and the rules governing the town belt. But I also acknowledge the member for going back to the 1830s and the 1860s when the town belt was part of the tribal estate of the Taranaki tribes that inhabited this great city and, indeed, are mana whenua today. This is a great piece of legislation.

I also want to just mention the preamble. The preamble recites the reasons that have led to the legislative provisions in this enactment. Perhaps something to consider is that it mentions in clause 3 of the bill, “Purpose”, that: “The purpose of this Act is to—(c) recognise the history of the original Town Belt and its significance to mana whenua and the inhabitants of Wellington.” Indeed, the preamble sets out very nicely the chronology of some of the main events that have given rise to the history of the town belt. But given that clause 3 mentions that the bill wants to recognise the history, perhaps the bill could have gone further. Instead of having a preamble, the preamble could have been stated in the legislation itself. Obviously, the preamble just sets the scene, but it is not actually part of the enactment. Given that there is recognition here, it is not a novel thing.

We do a lot of Treaty settlements in the House, which are all enacted through legislation. A lot of the historical background is put into a separate part in the legislation. It is enacted by Parliament itself. That historical account is not a new thing, and it could have been put into the body of the legislation. It is just a point that I wish to raise. It in no way detracts from the effectiveness of this legislation, but given that a key purpose of this bill is to recognise the history, perhaps that history could have been put into the actual body of the legislation itself, rather than just in an explanatory preamble. That is a fairly minor point, but one that I wanted to raise in this Committee stage.

I do want to return to the point of the history, which is recited in the preamble. Obviously, there are some wonderful characters who have played a part in the history of our great city here, in Wellington. One such person was Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the promoter of the New Zealand Company, but, as we call it in Māori, Te Kamupene o Niu Tīreni me te whānau w’akapiri [The New Zealand Company and the family connection]—the Wakefield whānau. But no matter from which side of history you want to look at things, Edward Gibbon Wakefield has been described as a New World 19th century visionary, with remarkable foresight and wisdom. I guess, in a sense, he did have that wisdom and foresight to put in place the foundations for the Wellington town belt. Of course, folks on the other side of the pā fence may have some different ideas.

But I am pleased that here we are, in 2016, having had the passage of the Treaty settlements for the Wellington region. All historical Treaty settlements have been completed through the Port Nicholson settlement and also Ngāti Toa Rangatira. To an extent, the foundation has been laid now to really move forward. I guess this legislation is part of that modernisation, to bring the structures up to date, to clarify any uncertainties there were about some very archaic pieces of legislation and old documents. Anyone who tries to read an old document will barely be able to understand what it is saying sometimes. So this bill is giving the council a very clear mandate and very clear rules under which they are to govern the town belt.

I do want to also touch on, and also commend, the insertion in clause 4, where it states: “(1) In performing its role as trustee of the Wellington Town Belt, the Council must—(b) have particular regard to the following principles: (i) the Wellington Town Belt should be managed in partnership with mana whenua:”. So it could not be more explicit than that. That is a grand gesture from the council. I will be interested to see what that means in practice, and how that partnership is given effect to. But I also do support the other provisions in that same clause, where it goes on to say that there should be community participation in the management of the Wellington town belt—that that should be encouraged and supported.

I guess all Wellingtonians will definitely support that as well. Those are just some brief remarks that I would like to make in this first call. I certainly will be traversing some other areas in some later calls. For now, I support this bill. Kia ora.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I thank colleagues who have spoken in support of the bill. I think in this contribution I would like to work through some of the operable clauses in the bill, because we are doing the debate as one question, to explain what is actually being done through them.

The first one I want to highlight is clause 8, which explains the legal status of the town belt. It contains a couple of elements that are core to the way that the town belt is seen in Wellington, and the way that this bill will enable it to be managed. The first of those is the statement in clause 8(1): “The Council holds the Wellington Town Belt on behalf of the inhabitants of the city of Wellington as trustee of the trust created by the Town Belt Deed.” This has been core from the beginning of the town belt—that it is the inhabitants of Wellington for whom this is held, and that the council laws are merely the trustees of that, following the trust deed. The trust deed is included in the legislation, it is now part of the law, and it remains the instrument that guides the way in which the council goes about its work, and that is importantly stated in clause 8(1).

Clause 8(3) is probably where the most controversy has arisen over the years, in the way that the town belt has been looked after. Clause 8(3) says: “For the purposes of subsection (2), public recreation ground means an area provided for—(a) recreation, sporting activities, and the enjoyment of the public, with an emphasis on the retention of public access, open spaces, and outdoor activities; and (b) the protection of the natural environment and historic heritage.” Putting that definition in law will deal with some of the issues we have had before—for instance, about whether an early childhood centre is a public recreation facility, or whether a commercial operation within a closed building is.

This is not to say that we are trying to rewrite history. There are a number of buildings on the town belt—I think upwards of around 40, perhaps. We are not pulling those down, but what we are saying is that the definition of public recreation is that it is about sporting activities, public access, and open spaces. That is what was intended with the town belt. Over the years, for a variety of reasons, and with all the best intentions in the world, people have come to see opportunity to use the town belt for things that are not public recreation. That is what we are trying to achieve here, and defining it as clearly as it is now in the law will, I hope, put to rest the misunderstandings that have occurred over the years about what public recreation actually is.

Clause 9 talks about public access, and I do want to read clause 9(1) out, because, again, it picks up the spirit of this legislation: “Members of the public are entitled to freedom of entry and access to the Wellington Town Belt,”. It is subject to some caveats, which I will come to in a moment, but that is the overriding principle. This is for Wellingtonians—this is for all Wellingtonians to have the opportunity to use. On any given day in Wellington, if members of Parliament have the opportunity to be in the Wellington Town Belt, you will see that that is how Wellingtonians see it. For the inner-city dwellers in Mount Victoria, it is their backyard. They live in small, confined properties; that is where they go. That is where they go to walk, to sit, to have their dinner, and to watch the world go by. Up where I live, on the western hills, in the western boundary of the town belt, it is the place where people go for exercise—to walk up the hills. It is where I do my training for the Oxfam Trailwalker. That is where I was, in the western hills of the city. This is a place of public recreation that requires this level of public access.

I do want to mention clause 10 of the bill, which is around the question of the management plan. It is not as if the town belt has been operating in a void up until we got this legislation. It has been governed by a management plan that has been through extensive consultation, reconsultation, and reaffirmation over the years. Clauses 10 and 11 outline the way in which the management plan is created, which is a highly consultative process, and what should be in the management plan itself. This is the instrument by which the Wellington City Council will, in an ongoing way, put into practice the principles and the rules that are laid down in this legislation. The process for doing that, as I say, is a public one, with a great deal of submission from the outside, and I do hope that we will continue to see that process followed through.

I want to now come to Supplementary Order Paper 169 that is in my name, which covers clauses 16 and 17, around leases and licences. When the bill came before the Local Government and Environment Committee, there were submissions about the question of leases and licences. From time to time, the Wellington City Council will grant people the ability to lease part of the land. There are two leases that are exempted from the rules that I am about to go through, and they are for the Chest Hospital and Wellington Zoo. The Chest Hospital is now actually used by the SPCA, but it is an iconic building and an important part of Wellington’s history. Wellington Zoo, obviously, everyone will know. They are exempted from this, but, otherwise, leases can be given for periods not exceeding 20 years. Licences, which are for much more short-term activities, can be granted as well, but they cannot exceed 10 years.

When the bill was introduced, there was a statement in clause 16 that referred to: “At any point in time, no more than eight hectares in total of the Wellington Town Belt may be leased,”. That is a very strongly supported clause, because we do not want a lot of land being taken out for permanent purposes beyond public recreation. A similar clause did not exist in the provision on licences, and so some submitters said that they also wanted a restriction on the amount of land that could be used for licences. In a bout of overenthusiasm, the select committee adopted the recommendation of officials to also include a clause saying that there should not be more than 8 hectares in total of the town belt to be licenced.

