Tuesday, 16 August 2016

TUESDAY, 16 AUGUST 2016

TUESDAY, 16 AUGUST 2016

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Social Housing—Social Housing Reform Programme and Other Government Initiatives

1. TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister of Finance: What recent announcements has the Government made regarding its Social Housing Reform Programme?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): On Friday the Government announced that the IHC subsidiary Accessible Properties is the preferred bidder for the potential transfer of 1,124 social houses in Tauranga. Accessible Properties is the largest NGO provider of social housing in New Zealand. This is good news for tenants and for Tauranga. The tenants will, ultimately, benefit from a new approach to social housing where we are encouraging community organisations with different and innovative views on support for tenants. It is also good for Tauranga, because, like most other provincial cities in New Zealand, it has a significant tract of State houses of a traditional mode that need to be redeveloped. The Government believes there is a role for further expansion of the community housing sector in delivering social housing.

Todd Muller: What other programmes has the Government announced that are contributing to its objective of creating more diverse ownership of social housing?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Where there is strong demand, the Government is going to be producing more social housing, not just more diverse ownership. Last week we welcomed news that the Tāmaki Regeneration Company has started the procurement of the Tāmaki redevelopment programme, from which we will see 1,000 existing social houses transformed into 2,500 new mixed-tenure houses over the next few years. By the time the Tāmaki programme is completed, the current 2,800 social houses will become around 7,500 homes of all types of tenure, adding new housing to the Auckland market on a scale that Government has never done before.

Todd Muller: Does the Government stand by its commitment to achieve fair and reasonable value for taxpayers in social housing transactions?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes, but we need to understand the effects of Government policy on the value of these houses. The houses in Tauranga, for instance, have been offered with encumbrances on the titles—specifically, that they must remain as social houses until the Government agrees otherwise. Purchasers are required to meet various obligations and minimum standards, as you would expect, and only community housing providers can participate in transactions. The current valuation on these properties does not reflect these encumbrances or obligations. The properties are valued as if a developer were selling an individual property for the best price on the day, for maximum capital gain. These houses are required to remain as social houses, so their value will be considerably less than the commercial value.

Todd Muller: What support has he seen for the social housing reform programme—in particular, the goal of growing the community housing sector?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Widespread support—pretty much anyone who is involved with social housing is supporting the direction of these changes. I have read a particular speech, which says: “Our vision … is to have Housing NZ … and a bigger, stronger community housing sector working in partnership … We are committed to [giving] your members … access to [Income Related Rent Subsidies] ... We [want] to grow the whole social housing sector. That means … a priority [for growing] … community providers.” That was Phil Twyford. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Before I call the member, I require substantially less interjection from one member in particular if he wants to remain for question No. 4.

Phil Twyford: How incompetent does a Government have to be to have sold off 298 State houses at an average of $32,000 below the council valuation at a time when house price inflation is running at 26 percent nationwide?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government is very proud of the fact that it has sold hundreds of houses to State house tenants. We have seen people in their 50s and 60s enjoy, for the first time in their lives, the benefit of homeownership. The member may be the only person in New Zealand who is surprised to find out that some of our rubbishy, hopeless, old, wrong-sized State houses are worth almost nothing.

Immigration Policy—Impact and Settings

2. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in his Minister of Immigration, given his statement that “there are jobs for every single New Zealander who wants them”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes, I do have confidence in the Minister. As the Minister went on to say, it would be naive to think there are not barriers to employment for some New Zealanders. The Government is working extremely hard to remove those barriers and ensure that every young New Zealander is fit for work.

Andrew Little: Why were work visas issued for 6,500 labourers in the past year when 15,600 unemployed New Zealanders were looking for labouring work?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Precisely—but I am fairly sure it will be because they are in different locations. Of course, for the average New Zealand employer, they would far rather take someone on locally because it is an easier process to go through, by definition. As you see with something like the Christchurch rebuild, they need an enormous number of workers over a short period of time and, frankly, a lot of people were not prepared to move to Christchurch. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! From both sides the level of interjection and cross-chatter is disruptive to question time. It will cease.

Andrew Little: Can he guarantee that work visas are only being issued to fill genuine skill shortages?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: What I can guarantee is that the Government looks at the issues of where skills are required, and over the last 3 years, 56 occupations have been taken off the list and only five have been added. The reality is that, as I said, there are often mismatches between where the demand is for people and where people actually live. So that is primarily the issue. You can see from the fact that there are so many jobs being created and the unemployment rate is falling that, broadly, it is working, but people will not always move location.

Andrew Little: Is it not the reality that there are employers who know they can get immigrants to work for lower wages and worse conditions and the Government is allowing them to undercut Kiwi workers?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That might be the line that the unions that made him the leader want him to say, but the truth is that wages are up—wait for it—25 percent in the 8 years that we have been the Government. Real wage growth has been 13 percent since 2008. That is significantly greater than the 9 years under the previous Labour Government, when inflation took away pretty much all of the pay rises that the workers got.

David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister aware of any instances where immigrants have worked, earned money, spent it, and created demand leading to more job creation; if he is not aware of any such instances, how were there so many jobs after the last 170 years of immigration?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think the member has successfully asked and answered his own question, and he has done a better job of both of them than probably I could do.

Andrew Little: Does he agree with Treasury and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) that the immigration system is being used to drive down wages rather than being used to fill genuine skills gaps?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not think that is an accurate reflection of the way both Treasury and MBIE view migration. I think they have made the case that we need to constantly be looking at who is coming in and why and whether it is possible to get New Zealand workers—and, of course, that is something that the Government is doing. And through the Business Growth Agenda, we have had a significant programme of big employers training people. We have got more people in apprenticeships. There is a huge amount of work going on. But the reality is that some work is part-time. This is not a new thing: it was under the previous Labour Government that the Recognised Seasonal Employee scheme was introduced to New Zealand, for the very reason of supporting our agricultural and horticultural sectors, and when that was happening it was very successful.

Hon David Cunliffe: How many millions from Talley’s?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, there is one person who has lost his job—and that is David Cunliffe, because he led the Labour Party to its worst result in the history of the party.

Tim Macindoe: What reports has the Prime Minister seen supporting the contribution that migrants make to New Zealand?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have seen one report that started by stating: “I welcome all people who want to make a future for themselves and their families to be part of our beautiful country.” I could not agree more with that. I saw another report that said: “I would never want for anyone in this country to feel like they are somehow being targeted.”—that was, of course, from Andrew Little, just a day after he called for a ban on Chinese and Indian chefs.

Andrew Little: I seek leave to table a Treasury paper called Immigration Work Programme Opportunities for Policy Changes, which states that increasing flows of younger and lower-skilled migrants may be contributing to a lack of employment opportunities for local workers. I seek leave also to table an MBIE report called Improving the Long-term Contribution of Immigration to the Labour Market, which states that filling labour shortages through migration can result in wage suppression.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am familiar now with the two documents. I just need to check whether they are easily available to members on a website.

Andrew Little: I only received them in hard copy; I could not find them by any other means.

Mr SPEAKER: I will take the member’s word for it and put the leave. Leave is sought to table a Treasury paper and an MBIE document. Is there any objection? There is objection. Supplementary question, Rt Hon—[Interruption] Order! No, I am sorry; Mr Peters will have to resume his seat.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just recently you have been generous in putting leave, having previously made it very clear that if something is publicly available then leave to table in the House is inappropriate. The problem with that, of course, is that when we know that something is freely available and we deny the leave, then the political win obviously goes to the person trying to table something that is already out there. I suspect Mr Little has the information he has got because one of his staff members downloaded it for him.

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I will hear from Andrew Little.

Andrew Little: There has got to be some kind of equivalence here. When I put a question about this issue, the catcalls from Mr Brownlee and Mr Joyce were that the statements, which are proven in these documents, were never made and did not exist. It cannot be the case that they are able to assert, even by way of interjection in this House, that something that a Government paper says is true is not true, according to them, and then that they would seek to prevent me from tabling a paper that proves the opposite of what they are asserting.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will address both points together. The purpose of tabling a document is to better inform members of the House. It is not the opportunity to make a political point. I am unaware of whether those two documents are easily available on the website, I therefore asked the member who is seeking leave to table them, and on this occasion he was not able to give a categoric answer. My decision, then, is whether to put the leave. At the end of the day, once I put that leave, any member has any right to object, and that is what happened on this occasion.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to Speaker’s ruling 163/2, which is around the tabling of documents and the addition of descriptions, which you have previously ruled out of order but we have seen a trend of increasing commentary about what the document says, which in recent times has paraphrased—in many members’ views, incorrectly—what the document intends to say. I would just draw your attention to that Speaker’s ruling.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Again, that is an easy matter to resolve. If a document is deliberately incorrectly described, then a member risks a very serious allegation being raised by another member of misleading the House. On that occasion, I allowed a fairly fulsome description of the document because of the answers that had been given by the Minister and, also, the interjections that had occurred.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does he believe that immigration controls under his Government are tighter than under the previous Labour Government?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Interestingly enough, actually, there has been a bit of talk about this 210,000 work visa number. I think my office went away and had a look at the number back in 2008, and the number was, broadly, about the same, give or take a little bit, on working holiday programmes—some fluctuation in the categories, but the numbers are broadly the same.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not talk about one specific area; I said immigration controls—are they tighter under his Government than the previous Labour Government? I am waiting for that answer—tighter or not?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to allow that question to be repeated, simply because I could not hear the answer because of the level of interjection coming from my left. I have asked now for cooperation on, I think, three occasions. If I do not get it, I am going to be asking a member to leave.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Thank you, Mr Speaker. To the Prime Minister: does he believe that immigration controls under his Government are tighter than under the previous Labour Government?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think they are broadly about the same. I think the big difference, really, in migration flows in this period of time has been that instead of 35,000 Kiwis leaving every year to go to Australia, New Zealanders have come home and stayed here, because under a National-led Government they can see a brighter future, they are ambitious for New Zealand, they have got a 25 percent wage increase, and they are doing pretty well. I think it is only natural that they would come back and want to be part of it.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If it is, as he says, “Pepsi or Coke”, can he confirm that over the last two parliaments New Zealand First has asked more questions on immigration than all the other political parties put together?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, there is no prime ministerial responsibility for that.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: One-dimension party.

Andrew Little: You will want to hear this, Gerry. Why is he issuing ever more low-skill work visas, rather than focusing on getting Kiwis into work?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There are a great many more Kiwis in work. For a start, over the last 3 years alone, 200,000 jobs have been created, and we forecast that there will be another 170,000 over the next 3 or 4 years. There are a considerable number of Kiwis going through a variety of different programmes, as I mentioned earlier. The unemployment rate under this Government is now falling, after the global financial crisis. So there is no question that there are Kiwis going into work. What there is is a genuine mismatch in some parts of the country to the other and, actually, it would be great if some people where there are high levels of unemployment or where there are not so many opportunities would move to parts of the country where there are—but it is not as easy, always, for them to do that.

Andrew Little: Why, when the ANZ, Harcourts, the Reserve Bank, Treasury, and now the Auckland Chamber of Commerce are all questioning his Government’s immigration settings, is he so out of touch that he will not even admit there is a problem?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: What I have said is that migration is an important part of a growing economy, and it is actually a sign of success that people want to come to New Zealand either on working holiday programmes or because they are coming here to fill the skilled migrant demand. The Government constantly looks at—

Andrew Little: Putting Kiwis out of work and driving down the wages.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, wages are going up faster than inflation. I know it does not suit the member’s argument, and I know the unions put him in his job, but he is going to have to go back and tell them: “Mate, the facts don’t add up.”—the Little rhetoric that got you your job.

Housing, Auckland—Unitary Plan

3. KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) to the Minister for the Environment: How will the new unitary plan adopted yesterday support the Government’s work to address Auckland’s housing problems?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): The existing Auckland plans without special housing areas have capacity for only 7,000 additional homes. The plan initially proposed by the Auckland Council provided for 213,000 homes. The final plan adopted by the council provides for an additional 400,000 homes. This is a huge step forward. The Productivity Commission, in its 500-page report and after 12 months of work, identified the old Auckland councils’ controls on housing as the principal reason for the lack of supply and affordability of Auckland housing. The successful completion of this unitary plan under a special process facilitated by the Government’s legislation has walked a balance between giving people a fair say and getting to a conclusion. This approach has proved successful.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What are the specific problems with the existing planning rules in Auckland on housing development, and why were they so deficient?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The existing rules in Auckland consist of 11 different plans developed in the early 1990s by the previous nine councils, and complicated since by over 80 plan changes. These plans provided for over 90 lots of different rules for doing residential development. That made it complex, slow, and expensive. The current plans also contradicted each other because the old regional council wanted growth to be infill, whereas the old territorial councils preferred greenfields. The new councillors had to resolve this tension over to what degree Auckland is to grow up and to grow out. The strength of the new unitary plan is that it allows for both, and this matches up with projected population growth for the first time ever.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: How will the Government ensure a smooth transition from the special housing areas to the new Auckland Unitary Plan?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The special housing areas, of which there are 154 in Auckland—

Phil Twyford: How many houses have they actually built, Nick?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —were intended as an interim measure to facilitate the planning for new housing development, while the unitary plan was being developed and consulted on. The bulk of the special housing areas have been zoned residential under the unitary plan, and so, for these, the mechanism will become redundant when the new unitary plan becomes operative. There are some that have not been picked up in the unitary plan. I will be working with the Auckland Council to ensure a smooth transition. I do note the interjections from the member opposite, who opposed having the single Auckland Council, who opposed the special housing areas, and who opposed the special process for the unitary plan, which just facilitates the idea that he is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

GDP per Capita—Living Standards and Impact of Immigration Settings

4. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by the statement in Budget 2016 that GDP per capita “is what matters for achieving higher material living standards”, and was growth in per capita GDP last year “about half a percent” as stated by the Minister of Economic Development?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): In the long run, yes, and yes.

Grant Robertson: Can he confirm that Budget 2016 says that GDP per capita growth stays under 1 percent for 2017?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, I cannot confirm that. Treasury advised me that it forecasts a lift in per capita GDP to 1.3 percent over the next few years. So that may have been referring to 2016-17.

Grant Robertson: Can he further confirm that GDP per capita growth only rises above 1 percent in 2018 and 2019, according to this year’s Budget, and that that is on the basis of net immigration levels lowering from the current 70,000 to fewer than 20,000?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: There will be a lot of factors involved in rising per capita GDP, just as there have been a lot of factors—and, in both cases, some of them global—that have influenced lower per capita GDP, but in an economy that is growing at 3 to 3.5 percent, with moderate and consistent increases in real incomes, per capita GDP is likely to rise.

Grant Robertson: Is he confident that net immigration will return to the levels predicted in the Budget of fewer than 20,000; if not, will he concede that this is highly unlikely unless his Government heeds the call of everyone from the Reserve Bank Governor to Michael Barnett, to Treasury, and to the chief executive of ANZ Bank and reviews current immigration settings?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Immigration settings are always under review. In fact, we come across many businesses that want looser immigration settings because their prospects are good, they are investing in their businesses, they are creating more jobs, and they are having trouble getting the skilled people whom they need. I hope that they do succeed, one way or another, because that will help lift per capita GDP.

Grant Robertson: Is he not getting more and more out of touch on what constitutes meaningful lifts in living standards in New Zealand, when commentators are saying that New Zealand’s economic growth is driven almost exclusively by rising population and Dieter Adam from the Manufacturers and Exporters Association says that we are importing growth rather than creating it?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Whoever that commentator was should get out and about. There is quite a wide range—[Interruption] In fact, the feature of growth now is that it is driven by growth in exports, by strong growth in the construction sector, by growth in consumption, where we have seen just in the last week that the confidence of households is up a bit and they are spending more. So it is fair to say that if you take away all the sources of growth then there will be no growth, but, in fact, there are a number of sources of growth. A couple of years ago it was too much dairy. Before that, it was all Christchurch. Now it is too many people wanting to live in New Zealand.

Grant Robertson: When we have the lowest wage growth in 6 years, a housing crisis pushing people to live in cars, and personal household debt at its highest level since before the global financial crisis, does he not think it is time to focus on building wealth in New Zealand, rather than relying on immigration, speculation, and private debt to prop up the economy?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is simply wrong in his understanding of what is happening in the economy. We are seeing, for instance, the non-dairy exports sector grow at quite rapid—and what do appear to be, nevertheless, sustainable—rates, creating new jobs and new growth. But the fact that more people—more New Zealanders—are staying home and more of them are returning home is a pretty clear indication that when people have the chance to vote with their feet, they are not voting for that member’s view of the economy, because if they thought that, they would not come here. They are voting for a positive view of the economy.

Metiria Turei: When the Government talks about “achieving higher material living standards”, does the Minister think that New Zealanders would consider warm, dry, and affordable housing critical to achieving those standards?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am sure they would, and that is why it is such good news that the Auckland Council has passed a plan that takes what were eight or nine different plans, some of which are up to 25 years old, and turns them into one plan for Auckland, which enables twice as many houses to be built. That is great news for low and middle income families because the model that the council has been operating punishes them by making housing more expensive, and over the next 5 to 10 years that will change.

Metiria Turei: Are the record levels of homelessness and families being forced to live in cars and garages a sign that the Government is achieving higher material living standards for families?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No. It is a sign that the housing market is dealing with a perfect storm of demand: the lowest interest rates in 50 years; much steadier migration than anyone expected—that is, migration has gone up and stayed up, instead of dropping down; a record number of New Zealanders who are staying home, and, therefore, not packing up their furniture and leaving the house empty. The Government is taking every reasonable measure it can to reduce the pressure on those who are at the bottom of the housing market, and need support.

Metiria Turei: Would the Minister not agree that if his Government was succeeding in achieving higher material living standards for families, the numbers of Auckland children with rheumatic fever would be decreasing, not increasing by 36 percent?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: It has taken the member a while to catch up with what is happening with rheumatic fever. Three years ago, along with the Māori Party, we put $60 million into a programme to reduce rheumatic fever. It takes a complex range of solutions, and I must credit the relevant Ministers and public servants who until quite recently were succeeding in dropping the rates of rheumatic fever faster than we might have expected. It does look as if that has flattened out, and efforts will be increased to keep ahead, if possible, of that increase.

Metiria Turei: Is it not clear that his Government’s policies have failed, because at this rate of increase we will be back to 2014 levels—record-high levels—of rheumatic fever for children by the end of this year?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would not want to speculate on that, but I think the member would want the House to understand that rates have been dropping significantly over the last year or two. But even if that is the case, there are still other factors that indicate children are in poor housing, and the Government has committed $36 million in the most recent Budget to a broader effort to deal with a wider range of children showing up at our hospitals with diseases that could be connected to the state of their housing, and galvanising public agencies to take direct action to deal with those cases.

Metiria Turei: Are not his Government’s current failures and plans for the future cold comfort for the families of 45,000 children who are now in poverty under this Government, according to the Children’s Commissioner? When will he implement a comprehensive poverty reduction plan to run alongside an economic growth plan to make sure that families will get their fair share?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is covering a wide range of issues there, but one step in that direction was that on 1 April, for the first time in 42 years, those families received a significant increase in their welfare benefit, over and above the Consumers Price Index—in fact, up to $25 a week. I must say, there is any number of families who have told me that although that has not dramatically altered their lives, it has helped them deal with the pressure of hardship they were under. The next best thing we can do is follow through on getting more houses built so we can ultimately get their housing costs down.

Passenger Endorsement Holders—Convictions and Safety of Passengers

5. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Transport: Do any current passenger endorsement holders have convictions for drink-driving or careless driving causing injury or death?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): Yes, because under the Land Transport Act these offences are not specified as being serious offences such as the most serious ones in our country—murder, rape, aggravated robbery—and so do not automatically disqualify someone. In relation to such offences as the member is referring to, like drink-driving or careless driving causing injury or death, obviously they are very context specific. If, for example, someone received a conviction at 18, and then at 50 was applying for the passenger endorsement (P endorsement), went through the rigorous risk-assessment process and showed no issues, that conviction would probably have minimal weight. If it was a much more recent conviction and was alongside other very serious matters thrown up by the rigorous risk-assessment process that the P endorsement entails, then the person would obviously be much less likely to receive endorsement.

David Seymour: Is the Minister seriously telling the House that his reassurances given in the past that a P endorsement made passengers safe should be qualified by the fact that that driver may well be someone who has caused injury or death through offences such as drink-driving?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I do not think that a P endorsement is a safety panacea. I think there are many other things, such as cameras, which are the lawful position at the moment, and also new technologies and innovations like apps and the like. The Government has decided—I think absolutely rightly—that a P endorsement is an important form of safety assurance that the vast majority of New Zealanders expect of a commercial service.

David Seymour: Does the Minister think it good value to charge those who would like to share rides for money $2,000 to go through the process of getting an endorsement that he admits does not guarantee the safety of passengers?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: It is not as high as that, but I can certainly say to the member that I do not think the current cost, and indeed the time taken for a P endorsement through the process, is good enough. I am going to make sure that they are much cheaper and that they also take much less time. Indeed, in terms of creating a world-class, incredibly enabling regime that I know the member wants, I will be introducing a bill to this House a little later this year that will create just that.

David Seymour: If indeed the P licensing regime is good value, then will he apply it to those offering rides voluntarily for district health boards, local authorities, charitable organisations, and parents taking kids on school camps—if it is such good value, surely anybody sharing a ride with someone they may not know well should have to have a P licence, or at least the driver should?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I think the Government is primarily concerned with commercial service. I make it very clear to the member—indeed, I give him an undertaking—that I want to and will see both the cost and time of the P endorsement come significantly down, because we do want to enable technology and innovation. We do want a much lower-compliance, level playing field in which taxis, ride-share, and dial-a-driver systems—the whole gamut—can compete for consumers’ value.

Education Infrastructure, Investment—Announcements

6. ALFRED NGARO (National) to the Associate Minister of Education: What recent announcements has the Government made about investment in education infrastructure?

Hon NIKKI KAYE (Associate Minister of Education): Over the last month Minister Parata and I have announced over $72 million in projects to build new schools, kura, and classrooms. This spending is part of the huge $882 million investment in education infrastructure secured as part of Budget 2016. This Budget more than doubled the education infrastructure spend of last year’s Budget. I am pleased to advise the House that this Government has committed around $5 billion to school properties—significantly more than any other Government.

Alfred Ngaro: What investment in schooling infrastructure is under way in Auckland?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Earlier this month Minister Parata and I announced that the Government would invest over $40 million for the rebuild and upgrade of Te Huruhi Primary School and Waiheke High School. At Te Huruhi Primary School there will be $23 million for 22 new flexible learning spaces and a new library and administration area. At Waiheke High School there will be $17 million for extensive rebuild works. This comes on top of other recent investments, which include $5.7 million for Northcote Primary School, $8.7 million for Newmarket Primary School, $14.5 million for Clayton Park Primary School, and, today, $3.7 million for Te Atatū Intermediate School. I can also confirm that since 2014, as a result of the Auckland roll growth programme, school redevelopments, new schools, and the projects greenlighted so far under Budget 2016, the Government will deliver more than 17,000 new student places across Auckland by 2019.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Answers should be terse and to the point, succinct, and brief. That was just a ramble—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! It was a point of order, but I remind the member that I am the sole judge of the length of answers. I have told him that on many occasions in this House, and, of course, when he continues to interject through an answer that will sometimes give the Associate Minister more opportunity to respond.

Alfred Ngaro: What investment is being made in education infrastructure in Northland? [Interruption]

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

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Points of order will be heard in silence.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave for the Associate Minister to have an extension of time. I cannot wait to hear this.

Mr SPEAKER: Again, that is not a point of order. You cannot seek leave on behalf of another member. I told your colleague that on Thursday. Would the Hon Nikki Kaye please answer the question.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Last week Minister Parata and I announced that $6.9 million would be invested to redevelop Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Taumārere in Northland. This redevelopment will see the conversion of existing buildings to create new facilities for senior students, a new gymnasium, and the construction of four brand new learning spaces. I am pleased to advise the House that over $50 million has been committed to upgrade schools and add capacity in Northland between 2008 and 2015. This includes $19 million to provide a new site in buildings for Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o te Tonga o Hokianga, 16 new classrooms at Whangarei Girls’ High School, Pārua Bay School, and Bay of Islands International Academy, $14 million for the redevelopment of Northland College, and $6 million to increase capacity at Hora Hora Primary School.

Tracey Martin: Can the Associate Minister confirm that the investment in Northland schools has been made since the Northland by-election?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: What I can confirm is that we started making investments well before the Northland by-election, and that since 2008 we have spent $50 million in Northland. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Mr Bennett.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask why it took so long for all those outstanding projects to at last get some action, or is the answer obvious? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has been asked; we will now listen to the answer.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: The reason that we have had to spend $5 billion is that the last Government left us rotting, cold schools.

Housing, Auckland—Unitary Plan and Supply

7. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister for Building and Housing: Does he agree with the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel that the number of houses Auckland needs in the next 7 years is 131,000, or nearly 19,000 per year; if so, does he think it acceptable that only 9,651 homes were consented in Auckland in the last year?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): The 9,651 new homes consented in Auckland in the last year is the highest number in 10 years, is good progress, and is more than treble the rate of the 3,212 bequeathed to us when this Government came into office. The house build rate has grown by over 25 percent per year since April 2013, when we entered into the Auckland Housing Accord. This strong growth of over a billion dollars a year of extra investment, year on year, is about as fast as you can grow a sector like building. The specific house build rate referred to in the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel is 13,000 per year, and we are on track to deliver that by 2017-18.

Phil Twyford: Is he aware that his construction pipeline forecasts that nearly 40,000 fewer homes than are needed will be built in Auckland over the next 7 years, according to the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, I do not accept that. What I do know is that the panel report says that we will get to 13,000 homes per year next year. We have never built 13,000 homes in Auckland in a single year. I remind the member that in Labour’s last year in office it did 3,000 homes per year. Those 13,000 homes per year mean that we will be building a city the size of Whangarei in Auckland in this term of Parliament and again in the next term of Parliament, and, on anybody’s terms, that is a phenomenal number of houses.

Jami-Lee Ross: What was the rate of house building in Auckland prior to the Auckland Housing Accord being agreed in April 2013, and what reports has he read on future growth?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member please repeat the question. It could not be heard, because of the level of interjection. [Interruption] Order!

Jami-Lee Ross: What was the rate of house building in Auckland prior to the Auckland Housing Accord being agreed in April 2013, and what reports has he read on future growth?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The build rate prior to the accord being signed was 4,800 per year, and it has grown more strongly and more quickly than at any time in Auckland’s history over the 3 subsequent years. The pipeline report says that it will reach 13,000 in 2017 and stay above that record level every year until 2020.

Phil Twyford: Why does he think that building 9,000 houses a year in Auckland is a record building boom when more than 12,000 a year were being built a decade ago?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The average number of houses built in Auckland per year, over the last 25 years, is about 7,000. The average that was achieved under the previous Government, for 1 year, in 2003—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is little point in answering the question. The members are not interested. [Interruption] Order! No, I am not putting up with that.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If you are to adopt the approach that screaming and yelling from the Opposition benches means that a Minister is not able to answer the question, it only encourages screaming and yelling from the Opposition benches.

Mr SPEAKER: No. I do not agree at all.

Hon David Parker: Speaking to the point of order—

Mr SPEAKER: No, I do not need any assistance.

Hon David Parker: I think you do.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will stand and withdraw that remark immediately.

Hon David Parker: I withdraw and apologise, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: If the question is asked by an Opposition member and then that level of barrage occurs, I will, on occasion, cease the answer of a Minister. If the members want to listen to the answer to the question that their own party has asked, I expect them to deliver some sort of decorum and cooperation to the answer while it is being delivered.

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

Mr SPEAKER: I hope it is not on this matter, but I will hear it.

Hon David Parker: Well, it is.

Mr SPEAKER: No. If it is—[Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. I have ruled. That is not up for debate. If the member has a fresh point of order, I am prepared to hear it. But if the member is simply going to relitigate where I have just been, that in itself leads to disorder, and I will deal with the matter very severely by asking the member to leave the Chamber.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the Minister makes a fair point. I agree that you have a duty to keep order. I agree that you, at times, have a duty to tell the Opposition to be quiet, or, indeed, to tell Government members to be quiet. But if any member on either side of this House can frustrate the purpose of this House by being disorderly, then that runs against the purpose of question time. So I think that the ruling that you have given—I accept it, in respect of this instance, but if you are trying to make a general ruling that answers should be truncated because of disorder, I think that is wrong in principle.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! When it is a single member attempting to disrupt the proceedings by yelling and screaming from my left-hand side, that point may be absolutely valid. But when it was an orchestrated litany of barrage from a large number of front-bench members and second-row members, then that is disruptive. Either I can deal with it the way that I have, which I will choose to do on some occasions, or I can deal with it more severely by asking members to leave the Chamber. Those are the two options that I have, and they are the two options that I will not hesitate to use.

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

Mr SPEAKER: No, I have discussed this matter quite enough. [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] Order! I gave the member the benefit of the doubt. I said that I was not prepared to have the matter relitigated; the member said he would not and then rose to his feet and did exactly that. If he wishes to raise a fresh point of order, I will hear it, but I warn the member that if he attempts to relitigate this matter again in this particular point of order, he will be immediately asked to leave the Chamber. I cannot be clearer.

Hon David Parker: It is a fresh point of order. When Ministers answer questions, either from their own side or from the other side, they are addressing the House, not the person who asks the question.

Mr SPEAKER: That is exactly relitigating the matter I have just dealt with. I ask the member now to leave the Chamber.

Hon David Parker withdrew from the Chamber.

Phil Twyford: Is he aware that, adjusted for population growth, Auckland building consents are 33 percent below the level we saw in the mid-2000s?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, I do not accept that analysis. What I would remind the member of is that in each of the last 4 years the rate of house construction has grown by 25 percent—compound on each other for 4 years. In real terms, the amount of residential construction in Auckland right now is an all-time record. It is time for that member to get out and see the houses that are being built.

Phil Twyford: Is he aware that his Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) officials say that his housing boom will take until 2030 to eliminate the housing shortfall in Auckland that has built up under his watch?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I meet with my officials many times a week, and never has that prediction been made in any paper report. It is just another example of that member making things up.

Phil Twyford: I seek the leave of the House to table the advice from MBIE officials that it will take until 2030 to eliminate the shortfall. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order. What is the source of that document?

Phil Twyford: MBIE.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, the House may have a chance to have a look at it. Leave is sought to table that particular information. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to put on the record the feelings of New Zealand First in respect of the treatment of the Hon David Parker. This is a very senior, highly qualified, and academically highly respected member of Parliament—no, across the board. When I see someone of that background being treated that way, and my colleagues see it that way, we are not at all happy with it. To say to a member of that seniority—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has had the opportunity to put it on the record. It is not actually a point of order.

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

Mr SPEAKER: Now what is the point of order?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: My point of order is that every member of Parliament has got cause and authority to say that what is happening here is likely to lead to serious disruption. That is a matter for a point of order, and I can say that if there is much more of this, the House will be seriously disrupted.

Mr SPEAKER: I have allowed the member—[Interruption] Order! I have allowed the member to make his point. If he wants to take it further, he knows how to do it.

Financial Advisers Act—Update

8. ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What announcements has he made that will make it easier for New Zealanders to access financial advice?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Last month I was pleased to announce a package of proposed changes to the Financial Advisers Act after a comprehensive 18-month review. The changes are designed to increase access to personalised advice on specific matters such as “What KiwiSaver fund is right for me?”. The changes will also enable the provision of personalised financial advice via online platforms. Robo-advice is emerging abroad and has the ability to provide New Zealanders with an alternative and convenient way of accessing affordable financial advice. Financial advisers often provide the interface between consumers and financial markets, and these changes will ensure that New Zealanders can access quality financial advice to help them plan for, and achieve, their savings and investment goals.

Alastair Scott: How else will New Zealanders benefit from the changes to the financial advice regime?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Three of the key changes that will make it easier for New Zealanders to get good financial advice are: all those providing financial advice will be required to put the interests of the consumer first; all those providing advice will be required to meet competency standards; and all advisers will also need to be more transparent about limitations of their advice, including how many types of financial products and providers have been considered, and disclose information regarding potential conflicts of interest such as commissions.

Alastair Scott: How is this Government making it easier for New Zealanders to take stock of their finances?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Lower interest rates are creating challenges for savers worldwide. That is why it is timely that the Government is proposing changes to the financial advisers framework to free up the flow of advice. There are also plenty of online resources and financial advice available to help people make sensible financial decisions. The Sorted website, recently refreshed by the Commission for Financial Capability, has now been viewed more than 1.8 million times, and provides a range of online tools such as budgeting and mortgage calculators, which can help with a variety of everyday finance needs. The Financial Markets Authority website also provides information about the risks and benefits of different kinds of investment products. I would encourage interested New Zealanders to visit those sites.

Schools, Funding—Proposed Global Funding Model

9. CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) to the Minister of Education: When the Prime Minister said that the Government “wouldn’t really be progressing the issue unless they could get the other stakeholders on board” following a briefing by her on school funding, does she think that the education sector is now on board?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): The education sector and I agree that with this Government spending over $11 billion in education for the first time ever, we need a system that delivers the right amount of funding for the right child at the right time, to ensure that they achieve educational success. At the end of August we will complete the 3-month funding advisory group process that we are in, after which I must go back to Cabinet. I continue to look forward to its advice.

Catherine Delahunty: When the Minister said last week “I hold principals in high regard. I trust them to use their professional judgment about what is necessary.”, does that include their judgment to reject her proposed global funding?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I look forward to hearing from all parts of the education sector.

Catherine Delahunty: Given that the Secondary Principals’ Association and the Principals’ Federation have joined the Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association, the New Zealand Educational Institute, and the Education Council in opposing the global funding model, will she now remove it from her proposed funding options?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I will refer the member to my primary answer, which is that we are in the funding advisory group process. I expect to hear from them by the end of August or early September, after which I will take that advice back to Cabinet. I do not intend to pre-empt that process.

Catherine Delahunty: Was the New Zealand Principals’ Federation president, Iain Taylor, wrong when he said that global funding removed guarantees around the minimum number of teachers each school would have?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I am not privy to the particular press release that the member is clearly referring to. Again, I am going to maintain the integrity of the consultation process through the funding advisory group, of which Mr Taylor is a member.

Catherine Delahunty: Which members of her advisory group have publicly supported global funding?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: There is a funding advisory group process, which has been meeting for the last 3 months. I am going to pay the respect to that process that it deserves, and it is in that context that I will take advice.

Refugees—Vetting Process

10. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement in November last year that refugees “go through a proper vetting process, and a lot of work is done to establish that they are genuine refugees”; and if so, why?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes; because I believe it to be true.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well if that is the case, why, under National, were almost 1,600 visa applications approved when officials knew the applicants would subsequently apply for refugee or protection status when they got into New Zealand?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I may be wrong—and I am sure if I am, the member will be able to correct me in his future supplementary questions—but I suspect that if he is not talking about people who came through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) programme, which is what the quote I gave was about, then he is talking about people who are coming in and seeking asylum at the airport.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Bearing in mind that they are not seeking asylum at the airport but, rather, coming in on visas—like visitor or student visas, or on temporary visa waivers—if there is a proper vetting process, why did his Government approve almost 900 visitor visas for non-genuine applicants who claimed, after they got here and were in New Zealand, refugee or protection status?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: OK, let me help the member through this. He is obviously a bit confused. The UNHCR programme—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister cannot start off with an insult. I have got the documentation from the department, so it is not a matter of confusion. I am just asking him to explain, and in his first opening answer he pointed to people who were refugees on a UN-type list. I am talking about people who have come here with a temporary visa and who then, after they have been here for a week or 2 months, apply for status.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is well known in this House that the supplementary questions follow the primary question. The primary question was solely about the UNHCR programme.

Mr SPEAKER: There has been a subsequent supplementary question asked that is certainly in order. I do not think the Prime Minister was derogatory or insulting in any way at the start of the answer, but he got only a few words out before the member took his point of order. I think time has gone. I am going to invite the member to ask the question again to get some coherence, and then we will await the answer.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If there is, in his words, “a proper vetting process”, why did his Government approve almost 900 visitor visas for non-genuine applicants who claimed refugee or protection status well after they got into New Zealand?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly, under the refugee programmes that are run through the UNHCR there is, as I said in my quote, a very, very thorough process that we go through, and that includes assessment carried out by the UNHCR, assessments made onshore and offshore by Immigration New Zealand, and references to other intelligence from our “Five Eyes” partners. There are some people who come to New Zealand under another category and claim refugee or asylum status here in New Zealand. Those numbers are significantly less under this Government than when the member asking the question was a Minister. So this Government has done a better job in that category.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If our vetting process is “proper” and ensures that “genuine” applicants are applying for refugee status, why has his Government approved—this is a third category—almost 160 applicants who arrived on a limited purpose or transit visa, and then, long after they got here, applied for that refugee status?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member will need to direct those sorts of questions to the Minister of Immigration, because the member asked me a question specifically about the UNHCR programme. If he wants to try to be a little bit silly, then he should go and ask a proper first question.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Given, Prime Minister, that no mention was made about the UN refugee programme, if, under National, Immigration New Zealand knew that almost 1,600 visa applications were not genuine, not related to the UN—[Interruption] or to “Big Ears”—why did they grant those visas in the first place?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member will need to direct that question to the Minister of Immigration, who would have that fact. But what I do know, on the advice of the Minister of Immigration, is that the numbers are considerably less under this Government than when the member was a Minister.

Customs Workforce—Modernisation

11. Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National) to the Minister of Customs: How is the Government investing in the modernisation of the New Zealand Customs workforce?