Those who are good at maths, like Mr Bridges, will be able to note that 8 plus 8 is 16. So we ended up with a situation where it would have been possible for there to be 16 hectares of the town belt leased or licenced. That was not the intention of the Wellington City Council, and, in fact, I am grateful to members of the Friends of the Town Belt and others who drew to our attention the possibility of the misinterpretation of this. There is a Supplementary Order Paper in my name, which makes absolutely clear that the 8 hectares in total is for leases or licences.

Hon Judith Collins: Oh.

GRANT ROBERTSON: I am seeing that Miss Collins is deeply excited by this piece of information, but it is—

Hon Judith Collins: You haven’t seen me deeply excited yet. You never will.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Thank goodness. But I would say that it is important to the people of Wellington that we do limit the land in the town belt that is being leased or licensed out, because although there are always good reasons for that, we do not want to see that become too much land. That is why we have a Supplementary Order Paper—to absolutely clarify that it is 8 hectares in total for leases and licences, and Miss Collins will be able to vote for that should she choose, in the next period of time.

The other clause I just want to mention briefly in this call is clause 18, the clause on business activities. I do think it is very important here, because this was raised in submissions, to note that business activities can be authorised. These are the activities that are usually associated with the leases and licences that I have just mentioned, but the business activity has to be temporary and the effect of the activity on the town belt and the public can be no more than minor. We have defined what “temporary” means, and it means, if we look under the interpretation clause, it is an activity “that—(a) is of a non-repetitive, transient nature; and (b) does not exceed 4 weeks’ duration; and (c) does not involve the construction of permanent structures or facilities”. So what we are talking about is that what is in would be having a coffee cart in the town belt when there is a particular event on so that people could use that. What would be out is what has been suggested from time to time—the construction of a gondola from the top of Mount Victoria down into the city.

Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, it’s a great idea.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Simon Bridges wants a gondola.

Hon Simon Bridges: No, I want one from the Mount.

GRANT ROBERTSON: The people of Tauranga might want a gondola from the ground to the top of Simon Bridges’ castle, but the people of Wellington are perfectly happy not to have a gondola in Wellington. That would not be allowed under the definition of “temporary” within business activities.

So they are some of the operative clauses that I want to mention. I will not have time in this call to talk about clause 23, and I will, with the indulgence of the Committee today, take one more call in this debate to go through what has happened with the changes to clause 23 around the Public Works Act. But I think members of Parliament will now have some idea of the purpose of the main operational clauses within this bill, which do give the practical implementation of the principles of this bill.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Kaiwhakahaere, tēnā koe. I want to congratulate the member on bringing this bill to the House and, actually, for his very sensible proposed amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 169. But I also want to apologise to the member for having delayed the Committee stage, and thank the party opposite for its forbearance in allowing my own member’s bill to actually supersede the local bill that we are dealing with now, and the private bill that preceded it on the Order Paper on the day.

Hon Member: Great day for the RSA.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Absolutely, it is a landmark day for the RSA. It used to be that the bell at 6 o’clock symbolised 6 o’clock closing. Now, of course, this bill symbolises the 6 o’clock opening for the RSA. But, anyway, back to the Wellington Town Belt Bill.

I want to welcome the amendments that Grant Robertson has proposed in his Supplementary Order Paper. I think it is very sensible that the 8-hectare allowance for the town belt—no more than 8 hectares—to be given up for either lease or licensing to strictly non-recreational purpose be just 8 hectares, not 8 plus 8. This is actually a very sensible measure. So this covers, as the member has pointed out, not only Wellington Zoo but also the Chest Hospital—amenities that are important to Wellington but perhaps not strictly within the terms of recreation that people might consider in this day and age.

Also, the term for a lease not being granted for any longer than 20 years seems quite reasonable to me, although, unlike the member, I am not so hostile to the idea of a gondola. I actually like a scenic cable car, or gondola, or sky cabin—whatever you want to call it. I like this idea. There may be other areas of Wellington, though, that it could be implemented in rather than intruding upon our precious town belt, which all of us value so much for its recreational amenity. But, also, just the visual effect of having our beautiful city surrounded by a belt of green, largely native foliage is hugely pleasant. So I think it is apposite that clause 16(3)(b) be amended in accordance with the member’s Supplementary Order Paper.

I would also like to welcome the addition of clause 16(5)(a), which states that the monies generated from any lease or licensing of town belt land must be put back into the town belt, and that investment is very sensible, in my view. We have a current outdated piece of legislation that actually prevents the addition of extra, new lands into the town belt, so I think it is important that we, going forward, enable the council to ensure that new lands are vested into the town belt via those funds that are garnered from lease or licensing out of that land.

There was one issue that came up at the Local Government and Environment Committee that I am very glad the member has acquiesced to. That is—and I think he will know where I am going with this—the issue of the application of the Public Works Act. A point that one submitter—our local power lines company—made, which I think was quite convincing, was about not having the ability to put emergency power cables through the town belt. Our hospital in Wellington, which is based in Newtown on Adelaide Road, is our main hospital. It serves as a central hub hospital for this entire region. In the event of an earthquake, and should other generation capabilities be disrupted, without full applicability of the Public Works Act there would be a concern that we may not be able to string the emergency power pylons on a temporary basis—these are simply temporary emergency pylons—through the town belt to ensure that the hospital, for instance, is powered during that crisis.

I think all members would accept that that is an important capacity to retain in the second most earthquake-prone capital city in the world, which Wellington is. So I am very glad that the member accepted that that should be the case and that Public Works Act applicability would remain. Other than that, I just want to congratulate the member on the way in which he has brought this to the select committee.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will be happy to continue to support this bill. I have to say, before I ask some of the questions that I am going to ask in a moment, that I have been given this bill to speak to only in the last hour, so I have not really had the time that I would like to have spent on it before asking these questions. It may be that some of the questions that I am going to ask have already been answered at other stages of the bill, which I have not had the opportunity to hear. If that is the case, then I apologise for that, but I think that I should raise them anyway, and if some of those members opposite would just like to breathe through their noses for a while, I will take that opportunity now.

The first thing that I want to raise is the principles in clause 4, which I have heard the member in the chair, Grant Robertson, say are very important to the bill as a whole, and I agree—they are obviously a primary part of the bill. It is stated in clause 4(1) that the council must first of all: “(a) recognise and provide for the protection and enhancement of the Wellington Town Belt for future generations;”. Then it goes on in clause 4(1)(b) to say it must have particular regard to a number of principles. But each and every one of those principles is framed with the word “should”—“should be managed”, “should support”, “should be accessible”, “should be available”, “should be encouraged”, “should be recognised”, and so on.

I just wonder whether that is appropriate language in a clause that is supposed to be empirical. I wonder whether those words, “should be”, and so on, could be interpreted as introducing an element of discretion or not. So I would like the member in the chair just to think about that and whether we should be taking this opportunity to make an amendment to that Part, should he feel that that is a problem.

Just further on that issue of those principles, I am looking at other parts of the bill, and clause 8 is obviously a very important operative part of it. However, there is no reference anywhere there to those principles, and I would have thought that it would be advisable to do that. If the principles are going to be really central to the way in which the council exercise its functions, then it might have been a good idea to add them to at least either subclause (2) or (3) of clause 8. I would say the same thing about clause 10, and I heard the member say how important he thought that was. I would have thought, for example, that in clause 10(2) there might be a requirement for the council to exercise its functions having regard to those principles in clause 4. I just make those comments constructively, in case the member thinks it would be helpful to make some changes there. If not, then we are not going to die in a ditch for them, and that is fine.

I would like to go on and just raise some questions also about Supplementary Order Paper 169. First of all, in the amendment to clause 16(2) a reference is made to “no more than 8 hectares in total”. I do not understand what is magic about the 8 hectares, and I have not been able to find any reference to it anywhere, so perhaps we could know why that figure has been settled upon.

More seriously though, I would like to raise, especially with the member, some of the wording in subclauses (3) and (4) of clause 16 as proposed in Supplementary Order Paper 169. I read in paragraph 16(3)(b) the words “not be granted for a term, including any renewals, exceeding 20 years;” and in paragraph 16(4)(b) the same words—“not be granted for a term”—are there and then the words “including any renewals,”. Does the member think that the inclusion of those words will actually prohibit the council from granting a lease to the same lessee after 20 years and renewals, should that actually be required by the council and desired by the community? It is the same in new clause 16(4). Would it operate as a prohibition, and if that could be the case is that what is intended? This is the time to deal with those sorts of issues.