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Minister of Customs): Budget 2016 is investing $19 million over 4 years to modernise and transform the Customs Service workforce. It will be the most significant change in the last 20 years, and it supports a more flexible, efficient, and effective operating model. All Customs Service employees were consulted, and the members of the three relevant unions have ratified a new multi-union collective agreement.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: How will modernising the New Zealand Customs Service workforce improve customs effectiveness at the border?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: More flexible and efficient operations will allow the Customs Service to manage future increasing volumes of both passengers and trade. New technical and transactional roles will make better use of the knowledge and skills of the workforce and enhance career development. Experienced officers supported by new technology will prioritise border risk and law enforcement.

Schools, Funding—Review

12. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: Why is she proposing to flatten out the current funding rates across different year levels to a standard per-child amount as part of the education funding review?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I am not proposing to do that. If I could quote from the Cabinet minute that sets out what is to be tested, what has been agreed is that we look at the following proposal: a standard per-child funding amount that would vary across stages of learning, reflecting the teaching and learning challenge in the curricula and the needs for children and young people; an additional payment for those children and young people most at risk of educational underachievement; and retaining supplementary funding to maintain a network of provision where small, isolated services and schools are an issue.

Chris Hipkins: Did she receive advice that the biggest driver of the different funding rates is currently the staffing ratios for each year level; if so, why is she putting forward a proposal to level out the base funding rates, given that it will inevitably lead to some students being in much bigger classes?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: As I clearly explained, the proposal is not to flatten out the levels of funding.

Chris Hipkins: Did the Cabinet paper that she took to Cabinet propose changing the funding ratios for each year level to a standard formula?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: What I recommended was that we should base funding on the New Zealand curriculum, Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, which has complexities and difficulties occurring along the 13 years of its delivery, and that we should match funding to those difficulties. It is clearly not a proposal to flatten out student funding.

Chris Hipkins: What changes to the current funding rates on a year-by-year basis did she propose in her Cabinet paper?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I proposed that they should be linked to the learning progressions of the New Zealand curriculum.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister what changes she proposed to the funding rates on a year-by-year basis.

Mr SPEAKER: And the Minister answered that, as I heard, by saying that it would be linked to a curriculum.

Chris Hipkins: Can she guarantee that no secondary school students or primary school students in new-entrant classes will end up in bigger classes, given that they currently have the highest funding rates in the staffing funding formula?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: As I have already told the House, I do not propose to pre-empt the funding advisory group. I cannot guarantee that class sizes will not decrease.

Questions to Members

Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill—Purpose, Efficacy, and Impact on Parliament’s Reputation

1. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Member in charge of the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill: Why did he introduce the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill?

NUK KORAKO (Member in charge of the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill): I would like to thank the Opposition for giving me the opportunity to profile my bill. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Now I want the answer.

NUK KORAKO: Through my background in the tourism industry, I have organised thousands of visitors coming into New Zealand. I know what an inconvenience it is when they lose their luggage, and trying to recover it is quite problematic. The current requirements for advertising lost property and sales are archaic, prescriptive, and not fit for purpose. This is what this bill will fix. There is a saying: “He iti, he pounamu”—“It is very small, but it is quality.” Kia ora.

Chris Hipkins: Can he confirm that no passengers are any more or less likely to lose their luggage as a result of this bill, and is this not the type of carry-on that discredits Parliament?

NUK KORAKO: Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I did not hear the question because of the noise.

Mr SPEAKER: OK—[Interruption] Order! I am going to invite the member to ask the question again, and I want silence while the question is asked.

Chris Hipkins: Returning to—I cannot remember what my supplementary question was.

Mr SPEAKER: I am very close to moving on. I will help the member. The member’s question asked whether it would make any difference to the amount of luggage that might be lost.

Chris Hipkins: Can he confirm that no passenger is any more or less likely to lose their luggage as a result of his bill, and is this not the type of carry-on that discredits Parliament?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The first part of the question can be answered.

NUK KORAKO: I suggest the member actually look no further in terms of me answering this question, because his colleague Clayton Cosgrove, who is, perhaps, the unluckiest traveller alive, regularly lost his luggage. He lost his luggage and his suit, all of which may have been recovered had there been more appropriate means of drawing his attention to them once they had been found by the relevant airport authority.

Mr SPEAKER: We will now—[Interruption] Order! We now will proceed to question No. 2, but it would be helpful if the answers relate to the question that is asked.

Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill—Necessity and Potential Inclusion in Statutes Amendment Bill

2. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Member in charge of the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill: What recent evidence has he received, if any, that supports the need for the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill?

NUK KORAKO (Member in charge of the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill): The evidence that I have actually received has been in the response from the many emails, and even the Auckland Airport authority has actually contacted me and said what a great idea this was. The other part is that when we looked, I also received an email, actually from a person in Wainuiōmata, and that email actually said—if I could quote: “I congratulate you on producing this bill because the fact is that there are so many of my friends and relations that have lost luggage and could never ever find it through the normal channels.”

Chris Hipkins: Did he seek the support of MPs to include the contents of the bill in a statutes amendment bill; if not, why not?

NUK KORAKO: I think one important point about this one is the fact is that we have a very collegial and collective caucus and we worked very hard on a number of bills, but particularly this one. I took this because of the fact of my tourism background, and so, yes, we did actually involve our caucus colleagues and MPs.

Hon Annette King: Supplementary question—

Mr SPEAKER: No, I have heard one supplementary question.

Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill—Necessity

3. KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) to the Member in charge of the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill: Why is it necessary for the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill to be advanced at this time?

NUK KORAKO (Member in charge of the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill): I refer the member to my earlier answers as to why this bill is a positive change. The timing is not up to me. Like every other member of this House, I am at the mercy of the biscuit tin. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! You will get your afternoon smoko shortly.

Kris Faafoi: I think we should all stay away from the carbs. How many, and which, New Zealand airports did he consult—or approached him—before submitting his bill?

NUK KORAKO: As I originally said, in my vast experience and over the time I was in the tourism industry, a number of my clients lost luggage, so I actually did speak a lot to the airport authorities. Over the beginnings of this bill, as I have just said, Auckland Airport is one of the ones that I have actually spoken to. Kia ora.

Kris Faafoi: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand there was some noise, but I did ask the member what level of consultation, or who had approached him, before the bill, not after.

Mr SPEAKER: And there was—[Interruption] Order! The question was ultimately addressed. It did take some time. Auckland Airport was the answer.

Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill—Necessity

4. Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) to the Member in charge of the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill: What problem, if any, does the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill seek to address?

NUK KORAKO (Member in charge of the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill): Travellers often do not live in the same area as the airport where they have lost property—that is the first thing—so advertising in the local newspaper is not the most effective way of communication. This bill gives airports the flexibility to better serve their customers, and, especially, the Port Hills constituents, who have contacted me about my bill and think it is a great idea. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The House will settle.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave to table, dated 24/6/2016, information—

Hon Steven Joyce: “24”?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: —24/6/2016—information that says that the Prime Minister’s statement regarding collating information did not occur before 2009, and the Minister refused to have it gathered—if you want me to read the whole thing out, I will. So what the Prime Minister told the House by way of comparison between two Governments was a damn lie.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, the member will stand and withdraw the last part of that comment.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise, and I seek leave to table this document.

Mr SPEAKER: I will now put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular information, dated 24 June. Is there any objection? [Interruption] Order! There is no objection. It can be tabled.

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

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

Hon Ruth Dyson: Supplementary—

Mr SPEAKER: I will have a point of order first.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I thought the question was over.

Mr SPEAKER: No, there is one supplementary question to go.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Does he think that the advertising rules around lost property are among the most pressing issues facing New Zealanders today?

NUK KORAKO: The situation here is that—I do realise there are more pressing things, and they are picked up in Government bills. The other thing is that when we look at things like housing, where we are still working on a very comprehensive plan for all of that—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, the question has been answered.

Points of Order

Leave for Third Reading—Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Noticing that there has been a lot of public comment about the bill that has just been in question, and noting also that the Labour Party in particular has said that it could be done in some other particular way—and the last question expressed the time that the House is going to take over this, notwithstanding the fact that members have wasted half an hour this afternoon talking about it—

Mr SPEAKER: Can I have the point of order, please.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: —I wish to seek leave for the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill to be read for a third time, with a vote taken, without debate, forthwith.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Urgent Debates

Drinking-water Contamination—Havelock North

Mr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon Annette King seeking to debate, under Standing Order 389, the drinking-water contamination in Havelock North. This is a particular case of recent occurrence. Local authorities supply most drinking water in New Zealand. However, the Ministry of Health is responsible for legislation on drinking-water standards and will be involved in the inquiry into the situation in Havelock North. There is ministerial responsibility in this matter.

New Zealanders, rightfully, expect to have safe drinking-water available. The situation in Havelock North is a serious one. A debate is required. I call on the Hon Annette King to move that the House take note of an urgent matter of public importance.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. I opened the newspaper this morning and read the editorial in the New Zealand Herald, and it started like this: “How could a thousand people fall ill anywhere in New Zealand from drinking tap water?”. How could that happen in a First World country? This is a question for the Hastings District Council. It needs to answer it.

Also, there is an answer that should have been given in this House today, and I am surprised that the Acting Minister of Health, the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, did not take the opportunity to stand in this House and make a ministerial statement about what is happening for the people of Havelock North. I waited. I thought the Minister would take the issue seriously enough that he would have stood and made a ministerial statement. That would have put into perspective what is happening. He could have set out what the Ministry of Health is doing. He could have set out what the district council and the regional council were undertaking. He could have set out the time lines of what has gone on. There was not a word from the Acting Minister, and I am very disappointed because it showed that this issue was not important enough to this Government for it to take it seriously.

This bug that has been found in the water supply in Havelock North is being felt in schools. Schools have been closed. It has been felt in rest homes, and we have had two of the three rest homes report cases. Two residents have been taken into intensive care and one older person from one of those rest homes has died. How could this happen in a municipal area of New Zealand, where we believe we have First World water supply?

So I think there are a number of questions that need to be asked and answers given. More than 2,000 people are now seriously ill from the gastro bug campylobacter. There must be an inquiry into how this has happened. I am told there is going to be one, but why did the Minister not stand today and say what the inquiry was and what the terms of reference are? There is no leadership on this issue. Two thousand people—when in the history of New Zealand have we had 2,000 New Zealanders go down with campylobacter in one hit? I have never heard of it. This is a large-scale health crisis and it does need urgent investigation by the Government. I have to say that the local member has been missing in action on this issue—missing in action.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s untrue.

Hon ANNETTE KING: It is absolutely true. He is missing in action. He has not said anything. I heard Nick Smith this morning asked, as an afterthought question, on Morning Report—not with the Minister on, talking about what happened, and not with the local member on the radio talking about what was happening in his area.

This particular bug can incubate for up to 10 days, so it is likely that more people will get sick over the forthcoming days. As I said, the schools are closed and 22 people are in hospital—22 people in hospital—and, as I said, two are in intensive care. New Zealanders need to be confident about their drinking water. I think the lack of Government response today, when the outbreak is well under way and the public attention is on an all-time high about this issue, shows just how seriously the Government has taken it—hoping that by ignoring it, it will go away. The Government does not understand that this is not going to go away for days. There are going to be more people ill over the next few days.

The Government has a responsibility in this debate. It has a responsibility in administering drinking-water quality in New Zealand, and it is the responsibility of the Government and the Ministry of Health to make sure that the district health board oversees the quality of water. What has been very disappointing in this whole issue is just how slow the reaction has been by the Government, first of all, to assist the council—to assist the local council in Hawke’s Bay—but also to assist the district health board, which is not equipped and not resourced for dealing with an outbreak of this size.

This is clearly an issue with the way that testing has been conducted. By the time a press release was issued on Friday evening—Friday evening—the outbreak was already spreading. So it took until Friday evening for a press release to be released. I am informed that this outbreak was known about much earlier than that, but the public were not advised. If the local member knew and the Minister knew, where was their leadership on this issue? Where were they when it came to this issue? Only today is an outreach programme going door to door, knocking on people’s doors—only today, 4 days after the positive test result, it is being implemented for vulnerable elderly citizens. So now officials have decided to go door to door, days after the event, when many people have been affected—filling up their glasses, having a drink of water, not knowing they were drinking contaminated water. The Red Cross and civil defence are being involved only now, Minister Smith, Minister for the Environment. They are being involved only now. Why have we waited so long? Why has this Government ignored—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Not true.

Hon ANNETTE KING: The Minister has a habit, I have to say, of saying: “Not true.” He spent the entire day saying “Not true.”, on every question that was asked of him. I can tell him that this is true. The Red Cross and civil defence are being involved only now. That is correct. Water tankers arrived only yesterday—dispute that, Minister. Water tankers arrived yesterday, when a boil-water notice was issued on Friday evening. This shows a real dereliction of duty.

Andrew Little: Cavalier.

Hon ANNETTE KING: It is very cavalier, in terms of the approach towards the health of vulnerable New Zealanders, because this particular bug affects older people. Our old grannies and grandads, our older parents—they are the ones who are affected, and that is why you have the elderly from rest homes affected. One has died and others are in intensive care. This is a disgrace—this Government’s reaction to a serious issue.

But I have to say that this Government has taken a completely hands-off approach when it comes to the quality of drinking water around New Zealand. Last year the Government cut the drinking-water subsidy. In fact, in many of our small towns, where many of our water supplies are not up to standard, the Government cut the money that was going to them—money that we put in in Government under Helen Clark, which helped many small communities upgrade their water supply so that they had a decent water standard. This Government is so lacking in interest in the quality of water, a No. 1 public health issue—is there one product in the world that keeps us alive? It is water. And having quality water must be a gold standard for any First World country.

Well, the Government cut the subsidy, and last year only $10 million was available to councils around New Zealand and they had 40 applications received for over $30 million. That is the level of need around New Zealand in our smaller communities. If you cannot care about your smaller communities when it comes to the quality of water, you are not going to care a damn about the bigger ones. They are on their own. That is what the reaction of this Government has been to Havelock North. It is on its own because the reaction has been so slow.

I want to point out to you the background of what was happening here, and I go back to Tuesday, 9 August. The Havelock supply was tested and found to be clear, but residents report that they were starting to fall ill at that time. On Thursday the 11th the test was taken. The test results were received on Friday the 12th, which indicated a presence. On Friday the 12th, the results of the second test were received at the same time as discussions were beginning with the district health board over the pattern of illness that was starting to emerge. Chlorination had been initiated by late Friday. So we are starting with people beginning to become unwell on Tuesday, and some action starting to happen on Friday evening. That is when the district council, at 5.30 in the evening, issued a boil-water communication. That was the first time it did it, and it was done with a press release.

I have to say, I wonder how many people sitting at home went online to read the press release of the Hastings District Council. How many older people saw on television that they needed to be boiling their water? As I said a moment ago, officials did not start knocking on doors until now. Those days have gone by, and that bug has spread amongst many, many of those people living in Havelock North—unadvised—not knowing that what they were doing was affecting their health. Then, on Saturday, 13 August, the positive presence was confirmed by a more detailed analysis. On Monday, it was revealed that over the past 3 years—the past 3 years—there have been three positive tests for the Brookvale bore No. 3—three positive tests. The aquifer obviously has some sort of problem, and so putting down a bore into the same aquifer is probably going to have the same results.

You would have thought that officials may well have looked at this much earlier. The council said that the level of contamination was very low and it has chlorinated the water, but that has not stopped the spread. The actions it has taken have been insufficient. I wonder whether the council has sought advice from others who supply water, to see whether there are other things that could be done.

I thought that Stuart Nash came up with a very good idea yesterday, when he said that perhaps those who are taking free water to export internationally would now like to provide the bottled water to the people of Havelock North. Why should they be paying for bottled water when, through their rates, they pay for what they think is going to be clean drinking-water? Why should it be a cost on them? They pay their rates to get good, clean drinking-water. So I say to the Government, how about putting your hand up and saying that there will be help for those people who are buying bottled water? I say to the Government, how about showing some leadership?

How about Sam Lotu-Iiga, who is the Acting Minister of Health, who always finds it difficult to give an answer on anything—why does he not take a lead? The Minister of Health might not be able to. He has got other matters that are far more important, but this Minister ought to have taken a lead. I did not know whether he was stopped from taking a lead, or whether he was told: “Keep it below the radar—we don’t want to get involved here.” If that is the case, then the Government has misread the circumstances in Havelock North.

I say to the local member, where is the member’s leadership? Has the member been and visited those communities? Has he gone and knocked on doors himself, asking people whether they are OK? Has he visited the rest homes to see whether the people there are all right? I would say that if the member has not done that, that is not the sign of a good local member. I have to say to that member that drinking water—quality drinking-water—ought to have been a priority for this Government.

I think it is a shame on this Government that we came into this House today, waiting for some indication that it meant something to the Government and to the very good people of Havelock North, but we got no response at all. I think that is a very poor performance, but I am not surprised. I am not at all surprised because I have found that public health has not been a priority for this Government. Whether it is drinking water, whether it is a subsidy for sewerage, or whether it is in terms of putting funding in to try to improve the health of New Zealanders and to lift their health status, it has not been a priority.

Hon Member: They’ve done the opposite.

Hon ANNETTE KING: The Government has done the opposite. It has cut funding to public health in New Zealand. Government members called any action that we took in public health nanny State and PC Government—only to be proven years later that it was wrong—and we now face some major public health issues in this country that they do not want to face. This is the latest example of poor Government decision-making, a lack of accountability, and a lack of leadership.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Acting Minister of Health): It is a sad time to stand up here in the House, but it is important to show concern and not play politics like that member opposite, Annette King, who time and time again comes into this House to play politics with the lives of New Zealanders.

We know that there are 12,000 people in Havelock North who are going through some serious health concerns. We know that 2,000 of them have been affected directly by this contamination in the water system. We know that the Hastings District Council is doing its best to address this matter, and that the district health board, as well as the Ministry of Health and other Government agencies, is doing its best to support what is going on in Havelock North today.

But now is not the time for recriminations. Now is not the time to point the finger. Now is the time to say “What can we do to assist those who need help, who need healthcare services, who need assistance with their ailments?”, and that is what is being done in Hawke’s Bay today. We know that this time last week, routine water-monitoring occurred in Havelock North, and that on Thursday of last week, samples were taken by the Hastings District Council from Havelock North and the Flaxmere area, and the results of those showed some contamination in the reticulation. We also know that by Friday the council had confirmed the contamination and made the public health unit in the district health board aware, and that on that day it chlorinated the water and issued notices around boiling water. We know that since then, 2,000 local residents have, sadly, been afflicted, and it is our imperative—this Government—to work alongside the district health board and to work alongside the health authorities in the area to get those people right.

I find it interesting that the member opposite, Annette King, comes in here and plays politics with this. If she really thought that it was important, why did she not ask a question during question time today? Why not? Why did members opposite not raise a question in question time today that outlined their concerns about this matter? Why have they not issued a press statement around this? Why have they not asked a question?