I have not got much more to say. If I turn over the page of Supplementary Order Paper 169 I see new clause 16(5), and I am looking at the words: “The Council must—(a) spend all money received under a lease …”. Would there be a problem if, for example, there were rates payable under a lease, or insurance, or other payments made under a lease that are obviously intended for specific purposes, that might be caught in an unintended way by those words? I just raise that, again constructively, in case the member thinks that there might be a problem there to fix. I hope those comments might be helpful. Otherwise, as I have said, New Zealand First is very happy indeed to support the bill; we just want to make it as good as it can be.

CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): Mr Chair! [Interruption] Apologies for scaring the staff of the House. Basically, there were so many questions that I had for the member who sponsors the bill, Grant Robertson, but he has been so forthcoming with information that he has actually pre-empted many of the questions that I had, particularly those around Supplementary Order Paper 169 in his name regarding leases and licences in clauses 16 and 17.

I am always interested in the submissions that come in and the viewpoints that we get from the public, and I do notice that there were 30 submissions made on this bill and almost all of them were in support of this bill. I just wanted to know from the member, for the two submissions that opposed parts of the bill, whether their opposition was addressed by the Supplementary Order Paper. You had two people who opposed the bill out of 30 submissions, and so were any of their concerns addressed through the Supplementary Order Paper?

Really, other than that, I just want to congratulate the excellent member for Wellington, Grant Robertson—what a great representative you are for the Wellington region. I also do want to acknowledge just one other person in the House, and that is Paul Foster-Bell, because he managed not only to get his bill through tonight but also to make mention of it in the third reading of the Christian Churches New Zealand Property Trust Board Empowering Bill, and to make mention of it during the Committee stage of this bill. So well done, Paul Foster-Bell, for being an effective member; a shameless member. But moving the lens away from Paul Foster-Bell and back on to Grant Robertson—well done, Grant Robertson, for being the effective member for Wellington Central.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): There are some points that I would like to clarify. Obviously, we are for this. The one thing that has surprised me about this debate is everyone standing up and saying what a wonderful place Wellington is. Well, coming from Napier—I suppose everything is relative, is it not?

Mr O’Rourke brought up a very good point, and I was going to allude to this. I will not go through it in the level of detail I had originally planned to, but it is quite interesting that the principles all talk about “should” whereas most of the other things in the bill are a requirement. I am not too sure whether that is deliberate, or why it is, or whether some of these things might be more difficult to deliver on than others and, therefore, they are not prescribed in case they create a burden for the Wellington City Council. The other thing in here that I would be quite interested to know is: if, in fact, this does create a burden for ratepayers, i.e., by creating the sort of deed—this trust—does it mean that the council is going to have to put aside another $3 million or $5 million or $4 million or $10 million of ratepayers’ money to actually be able to carry out the statutory requirements that are now legislatively forced upon it?

There are a couple of serious questions that I do have. I am assuming, though, on a less serious nature, that in the principles clause, clause 4(b)(iii): “the Wellington Town Belt should support healthy indigenous ecosystems”—is that the Gareth Morgan clause? On a serious note, though, in clause 4(b)(vi), what it says here is “community participation in the management of the Wellington Town Belt should be encouraged and supported” but then I note that when you go to clause 10, the management plan, it is very prescriptive in the sense that the city council “must” seek public input for the development of the management plan. It seems as if one is saying the public should be involved in this, whereas clause 10 says the council must liaise with Wellington inhabitants. It just seems that there is a little bit of a dichotomy. It is not a big one; I think we know what it means.

But there is a serious question here, and I do not have the answer to it—maybe the member does. I am looking at the legal status of this. Clause 8 says “The Council holds the Wellington Town Belt on behalf of the inhabitants of the city of Wellington as trustee of the trust created by the Town Belt Deed.” The thing I do not quite get here is that there is something called the rule against perpetuities, and that is that every trust must have a definitive life. That is, basically, a life being plus 21 years. There is a legal definition of this, and I think it is—

Hon Judith Collins: 80 years.

STUART NASH: Yes, I think it is 80 years—thank you, Mrs Collins. It is 80 years, but I am unsure whether that same rule applies to a charitable trust.

Denis O’Rourke: No, it doesn’t.

STUART NASH: But there is nothing in here that suggests that this is a charitable trust. [Interruption] No, but all I can ascertain from this bill is that this is a trust, not a charitable trust; therefore it has a life of about 80 years. To those of us who are sitting in this Chamber—

Denis O’Rourke: No.

STUART NASH: Mr O’Rourke, it does not outline the fact in here that this is a charitable trust, so by law it has a life of 80 years. The member may correct me if I am wrong. For those of us who are sitting here, 80 years sounds like a long time, but there are a number of instances throughout history where 80 years has flown by and it leaves those who come after us with a whole lot of things to fix.

The other thing, also, because you always pick up these sorts of terms, is that it says “The council may, without complying with subsection (4)”—this is clause 10, the management plan, and subsection (4) says you must consult with ratepayers and constituents—“amend the management plan, if it passes a resolution that—(a) the proposed amendments are minor or technical in nature”. Meka Whaitiri and I are struggling with an issue in Hawke’s Bay at the moment where a number of councillors at the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council were sort of ambushed—and I use that word probably a bit too liberally, actually—when they went into a meeting and said: “We are going to pass a resolution because it is minor, it is technical, it doesn’t require any sort of public consultation, and that is that we are going to allow the council to enter into a binding contract worth $35 million.”

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Come back on this bill.

STUART NASH: So what I am keen to know here is what actually constitutes minor and technical.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I would just like to pick up on the points raised by Mr O’Rourke. It certainly is good having an experienced legal practitioner in the House, and in particular his reading of clause 4, the principles clause, because those clauses that are at the front of the legislation are, obviously, the most important. They set the scene; they establish the founding purposes and principles of the legislation.

I think that Mr O’Rourke is correct in the use of the language: instead of it being mandatory for the council in terms of performing its role as trustee, it becomes a little bit more vague when it talks about having “particular regard to the following principles: (i) the Wellington Town Belt should be managed in partnership with mana whenua”—should be. Again, the repetition of “should” occurs all the way through those very important principles provisions.

In my reading, you could say that there is wiggle room there for the council. It should “have particular regard” to these principles, but it may not necessarily do so. It is not an express prescription or a mandatory obligation on the council; it is only that it should do it. I think it is a very valid point that Mr O’Rourke raised that the language in the bill should be more express, because if we carry on through the actual nuts and bolts of the bill, where we talk about management plans and powers of the council, everything is very prescribed, it is very clear, and it is very explicit as to what the council must do and what it must not do in relation to the town belt.

We should really look at the principles provisions, because I am just noting that the first principle that is there in clause 4(1)(b)(i) is that the town belt should be managed in partnership with mana whenua—should be. But if we look at that clause, there is nothing in the body of the bill itself that actually gives meaning to what the council should be doing, or must do, in relation to its partnership with mana whenua. It is silent. It is very explicit in terms of what the council can and cannot do, but it says nothing in relation to how it is to conduct its dealings with mana whenua in its partnership—partnership—with mana whenua. So I just endorse Mr O’Rourke’s remarks, and I believe that perhaps further consideration should be given to the wording. It just leaves too much wiggle room, in my mind, having read through it again, in that there is not an express obligation on the council that it must fulfil or adhere to those principles.

Also, I do support Supplementary Order Paper 169 from Mr Robertson. It is very clear that if you are not wanting to grant a lease for—what is it—8 hectares, you should provide an open-ended licence provision to grant a licence. That has a great deal of common sense, and that has been picked up on. Also, just in response to Mr Nash’s point about the rule against perpetuities, I know it has been a long time since I looked at the law, but I think that statutory provisions would override the rule against perpetuities. I think it might apply to private trusts but not—I guess, Parliament can override those common-law principles.

Lastly, I just want to go back to the beautiful town belt itself. Yes, it has a lot of history, both Māori history and in the development of our city, but it is also an everyday space—

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to thank all my colleagues who have made a contribution, and I will endeavour to respond briefly to the questions that have been raised, and then return, as I said I would, to clause 23.

Firstly, in terms of the principles clause, the important factor to note here is at the beginning of the principles clause, which needs to be seen as an umbrella and which also links to other elements of the bill. Clause 4(1) says “In performing its role as trustee of the Wellington Town Belt, the Council must—”, and then it outlines the things it must do. It must “recognise and provide for the protection”, and it must “have particular regard to” the principles. So it does not have wiggle room in that sense. What the council—and bear in mind this is a bill put forward by the Wellington City Council—was clear about was that the principles could not be so tight as to enable it not to actually run the city or to be able to do the things that it needs to do within the city. It is an absolute obligation to have regard to those principles, but, then, to have them worded in such a way that they can be operable principles in terms of how the town belt is managed.

In terms of the relationship with mana whenua—to pick up the comment of my colleague Rino Tirikatene—this is where the management plan becomes the critical element, because the management plan is what governs, on a decade-by-decade basis, how the town belt works, in that there is a relationship with mana whenua over the management of the town belt. The principles are high level. They have enough flexibility in them to allow the operation of the town belt to occur, but it is through the management plan that that finds itself in operation. We are making legislation here for perpetuity, and the management plan is what guides us in between times. I think it is important that we do not try to invest everything about the town belt’s operations and running in this legislation. The management plan is a critical element.

To the other question that Mr Nash raised: this is not a charitable trust; this is a statutory trust—and, actually, the word “trust” is used in the deed, which has in itself led to the concept of a trustee. But it does not suffer from the limitations that other types of charitable trusts do.

To Mr O’Rourke’s concern around why it is 8 hectares: I think that is because it is 20 acres, and I think that is a number that the council has used to define what it would deem to be an acceptably small percentage of the 400 hectares that we have and the 520 to 540 hectares that we will have. I do not think it is a number divined by anything more than being an acceptably small number relative to the size of the town belt.

In terms of the question around whether or not it is foreseen as a prohibition: that will be a matter for the council. What it was trying to get across in this was that it did not want people to believe there were 20 years followed by another 20 years followed by another 20 years without any recourse to pausing and stopping and thinking about whether or not a lease should be granted over and over again. Whether or not that would amount to a prohibition will be a decision for the council, and not, I am sorry to say, something that I can shed any light on for the member.

I want to use my remaining time to talk about clause 23. Clause 23 as introduced in this bill did create some exceptions to the way in which the Public Works Act would apply to the Wellington town belt. It has never been the intention of the Wellington City Council to exempt the town belt from the Public Works Act. What originally came into this House did add in a couple of extra provisions. After consultation between the Wellington City Council and the Government, we now have an amended clause 23. That amended clause 23 is the status quo. It means that the Public Works Act operates alongside the town belt, as it has done up until this point. There are rights of objection for the city council, and there is a process for compensation. We have not added to that, and in the Labour Party’s minority report I made it very clear that we would rather have stuck with the original clause 23, but, ultimately, this is a local bill, and the Wellington City Council has made the decision that it believes the status quo should be where we are now. I do think that is a bit of a lost opportunity to show just how special and unique the town belt is, but I do respect the fact that this is, as Mr Foster-Bell has mentioned, about the particular way in which the town belt sits in the city and the purposes for which it may be used from time to time.

Can I say this: I would hope that Governments looking at the town belt would be very judicious in their use of the Public Works Act and would actually attempt to avoid its use where at all possible and find alternatives that do not require the town belt to be taken. But it was never the intention of the Wellington City Council to not have the Public Works Act apply to the town belt.

Just very briefly, I do accept that the change that was desired in the original clause 23 around compensation was complicated and, I think, would have been quite difficult to implement, but there are still provisions for compensation in this. I want to make it absolutely clear to those who are listening in to this that in no way does the clause 23 that we will be passing tonight diminish the protection that the Wellington town belt has. It simply enshrines the status quo. As this will be my last call in the Committee stage—

Hon Member: Say it’s not so!

GRANT ROBERTSON: —I do want to thank all my colleagues—well, I could go on—from all sides of the Chamber for their strong support of this piece of legislation. We are doing a very good thing for Wellington here, and we will—

Phil Twyford: Can we build houses on it?

GRANT ROBERTSON: We cannot build houses on it, Mr Twyford. That is the point. So we as a Parliament should be proud that we have made our contribution to keeping the Wellington town belt protected for the future generations of this city.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I just wanted to respond to one thing that the member who just spoke, Grant Robertson, said, because I am not convinced by his answer, particularly. It is about the principles. I would say to him and to the people who drafted this bill, and to the Committee as a whole, which might be interested in this issue, that the words used in clause 4(1)(b) and all of those subparagraphs there are all prefatory and not imperative words, to use the legal terminology. It does not help if the introduction says “In performing its role … the Council must”, because what the council must do is have regard to principles that are stated in a non-imperative way, so in the end it does not necessarily have to comply with those principles.

I would have thought that that is important. If it were me I would redraft all of that, because I think it could be a problem. I think in the future somebody may well seize on this for some reason or another. I just make the point to be helpful. It could, I think, really improve the bill if those words were imperative and not prefatory in the way that they are stated.

That would help a lot, but if the member and the Committee do not think that is necessary, then that is fine. They intend that, the Committee intends that, and that is the way it will be interpreted in the future. But just be aware that there is an issue.

JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): I would like to just make a few comments about clause 23, both about the distinctions between “shall” and “should”, and in relation to Mr Robertson’s Supplementary Order Paper 169. I will start with “shall” and “should”, and I just want to mention to the Committee that the distinction between the words “shall” and “should” almost brought the Paris climate change talks to a grinding halt roughly 5 minutes before the gavel was brought down because the Americans simply could not accept an agreement in which countries “shall” bring down their emissions versus “should” bring down their emissions. So I think that Mr O’Rourke does have a point in terms of the level of wiggle room that is created there, and if I were a judge it would be quite a nightmare to have to work your way through a judgment in which you had to determine whether something did or did not happen in relation to something that should or should not have happened. So I think there is a point there that may need to be addressed. In relation to Mr Robertson’s Supplementary Order Paper 169, that is obvious; we will obviously support that. It is just cleaning up an error in the drafting.

I would like to just talk a little bit about clause 23 in response to both some of the comments Mr Robertson has made and also comments made by previous speakers, notably Paul Foster-Bell. I would like to say that as the bill came to the House originally, as Mr Robertson said, it did provide some exemptions for the way some parts of the Public Works Act would apply. It is quite clear that the reason why the Government required that that change take place is that it wants to build a seven-lane motorway through Ruahine Street out to the airport as part of the roads of national significance programme. Of course, the idea of protecting the town belt meant that this was going to be unacceptable, so when Mr Foster-Bell says that the piece of evidence saying that it would be difficult to string some emergency cables up to the hospital over the town belt if we had changed that is simply looking for evidence for something that was a foregone conclusion. It was never about that kind of thing; it was only ever about ensuring that the bill was loose enough to allow the Government to push through its roads of national significance programme.

That was always the agenda from the start here, and I think it is with a great deal of regret that all we are doing here is enshrining the status quo in which the Government is able to confiscate land, and it is not an improvement on the status quo. I think that that is a great shame. Importantly, this is one of those things where you have the Government of the day that you have got. It has got the numbers, it can do what it likes, and the council is, frankly, unable to do anything about that and so of course the council and we also have to just simply accept that we do not have the numbers to preserve the bill in its original form. So the self-congratulatory tone about how it is an improvement on the original bill is the kind of tone that is easily affected when you have got the numbers to do whatever you like. I do want to say that it is a great shame that the original clause 23 was turfed out and simply replaced with the current status.

Having said all of that, the bill as a whole, with that exception, is a great improvement on the status quo, in which there is a series of very contradictory Acts—you know, a bit of a legal morass that needed to be brought together—and so it is for that reason, despite the clause 23 shenanigans that have gone on, that the Green Party is pleased to support the bill through this stage of its passage.