It is about providing support, and I have been in several conversations with the Mayor of Hastings informing me and informing the Government of progress in the area. I have also had conversations with the local member—that is, the Hon Craig Foss—who is working hard in the area, listening to constituents and doing the best that he can locally in terms of providing the services that they need. Over the weekend, public information was released by the Hastings District Council, and, as the member opposite has said, there is doorknocking going on in order to find those members of the community who need health services. Only today have the latest tests been released in terms of the contamination, and the district health board is overseeing the resources in the area. I understand that district health nurses have been brought in from other areas. Schools have been closed as a precaution, and kids are at home. We know that there is much to be done in the days ahead in terms of what the local district council and the district health board need to do in terms of the chlorination, as well as the treatment, of the local water plant.

Mention has been made of an inquiry. Certainly, the Hasting District Council has indicated that an independent inquiry will be done and that, potentially, a retired High Court judge may be seconded in to oversee that inquiry. Firstly, the Ministry of Health has assured me that it will work alongside the district council in order to ask the right questions—to probe into what went wrong, how it went wrong, when it went wrong, and what can be done to fix the issue that is at hand. Secondly, I think it is important to give trust and confidence in the water system in the area and that we analyse what can be done in the future in order for this thing to not happen again.

I understand that the district health board has activated an incident-based management team, and that happened on Friday. The Ministry of Health has sent expertise up to Hastings—it has sent communications people and an engineer, as well as other staff who may provide assistance and support where and when it is required.

We know the figures—that 22 people have been hospitalised. We know that 2,000 people have been affected, and we want to lend our support, our thoughts, and our prayers to those people who have been affected. We hope that the health authorities are able to deal with these matters in due course. We know that aged-care residential facilities—the rest homes—have been inspected. We have health officials in there—medical practitioners—to ensure that the elderly can be looked after in the appropriate way. We have been informed by the district health board that it is managing, with good bed availability across all of the respective services in Hawke’s Bay, and we also know that it has engaged with a neighbouring district health board in order to identify ways in which staffing support can be put in place in order for the proper services and the appropriate services to meet the needs of our local people. Other organisations—like, for example, St John Ambulance—have responded to calls, and we also know that they are supporting, in a way, with rostered additional staff who are on duty in the area in order to cater for the growing demands of local residents. Healthline has taken extra calls regarding these gastro issues, and we know that these calls are being fielded and that health advice and health information is being communicated across the telephone lines.

But we know that much more needs to be done, and that is why our Government is assisting in whatever way it can with the district council—which, by the way, has taken full responsibility for this. It has made a public apology and it is working alongside the district health board to ensure the health needs of local people are being met. No one likes to see this situation occur—particularly in our country, where our fellow citizens are experiencing these very terrible health ailments—but we know that once it has happened we need to do something about it. That is why the district health board is working on and is committed to dealing with these health needs as they arise.

Our Government stands alongside those people in Hawke’s Bay. We know that there is much to do. We know that an inquiry will follow, but right now the most important thing that needs to be done is to deal with the health issues of those who present to GP clinics and of those who present to hospitals, and in terms of the online help that is being given. We know that we will continue to work alongside the district council and the health board to meet those needs.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I would like to begin by thanking you, Mr Speaker, for accepting this call for an urgent debate. It is hard to imagine a situation more serious than that that is unfolding in Havelock North currently, and one more deserving of an urgent debate in this House.

The Green Party’s sympathies and support, naturally, are extended to those people in Havelock North and the surrounding area who have been affected by this campylobacter outbreak. The numbers themselves are sobering reading. Already more than 2,000 people are ill from what actually is a very serious illness, more than 20 are hospitalised, two people are currently critically ill, and one person is possibly already dead from the disease. It is a grave situation.

It is entirely appropriate that at this point the focus of those on the ground in the Hawke’s Bay and in the Ministry of Health should be on ensuring appropriate and speedy treatment for those who have been affected by the outbreak, on ensuring that the water supply is safe, and on ensuring that people have access to reliable information and the kind of practical support that they need when they need it. That is appropriate to be the initial focus.

I have been impressed in the last day or so by the leadership that I have seen from Lawrence Yule, as the Mayor of Hastings District, and Dr Nick Jones, the medical officer of health for the Hawke’s Bay—a reliable man. I have not been so impressed by the silence that I have heard from the Minister of Health. This is an issue that, although it is unfolding at a local level, has national repercussions. I believe that New Zealanders around the country, many of whom rely on water supplies similar to that in Havelock North, needed to have heard from the Minister before now. I appreciate the comments that Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga has just made in the House. Perhaps the silence has resulted from the Minister himself, the Hon Jonathan Coleman, being away from his post and Sam Lotu-Iiga stepping in to cover the role. That may well be the case.

It is inevitable that people in Hawke’s Bay are going to have some deep and important questions. How did the contamination occur? How was the contamination allowed to occur? In other words, why and how did the systems designed to keep drinking water safe fail? Could the warning have been sounded earlier? We have heard, appropriately, from the Hon Annette King that there was at least a day’s delay between a positive sample being found and anyone being told. Did we need to have that day? If we had not had that day, could infections have been prevented?

At this stage I want to be very careful not to jump to conclusions about the answers to any of those questions. Some speculation is inevitable, and I am reading about it in the news media, but the Green Party does not want to go there. But when we do come to investigate those questions, the Green Party will be looking to ensure that the investigation that occurs is as robust and independent as it possibly can be. Rather than an investigation that is commissioned by the Hastings District Council with some support from the Ministry of Health, we will want to see that investigation being led nationally and being properly independent. We will want to see the involvement of appropriate experts, such as Professor Michael Baker and such as Professor Nigel French. And we want to ensure—and this is one of the reasons why we would want such an investigation to be national in its focus and scope—that whatever is learnt about what has gone wrong and about improving water safety in Havelock North is applied not only in Hawke’s Bay but around the country.

The Hon Annette King has drawn attention to the Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme having its funding cut by this Government. That is an issue that I know has affected many, many rural communities around the country. We do not say that that has played a role in this particular disaster, but it is an issue that we would want to see canvassed in such an inquiry.

We note that with climate change and its growing impacts we are likely to be seeing an increase in the frequency of heavy rain events and an increase in the frequency of severe flooding events, and with those we are likely to see an increase in outbreaks of water-borne illness around the country. It is essential, therefore, that as a Parliament and as a nation we do what we can to ensure that the systems that are designed to keep our drinking water safe are robust and reliable and up to that challenge.

The name John Snow is one that different groups of people will probably recognise for different reasons. Some will think immediately of Game of Thrones; others will think of the prestigious newscaster. In my interests in life I immediately think, of course, of John Snow, the fantastic England fast bowler of the 1960s. But epidemiologists, and all of those who have studied public health, will think back to their very first lecture in epidemiology, because in 1854, John Snow, a physician in London, mapped an outbreak of cholera, and by doing so was able to trace the source of that outbreak to a public water pump in Broad Street, in what is now Soho in London. What happened next is somewhat apocryphal. Having traced the outbreak to that water pump, and receiving no response from the proper authorities to his having done so, Dr Snow went and removed the handle from the Broad Street pump, thereby preventing the further spread of cholera in Soho and London.

Drinking water is so ubiquitous in our lives that we have perhaps become blasé about its importance, about its preciousness, and about the impact it has on our communities when things go wrong. But following the inquiry into what has gone wrong in Havelock North, I expect this Government to take the action that is equivalent to John Snow and the handle of the Broad Street pump, and to act decisively to ensure that this kind of outbreak cannot happen again in New Zealand. Thank you.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): I am pleased to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in this urgent debate. This is a very serious situation that the people of Havelock North find themselves in. In fact, it is actually a disgrace. We rely on drinking water. We rely on the water to be pure and to not make people sick, and it is devastating for all of those people affected in the Hawke’s Bay. So our sympathies and our support go to those many people who are affected. We know that there are about 2,000 people who are ill, 125 confirmed and unconfirmed cases of campylobacter, and 22 people hospitalised. Two elderly people have been admitted to intensive care, and there is talk that one person has already died due to this very issue.

It is such a shame that the response was so slow for a disaster such as this, which usually never ever happens in New Zealand. If we were a Third World country, we would accept this, but in New Zealand—no, it is totally unacceptable. We know that schools have closed, day cares have been forced to close, and many people are away from work, so the cost to the people of the Hawke’s Bay is huge—absolutely huge. The fact that doorknocking started only today really makes one wonder how good the emergency response teams are. We wonder whether or not they should have started as soon as the outbreak was confirmed.

Why has the Government not taken the initiative and led the response with the mayor? I thought it was absolutely chronic when I heard the Hon Sam Lotu-Iiga say this issue is not about politics and that the Opposition should have asked questions today in question time. But it was quite noticeable that the Government should have asked the questions too. Why did it not take a lead on the issue?

When we look at this aquifer that is contaminated, which is 20 metres below the surface, one wonders how this has ever been allowed to occur, because there have been three positive tests for the aquifer that is currently contaminated. I would have thought that that was a big enough signal to the council and to the Ministry of Health that here was an aquifer that needed regular testing and testing on a regular basis, not just to be ignored until the next outbreak occurred. There have been problems, so why is this particular testing not being carried out and why is regular monitoring not actually being carried out?

This reaction is far too slow. The ministry has been daydreaming its way through this particular issue. The district health board knew on Thursday that a tanker-load of water from one of the bores supplying the town had actually tested positive for faecal matter. The community should have been warned right at that time. It is unfortunate and devastating for the community that it was not warned about this gastro outbreak until Friday evening, yet the district health board had known since last Thursday. And what do we hear? The district health board hoped to have a household survey in place only by this evening to get some idea of how many households are affected. I would have thought that even if one household had been affected or one street had been affected, the ministry would get straight into gear and do its duty to the people of Havelock North.

When we look at it, the Government is basically failing in its duty to protect the waterways of New Zealand. The national bottom-line for water quality has not changed but remains at “water suitable for wading or boating”. Obviously, this is not a high enough standard when this is the result. I was interested to hear Prime Minister Key say on Monday that it was highly likely that the Ministry of Health would hold an inquiry into the outbreak. I would have thought, with the number of people who have been affected, that it is absolutely essential that there is some inquiry into the outbreak. There needs to be a thorough investigation of all aquifers right throughout the country to prevent this happening again. The cost is too high when an outbreak such as this occurs here in New Zealand. So when is the water testing actually going to be monitored on a regular basis? The standards are not high enough, testing needs to be regular, and we will be waiting to see this actually happening. Thank you.

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business): It has been a rough few days in Havelock North and Hawke’s Bay. We have been boiling water, we have been buying water, we have been looking after family, we have been looking after our community, and we have been feeling for friends, neighbours, and members of the community who have had this devastating bug go through them. It has been a tough few days in Havelock North indeed, and it is not good enough in 2016 for people anywhere in this country to not be able to rely on having good, clean, quality drinking-water.

Absolutely right—it is not good enough for the people of Havelock North to be frazzled, to be at the end of their tether, to be frustrated, to be angry, to be upset, and to be absolutely at the end of their tether about an issue that none of us, actually, at this stage know the true cause of. I will come back to that in a moment. It is not acceptable for the people of Havelock North, for the ratepayers of Hawke’s Bay, to now wonder whether they were fully informed at the right time, early enough. It is not appropriate for the local member not to have been informed at the right time, when it should have been appropriate.

It has been a rough few days in Havelock North, but people in Havelock North are getting together, they are working together, they are rallying round, and people are supplying water, tankers are turning up, etc., etc. The community is doing what the community does best. The Hastings District Council has taken responsibility. The Hastings District Council is the body in charge and, as Mayor Yule said, it is responsible for delivering safe, drinking-quality water to the people of Havelock North.

There seem to be some serious gaps in the information to everybody. There seems to be some serious miscommunication across our community. The independent inquiry will probably find some holes in the system, whatever the system is, but right now we need to help get everyone well, look after our family, look after the water, and look after our community, as many of us have been doing over the last few days. Our community deserves to know the facts and deserves to know what happened, how it happened, who knew, when they knew, who was informed, when they were informed, and why or why not—but we can come back to that after the independent review.

The Government will be part of that review. The Government is very interested in the terms of reference of that review, but now is not the time for political grandstanding. People are hurt. Kids are dehydrated. Babies are suffering. Families are suffering. Elderly folk are suffering. Our families are suffering. Now is not the time to get all political about this. Now is the time to deal with it, manage it, help people get better. Now is not the time to grandstand on people’s misery, however close it might be to home. Get together across the House, members. You can come after me later, if you like. You can come after the Government, or, actually—appropriately—you should go after the particular councils and those who are responsible for managing this issue. But right now is not the time. Two thousand people are very, very unwell and 22 people are in hospital. Government agencies have been getting into action here. Their action has been under way since they first became aware.

I actually agree with half of other members’ speeches. I probably agree with half of Annette King’s speech, but not the political stuff. Kevin Hague gave a very good speech up until he got a bit waylaid there somewhere, but he is absolutely right, and I am sure other members agree with me. It is not acceptable what is going on today, but we do not know what caused it. It could have been some kind of accident or it could be something far, far worse—I do not know. We will find out, I hope. The inquiry, the district health board (DHB), the Hastings District Council—whoever—will find out, I am sure. I am very, very hopeful.

But as a local, as a resident, as a neighbour, I am deeply, deeply concerned about the unavailability and uncertainty that this has created, not only for our families but for our business community across Havelock North. Havelock North was empty right through the weekend and yesterday. Things started to empty out on Friday as people started to realise lots of people were starting to get sick, and many were not informed as to what possibly might have been going on. Some member said that before. They are quite right. They are quite right. I was speaking to someone on Friday morning who was telling me about their son. Neither of us did too much about it; we did not think too much about it other than that there were other bugs going around town at that time. Suddenly it ramped up on Friday and over the weekend. It is obviously very, very serious.

I am calling now on the business community across Hawke’s Bay—the suppliers to the businesses of Havelock North that have had a collapse in their revenue and business over the last few days—to be accommodating and reasonable, because come 20 August a whole lot of invoices will be due, and a whole lot of businesses’ cash flows have dried up. I ask them, as a local, as a fair-playing Kiwi, as a fair-playing Hawke’s Bay person, to be accommodating, to offer solutions, to help the cash flow of some of those businesses that are having very, very tough times. Banks, landlords, suppliers—particularly the larger suppliers—be reasonable, be fair, and be accommodating, because the stress that we have all suffered and the stress that many are still suffering right now, we do not need to continue across to the business environment.

The issue will come right eventually. I hope it has peaked; I do not know. The DHB thinks it has peaked. We will not know until probably today or tomorrow, but we do not know. We will get through it. We need to get through it. We always get through. Yes, there will be an inquiry later on to see whether there are any gaps in the systems—most importantly, the communications and information systems. But right now, I repeat, it is not the time to have a go or to be political. There will be time for that later, I am sure. Right now, please, members, join me in trying to do anything that you can—I can, we can, our communities can—to help Havelock North through this disaster, crisis, emergency, or whatever you call it. Please help us to help ourselves to get through this. Put the politics aside, at least until we get on top of this issue and it has absolutely and truly peaked and we know that it has ended. Thank you.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. Firstly, I want to thank a very learned colleague of ours, the Hon Annette King, for writing to the Speaker, and, of course, yourself, Mr Assistant Speaker, to accept this as an urgent debate. I want to acknowledge the member who just sat down, Craig Foss the member for the electorate of Tukituki, or what some people in my electorate are calling “Tikotiko”, which is the Māori word for diarrhoea. All kidding aside, I want to say to that member that bringing this important issue to the House so that you on that side—the Government—can say what you are doing about it is not grandstanding. It is not grandstanding. It is actually saying in this House that the biggest water-borne disease outbreak known to any place in New Zealand has happened in Havelock North. It is the largest water-borne outbreak that we are talking about here.

So it is not something that we need to hide away from, or not—we are in a political House. The issue is that the people of Havelock North have been left high and dry. That is the assertion here: they have been left high and dry. This is a serious matter. The people of Havelock North—13,000 people. This outbreak has affected about 2,000 people whom we know of—2,000. By my calculation that is about 15 percent of the population of Havelock North. If this was an earthquake, if this was a flood, if this was a fire, would we still be sitting on our hands days after we knew there was an outbreak? I would say no. We needed a Government of action, not platitudes. They needed action in Hawke’s Bay and Havelock North at the time that they most needed it. They absolutely needed leadership, and they never got it.

I live but 7 minutes from the village of Havelock North. I do not consider myself a local, but I know the area really well. It is a very, very good area, Havelock North. I am also told that on Friday, while we were going through whether or not it was contaminated, we also saw the holding of the primary schools cross-country competition in Havelock North. Maybe not thousands, but definitely hundreds of young people participated in the cross-country event in Havelock North. You can just imagine, hundreds of young people running around Havelock North, and of course they are going to drink because they are in Havelock North and they have just finished an event, but they did not know to boil their water until 5.30 that afternoon—5.30 that afternoon. So it is a serious matter, and I am yet to hear from that side of the House as to what practical steps those members are going to take.

I want to commend the local leadership of the Hastings District Council, Mayor Lawrence Yule, who actually took it on the chin and took responsibility for the situation. But there was a point in time when I believe that we should have had intervention. I heard the member say that a communications breakdown did happen. I take from that, that he was not informed until too late. I do want to say that the actions of the local Hawke’s Bay District Council and the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board could have been aided if the Government had come to the party early enough. It makes me ask the question: how well is our civil emergency system operating in New Zealand? How is it that the supply was tested on Tuesday last week—how is it that on Tuesday, 9 August it was tested and the results were not made known until Friday, 12 August? So, Tuesday to Friday, you are talking of about 4 days—4 days. We have heard the statistics. We have heard that 2,000 people were affected. We have heard that there are 22 who, at this moment, are in hospital. We have heard of the impact that it has had on the elderly in the rest homes, and also on the vulnerable families whom we have in Havelock North, and yet we did not hear anything from this Government.

Like I said, this is the biggest, the largest, water-borne outbreak that we have seen in this country, and the Government has been found wanting. Yes, there is going to be an inquiry, and I want to say to the member for Tukituki that I would put my hand up to be part of setting out the terms of reference for that inquiry, as a person who lives in that area and because of the importance of water not only to the people of Havelock North but to all the people of Hawke’s Bay. We are lucky in Hawke’s Bay to be on an aquifer. The local iwi calls it te haukū nui—the giver of life—not only to the people who live in Hawke’s Bay but also because it is the heart of the surrounding horticultural and wider agricultural sector.

So we do need to urgently take this matter seriously. We do need to take urgent steps to make sure that the inquiry does ask those questions: how did this happen—how did we get animal contamination deep down in an aquifer? I share with many people from Hawke’s Bay—we are all stunned that the aquifer can be contaminated. Nobody knows why, and that is why the inquiry needs to ask those questions about how it occurred. But, more importantly, from my perspective, we have to learn from this outbreak, so that it does not ever occur again.

This is the interesting thing about Hawke’s Bay. We have had this major contamination in the suburb of Havelock North, and yet just down the road we have two major water-bottling plants. I want to commend the water-bottling plant that has come to the party to offer free water for the elderly, but I do believe that free water should be available for all communities in the community of Havelock North. This is because it is our gold—in Hawke’s Bay, our aquifer water is our gold. Every household in the Havelock North area and in the wider Hawke’s Bay area deserves to have clean drinking-water.