There is just one other thing in relation to clause 23. Part of what happened when that clause was changed was that Wellingtonians no longer became interested persons in relation to the confiscation of parts of their town belt for the conversion of that town belt into motorway. I find it extraordinary that you can actually pass legislation in which you say that Wellingtonians are not interested persons in relation to the fate of parts of their town belt as they get removed from recreational and environmental use and converted into seven-lane motorways. That is quite a contradiction. Nevertheless, it is good. We are pleased to support this bill through this stage. We also support Supplementary Order Paper 169—

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 169 in the name of Grant Robertson, and the following amendments in his name to Part 2 be agreed to:

in clause 13(b) omit “17”; and

in clause 14(2)(a) replace “section 17” with “section 16”; and

in clause 15(3)(a) replace “section 17” with “section 16”; and

in clause 19(2) replace “sections 16 to 18” with “sections 16 and 18”.

Amendments agreed to.

Preamble, Parts 1 to 4, schedules 1AA to 6, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3)

In Committee

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave for all clauses in this bill to be debated and taken as one question.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Clauses 1 to 7 and schedule

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): The first thing that strikes me about this bill is that it is good to see a member of the National Party bringing a bill on local government to this House that is not about demeaning, insulting, undermining, or scapegoating local government—narrowing the purpose clause of local government or trying to clip it wings. In fact, most of the local government bills that I recall National bringing to this House over the last few years have actually been about undermining local democracy and about taking away the powers of elected local councils. So I am quite surprised that the member Alfred Ngaro should have got support from his own caucus for this modest but worthy bill, because it is completely out of character with every other local government bill that his colleagues have brought to the House over the last few years. In that respect, it is good to see.

It is, of course, worth taking seriously, because local government is something that makes a big difference. It touches the lives of people in all our communities. In fact, we regularly debate housing affordability in this Chamber, and I think it is agreed by most that councils have a major role to play in the way the built environment in our cities, towns, and suburbs is developed. Roads and public transport are incredibly important matters, and with their responsibility for local roads and much of the public transport infrastructure, councils have an extremely important role to play—not to mention the water quality of our rivers and streams, waste management, parks and open spaces, and libraries. You name it, councils play a vital role in all of our communities. So it is also refreshing to see this bill attempt to improve and fine tune the rules relating to electoral democracy, particularly with this bill in relation to the local boards that are such an important feature of the amalgamated Auckland Council, which was put in place by Rodney Hide. Do you remember Rodney Hide? It seems so long ago, Rodney Hide.

Hon David Cunliffe: Seen hide nor hair of him?

PHIL TWYFORD: That is right. It is worth, I think, just recapping on the debates that we had in this House about the formation of the Auckland super-city, because the local boards and their electoral rules, which we are going to debate here, were a subject of great controversy in the establishment of the Auckland super-city. There was much argument about whether or not the local boards should be bigger and, therefore, have more critical mass and more resources or whether they should be smaller—and some argued that the smaller they were, the closer they would be to their communities. Local boards, it is worth noting, are quite different to community boards, which are found in most other parts of New Zealand. They have a very specific governance role in the Auckland model that was put in place with the establishment of the super-city. It is often referred to as a dual-governance role, and they have responsibility, they have some funding, and they have some decision-making roles in relation to parks, community facilities, and disbursement of funds for community organisations. The local boards, for all of their limits in terms of their decision-making powers, have been, I think, pretty keenly contested by candidates and various political groupings.

One of the things that emerged straightaway with the local boards was that we saw an interesting phenomenon where people would seek to be elected to more than one board. It is interesting, the provenance of this bill. It has been reported and comment has been made on it. It was claimed in the North Shore Times that the provenance of this bill, which was begun by the Hon Maggie Barry before she became “Honourable”, was the result of a tense, hostile, and difficult relationship that the Hon Maggie Barry had with a local-body politician in the North Shore called Grant Gillon. It was claimed by Mr Gillon in the North Shore Times that this bill, in its earlier incarnation, before Mr Ngaro took it over, was simply a ruse by Maggie Barry to drive him out of local government. Of course, Maggie Barry denied it. She said that this was a conspiracy theory, but Mr Gillon said that this was, basically, revenge by Maggie Barry, motivated by his support for stopping a housing development at the Bayswater Marina and his opposition to closing the Takapuna Beach Holiday Park to make way for a national sailing centre. Maggie Barry said that he should not flatter himself and that the claim was ridiculous. Mr Gillon was an elected member of both the Kaipātiki and the Devonport-Takapuna boards. He is no longer, I think, a member of both boards, as far as I am aware, but at the time, in 2014, when this bill first came to life, he was.

There is another case that I am aware of, and that is the case of Warren Flaunty. I think the member in the chair, Alfred Ngaro, will know Warren Flaunty. I commented back in 2011, after the 2010 elections, that Mr Flaunty was, at that time, a member of five local boards. In fact, he was elected to three of them in the first term of the Auckland super-city, as well as to the Waitematā District Health Board and the Waitakere Licensing Trust. I have to say that I am in general support of the intent and the sentiment behind Mr Ngaro’s bill, and I do not mean at all to besmirch the good name of Warren Flaunty, because he is, I think, the exception that proves the rule. He is, in my view, a wise, experienced, and very well motivated local representative in his community. He is still a member of the Henderson-Massey Local Board, and he is someone who has made, over a long period of time, a very significant contribution to his community. But notwithstanding all that, I think most people would agree that simultaneously representing five governance boards—publicly elected governance boards—is a step too far. We will discuss in more detail the precise provisions in this bill, but that is the thing that we are trying to address with this bill.

There are two principles, I think. One of them is that some of these local boards may be adjacent in an area—for example, local boards in west Auckland may at times be in competition with each other. They may be competing for development opportunities or for investment in transport infrastructure. They may be competing for funding. And I think it is hard to argue with the thesis that a member—an elected member—who serves on a number of these boards is in grave danger of being in a situation of conflict of interest. That is the last thing, I think, that electors would want to see.

The other principle—I would be interested to hear the member responsible for this bill comment on this—is that it is, at least, a part-time job to be a member of one of these local boards. There is a salary of something like, I think, the high $30,000s a year, possibly in the early $40,000s. It is at least 20 hours’ work a week. In fact, I know that many of the elected members work full-time. They have got policy workshops, they have got briefings and public forums, and they are politicians. They are elected representatives, so they have to, if they are going to do their job properly, spend time in the community, as we do as local members of Parliament, listening to people, taking up people’s issues, helping to solve problems, and providing leadership in the community. Is it possible to do all that, to undertake that kind of workload and those responsibilities for five different elected boards simultaneously? I doubt it.

So if we go back to the case of Mr Flaunty, under Mr Ngaro’s bill, he would be able to continue to represent three boards. He is still a member of the Waitematā Local Board and he is still an elected member of the Waitakere Licensing Trust, but he would be able to represent only one local board, and I think that that is probably appropriate. I think it is a pretty good analogy to imagine, as local members of Parliament, how the voting public would feel if we were able to stand for election in more than one electorate. I think it would be seen as kind of absurd if we did that.

ALFRED NGARO (National): First of all, I just want to acknowledge the member Phil Twyford. He is correct, because I know that he himself saw the issue at hand and also put out a press release saying that he was keen to put through a member’s bill to address this very issue. So I know that the genuine intent that he has in supporting this bill comes from the very issues that he has also talked about.

It is correct that this bill was initially brought through by the Hon Maggie Barry, and since then I have taken it on. So, with all that, I think it is important just to, sort of, give some authenticity about the reasons, because sometimes you can be given a bill—there is an opportunity there—but there are two parts that I want to talk about on how I connect to the intent of this bill.

The first is that in 2010 I actually stood to run in the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki electorate for the council. I was new. I was approached. I did not have much time, but as I was running for it, I could see the opportunities. In fact, what people said about the super-city was that it was not only a great opportunity to be part of the executive but also a great opportunity for local boards.

I want to acknowledge two people in particular. While I was running that race, I remember talking to people in our local community. At that time I was in the area of Panmure and Glen Innes, and in Tāmaki. I want to acknowledge Chris Makoare—he is actually on the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board—and also Josephine Bartley. I remember talking to them about this opportunity, about being on the local boards, and it was Chris who actually said one time at one meeting—I said: what is your greatest fantasy? I was told off for saying that word, because you tend to get a bit misconstrued, but what I meant was: what is your greatest desire?