I join all members on this side to ensure and hold the Government to account, which is our job, to make sure that outbreaks like this are not only actioned through real, practical suggestions—I have had reports that the local medical centres in Havelock North were just overwhelmed. Why did we not think about putting in some doctors or some emergency medical centre in Havelock North to alleviate the pressures that local doctors were experiencing? And some of the cases that were presented that were not specifically related to this outbreak were asked to defer. Why did we not do that? Why could we not do that? What stopped us from doing that?

I touched on the free water. And then there is also who was getting around to knock on doors, particularly of the elderly but also of our vulnerable families within Havelock North, to make sure that people were OK. That is happening now—and I commend those who are doing it—but why did it not happen on Friday when we first found out that the water was contaminated? Why was there not a plan of action on Saturday and Sunday? Why did a water tanker turn up only yesterday and not on the weekend? These are really important questions, and I hold the Government to account because we knew on Friday that the water was contaminated. Late on Friday, at 5.30 p.m., the message went out to boil your water, and then everybody was left to their own devices on Saturday and Sunday. We were seeing a bit of action on Monday, and now here we are in the House debating it.

It is a serious matter. I am pleased that it was brought to this House to debate. I have yet to hear from that side what practical steps those members are going to do to assist with the outbreak now, but more importantly, I am interested in hearing from the Government how it is going to take the lessons from this, to prevent it ever happening again and to ensure that our civil emergency system is fit for purpose. Kia ora tātou.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): I would like to echo the thoughts from around the House and commiserate with this community for this very unfortunate outbreak. I would also like to acknowledge the local member for his very clear and authentic concern and thoughts towards the community.

This is a time for all in the community to be steady and to do the simple things that will see this through. It will be seen through—there is no outbreak of C. jejuni that has ever occurred across the world that has not passed, and this one will do the same. The community needs to be steady. If we make our way through the community, those with young children need to keep them rehydrated and they need to keep them warm, and it is a time for bland foods. Again, every offer of advice is prefaced by “And if you are concerned, please see your general practitioner or family doctor.”

Parents need to be vigilant, and not just for themselves. I would ask them to be particularly vigilant with hand-washing and personal hygiene. It is very important to bring this outbreak to a conclusion. Sometimes we need to think about the simple things, and hand-washing is a simple thing. If we look back at medicine though history, the big advances have not actually been X-rays or CT scanners or magnetic resonance imaging. They have been in terms of public health—even antibiotics. There was a decrease in mortality and morbidity long before antibiotics came along. It was hand-washing. It was clean water. It was sanitation. They have been the big improvements, and so I want to reinforce hand-washing and personal hygiene in the middle of this. Let us do that well. For older people it is actually the same advice as for younger people: rehydrate, keep warm, good hand-washing, bland foods, and see your family doctor if you are concerned.

I would like to extend what my colleague was saying to the medical community, and I want to acknowledge them. They are bearing the front-line burden at this point in time. I want to acknowledge general practitioners. They will be working extra hard. I want to acknowledge the nursing teams who work with them. They will be working extra hard. Accident and emergency departments will be working hard, as will the hospital doctors. And then there is the whole logistics chain, because when you need to rehydrate people, it is very likely that you are going to need to bring supplies into the area. So there is there is likely to be an increase in trucking and an increase in logistics to help with this.

To the local government leadership, thank you for owning this problem. Let us figure it out, let us fix it, and then let us share the learnings. I think that is the stage that needs to happen here. Then, once we have done that, let us look back and make good decisions for policies going forward. When we have the facts, I am sure we will be in a better place to do that. It is a time for steady hands and doing the simple things. I think that is the message I would like to share here. Thank you.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): One in 10 people lack access to safe water, and, somewhere, a child dies every 90 seconds from a water-related disease. That is 60 children who are going to die of a water-related disease by the time this debate on water quality in Havelock North has concluded. It is estimated that more than 500,000 people die as a result of drinking contaminated water every year. That is around 90 people who will die before this debate concludes. Some 636 million people are estimated to live without clean water, and diseases from dirty water kill more people every year than all those who die from armed conflict. And then we shake our heads, we change the channel, and we watch the rugby, because that is a Third World problem—because people in New Zealand do not get sick from drinking water. We do not go to hospital from drinking water out of our taps. Well, we do. This is a wake-up call that we need to now take the issue of water quality and water security very, very seriously.

Let us deal with the facts when we do not get it right: over 2,000 people are seriously ill. There are 22 people in hospital, and, knowing how stoic Hawke’s Bay people are, I assume it is probably twice that number who should be there at the moment. There are two people critically ill, and, apparently, one person is possibly dead as a result. And this is in New Zealand.

The facts, as I understand them, are that the district council knew conclusively on Friday, but perhaps as early as Thursday, that campylobacter was the cause of this outbreak, but did not notify residents until Friday evening. When people have diarrhoea, when they vomit, they are told to drink water to stay hydrated, and this is what the residents of Havelock North did for at least 8 hours, but perhaps as long as 24 hours—young children, healthy adults, and elderly citizens. A good friend of mine was struck down with this on Tuesday. She drank water for 3 days in order to keep hydrated.

This is the situation we find ourselves in, and of course we need to find solutions. There will absolutely be learnings, but let us crawl out from underneath our veil of smugness and start dealing with the issue of water seriously, with the level of urgency it now deserves and, as Kiwis, we expect. This is not a time to apportion blame or to point fingers, but it should be a time when central government and local government actually come together and work to come up with solutions under urgency to address the issue. I believe this has not happened in the optimal way that perhaps it could have. I suspect that what comes out of any review will, hopefully, be a plan that says: “When this sort of thing happens, this is what we need to do—and under urgency.”

It is not acceptable that it has taken 4 days for the council to start organising doorknocking for a whole lot of elderly residents. Keep in mind—and I have got to say this—Havelock North is not one of these poor suburbs, where people are suffering from diseases of poverty. Havelock North is, in fact, one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country, and certainly in Hawke’s Bay. So this is not about social economics in any way, shape, or form. This is about how we deal with a very, very serious situation in our communities.

I just think that it could have been done better. In fact, we all know that it could have been done better. Like Mr Foss, I would like to be part of the review, and I think my colleague Meka Whaitiri also should be part of that review, because this comes down to the fact of what our communities are about. They are about us working together, but they are also about meeting expectations when something goes wrong. I just do not think that the expectations of the Havelock North people, the expectations of Hawke’s Bay, or even the expectations of New Zealanders—that when 2,000 people go down ill, it takes this long to get some sort of coordinated response. It could have been better. It should have been better.

Like everyone in this House, I wish the people of Havelock North a very speedy recovery. I hope we find a solution to this. I sincerely hope that this was just an unfortunate glitch in the system that is easy to fix. I hope it was, but I will just reiterate: it should have been done better, it could have been done better, and, next time, it must be done better. Thank you very much.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): Access to safe drinking-water is one of the most basic requirements of any society, and the failure that we have seen in Havelock North over the last few days is totally unacceptable. That basic requirement—that Kiwi families can turn on the tap, drink the water, and expect it to be safe and to not get sick—is about as basic a requirement as we have of councils. I want to support the speech made by my colleague Craig Foss, who said, absolutely correctly, that the focus today has to be on ensuring that the people of Havelock North can get access to safe water, ensuring that those people who are sick are getting access to the very best of health services at both secondary and primary levels, and ensuring that the information is distributed as efficiently as possible to his community and they get the support that they need.

There will be a time when an inquiry gets to the bottom of the questions that the people of Havelock North and members of Parliament would want answered. We need to know what was the source of the contamination. We want to know whether the contamination could have been picked up earlier. We want to know whether the testing regime that the Hastings District Council had was appropriate and responded to at the correct time. We should ask the question as to whether there should have been a precautionary approach to the chlorination of that particular water supply. We want to know whether the response from council when it got those test results was appropriate and whether the communications were fast enough. They are the right questions, but I would challenge members to try to answer those at this point.

I think it is important that we note the facts that we do know. The Hastings District Council has said that this water supply had clear results last Tuesday. We know that test samples were taken last Thursday, and that on the Friday, the council advises, it delivered a negative result on the E. coli. We know that that day it informed the district health board. We know that on that day it began chlorination. We know that campylobacter, which is the most likely source of contamination, based on the test results that are being provided today, does have an incubation period of a number of days, so it is not proper for members to automatically conclude that people who are getting sick today would necessarily have been able to pick it up—that is proper for an inquiry.

I want to make plain the response that there has been from Government, which has been conveniently overlooked by members opposite. The fact is that the Ministry of Health convened the National Health Coordination Centre immediately it was notified by the council. We know that the district health board did seek support, and the Ministry of Health immediately provided three of its expert staff—from the point of view of a water engineer, an emergency manager, and a communications adviser. We know that the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management committee has offered every support to the Hastings District Council. We know that the Ministry for Primary Industries has stepped in to check, in terms of the supply of safe food. And we know that the Ministry of Health has been working as closely as possible with the Hastings District Council. So the claims that are being made by members opposite repeatedly in this debate that the Government has done nothing are simply incorrect.

I would also say to members opposite that in claiming that the standards are not appropriate, they say I am misinformed. We have here the National Environmental Standard for Sources of Human Drinking Water standards, which could have been breached only by the incident that has occurred in Havelock North—those national environment standards for which I am responsible. I question members opposite who incorrectly claimed in this debate that somehow members on this side think what has occurred is acceptable. As well as those national environment standards—

Stuart Nash: We did not say that.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member who interjects clearly did not hear the contribution from New Zealand First.

Then we come to the issue of the standards set by the Ministry of Health on drinking water, which have also clearly been breached. This is a bit like the Canterbury earthquakes, where members opposite will use anything, out of political desperation, to try to make politics out of issues.

Let us just go through a few of the desperate claims from members. Firstly, they criticised Craig Foss. Well, Craig Foss was on the phone with me on Sunday, raising—quite appropriately—the issue. Those members said he had done nothing. These are the same members who continually claim, and have told Sam Lotu-Iiga, that he should not interfere in councils’ water supplies, and when something goes wrong in a council water supply, the first thing they want to do is blame the Government.

If there had been application and support from the Hastings District Council that there was a problem with this water supply, and this Government had not responded with funding, there might be attempts for members opposite—but that is clearly not the case in this situation and is, thus, another case of Opposition members trying to join the dots. What this House should do—and I commend the Green Party—is to say: “This is serious, but before we start pointing the finger, before we start attributing blame, and before we start saying what are the right conclusions to draw, there needs to be a full and proper inquiry.” And the Government has made plain that that will occur, but that will occur secondarily to the immediate priorities for the community of Havelock North, and that is to ensure that there are the proper health services, that there is the proper immediate response occurring today.

I again say that what has occurred in Havelock North is totally unacceptable. Basic access to safe drinking-water is at the core of what councils are required to provide. We have a national environment standard for watercourses that are used, including aquifers for drinking water. That has been breached. We have a Ministry of Health drinking-water standard. That has been breached. We need to get to the bottom of why that has occurred and ensure that we do not see, again, hundreds, or potentially thousands, of New Zealanders becoming unwell because of the sort of contamination that has occurred in the Havelock North water supply.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill

Third Reading

Imprest Supply Debate

Imprest Supply Debate

Debate resumed from 11 August.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand and speak on Budget 2016, this Estimates debate, and I am very pleased to support the Hon Bill English on a great Budget, which, across New Zealand, business and all of the different types of sectors are seeing as a good way and good road forward.

Throughout the extent of this Government, National has focused on building a stronger and more prosperous New Zealand. As we know, we went through some very difficult times at the end of 2008 and 2009 with the global financial crisis. We have gone through devastating times in New Zealand’s recent history that brought tragedy and, of course, around that, not only personal cost but great cost to communities and also to the Government. So building a strong economy and a prosperous New Zealand can sound very clichéd, but in the context of those events it has been a tremendous goal, which I believe this Government has strongly pursued, and we are seeing the fruit of it and the benefit of job creation happening in our economy in a very positive and very gratifying way.

It is great to see that over the last 3 years there have been around 200,000 new jobs created in the economy. This reflects businesses that have confidence, businesses that are doing better and are doing well, and businesses that are prepared to invest in opportunities, particularly for young people to come through into the workforce and also to help people who are repositioning themselves into new positions because of redundancies that have occurred.

I believe that it comes down to responsible management, and, whether it is central government, local government, or regional government, we are put in these places to manage the resources that are given to us through ratepayers and taxpayers, very responsibly. It is also because of the hard work of New Zealanders. It is not just responsible management of an economy and all the settings that that economy needs by Governments, by ministries, and by Government departments, but combined with that is the hard work, the commitment, the trust, and the faith in the New Zealand way of life that businesses have as well, and because of that our economy is performing well.

We are projected to be performing growth of 3.4 percent over this next coming year and the year ahead, and that is better than most countries in the world. We can be very thankful about that because it provides more jobs, provides higher incomes, and ensures that we can provide essential services and support to New Zealand families and have families in New Zealand who have confidence that their young people have great futures here. That is a very good thing. So we are very thankful for many, many things, and it does come down to the smart and hard work of New Zealanders who, through those difficult times, have had to be resilient, have had to push ahead.

One of the areas that we have seen development in is this area of innovation, particularly in the ICT sector but also right across manufacturing and, particularly, in the food and beverages sector, where we have seen great growth, expansion, and New Zealand products in high demand around the world.

It is a very competitive global economy. One thing that we need to be is not only smarter but also more efficient because we know that the costs of getting our products to market are very high. We probably live the farthest away from many of our markets than any other country. Therefore, we have to be efficient. It requires infrastructure that will support efficient transportation to ensure that we do get our products to market in the quickest, safest, and also the most cost-effective way. This Government has invested a huge amount into transport infrastructure and will continue to do so. We realise that the route to market is not just road and not just rail but it is also across the oceans. Getting our products to port is very, very important. We need to get them there on time, and in good condition, and coordinate in such a way with the shipping lines that come and service New Zealand so that we get to our world markets and are able to compete.

New Zealand is a very small nation at the bottom of the world—we all know that—yet around the world the New Zealand story is being heard. It is not just about an economy that is doing better than most, and it is not just about leadership that is consistent, stable, firm, and focused; it is about the innovation that takes place.

I was overseas and I was sitting at a restaurant table—and this is a really interesting story because it is a story that you hear about only when you have those conversations. An Indian gentleman and his wife and family were sitting next to my wife and me. We asked each other where we were from. Obviously, I said New Zealand, and he said Boston. He had been in Boston for 25 years. I said: “Look, you must come to New Zealand. We are a beautiful country. You are here visiting this nation.”—that we were visiting at the time—“Come to New Zealand.” He said: “I know New Zealand. I’ve never been there, but I know New Zealand. Every day when I am on my treadmill I am watching videos of the Great Walks of New Zealand”—this is what he said—“and I run the Great Walks.” There are nine of them that the Department of Conservation (DOC) has produced. What this is is the innovation that is putting New Zealand into the world market place.

So there was somebody who said “I see New Zealand all the time.”—perhaps he has probably seen more of the Great Walks than I have. This is the type of thinking where, if we are going to cross the barriers of distance, we are going to have to be smart about how we market this place. This is the type of thinking that I believe is going to make the great difference. He said: “I am coming, and I am bringing my family.” I gave him my card and said: “Please look me up when you come.” He looked at it and said “Oh, you’re a politician, aren’t you?”, and I said: “Yes, I am.” He said “My wife’s father was a Speaker of the House in India and he passed away.”, and then he said that his wife’s mother then became an MP. So I am sure that when they come we will see them here visiting Parliament, and you will know that that is a true story.

Kris Faafoi: We believe you.

JONATHAN YOUNG: Thank you. It is wonderful when the members of the Opposition have such great confidence in a National speaker. Anyway, in terms of management in the economy, one of the areas that we have done—and it has been very important—is to work through to the place where surpluses become increasingly available for debt reduction but also for the reduction of the tax burden in New Zealand.

Back in 2010, taxation was reduced to 28 percent for businesses, which kept us competitive—more than competitive—with Australia. Those sorts of advantages are important because what we are seeing these days, as I said before, are businesses gaining confidence as they do their business in New Zealand, as they export, and as they employ New Zealanders. All of that—I believe, right across the House we would agree—is very important for our future prosperity. The infrastructure investment, which I touched on before, includes nearly $14 billion for our roads. This Government has also, over this last period of time, invested nearly $4 billion into KiwiRail. So you cannot accuse us of just loving tar and tarmac, and people cannot accuse us of not investing into the mode of transport that is most able to carry bulk loads—such as KiwiRail. We believe that all of these aspects of infrastructure are very important for the New Zealand economy.

We have invested over $2 billion in ultra-fast broadband. It is ultra-fast broadband that connects us city to city—to rural areas with the Rural Broadband Initiative as well—but it also connects us to the world. Why was it that that businessman from Boston was able to sit there and watch those videos of the Great Walks of New Zealand? It is because of the platform that ultra-fast broadband offers, and that is part of the marketing strategy of not only Tourism New Zealand but DOC, which produces those videos. It is part of putting our story out there in a very exciting way.

We have great confidence in our quality trade agreements, and I do look forward to seeing the Trans-Pacific Partnership go ahead. We wait with bated breath, of course, regarding the United States—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member’s time has expired.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): It is good to be taking a call in this Estimates debate. I want to speak about the issue that has been hanging over this Government like a dark cloud all through the preparation of this Budget, the delivery of the Budget, and, in fact, the aftermath of the Budget, and that is the housing crisis. There are many items in the Budget, and Ministers have been along to a select committee and have talked extensively and been grilled on their housing policies. I want to do a bit of an overview, a bit of a summary, of those different housing policies, and evaluate them.

Apart from the members opposite, I think that everybody in this House and, in fact, everybody in the country accepts that we have a housing crisis. Let us just look at the most recent kinds of headlines in the last few days: “26 percent annual house price inflation on average nationwide”—26 percent. That is unbelievable. That actually puts New Zealand’s house price inflation right up there with a handful of the international cities that have the fastest-growing house prices. Any day now, the average house in Auckland is going to hit $1 million in value. One million dollars in value for average houses across the whole Auckland region—you would not have believed it a while back. We have got the lowest homeownership rates in 65 years, and hardly a day goes by without some new revelation of the squalor and homelessness that people are suffering as they are squeezed out the bottom of the rental market.

Most recently, we saw revelations that the Government had been referring desperate people, homeless people, to some of the worst slum landlords in South Auckland, who were charging them several hundred dollars a week to live in unconsented garages. Entire families were crammed into a single room of a shared house. That is the situation we are facing.

What is the Government’s response to this housing crisis that is now enveloping the country? Well, most recently, Nick Smith ratcheted up, for the third time in 2 years, the house price thresholds for the home-buyer assistance scheme HomeStart. It is the third time in 2 years the Minister has had to increase the thresholds, because house prices are increasing so fast. In the last 12 months it turned out that only 9 percent of these HomeStart grants were made to people in Auckland, and that just shows you that this kind of tinkering policy, providing some subsidies for first-home buyers, has been rendered obsolete by skyrocketing house prices in the Auckland housing market.