But anyway I used the words “What is your greatest sort of fantasy and desire?”. He turned around and said this. He said: “I’d love one day to become the Prime Minister of this country.” Actually, I applauded him—this is Chris Makoare—and I said: “Chris, the fact that you’re willing to stand up for leadership in your community truly does make a difference.” Chris Makoare actually put his name forward and is a member of the local board. He would never have had that opportunity if it was not afforded to him, and also too with Josephine Bartley. I have to say this: they are both members who actually stood under the Labour Party ticket.

From my perspective, what is actually more important, first and foremost, is having local representation. Local representation—that is really quite important. I want to acknowledge that. I am being upfront and honest about that. This bill is actually about that. That is why I stand beside this bill, because people like Chris Makoare and Josephine Bartley deserve an opportunity to be able to represent their communities.

People have said: “So is there a mischief for us to undo here?”. Well, there is. You see, in 2010 there were three people—Warren Flaunty, as was named, was one of those—who stood on one or more local boards. In 2013 there were five. So the numbers have been growing. There are other people who are seeing those opportunities and, yes, it may be out of good intent. However, that means that in a system that is meant to create greater representation, as Mr Twyford has talked about, we are not allowing those opportunities. It is community people like that who have an opportunity, I believe, through this bill, to put their name forward and can have greater representation. To me, I think actually that is the intent. That is the reason why I wholeheartedly stand behind this bill as well.

Hon David Cunliffe: Ka pai.

ALFRED NGARO: Ka pai; that is right. So it is really important. Currently at the moment there are 149 local board representatives. The issue is that there are five at the moment who represent two or more boards. Some may have said, and some of the submitters said: “Well, actually, that’s five. Surely out of 149, that is not much.” But I do think that is five too many. I think there are many people out there, in communities right throughout Auckland, who could have the opportunity through this bill to be able to step forward and represent their communities as well. I want to commend those—I know this is not going to be a long speech, because I think we have got support right across the House.

My intent to stand behind this bill is genuine. I am grateful to have picked it up. There were 17 submissions, and only three were in opposition. I suppose I do not need to say who they were. They were those people who are currently on one or more local boards. But the rest, including Auckland Council in its submission, clearly said that there are conflicts of interest, even though some people have said there are not. But there are conflicts of interest that do exist, if not in perception but also in reality. I think this bill is important. I commend the Committee and also note the support that the bill is receiving right across the House.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I am going to make this very quick. It is good to see the member who has just resumed his seat, Mr Ngaro, proposing this bill. Labour supports it. We support it for all the reasons that my good colleague Phil Twyford has said. Firstly, Warren Flaunty, good gentleman of west Auckland, where we hail from, who has been on five local boards or hospital boards concurrently, collecting, it might be noted, five salaries for doing five jobs. He must not sleep, because I do not know how any human being could do justice to the constituents of five jobs at the same time.

This is not life, the universe, and everything. This is not going to solve world hunger. It is not going to demilitarise North Korea. It is not going to solve youth suicide. What it will do is remove a little, annoying inconsistency in our local government law, and Labour supports the bill.

What fascinates me about the member who has just resumed his seat, Alfred Ngaro, is that for about two-thirds of that contribution I was not quite sure which side he was going to come down on, but I am glad he has come down in support of his own member’s bill, because it is worth supporting.

I think the other reason that Mr Twyford has advanced for this is also really important. We have got to take local boards seriously. The truth of it is that, as designed, the work of local boards is more substantive than the old community boards that they have replaced in the Auckland context. The rohe, or the ward, is larger than a general electorate seat, and that has to be taken seriously. There are seven positions in the ward that mainly covers my electorate, and they are real jobs. We work closely with those people, and I cannot understand how anyone could be on more than one local board, let alone five. So I would say: let us give the public the focus and the commitment that they deserve—let us put this rule change through so that people are restricted to actually standing where it matters most and choose one and do it well. Thank you.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): Like my colleague before me said, we are in support of this. It is a relatively small bill but it fixes something, and I think fine-tunes, perhaps, something that started up with the super-city, which was acknowledged as a problem. I think the arguments that have been put forward up until now have been absolutely right. We would support this, firstly, because with local boards they are local, and you want people elected to those positions who live in that area, who are genuinely local, who therefore contribute to the fabric of the super-city at that level and are able to be intimately in touch with the locals whom they represent. To be on two or three other local boards—as David Cunliffe just said, they are larger than an electorate—means you have got two or three electorate-sized areas that you are trying to represent. I do not think that is possible. Certainly, as an MP, I work very closely with our local board. We have a monthly meeting, and I think that its role has evolved over time. I think, for some time, in the early stage of the super-city, the board was marginalised. Now I actually think it plays a pretty important role.

The second reason, other than that I think that the person there should be local and therefore cannot be in two or three places because otherwise they are not local, is that I think there are genuine conflicts of interest, and Alfred Ngaro and Phil Twyford mentioned those. I do believe that, for those reasons, how could you represent one local board and have other interests in another local board, including the drawing of two salaries, which I think could possibly make that a problem as well?

Lastly, I agree with what Alfred Ngaro said before, and that is that we have a lot of very committed local people there who want to have a go. By having one person, in a sense, taking three positions, it means that other people who are genuinely out there, who want to have a go—perhaps they do not have the profile in the community as some of these others who have come through but nevertheless will be the up and coming and the future as well.

For those three reasons, we support this bill; certainly, I support this bill. It has been talked about as being some sort of a conspiracy theory targeted at two or three different people. I do not think that that is the case. I think that this is a trend that is growing—that people see this as a sort of a vocation to stand on many boards. I do not think that is what boards are about, and they should be about standing up for our local community. Thank you.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I am happy to stand with my colleagues and also support this bill. This bill amends the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009. Members of this House will recall what happened in 2009: this was when this Government imposed on Auckland a super-city structure, a structure that most Aucklanders call a corporate takeover because at that particular time there were promises that there would be savings—a whole range of promises that have not come to pass. At that time there were eight councils in Auckland. Every one of the suburbs in those cities also had its community board, and every one of those eight councils had a chairman, a mayor, and a number of councillors. Once this structure came into place the governance structure was shrunk into only 20 members, now, and a mayor.

What happened in Manukau is that we lost our beloved city of Manukau. In Māngere, we used to have our community board but now we have a local board that includes Māngere, Ōtāhuhu, and parts of Papatoetoe. The point I am making is that once upon a time a person could have stood on one or more community boards, but not with the current structure that this Government has put in place since 2009, because, essentially, local boards have replaced what used to be our councils. I say this constantly to our Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board, that they are essentially representing our part of Manukau City to Auckland Council. So I absolutely agree that the role of local board members now—and we have got Lemauga Lydia Sosene, who chairs the Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board. That is a full-time role. She is a fantastic advocate for the community, and all the officials speak very highly of her, but it is a full-time job. Every other member on that local board has portfolios that they look after. I have to say that the chair seems to operate her local board as if that was a Cabinet. In my mind, it is virtually impossible under the Government-imposed structure for a person to fully implement her or his duties if they are serving on one or more local boards. There is no doubt in my mind that this is what ought to be.

It was not just Maggie Barry; Phil Twyford raised this, and I am grateful that Alfred Ngaro has now taken the opportunity to advance this particular bill. In the select committee hearings, and I do not know whether Mr Ngaro would want to respond to this, we did suggest at that early stage that this is just Auckland: the bill amends the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009, but we have not yet considered other parts of New Zealand and whether the situation still occurs where you have got a person sitting on one or more local boards representing those communities. As I said, I think that under the old structure, where there was various representation going on and it was much closer to the community, you could afford to have somebody sitting on one or more boards, but not in this situation. Because this Government took away our beloved Manukau City, the replacement has been the Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board. I do not know whether that was considered.