The special housing areas, which have really been the centrepiece of the Government’s housing policy in Auckland, have been around for nearly 3 years. They have resulted in, we think, about 1,200 completed homes in 3 years. A shortfall of 42,000 homes has built up since National has been in office—42,000 homes. That is how much Auckland is short on dwellings, and the Government’s big policy, the special housing areas, has delivered only 1,200 homes in 3 years—a spectacular failure.

With regard to Nick Smith’s policy to develop vacant Crown land, which he announced two Budgets ago and updated with more money in the most recent Budget, he has been scrambling around trying to find scraps of land: power substations—he even had cemeteries, and he even had the old Government House on the list. He promised 500 hectares in the Budget before last, he has found 20 hectares, and I think he has announced only three development deals for that land—again, promising big, but delivering very, very small.

I want to just say, by contrast, that Labour’s policy in this area is a commitment to build—to actually build—100,000 affordable homes. That is what Labour is going to do—an average of 10,000 new, affordable homes for first-home buyers every year. It is going to create 5,000 new jobs in the construction industry. It is going to ramp up the building and construction sector to the equivalent of the top of the cycle, and maintain it there for a decade. It is a serious policy, designed to change the market dynamics and to revive and sustain a flagging building and construction industry that is struggling to match the kind of red-hot demand that we see at the moment.

Labour has announced that we are going to legislate for an affordable housing authority: a central government - mandated urban development organisation that will maintain the Government’s urban land holdings and set up project-specific urban development authorities to deliver thousands and thousands of new, affordable homes in the context of high-quality, master-planned new developments. We have proposed a whole new approach to managing urban growth that recognises that restricting and stopping cities from growing up and growing out has only one effect, and that is to drive land and dwelling prices up.

Labour is proposing a whole new approach, far more radical, and far more courageous and thoughtful than the kind of business-as-usual approach that we have seen from the National Government with its national policy statement, which came out just after the Budget. It is actually far more of a bold reform than the Auckland Council’s unitary plan, which is just a kind of business-as-usual approach with a bit more up-zoning and a bit more greenfields land. That is the kind of tinkering, business-as-usual, lacking in ambition approach that we have seen from the National Government.

Let us talk about the influence of speculators in the housing market, because that is something that is a big topic for debate when 46 percent of all property transactions in Auckland at the moment are going to speculators—46 percent. The staggering levels of house price inflation that we are now seeing in places like Wellington, Tauranga, Hamilton, and others are being caused by Auckland property investors, who are fleeing the Auckland market because of the Reserve Bank’s loan-to-value ratio lending restrictions and driving up house prices elsewhere around the country. What is the Government’s approach? Last year it introduced a 2-year brightline test, saying that if you flick a house within 2 years of buying it, or a rental property, you are going to pay income tax. Treasury told the Government it would be ineffective. It said it would be lucky if it raises $5 million.

What has Labour promised? We are going to push that out to 5 years, so that if you sell a house or a rental property within 5 years of buying it, you will pay income tax on the capital gain. That is a serious policy. We have signalled we are going to move on negative gearing. Last year property investors pocketed $650 million in tax breaks as a subsidy for speculation. Negative gearing is the practice of being able to write off your losses on a rental property. If you are getting less in rental revenue than you are paying in mortgage interest, you can write off those losses against other taxable activity. Labour is going to put a stop to that.

The biggest contrast is with the Government’s dodgy manipulation of the foreign buyer data that Land Information New Zealand has been gathering for the last 9 months, claiming speciously that the data shows only 3 percent of people in the market are foreign buyers. It is obvious—and the Government was ridiculed and laughed out of town by the commentators and by the media when it released this data a couple of weeks ago—that is it much more than that, probably two or three times as much.

Let us look at the rental sector, finally. More than half of New Zealanders rent. We have seen that Nick Smith’s policy to set insulation standards has a giant loophole in it, allowing redundant insulation standards to continue in rental properties. We are seeing a systematic selling-off of State houses. In the middle of a housing crisis, the Government has reduced the total number of State houses by a net 2,500—in the middle of a housing crisis—while it has pulled $500 million in dividends out of Housing New Zealand while people are living in garages and campgrounds. It is unbelievable.

Labour will set standards for healthy, dry homes. We will make it illegal for landlords to rent out cold, damp, mouldy homes—and this Parliament will have a chance to vote for that when Andrew Little’s bill comes back to the House. We are going to revitalise State housing in the 21st century. We are going to stop National’s sell-off. We are going to bring Housing New Zealand back into the core Public Service with one job, and that is to put a decent roof over the heads of people in this country who need it. We will build more State houses and increase the total number of State houses by at least 1,000 a year until demand is met, and we will more than double the current funding available for emergency housing. Paula Bennett made a great show of saying that she was going to spend $10 million a year to fund emergency housing for the homeless, but she has had to come to this House and admit that it would not generate any new places. Labour will do the job properly.

MELISSA LEE (National): It is a great pleasure to rise to take a third reading call in the Estimates debate for 2016. I was going to mention to Phil Twyford, the member who just sat down, that normally people say “You had me” at something, but I would say you lost me in terms of the Auckland housing crisis. I thought he was actually going to blame me, the person with a Chinese-sounding surname, for being singularly responsible for the rise in Auckland house prices, but he did not quite go there. He did sort of talk about the issues.

I think that one of the great things this Government has done is help the average Kiwi improve their situation by improving their salaries. The median wage will actually go up to $63,000 a year in 2020. That is actually what we are going to be doing. I mean, that is a $16,000 increase on when we came into Government in 2008. I think that when you look at what Mr Twyford was talking about in terms of house affordability and the housing issue, it is when we have a low interest rate that people can actually get a cheap mortgage. It is an opportunity for average Kiwis to own their own homes.

I remember some years ago when the mortgage interest rate was well into double figures, and even then we were dreaming about buying our own homes—that quarter-acre section—or owning our own villas or townhouses. I remember a long time ago, when somebody actually gave me big advice—that I should buy a home in Queenstown. The price was $30,000. This was some years ago, obviously. I thought: “Queenstown, $30,000—I could probably afford that.” There were huge interest rates back then, and the cost of flights to Queenstown was absolutely astronomical. I thought: “Who would actually go and live in Queenstown?”. A few years ago that $30,000 home sold for $3 million. So it is not just Auckland that has increasing house prices; it is what is called advancement.

Todd Barclay: Even Gore’s up. $208,000—the average there.

MELISSA LEE: Thank you, Todd, for contributing there.

The issue is about the modernisation of cities. Global cities around the world are have housing issues. There is also the issue of people wanting to come back to this country. We used to have a problem with New Zealanders who did not want to live in New Zealand. They wanted to go across the Ditch or overseas because life was so difficult in New Zealand. Now we have people wanting to move back because New Zealand is such a great country. We should be celebrating that success—people thinking that New Zealand is doing great. We need to build more houses—we do actually admit that, and we are doing that. The fact that this Government is building more houses than the previous Labour Government is a testament to that.

During the previous debate on the Estimates—and I have to say that I have enjoyed the speeches of the Ministers and my colleagues from this side of this House particularly—I did not have time to raise the great work that Minister Joyce has been doing to support rural economic growth across New Zealand. His work as part of the Business Growth Agenda has been helping to revitalise job growth and better infrastructure around our regions. The regional programmes that the Minister and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment have been working on are great.

Just a few days ago, at the start of this month, my colleague from Kaikōura, Stuart Smith, and I met with a group of rural Korean students who are studying in different New Zealand regions as part of joint initiative between Education New Zealand and the South Korean Government’s educational enterprises. It stems from the free-trade agreement (FTA) that was struck between Korea and New Zealand. There are about 150 students here, and they are given the opportunity to experience New Zealand’s rural lifestyle. In Korea the rural lifestyle is actually very different.

The fact that we are giving them an opportunity to learn from New Zealand—and they will take their experience back to Korea—is something we are providing as part of the FTA. It is not just about trade. It is not just about the dollar signs or selling our products. We are also having people-to-people contact. The fact is that those students are living in Kiwi homes, in homestays, and they are also providing Korean culture and Korean etiquette. These are the things that they bring with them to the Kiwi families they encounter.

When talking about those kinds of encounters, I think I have to talk about the success of the tourism industry. The tourism industry is thriving in this country. I know that my colleague Jonathan Young talked about the people whom he had met and how wonderful it was that they have high regard for New Zealand. I have to also espouse the same experience when I recently took my son back to Korea. When they heard about the fact that we were from New Zealand, they had these dreamy eyes. Apparently New Zealand is the dream location for their holiday plans, especially with the issues of threats of terrorism in Europe and also recently in Asia—terrible things.

People are frightened, and they look to New Zealand as a safe place for them to travel to. It is such a wonderful environment where they can experience nature. They talk about the great rides, the great walks, and also the ability to ride their bicycles. There are more hotel rooms being booked. There are over 88,000 more visitors from China alone visiting our country. There is more funding being made available for medium-sized tourism ventures, such as the world-class cycle trails all over our country. There is $25 million in additional funding over the next 4 years to help those cycle trails deliver a world-class experience, and other similar projects supported by this Government are helping to support local businesses, local economies, and grow New Zealand’s economy as a whole.

The Government has also invested an extra $37 million in upgrading the infrastructure that is underpinning and supporting growth in the tourism sector. Part of this funding is to help regional mid-sized facilities through a new fund that will help them to be able to enhance visitor opportunities to enjoy our nation and to grow the number of tourists, both local and international, visiting all parts of our great country. Supporting our tourism industry supports community well-being. It helps communities to grow in a healthy way, where jobs create more houses, create more local industries, and also offer new opportunities to the people who live in those regions.

A strong plan supporting the tourism industry in rural communities is a great initiative by this Government, and one I am happy to support. Just on Saturday I was able to travel up to Whangarei to meet with my Korean community. I was accompanied by the wonderful MP for Whangarei, Dr Shane Reti. One of the comments that the Korean community made was the wish to have more visitors coming up to Whangarei, so those people can grow their businesses. I think tourism is something that we should encourage in all fields, and we should encourage more infrastructure to be built in those regional cities also. I totally support that.

One of the things that I talked about with the Korean community up in Whangarei was those people’s ideas and views about how this Government is actually working and what they would like to see. One of the things they talked about was the new initiative in terms of provisional tax. Provisional tax has been a large burden on small businesses, and they thought that this Government was doing a great job of introducing a way to reduce the burden for small businesses. They congratulated me on a job well done, so I shall pass that on to the Minister who is introducing that measure.

The Government’s fiscal priorities have been to maintain rising surpluses and reduce net debt in this country. I think this National Government has actually delivered on that. The hope is that we can reduce debt to 20 percent of GDP by 2020 and work to reduce taxes, and overall help Kiwi families and businesses to get ahead. I think we are in good heart. I commend these bills to the House.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): It galls me to hear the contribution from the last speaker, Melissa Lee. Let us put this in perspective. She quoted all these fantastic tourism numbers and spoke of growth in tourism in New Zealand. As a member of the House who grew up in tourism and who is our tourism spokesperson now, I say that in terms of the numbers that were quoted, you cannot fault the statistics. But the implication that the Government had anything to do with it, with regard to the appropriation debates that we are having now, is misleading in the extreme. It is farcical that the member would imply—and that is all she is doing; she can only imply—that this Government had a hand in tourism growth in this country. It is patently untrue—untrue.

The reality is that tourism around the world and here in New Zealand is growing. It is a fantastic thing to see—and, thank goodness, for those Government members who do nothing but just sit there and cherry-pick something to talk about in the House. They are not talking about dairy any more, are they? They dare not talk any more about what is happening to the dairy market. They were, a couple of years ago, when it was going strong, and they had nothing to do with that either. But now they are talking about tourism like they had something to do with it.

To contrast the contribution from the previous speaker—the take from the Government in terms of GST revenue alone totalled nearly $1 billion. The Government spent approximately $300 million, nearly $400 million, on funding Tourism New Zealand and other projects, which is—I do not know, shall we go so far as to say “commendable”? But then the Government talks to New Zealand about the tourism infrastructure fund like it is going to solve the problems that regional New Zealand, especially, is experiencing with regard to capacity issues with tourism numbers that we are experiencing right now.

Not only will seven to 15 new public toilets, to be built over the next 4 years, do nothing to help New Zealand’s severe infrastructure shortage in terms of coping with these tourism numbers, but, in fact, what we are hearing now from the tourism industry itself is that unless there is a greater investment—and we are talking big, big numbers; not $12 million over 4 years—our New Zealand brand is going to be affected negatively. Our brand is going to go backwards. That will affect our tourism dollar take, and the Government is literally doing nothing about it except coming up with a $12 million fund and spinning it as though it is solving New Zealand’s problems. It is just completely unacceptable.

With regard to monetary policy and the juxtaposition we have with regard to that and the appropriation debate we are having today, let us get real about the situation. The Reserve Bank Governor has come to the limits of his power. No longer is he wielding a blunt axe; actually, just about anything he does can be damned if he does it, and damned if he does not. The problem we are experiencing, and—excuse the pun—the flip side of the coin, is that this Government’s fiscal policy is bereft of ideas, bereft of forethought, and is simply reactionary in nature, and not even sufficient at that.

The reason I say that is that if you look at spending on health, spending on the police, spending on education—just the big things that come to mind as I make this contribution—although the money number for those has gone up in relation to the number of people living in New Zealand, those real numbers have fallen, and it is hard for some on that side of the House to appreciate the very, very big difference. This Government is spending less on education, less on health, and less on—I think there were 19 or 20 appropriation sections, and I think 18 of them went backwards in real terms. So that is the legacy of this Government. It is reacting, but it is not reacting well enough.

As for the previous speaker making a statement around debt going down—she did not specify what; she said “debt”—when the last Government left this House and this Government took over, the debt was around $8 billion. It is a big number in the average Kiwi’s head, but that number has gone beyond $80 billion and is screaming towards $100 billion. That is the legacy of this National Government. That is the acuity—these are the responsible money managers whom we are supposed to believe, and that is what they call themselves. That is their legacy. It has grown more than tenfold, and, in anyone’s books, that is huge. With regard to debt, that is completely unacceptable.

I really wanted to talk about only two things in my contribution, but the previous speaker got me fired up, as those on that side of the House are wont to do. I want to just point out that the Budget and these appropriation debates highlight two points: the first is that this Government has no idea where regional New Zealand is, and the second one is that it has been asleep at the wheel for 8 years over the Auckland housing market. Just unbelievable. Actually, it is two points, but it pretty much covers the entire New Zealand economy.

This Government is just ignorant of what is going on around it in the bulk of the country. It staggers the mind. It truly staggers the mind that some of those MPs are only just realising now—as is the New Zealand public, as the polling figures come out. New Zealanders are only just realising now that the Government has no idea what it is doing. It has no plan. It is reacting poorly from case to case, and as for “A plan that’s working”—which is not even a byline any more; it was the big statement around the last Budget, if I remember rightly—well, there was no plan, and nobody understood what it was, because the Government would not, and could not, tell us.

With regard to the housing crisis, I think it is fair to say that unless you are over what I have coined the “rich line” now, it is no longer about middle-class New Zealanders—you have got to be rich to live in Auckland, basically. Let us put that into perspective. Principals in New Zealand are in the top 10 percent bracket of income earners in New Zealand. So, principals—top income earners, top 10 percent—were told by the Prime Minister they would have to downgrade their expectations when it comes to buying a house in Auckland if they want to live there. That is the top 10 percent earners in this country being told to downgrade their expectations by the Prime Minister and a group of people who are doing nothing to address the issue of the housing crisis in Auckland.

And it is spreading. It is spreading like a virus. Down into Hamilton, up Whangarei, down into the electorate of Rotorua, prices are getting out of kilter with reality. It would be awesome if house prices were going up because there were increases in New Zealanders wanting to live in Rotorua, there was a huge growth of jobs there, and, you know, normal economic factors were contributing to growth, which was leading to an increase in house prices, but that is not the fact. We are getting that Auckland market coming down and speculating in the local housing economy. It is distorting reality, and the very real nature of the problem is that rents are becoming unmanageable for the average Rotorua household that does not own their own house, and, more and more, Kiwis cannot even get into a house. That is the legacy of this National Government. That is what is happening.

No matter what these Ministers say, they are failing at doing their job. The Government’s lack of action and its short-term focus is literally killing the future of New Zealand and the people in it. We have watched our economy being propped up by poor immigration policy—a “short-term-itis” fix to a long-term problem—and National is reluctant to do anything about it. This Budget has done nothing to address those issues. Thank you.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): I am delighted to take a call in this appropriations debate and delighted to take a call after the last speaker, Fletcher Tabuteau. I will endeavour over the next 10 minutes to educate him about the regions and about what this Government is doing to support our economy moving forward, but not only that but also to support our families and the most vulnerable in our society, to move them on to independence and to achieving their hopes and dreams.

I am going to start by congratulating the Hon Bill English on delivering his eighth Budget. I think it was a very, very good Budget and one that builds on this Government’s record of responsible, sensible, pragmatic, and compassionate governance of this country. So not only is this Government supporting businesses to do what they do best—to grow the economy, to grow their markets and, of course, to take those risks, to take on extra staff, and to employ the extra person so that they can grow their own skill base and support their own families—but it is supporting the vulnerable, as I said earlier. This is evidenced by the statistics. We have heard that statistics do not lie, and there is forecast growth of about 3 percent over the next few years and unemployment is forecast to drop below 5 percent in the upcoming year. So we are the envy of the OECD.

Not only are we in Government going to continue to deliver on our fiscal priorities, to maintain surpluses, and to our reduce debt by 2020 but we are continually looking at the economy as a whole. So, yes, I acknowledge that we do need to focus on our larger centres. Auckland will always beat the likes of Invercargill in GDP and the money-go-round, but we have a lot going for us down South as well, and this is a Government that looks to the regions to support our economy and assists the regions to do well.

Dr David Clark: Neglecting the regions. The Southland economy has shrunk 10 percent in the last year—shrunk 10 percent.

SARAH DOWIE: The Southland economy is doing exceptionally well. It is still producing 14 percent of New Zealand’s total exporters’ receipts and boxing well above its weight—and I will continue to educate you, David Clark, along those lines.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Speak slowly.

SARAH DOWIE: Ha! I will—I will, Mr Woodhouse. I will speak very slowly so that the Opposition can pick it up. With regard to regional economic development, I am very, very pleased that this Government has come up with the Innovative New Zealand fund. The Innovative New Zealand fund is a whopping $761 million that is going to encourage entrepreneurship and business growth, and that has three parts.

The first is $411 million—and that is over 4 years—designed to develop and promote high-tech, clever ideas so that people can expand in that science sphere and come up with new ideas to commercialise, build markets, and do well.

The second is $257 million, and that is in respect of building apprenticeships in the areas that we need. We are looking at sectors like science, engineering, and agriculture—and, certainly, down in Southland we need more of that. We need more agriculture and engineering experts down in Southland to help support our primary industry.