I remember Ron Mark, one time, in this House, before I was a member of Parliament, raising an issue about policemen being able to stand on council. I do not know whether the member whose bill this is had an opportunity to consider that or not. We have situations where councillors are able to stand for council as well as for the district health board. I do not know whether the member whose bill this is had an opportunity to consider that sort of situation. So he may want to stand up and answer questions on that.

I will just bring it to a close now. Yes, this bill ought to be supported, and I stand with my colleagues to do so, but there were some other questions that were raised that the bill could not answer, because this bill fixes a huge mistake that this Government made in 2009 when it imposed the super-city structure on Auckland. Despite the tens of thousands of people who protested against that imposed structure, which they called a “hostile takeover” of the assets of Auckland, it continued. So, again, we are having to fix the mistakes of this Government.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First has listened intensely to what everyone has had to say in the previous stages of this bill. We have now fully considered our position on it, and we are going to vote against it. We are going to vote against it for six very good reasons—six very good reasons.

The first one is this: democracy must not be frustrated. If people want to elect a person as their board member who is the board member in another area, then why should they not have the right to do that? If that is what they want to do, let them do it. That is called democracy. It is called free choice, and we do not see why people should not have that free choice to exercise.

The second one is this: we think that the electors in the city of Auckland are intelligent and knowledgable people. We think that they know whether a person is going to stand for another board or not, and we think that they can decide whether or not they wish to have that person as their board member. We should respect that knowledge and that intelligence, and we should not pre-empt that. There is no reason—no good reason—to do so.

The third point I would make is this: think about the number of commercial boards that there are where board members are on multiple boards of various companies. They seem to be able to handle that—even companies that are in competition with each other, at some levels. They seem to be able to handle that all right. Think about the statutory boards that are set up—this Government, along with many other Governments, has appointed people to multiple boards as well. They seem to be able to handle all of that without any difficulty, but there is suddenly a difficulty with local boards? What a load of rubbish that is. That is absolute drivel, and everyone here should recognise it.

Fourthly, the principle that should be applied here is this: there is a democratic process that should always, as a matter of principle, be kept as free and unrestricted as possible. This bill infringes against that principle, and it is a very important principle. If we are going to mess with people’s democratic rights, there needs to be a damn good reason for doing so—and this bill is not a damn good reason. I have listened to the three reasons given by Mr Shearer, and they were all nonsense. They all had very little impact on me—and I am sure they will have very little impact on the people of Auckland as well—so I reject them in their entirety.

The fifth reason is this: there is no public clamour for what is in this bill. I have not heard anyone, whether they be in Auckland or any other part of the country, say “We want this.” So where did it come from? Was it Mr Ngaro’s own nightmares that they arise from, or what is it? I do not know what the source of this is—it is certainly not from the public.

The sixth reason is this: if this was such a great idea and so really necessary, then why is it being applied to Auckland only? If it was so great, then why is it not in legislation covering the whole country? Why have people not thought of it before, if it was such a wonderful idea and it was so necessary? The reason is that it is not a wonderful idea and it is not necessary.

So there are six good reasons. And now I want to specifically deal with the claim that there could be a conflict of interest. Well, there are conflicts of interest that occur with people on commercial boards all of the time, and there are procedures that are adopted to deal with those conflicts of interest. Exactly the same thing could, and should, be done with elected boards for the Auckland City. In any event, I have not heard that anybody has yet said in this Chamber what the problem is as far as conflicts of interest are concerned. I mean, how can there be a conflict of interest between one board and another? They deal with totally different areas. Where is the conflict of interest? I just do not understand that. That is a nonsense argument, and should be totally disregarded.

Mr Twyford asked what would happen if MPs could stand in more than one electorate. I have just had a look at the Electoral Act and—surprise, surprise—I cannot actually find any prohibition against a person standing for two electorates at the same time. So perhaps Mr Twyford should read the legislation before he comments, because he has just given us another reason why this bill should not be passed.

So, for all those reasons, this bill is really not required. It is retrograde. It is anti-democratic. It achieves nothing, because there is no problem to fix. If people think there is a conflict of interest, then tell me how. And tell me, even if there was, why it could not be managed. This bill is utter nonsense. It is rubbish. It should be thrown in the wastepaper basket right now.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I want to thank Denis O’Rourke, the member for New Zealand First, for injecting a bit of spirit into this debate. I hope the member sponsoring this bill, Alfred Ngaro, will get up and respond to some of Mr O’Rourke’s arguments, because I think that they are worth taking seriously. I regret, actually, myself, in my earlier comments, not raising the very obvious question for the member to answer, and that is: why does this bill apply only to Auckland? It is not very long ago that we stood in this House and passed legislation that applied all of the provisions around local boards to the rest of the country. That was Government legislation that did that. It basically said: “OK, the Auckland model—we’re going to make that available for councils all around the country.” It does seem to be really cementing a strange anomaly into the law books, to only make this little tweak to the Auckland Council around elected members serving on multiple boards. So I think that is a strange inconsistency, and I would invite the member to get up and take a call and explain his thinking on that, or, in fact, whether or not the Local Government and Environment Committee, in scrutinising this bill, took advice or came to a view on that.

I do want to respond to Denis O’Rourke’s analogy that, somehow, serving on multiple boards in the commercial world, or on statutory boards, is perfectly fine, and therefore there is no reason it should be a problem in relation to local boards and Auckland Council. Denis O’Rourke overlooks the fact that local boards are not commercial boards. They are not just a governance mechanism. Yes, they are called a board, but they are made up of elected representatives. They are politicians, Mr O’Rourke, just like you and me. They are elected members who compete for the privilege of representing their communities and standing up for those communities, serving them, speaking for them, and raising issues. They are not members of commercial boards.

Members who sit on commercial boards may only attend a quarterly meeting and read a few board papers, and take part in the occasional email exchange. Most local board members whom I know—certainly the Labour local board members in west Auckland and other parts of Auckland—are very, very hard-working. I know that not all local board members are as hard-working as the Labour ones, but, certainly, it is a far cry from the role and the contribution that members of commercial boards make.

Mr O’Rourke questioned whether or not there is a conflict of interest to be found in people serving on multiple boards. I will just say this to Mr O’Rourke: many of these boards are competing for the same pool of funds. They are financial competitors in bidding for funds that will finance new projects, new libraries, upgrades, and roading and transport projects. They are in direct competition with each other in many, many cases. They may, in fact, be pitching different development projects and seeking funding for transport infrastructure. New Lynn may be competing with Henderson, which may be competing with Westgate in west Auckland—three different local boards in direct competition with each other. I think it is pretty self-evident that there is a potential conflict of interest in relation to members serving on multiple boards.

I do think Mr O’Rourke raises a good argument that this legislation does set out to restrict the democratic process, and from a purist democracy point of view, it is quite legitimate to argue that we should just let the voters choose—let anybody stand, and then let the voters choose. However, I am surprised to hear this coming from New Zealand First, which is not a party that I am used to associating with that kind of purist philosophical viewpoint.

Denis O’Rourke: Oh, yes, we are pure—pure as the driven snow!

PHIL TWYFORD: We live and learn, Mr O’Rourke. But it is not a perfect world. The world of local board elections is not a perfect market. There is not perfect information. We know that turnout is very low, so in a local government election, we might end up with a 30 percent turnout, for example. There is quite a low level of engagement and a low level of information available to local board members, and my worry—

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I just wanted to respond to Mr Twyford concerning his views on conflicts of interest and, in particular, the point he made—which is a fair point—that boards are often in competition with each other for funding. That does not mean there is any conflict of interest. A particular person can, on one board, look at its needs and requirements for the coming year, decide what money it is going to apply for and for what reasons, and put the best possible argument forward for that, and then go to another board and do exactly the same thing, and there would be no conflict of interest—no conflict of interest. The only way there could be a potential conflict of interest would be for the person who is making the decision between those two applications, but that is not the case here. We are talking only about the people making the applications, not the person who is making the decision. So if you are not making the decision you are not in any conflict of interest situation.

I am very glad that Mr Twyford put that reason up as the sole reason to justify the spurious conflict of interest argument, because in doing so he demonstrated clearly that the argument is vacuous and does not really work as an argument. The truth is there are no potential conflicts of interest in this situation, and even if by some miracle there were, there are usually accepted methods of managing that by a person stepping back for the particular item being discussed, and so on. That is what I meant when I introduced the principles used by commercial directors on commercial boards. I did not say, as Mr Twyford maintained, that that was an analogy. I said that members of commercial boards have ways of managing this professionally and acceptably, and if any conflict of interest situation ever arose—which, actually, it cannot, but if it did—there are proper and good ways of managing that.

This conflict of interest argument can never be a justification for this bill. It can never be, because it simply cannot happen. I would like to hear Mr Ngaro explain how it could, and if he cannot, well, why does he not withdraw the bill? I have not heard him yet give any reason to justify this particular argument, and if that is not the argument for it, then what is? As I said in my first contribution, I heard the three reasons given by Mr Shearer, none of which was correct, and I refuted them. As part of the process, I went through and gave six reasons why this bill should not pass, and it actually should not. It is wrong, it is unnecessary, and it is time that was recognised by National, and, in particular, by the member in the chair, Mr Ngaro. So let us give it up and trash it—let us get rid of it right now.

ALFRED NGARO (National): I would just like to make a couple of responses to that member, Denis O’Rourke. I know it is unfortunate that the member was not able to be part of the Local Government and Environment Committee to hear the 17 submissions, to read those submissions, and to also go through the deliberations, the departmental report, and the regulatory impact statement as well. I do understand that.

Denis O’Rourke: How does the member know I didn’t read them?

ALFRED NGARO: What I would like to do is address the issue, and if the member would like to listen—he did challenge me to address this issue around the conflict of interest. I would like to read to the member—he can access this. This is from the submission to the Local Government and Environment Committee by the Auckland Council itself, Mr O’Rourke. In its submission, on page 3, paragraph 11, it clearly states this: “Membership of more than one local board at a time has the potential to create the perception of conflicts of interest as local boards are required to represent local interests in their area. Experience has shown that board members have heavy workloads, particularly the full time chairperson role. It is currently possible for a successful candidate to chair one local board and sit as a member of another. Membership of multiple boards potentially reduces the ability of the person concerned to effectively represent the views and preferences of their different local communities.” I know the member may not like it down south in the Mainland, but up in Auckland, which this bill actually affects—the Auckland Council, right—this is from the council itself, directly stating this from its submission, as well. So I think that goes some way towards addressing the issues that were raised there.

I just want to do a couple of things in my closing remarks, and, hopefully, in the closing of this debate. As the member Su’a William Sio talked about, I suppose there is this whole issue around the aspect of becoming this big super-city, with the seven or eight territorial authorities becoming one. There are some key reasons for that. Particularly, for instance, the One Auckland Plan creates one single strategic plan—the member will know this; he was previously a councillor for the Manukau City Council—for the region over the next 20 to 30 years. The member will also know—

Jenny Salesa: Deputy mayor.

ALFRED NGARO: Sorry, he was deputy mayor. The member will also remember, for instance, that there were contentious bidding issues. Let us take the Auckland-Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative, for instance. The Manukau City Council and the Auckland Council were trying to build two parts of a road, to connect them together, and this became a critical issue of concern. So moving to the one super-city was to address issues like this. I hope this is not going to raise an issue for the member. He may want to speak on it. I am only responding just to some of the comments that the member has made. But what it does is it also harmonises—and the member knows—168 current by-laws down to 30 by-laws. So there is a reason around streamlining this, in order to be able to have a super-city. It is what we have at the moment, but there is a particular reason for that purpose. I know that was raised by the member as well.

The member Phil Twyford talked about the fact of why it is just Auckland. I want to remind him of his press release on 21 October 2010. This is how it reads: “Labour proposes amendment to close Flaunty loophole: The Labour Party will move an amendment to the local government law to prevent local board members from sitting on more than one board in the Auckland super city. Labour’s Auckland Issues Spokesperson Phil Twyford said that the case of the West Auckland pharmacist Warren Flaunty sitting on five boards showed that there was a loophole” in their system. I agree with the member; he is absolutely right. The focus is on Auckland in particular—I suppose, in Auckland at the moment—and we know the tracking of this. We have got the local body elections coming up. They are happening in October of this year. That was part of the reason for us doing that.

The last comment I want to make is to Mr O’Rourke. I hope this does not stir him to stand up again, because I think he has made some good contributions that are full and final. [Bell rung] Mr Chair.

Denis O’Rourke: Mr Chairman.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Mr Ngaro has called.

ALFRED NGARO: He just wants to keep going. My final remark is to Mr O’Rourke, who talked about the reason for this bill. He turned round and said: “Let the people choose—let the people choose.” The reality is that Mr O’Rourke and I are here because of a system that was adopted. In 1996 we had the first MMP election. Why? Because first past the post did not give us greater representation inside a House of 121 MPs. So there was a shift in the mood around there. Sometimes we need to change the system to ensure that we have greater representation in the places where we need to have the voices of people around the table of influence, so that we can make those decisions. I know that Mr O’Rourke may not like that, but that is the reality. I believe that what this bill does—it is only a small bill—is fix a small loophole, where we do allow for that representation to exist on those local boards, in those local communities that truly make a difference.

I conclude with those final remarks. I hope that they are the final remarks, anyway, that I would like to make to this bill. I do want to thank all the members, by the way, for their contributions. They have been great. I am happy to take conversations outside, in the lobbies, if they would like to—maybe not so in the Chamber. But I do want to acknowledge and thank, also, the chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee, the fine member Mr Scott Simpson, and all the members who were there as well, for their contributions when hearing the submissions. I do commend this bill to the Committee.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I need to respond to what the last speaker, Alfred Ngaro, just said. There are three things I want to respond to. First of all, he talked about this conflict of interest issue, and he quoted either from official advice or from a submission, I am not quite sure. But when he did so, he mumbled the word “perception” so that hopefully we would not hear that word very clearly. He mumbled the word “perception”, because that is the word that he used, and that is the word that whoever gave this advice or made the submission used too. There may well be perceptions of conflicts of interest; we acknowledge that. But there are no actual, potential conflicts of interest possible in this situation. Mr Ngaro and the National Party have totally failed to give any persuasive or rational argument at all to justify this claim of a potential conflict of interest. It just cannot occur. So he is wrong about that, and I am disappointed that he mumbled the word “perception” in the hope that we would not hear it or understand it. But that is all it could ever be, and that is not a good enough reason for legislation of this kind.

The other point he made was about workloads. He is trying to tell me that a person can handle only one board membership in Auckland, because Auckland is such a big, important, and busy city. Well, I have been a member of a community board in Christchurch for 15 years.

Paul Foster-Bell: 50 years?

DENIS O’ROURKE: For 15 years. At the same time, I was a member of the city council for 15 years, and at the same time, I was a director of three companies for several years—and the list goes on. So how can it be that people in Christchurch can handle these workloads satisfactorily, but Aucklanders can handle only one little board? Even Aucklanders should be able to do better than that—even Aucklanders should be able to do better than that. The workload issue, the workload claim, as an argument, is utter nonsense. Everyone in this House who is honest about it knows it.

My final comment is this: Mr Ngaro talked about letting the people choose. He said no to that. That is what his argument is. He actually said: “No, don’t let the people choose. Don’t let them have that freedom.” The justification he gave for that was that there needed to be greater representation. Well, that is exactly what the people are deciding: what the representation will be. If they want it to be one person, who is also a member of other boards, then that is their free choice. But that does not affect whether there will be greater or smaller representation. That one person can still effectively—and I say “effectively”—be a member of more than one board. So that is also an incoherent argument that should be disregarded.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clauses 1 to 7 and schedule be agreed to.

Ayes 109

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Clauses 1 to 7 and schedule agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Wellington Town Belt Bill with amendment, and the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) without amendment.

Report adopted.

Business of the House

Business of the House

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave for two things: firstly, that Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill, next time it is considered in the Committee, be considered as one debate, and the second thing—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, we will deal with one thing at a time. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? Then all questions will be taken as one question when we discuss that bill.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): And your second point of order?

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave for the House to now adjourn.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for the House to rise at this stage. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

The House adjourned at 9.47 p.m.