The final one—which I am really pleased about—is supporting regional economic development with initiatives that are going to unlock business opportunities and have real tangible benefits for our regions. These are tailored to our regions, to build on each region’s individuals strengths so that each region can continue to diversify its economy, create jobs for its people, and do well.

In that regard, I want to talk about our SoRDS group—the Southland Regional Development Strategy, otherwise known as SoRDS. Some regions are more developed than others in respect of taking the lead and owning what goes on in their region, and, with the SoRDS group, Southland is one of those. It is a 2-year programme of a group of business people coming together to develop an action plan for Southland, and its target is to attract 10,000 more people to Southland by 2025. Funnily enough, migration plays a really big part in that. So the Opposition talking about reducing immigration leaves a bad taste in Southlanders’ mouths because we are crying out for skilled migrants in Southland. We are crying out for skilled people to come to our regions and take up our jobs that exist. We have a very low unemployment rate. We have a very high labour participation rate—74 percent—

Dr David Clark: Unemployment’s doubled since 2008.

SARAH DOWIE: —when the national average is 64. We have an unemployment rate of 5 percent, which is still below the national average. So we are doing very, very well, but we need more people to increase our production and keep our production up. So, yes, we need to look overseas for those skills, and we were very happy to have our Minister of Immigration, Mr Woodhouse, come and visit us recently so that we could talk about the challenges that we face.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: What was business asking for?

SARAH DOWIE: For more people—for more skilled people. So I think that our point system that we have at the moment, and the changes to the point system to encourage people to the regions, is going to stand us in good stead moving forward.

Along with that goal of attracting 10,000 more people to live in Southland by 2025, we are looking at new industries and at expanding existing industries. Currently, we have 20 percent of New Zealand’s aquaculture in Southland, producing salmon and, of course, oysters on Stewart Island. We want to expand on that. The Government has, thankfully, come in behind that, in a partnership with the Ministry for Primary Industries, our SoRDS group, Ngāi Tahu, and local government, and we are undertaking preliminary research to look at the Southland coastline as to where aquaculture could be viable. It is very preliminary at this stage, but we need to undertake some good science so that we can establish where there is potential and then look to invest in that potential. If you look at some of the statistics, for every hectare of space in aquaculture there are 22 jobs and around about $13 million in revenue. That is going to support our families moving forward, it is going to create more jobs and more revenue for our region, and I am pleased that the Government has come in behind that and is supporting Southland.

The other thing that Budget 2016 has done is invest in infrastructure—$2 billion in faster, better internet across the country, with a goal to connect 97 percent of people on the Rural Broadband Initiative or ultra-fast broadband by 2019, and that is so important for Southland. Schools were some of the first to be connected, and I want to talk about Stewart Island again, because the students at Halfmoon Bay School get to enjoy a wonderful island lifestyle—out recreating in the natural bush, enjoying an island lifestyle—but they want to go school, they want to learn, and they want to have a well-rounded education. With that connection to fibre, they can Skype to learn different subjects. What they do at this stage is that they Skype a teacher in Blenheim to learn music, and I think that that is fantastic—that these young students can stay on the island and enjoy an island lifestyle, but still learn and have a well-rounded education.

I want to end with Battle for our Birds—$20 million invested into Battle for our Birds. You only have to look, again, at Ulva Island. It is pest free, and the birdsong on Ulva Island is absolutely fantastic. Having Battle for our Birds and keeping our conservation efforts up increases tourism. Tourism has now overtaken dairy. It is one of our largest earners in the country, and we want to continue to promote ecotourism in Southland, to grow that pie for our people, and, again, to create more jobs and more wealth for our families. This is a Budget that is growing the economy but it is also supporting our families, and I am very, very pleased to be part of a Government that is doing that.

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I cannot avoid, now, using Southland as an example of how this Budget has failed—it is something I want to come back to. That speech there shows just how out of touch this Government has become. The member for Invercargill, Sarah Dowie, tried to paint economic development in Southland in a good light, when it has dropped by a whole 10 percent—a whole 10 percent—in 2015. I hope it is simply a coincidence that that has happened in the time since she was elected the member there.

I do not think it is entirely her fault that it has dropped 10 percent, but you do begin to wonder, when you hear a speech like that one, which was so disconnected from the reality of people living in that city—when they are living with a health system where funding has been cut by $1.7 billion and people in Southland are missing out on operations, and when roading funding in Southland has been cut by 23 percent. National has cut transport funding for Southland by 23 percent—$14 million—and that is just since 2010. That is how disconnected that member is, and it is a real shame to see someone so out of touch when her constituents are crying out for support. The average household income in Southland fell by $49 a week last year—the average household income fell $49 a week in Southland last year. It is extraordinary.

I spend a bit of time visiting Invercargill. I wonder whether the member herself has ever been there, because with that kind of reality—it is an alternative reality. It is not how things are going in that city right now. There are lots of great people in Invercargill. I have met loads of great people with great ideas. The transport museum is going ahead. There are people who are working hard on their farms trying to make a crust, risking their shirt every day, and then you have got a member there who is trying to pretend that everything is rosy, when 10 percent is knocked off the economy there in just 1 year. Unemployment, she said, is very low. Well, it has doubled—it has doubled—since 2008 in that part of the world, under this Government’s watch. It is extraordinary. National has also cut, let us not forget, $109 million just from the Southern District Health Board budget, in real terms. That is under this Government’s watch. This is a real example of regional neglect.

I am glad the member Sarah Dowie has brought up Southland, because it is like a poster for regional neglect under this Government. Burglaries in the Southland police area—my colleague Stuart Nash has been looking into the staff cuts in policing and the effect that that is having. Burglaries in the Southland area rose by 11 percent in the past year—an 11 percent increase in burglaries. We have got assaults up by 41 percent—up by 41 percent—in the Southland area, and that member over there says that everything is perky.

That shows just how out of touch and arrogant that Government is becoming. It can look at that situation and say: “Everything’s fine. All of you people in Southland who are doing it tough—nothing to see here. You’re imagining it. You’re just imagining it.” The burglaries have gone up. The assaults have gone up. The funding for the hospital is going down and roading has been cut by 23 percent, but Southlanders are just imagining it. The economy is down 10 percent, but they are just imagining it. The Government is doing a great job, if you would believe that member.

Well, this Government is too focused on those at the top. That is the reality. It has become more and more focused on the super-rich. I am not talking about middle New Zealand, those people who are working hard every day. It is not interested in them any more. It is interested in only the super-rich. We have seen it, of course, with the tax haven investigation it did not need to have and then was forced—embarrassed—into making. We have seen it in numerous areas. The Government has crept up the health funding a little bit this year—just nearly keeping pace with inflation—because it is so embarrassed by that $1.7 billion it has cut out of the health budget, but middle New Zealand knows the reality is different from the way the Government is painting it.

Working families under the last Labour Government—and I was not there, so I cannot claim credit for this—got 50 percent of the value of growth in the economy, and it grew, of course, a lot faster under the last Labour Government. Under this Government that portion of the economy has grown by just 37 percent. Working people got just 37 percent of the benefit of the minimal growth that there has been. So a smaller and smaller and smaller portion of the value of economic gains is going to working people. Most of the money, unfortunately, is going to a very few at the very, very top. That is whose interests the Government is looking out for.

So under this Government what we are seeing is the Kiwi Dream slipping away. The aspiration to own your own home—I speak with students in my own electorate who say they cannot now imagine owning their own home. When I was a student, I think pretty much every student thought that if they wanted to one day and if they worked hard, they could own their own home. Well, there is now a generation of students who cannot imagine that. They are burdened with student debt, and homeownership rates have plummeted. The homeownership rates used to be over 50 percent for 25- to 40-year-olds. Now they are down at just 25 percent. That is on this Government’s watch, and those inequalities are growing.

Those at the very top are getting wealthier, but, actually, 99 percent of New Zealanders are doing it tougher than ever under this Government. They are working hard. They are trying to get ahead. They are doing the right things, but this Government keeps putting roadblocks in the way. It is not supporting rural aspiration. It is neglecting the regions, and that is what we looked at, of course, with these Estimates. The regional neglect was evident there in the tiny pot of money set aside for regional development. There is nothing that will change the dial. There is a little bit of window dressing here and there. That is Steven Joyce’s style. He wants people to think he is doing something. There is a little bit of busy work there, but there is nothing to change the dial in the regions.

Of course, these members, when they do go and visit their regions—if they do get out beyond Wellington—will see that people in the regions are crying out for support. The understanding of regional neglect is very real when you go to a town like Gisborne. There are people there who want to get ahead, who are working hard, and who have aspirations, but the Government just is not coming to the party. The Government is not coming to the party.

Meka Whaitiri: It’s absent.

Dr DAVID CLARK: It is absent. My colleague is absolutely right, and she is there on the ground working with those people. It will be a good day when she is a Minister in the Government making the change that matters for those people. It looks like it is coming closer, because these people on the other side of the House are getting so out of touch.

We on this side of the House would do things differently. We would invest in people. We have said that we want to have 3 years of post-secondary education for free. We will not be getting there in our first term. We have laid out a plan. Some people say “Look, you want to do it faster.”, but we have set out a plan that is affordable, where New Zealanders can get 3 years of free post-secondary education so that we as New Zealanders can retrain as we need to, so that people in the regions can access education, and so that education provides opportunity for everybody, not just the super-wealthy. That is part of the Kiwi Dream.

We have said that we will, over time, get that money back—the $1.7 billion that the Government has stripped out of the health system. We will make sure that people do get the operations that they need. We will make sure we have better public healthcare. We will make sure that the economy is there to support those changes and aspirations that we have, because we know that more equal economies tend to do better. Where you support people to have the basics, where you make sure that every person has a decent education, where kids go to school with food in their tummies, where they have access to quality education, and where the infrastructure is there to support opportunities in the regions, countries get ahead.

Under this Government, unemployment is going to be up—by its own projections—by 45,000 at the next election, since it took office. It set itself a target of growing exports. It said exports would grow to 40 percent of our gross domestic product. Well, where is it now? It is actually back behind the starting line. It was around 30 percent when it started. It is now at less than 30 percent and going backwards. That is a sign of a Government that is failing to meet its own goals.

What we would like to see, of course, is our regions succeed, because New Zealand cannot afford a two-speed economy. We cannot afford to see one or two cities in New Zealand getting ahead—and they have got their own problems—whilst the regions are left alone to suffer in silence. That will not get our country ahead. We need every part of New Zealand to be succeeding if our country is to get ahead. We want to make sure that wage and salary earners get their share of the gains that we are getting in our economy. They are very small, and we want to grow them, but we want to make sure the wage and salary earners get their fair share, too.

In 2015 the fact that that share of the economy was going more and more to the very, very wealthiest meant that the average family in New Zealand got $50 a week less in the pocket, in real terms. That is huge. That is absolutely huge, and families are noticing it because they are not having the kind of disposable income that they used to have.

We have an aspiration for New Zealand. We are calling it the Kiwi Dream. It is about making sure New Zealanders have the opportunities they need to get ahead. It is making sure healthcare is properly funded. It is making sure the regions are supported in their aspirations. It is about making sure all New Zealanders get a fair suck of the sav. Thanks very much.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): I am pleased to be following that member, David Clark, so that I can remind the House that that is the member who has led the Labour Opposition to the position of opposing trade and opposing future export opportunities for New Zealanders. He is the man who has led the Opposition towards a position that is completely divorced from what any Labour Government has ever held as a position previously in terms of trade. For anyone who was listening to David Clark talking in the House about trade and about exports and about growing the economy, do not listen to a word he has said. Do not listen to anything he has had to say about growing the economy or growing exports or growing trade, because we know that Labour is the party that no longer supports trade.

Labour no longer supports the export sector in our country. It no longer supports people in New Zealand who are trying to get ahead by wanting to export more goods and services overseas, and David Clark is one of the architects of the Labour Party’s new opposition to trade and opposition to supporting New Zealand businesses. It does not support them any more. It does not support the workers in this country any more. The proud tradition that it held previously is no longer one with credibility.

This Government is one with credibility. This Government is achieving good things for New Zealanders. It is a Government that is balancing the books. It is a Government that has led New Zealand through some difficult times and some difficult periods, and we are now seeing the fruits of New Zealanders’ hard work. We are now seeing the results of a country that has been prepared to go and work hard through the tough times, supported by the Government, and now we are seeing better opportunities for New Zealanders. We are seeing higher wages for New Zealanders. We are seeing more jobs created in this economy under a National-led Government, led by John Key, ably assisted by our Minister of Finance, Bill English. We are seeing more achieved for New Zealanders and greater outcomes for New Zealanders.

The appropriations in the Budget, which we are talking about today, are all about turning our economy more towards the next steps and future opportunities for New Zealand. When we talk about the likes of the education system, we can talk about the additional investment that our Ministers and our Government are putting into education infrastructure. When we talk about the likes of the health system, we cannot believe the numbers that the Labour Party has talked about in terms of funding. Funding for health has gone up every single year. It is not just about additional money going into the Budget; it is about getting better outcomes for New Zealanders as well.

We can also point to the fact that New Zealanders are voting with their feet. We are not seeing tens of thousands of people leaving the country, as we did when Labour was last in office. When Labour had the opportunity to govern the country, a whole rugby stadium full of people was leaving the country every single year. That has turned around. That has reversed. New Zealanders are voting with their feet. [Interruption] We do not have to listen to what those members want to say in the Parliament; New Zealanders are voting with their feet and they are deciding for themselves where they want to see their future opportunities for New Zealand.

Under Labour the future opportunities for New Zealanders are in Australia; under National the future opportunities for New Zealanders are in New Zealand. They are coming back to New Zealand in their droves. They are coming back here because they see future opportunities for their children. They see future opportunities for their families. They see that we are creating more jobs in this economy and they see that wages are going up. They see that the education system is leading to more children getting National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2, and they are seeing that the under-investment in education is being reversed. They are seeing that their children and their families have more access to elective surgery under a National-led Government. They are seeing that their children have greater access to immunisation under this National-led Government. They are seeing that there are future opportunities for New Zealanders as well.

I also want to point to the fact that the cities and the regions in this country are doing very well, as well. Yes, we have some housing difficulties in Auckland that we are working through. Yes, there are challenges on the horizon. But let us just point out that much of the challenge that we have in Auckland is a challenge based on the results of success for New Zealand. We are dealing with these challenges because we have been successful as a country. We are dealing with higher migration in Auckland because people are choosing to move back to New Zealand. We are dealing with housing issues in Auckland because people are choosing to move to this country and they are choosing to live here.

We do have a comprehensive plan of action for housing in Auckland, and we do have a lot of work under way to deliver more supply, but I say to the Labour Party and I say to those opposite who have been attacking the Government throughout speeches in this debate that if they really care about housing in Auckland, and if they really care about the first-home buyers in Auckland, come on board. Come on board with the plan to open up Auckland and open up land for more supply. Come on board and support Resource Management Act reform for New Zealand. Come on board and support getting more people into skills and into the workforce and the construction industry. Come on board to the fact that the answer to housing in Auckland is that it is not for the Government to try to build houses; it is for the Government and for the Parliament to create an environment so that New Zealanders living in Auckland who want to build, and who want to have land available to build on have the opportunity to do that.

I want to say something that is not said very often in this Parliament or even in Auckland. I want to say congratulations to the Auckland Council. I want to say congratulations to the Auckland Council on the leadership it has shown on the Auckland Unitary Plan recently, because whatever the question is around housing in Auckland or anywhere else in New Zealand—whatever the question is and whatever you want to solve in the housing space—it all comes back to one answer, and that is delivering more supply. Whether it is through the Auckland Unitary Plan, which will deliver more supply; whether it is through the housing accords that we have had in place, it will deliver more supply; or whether it is the infrastructure fund that we are putting aside for councils to work with us on, it will deliver more supply, and that is the way to get better housing opportunities for New Zealanders living in Auckland.

I also want to say congratulations to Nick Smith on the HomeStart scheme. There are thousands of people, thousands of first-home buyers across New Zealand, who will have greater access to buying their first home through that HomeStart scheme set up by this Government, led by Nick Smith. I know my colleagues Sarah Dowie and Todd Barclay and others from the regions far divorced from Auckland are also seeing their communities benefit from the HomeStart scheme, where people can use their own savings through the KiwiSaver scheme to get access to funds to be able to purchase their first home. We are seeing the numbers slowly ramp up in that particular scheme, and about 90,000 people will have access to their first home under that scheme. I think that is a brilliant thing.

We can combine that with the fact that New Zealanders are seeing their wages growing, the fact that we have delivered tens of thousands of jobs in the past year and the years before that, and the fact that we are going to see another 170,000 jobs created in this economy by 2020. We can combine that with the fact that we are seeing more funding going into skills training, the fact that we are seeing a healthier workforce, and the fact that we are going to see future trading opportunities—which the Labour Party opposes—under the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We can combine that with the fact that we are seeing a New Zealand that now has a balanced Budget and better opportunities for children in the future. We are now seeing a New Zealand that is willing to invest up front in the early years of a child’s life so that they get better outcomes in their later years.

We are seeing a Government that is now mature enough to say: “These are the areas we need to invest in early on so that we can both save money for the taxpayer in the future and, more importantly, get better outcomes in people’s lives.” These are the factors in which we can invest so that there is less connection with corrections, so that there is less opportunity for people to fall through the cracks, and so that there are more children who are able to succeed and achieve in their lives, and that is a good thing for New Zealand.

Dr David Clark: 8 long years.

JAMI-LEE ROSS: 8 years of success, Mr Clark. We have had 8 years of success in which we have been able to lead a Government—we have John Key and Bill English at the helm—and in which we have delivered good, stable government that has invested in the important areas of New Zealand, balanced the Budget, and delivered a better New Zealand for future generations. I wholeheartedly endorse the Budget delivered by Bill English.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2016/17) Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 56

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 12; New Zealand First 12.

Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill read a third time.

Imprest Supply (Second for 2016/17) Bill read a second time.

Bills

Imprest Supply (Second for 2016/17) Bill

Third Reading

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2016/17) Bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Food Safety Law Reform Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 9 August.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I will continue, briefly, with the call that was interrupted. I believe I was in full flight speaking about country-of-origin labelling when the break came at the last opportunity to speak on this bill. I want to revisit that because it is an extremely important issue to many people, including many in the sector. I believe I was going to touch on the fact that we do rely heavily on certification from overseas jurisdictions—places where food imports come from. That is all well and good, because they rely on our own systems in a similar way and there has to be reciprocal trust back and forth between importing and exporting countries. But there is a saying in some parts of the world “Trust in God, but tether your camel”. It is all very well to take certificates and guarantees and so forth at face value from nations that we ostensibly trust, but there is no harm in embarking in the cheap insurance policy of checking as well—and of requiring that information to be backed up by as much additional information and detail as is possible.

I have a statement—it is a letter of sorts from Horticulture New Zealand outlining its position on the matter, and it is one with which New Zealand First concurs entirely. We have a voluntary country-of-origin labelling system for food, which is a bit of an anachronism in the world. It currently places the decisions on whether to provide country-of-origin information with the suppliers, which deprives consumers of information that they want. We have existing regulations that require mandatory country-of-origin labelling for footwear, whiteware, wine, and clothing, but we do not have it for food. That disadvantages fruit and vegetable growers as their products are identified as New Zealand - grown, and it means that our food regulations are out of step with Australia and 90 percent of our trading partners. Horticulture New Zealand answers some questions there in its statement. Is this a trade barrier? No, most countries around the world have some form of mandatory country-of-origin labelling. Will we face retaliatory action? No, again, for the same reason, because most countries with which we trade have some sort of a country-of-origin labelling system.

But there is a perception—and I think there is some validity to it—that there is a reluctance on the part of the Government to accept these quite valid criticisms from across the sector and from consumers. This is probably because there is pressure from one particular supplier, in terms of resisting having country of origin identified on some food products. I will not name the country, but I am pretty sure we all know which it is. There is a perception that because a great deal of financial support comes from that nation to the major party of Government, it is, therefore, reluctant to upset this particular nation by going down the road of country-of-origin labelling, which—as Horticulture New Zealand quite rightly pointed out—about 90 percent of the world does have.

So our position is that we feel that a Food Safety Law Reform Bill that already aims to amend the Food Act is the perfect opportunity to include country-of-origin labelling, when it was not included in the first instance. I do hope that the Government does take this opportunity to listen again to the valid concerns of people who are concerned by this and to open its mind to the opportunity of addressing them. It would be a great shame if the support of other parties across the House were to be withdrawn because the Government found itself not of a mind to be open to those sorts of concerns. All that said, I do not intend to take up too much more of the House’s time at this stage, other than to reiterate that New Zealand First will support this bill only through to the select committee at this stage, wherein we hope and trust that our concerns will be addressed, and our continued support beyond the select committee stage will be dependent on our concerns being addressed and being answered. Thank you.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): It is a privilege to be able to speak in support of this bill, for a number of reasons, the first being that I am a member of the Primary Production Committee, so this bill will come to us in the not too distant future. The second is because the electorate that I represent is a significant producer of food and beverages, and is heavily reliant on a robust food safety system and the integrity of that system as seen by our exporters across the world. In terms of Southland and South Otago, dairy and meat—and wine to a lesser extent—are a significant part of our export base, so our reputation as a producing nation and as a producing region is significant to us, and this bill will help to strengthen that.

Just a reminder around the genesis of the bill: a few years back, after the whey protein concentrate contamination inquiry, there were a series of recommendations for legislative change that came out as part of that, and this bill goes toward addressing those. It includes a range of changes to strengthen our response to food safety incidents by creating a more consistent and fair approach to the enforcement of that.

There are a number of significant parts to that. I think that although members previously speaking on this bill have canvassed some of the issues that came about as part of the inquiry, I just want to reiterate that I think that the Government’s response and industry’s response as a result of the issue as it was identified need to be hugely commended. The response by the Government and industry was appropriate at the time, and this bill, as a reactive measure following on as a result of that, gives us the chance to further strengthen our provisions around food safety and to further strengthen our ability to address a food safety incident, whether or not it has substance at the specific point of time when it is initially recognised.

As I say, our reputation is heavily reliant on our having a robust and recognised food safety system. It sets us apart from many food-producing nations that we are in competition with. The Primary Production Committee is currently considering the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill, which is another bill similar to this, which supports—

Kris Faafoi: It’s a great bill.

TODD BARCLAY: It is a very great bill. It goes to support our wine industry by protecting the regions in which the grapes were grown—Marlborough, Martinborough, Gisborne, Central Otago—and that is incredibly important when we are in competition with other nations that see the value in the New Zealand brand and our reputation and look to take advantage of that.

I look forward to hearing submissions on this bill as it comes to our select committee, and I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate as well. Thank you.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I am not a member of the Primary Production Committee, but I do have a passing interest, I guess, in matters of quality and quality systems, so it is in that regard that I am going to make my contribution this evening. This bill is, I think, very interesting, because not only does it look to improve the food safety system through the recommendations came out of the inquiry with regard to the Fonterra botulism scare, but it actually attempts to align three particular Acts with regard to the food safety system, to ensure that we, hopefully, come out with something that will better protect human health, ensure our reputation for good food safety qualities, and ensure that we are a supplier of safe and suitable food, both here in New Zealand and overseas. With regard to that botulism scare, which did precipitate the Government inquiry from which came the recommendations that fed into the development of this particular piece of legislation, it is an important thing to note that within the explanatory note of this bill, it talks a lot about reputation.

We are a country, of course, that is heavily reliant on our ability to produce safe food in good quantities, for the world markets in particular. Our reputation is everything. We know that when there have been periods when there have been scares, such as what precipitated this particular piece of legislation, they do sit in the minds of consumers overseas—their ability to continue to trust us, as producers, to produce good, safe, quality food. We only have to look to other countries that are kind of snapping at our heels in terms of wanting to take those markets from us. So our reputation across the globe has to be everything, in that regard. With regard to reputation, there is no doubt that one of the most difficult periods for us occurred with regard to the scare around contaminated milk powder, particularly the milk formula for children in China, where we saw distressing stories of how children were getting really sick, and worse. You cannot come back easily from a dent in your reputation like that.

We know that with regard to feeding the most vulnerable, like our children, we have a situation just up in Havelock North where our water supply has been contaminated. We are very scared for not only our children but our elderly people, with regard to them being able to be well, in terms of being able to consume the water up there. I really feel for the community up there. How many—there are 3,000, I think, is the latest figure. So we are very concerned for their well-being, particularly our elderly and our children. So I can understand how easy it is for a country’s reputation to be damaged. But there are mechanisms in place, and this bill seeks to align the three Acts—the Animal Products Act, the Food Act, and the Wine Act—to ensure that we have got some consistency over our food safety process. It also gives us an opportunity to examine some of the quality systems within that.

There are four key features of this particular bill. There is the requirement for the risk-based plans to be supplied to the regulator, and for the submission for review of the relevant verification agencies. What that means is that producers need to be developing plans, and those agencies that will review those plans need to be verified by the regulator. That is great. That is the standard, quality process, I guess, across whatever industry you are in. It is good that we are taking a best-practice approach to quality intervention, in this particular regard. It also has the requirement for traceability, to ensure that when problems do happen, you can safely recall—

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.

POTO WILLIAMS: Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Just before the dinner break, I was commenting on the four key features of this piece of legislation—primarily, the requirement for the development of risk plans and the verification of the agency that would monitor those plans. The second part is traceability, so that if there are any food safety incidents, there is an ability to recall defective products easily and also trace back to source so that any of the issues can be mitigated quite quickly. The third aspect is really about accountability, and the regulator here—this bill indicates that they hold prime accountability even though the agency’s role will be in acting to ensure verification of the various standards as developed by the regulator. The last key aspect is standardisation of compliance of the methods across all of the food safety system. So it has the bones of the development of a relatively robust quality system in those terms.

I just want to make some comments about what we might be looking to the select committee to determine and about some other aspects for it to look at. Here I want to quote my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor when he talked about the whole debacle having occurred because food safety testing by Crown research institute AgResearch and the oversight by AsureQuality had failed and, while the mistake occurred, Fonterra was relying on advice from Government entities that were not adequately resourced.

What the Hon Damien O’Connor was also referring to was the establishment of an independent food safety authority. Here the select committee has an opportunity to really look at the viability of that, and I would strongly suggest that—particularly in cases such as the one that precipitated the development of this particular bill—the nature of independence for a food safety authority would be very useful. The cautionary tale is, of course, the cases where food safety has been quite clearly compromised. I spoke in my earlier contribution about how damaging that is to our reputation. The damage to our reputation does not go away quickly. It takes some work to rebuild trust in our food safety systems after those kinds of events.

In terms of the development of a quality system, I think the bones are very much there, but there are some questions that need to be asked at the select committee. We would certainly be looking to explore the independent nature, possibly, of a food safety authority. We would be looking at reviewing other monitoring processes either through other jurisdictions or through other sectors. There are lots of good and robust quality systems that are there that can be used as comparatives when the select committee is looking at this bill.

As I said at the beginning of my contribution, I am not a member of this select committee but have a keen interest in ensuring that we develop really good quality systems across the range of our food safety environment, because it is very important that we manage to retain our reputation as a safe food producer and it is very important for our economy going forward. Thank you. I commend the bill to the House.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to take a short call on the Food Safety Law Reform Bill. I am just thinking back to the days when the whey protein concentrate contamination inquiry was happening and back to that scare that we had. I just want to share an analogy with you that I used in a speech that I did at the time. At the time, Team New Zealand was doing its boat racing, and the dairy industry was going along at its $8 or whatever it was. Team New Zealand was going along and it is 8-1 up, and we all had a huge amount of confidence in the industry. I think you can all remember that day when Team New Zealand just about tipped out of the water and it managed to recover just in time to get up and finish that race. That is pretty much the analogy I used around this whey protein concentrate scare, because, actually, it was not botulism—it did not prove to be botulism. It was not something that was actually going to sink the boat—but if that boat had tipped over and sunk it could not have continued on that race.

So it is really important that when you get into a situation like that where the wheels start to fall off—and that is probably not the best analogy for a boat—or the rudder starts to shift in an industry, then it is really important that we have all the systems and processes in place so that we can act quickly, so that we can right that boat and we can continue sailing.

It is extremely important for a country like New Zealand because it accounts for 60 percent of our food and beverage exports that we send overseas. We are an employer of 79,000 people, so it is really critical to provincial New Zealand and urban New Zealand. Even with a scare, even with something that was not ultimately proven to be botulism, there are millions and millions and millions of people in this world who are on social media, and our reputation can just go down the drain like that. So there was a lot of work and a lot of homework done in terms of recovery and the time taken to discover exactly what the problem was, and eventually we got to the point where we knew what it was not. But it is really important now that risk-based plans are put in place so that when there is a hiccup, when something is about to tip, or when there is a bit of a scare, we know exactly how to follow, we know exactly what to do, and we have got all the right schemes in place.

The ministry, under this piece of legislation, will be given a statutory role in contingency planning, and the Director-General of primary industries will have a new power to require disclosure of information held by a party that provides service to a food business.

We are putting all this legislation in place. It is too important to let things fall through the cracks, so we have got to have everybody on board and have strong contingency plans. It is no different to having a health and safety plan in your business. You have actually got to recognise your risk, work out what your risk might be, and find ways to mitigate it—so that if you do happen to have a day where it looks like the boat is going to tip over, you can straighten it up and sail on pretty quickly. Thank you.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to speak on the first reading of the Food Safety Law Reform Bill. At the outset I would like to just extend my thoughts, as has been expressed earlier, to the good people of Havelock North. We know that they will get through this, but definitely our thoughts are with them at this time.

If we think of the predicament in Havelock North, it is not too dissimilar to the subject matter of the bill that we are debating tonight, because we are talking about contamination. We are talking about water quality. We are talking about food safety. If we look at Havelock North, certainly the questions being asked now are the same questions that were asked when the botulism scare arose. How could this happen? This is not acceptable. Where is the leadership? We need to get to the bottom of this. Questions need to be asked and answered. Obviously, our thoughts are with the people of Havelock North at this time, and I know that they will get over this, but we are talking about 2,000 people in a community. This is not an insignificant matter.

We do have to draw the analogy between what is happening in Havelock North and this bill here, which is rectifying a botch-up. We must not forget that, and listening to the speakers from the other side, it is almost like they start their speeches at the end of the inquiry—“Oh, we had this inquiry and made these recommendations and everything’s all well and good. We’re passing the law now to do the statutory tidy-up, and everything’s all well and good.” But I think we really need to backtrack and look at the whole situation that arose around the botulism scare. We must not downplay it, because our whole economy as a country was at risk.

We are talking about Fonterra. We are talking about the fourth-largest producer of dairy products in the world—7 percent of our GDP, and multibillions in turnover. It is a significant company and it committed a grave error in its processing plant in Hautapu. At that little processing plant they did not clean a pipe as they were supposed to, and that paru pipe, as we would call it—a contaminated pipe—processed 38 tonnes of whey protein concentrate. That 38 tonnes of concentrate was sold to customers around the world. It was sold around the world, mainly to food producers—producers of infant formula, sports drinks, protein drinks, and the like. So that 38 tonnes ended up in 1,000 tonnes of all of these other value-added products that were all over the world—all over the globe.

The damage that was done through that oversight at that plant could have been remedied straight away had the people responsible at the plant said: “Oh, we have a problem here. We haven’t quite followed the rules. Let’s downgrade this whey concentrate, and we will have to market it through some other channels as a downgraded product.” But no, that product was formulated and sold. This occurred around early 2012 and it was not picked up until about 12 months later, in early 2013, when Fonterra was alerted to the testing and the potential for botulism bacteria being present in a sample.

We can breathe a sigh of relief and say “Oh, well, there wasn’t botulism, so everything’s fine. There wasn’t a scare.”, but the fact of the matter is, if you read that report—and it’s 110 pages long—you will see that it details multilevel failures from Fonterra and the testing agencies, through to the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) as well. I guess what I am saying is we do need to look at the seriousness of what this piece of legislation is addressing, because what happened then was that Fonterra had it retested, and then it found out in about July 2013 that, whoa, this was serious. Fonterra had to elevate it, and that led to MPI doing a worldwide product recall. That is serious, serious damage to our dairy industry, our brand, and Fonterra.

That worldwide public recall led to importation bans by our major market in China. What I am saying is that we should not downplay the seriousness of that botulism scare. It is timely that we are now debating this food bill, which is implementing the recommendations that were made in that report, because, as I have mentioned, there were a host of blunders, failures, and errors that occurred right throughout all of the different parties involved. As I was saying, Fonterra has been deeply impacted on.

I am really surprised that the members on the other side are saying: “You know, there wasn’t botulism in there, so no damage was done.” Fonterra and our industry are still dealing with the aftermath of the damage to this day. If we look at the litigation and the damages that are being claimed by Danone, it is in the billions of dollars. That is a contingent liability that Fonterra is potentially facing for the damage that 38 tonnes of whey protein caused to Danone’s business. That is a huge potential liability that Fonterra still has to face up to. Sure, Fonterra owned up to breaches of the Animal Products Act. It copped a fine for not following its own food risk-management procedures, and I am pleased to say that in the aftermath of the report, it has definitely stepped up its game, as it most certainly had to, in terms of its crisis management and dealing with a crisis on such a grand scale.

So it certainly was a wake-up call. In no way was it a case of “no damage done”. Certainly, it may not have been botulism that was found in the whey protein concentrate, but there was bacteria found in it. So, again, this goes back to our brand, our reputation, and the impact that this has had. Confidence was shaken during the botulism scare—just as confidence has been shaken in the community of Havelock North. I do acknowledge MPI for putting through these changes that, again, will address those risk management issues.

At the time, we were concerned—and I think this is a fair point—that MPI was a superministry where forestry, fish, food safety, and everything else had been thrown into one super-organisation. To be fair, it did not respond very well to this crisis. But the ministry has learnt its lesson and we are seeing the passage of this legislation. This bill will do the legal strengthening of the processes that is required so that we can ensure that we have robust systems, so that we can build and be proud of our brand, and, more importantly, so that we can give confidence to our customers in the market. They need to be able to have confidence that we do have the systems in place so that they will not be buying contaminated products—they will not be getting a worldwide recall—and they will have, hopefully, the confidence to buy many more volumes of our world-class dairy products.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand in support of this very important piece of legislation. It does two things: firstly, it ensures that lives are protected and, secondly, it ensures that our way of life is protected.

I think that it is important to understand that the products that are shipped from this country to markets in the world have a reputation of being not only great food and beverages but also safe. We have been able to build our export markets on the reputation of having not just nutritious and good food but safe food. Our response to this inquiry is important because it is a responsible and measured response to some concerns—very serious concerns—that arose through this situation.

The World Health Organization, in its 2010 data, states that 351,000 people a year died of food poisoning in the world. So it is a major global problem. There were 22 different food-borne diseases experienced in 2010, which affected 582 million people.

One of the things about New Zealand is the quality of our food. It is highly sought after, it is of high value, and, in order to ensure that people who purchase it and partake of it remain safe, we must have legislation in place for measures that protect the development, the production, and the shipping of these products. So this bill is very important in that regard. Sixty percent of New Zealand’s merchandise sold overseas is food and beverages. As my colleague Barbara Kuriger said, 79,000 people earn a living producing food and beverages. So I am very happy to support and commend this bill, in its first reading, to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Primary Production Committee.

Bills

Education Legislation Bill

Second Reading

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā, otirā, tēnā tātou i roto i Te Whare i tēnei pō.

[I acknowledge you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and, at the same time, us in the House this evening.]

I move, That the Education Legislation Bill be now read a second time. This bill is an omnibus bill amending nine different Acts. The purpose of this bill is to improve administrative and governance arrangements for educational institutions and entities and funding organisations across the education sector. It also modernises out-of-date legislation to ensure that it remains relevant, effective, and fit for purpose. Our Government has a clear expectation of an education system that provides for high achievement and a high rate of progress for every student. To support this expectation, education legislation must be modern, flexible, and have an unrelenting focus on the learning and achievement of all children and young people. This bill plays a big part in achieving that goal, as will the update of the Education Act that I also intend to introduce to the House this year.

I would like to thank the chair and the members of the Education and Science Committee for their diligent consideration of the bill. I also want to thank the organisations and individuals that made submissions on the bill, and I want to commend them for taking up the opportunity to have their voices heard on such an important matter. The Education and Science Committee received a diverse range of submissions from both individual submitters and organisations in relation to the bill. In particular, submitters commented on amendments relating to enabling a principal to manage more than one school, minimum school opening hours, tertiary education institution sponsorship of partnership schools kura hourua, and the establishment of employment-based teacher trainee positions.

The proposal that principals be permitted to manage more than one school and that schools be permitted to vary school opening hours provides schools with additional flexibility. Both of these amendments provide options for schools and their communities to adopt only if they choose to do so. The Education and Science Committee recommended amendments to the bill, including enabling boards of trustees to appoint trainees to trainee teacher positions through amendments to the Education Act 1989, modernising the New Zealand Council for Educational Research Act 1972, allowing school boards of trustees to follow a more streamlined process in varying a school’s opening times if the variation is for operational reasons and on an occasional and short-term basis, and specifying that the power of the State Services Commissioner to approve additional terms and conditions of employment would relate only to an individual employee and not to any class of employees. I am pleased that the select committee has recommended, by majority, that the Education Legislation Bill be passed with these amendments.

The bill introduces a new trainee teacher category. This will enable school boards to employ people who are working towards a teaching qualification through an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) provider that offers a period of employment by a school board as part of its programme. These are known as field-based ITEs. This Government is focused on strengthening the teaching profession as part of a broader strategy to lift overall education system performance. The new trainee teacher category is designed to attract high-calibre students into teaching and to equip them with the skills and knowledge to meet the needs of diverse learners. This initiative is one approach to lifting the status of the teaching profession by attracting a different cohort of recruits from those who enrol in traditional ITE programmes. It seeks to strengthen the relationship between the ITE provider, school, and student teacher, which has been an area of concern across ITE programmes in New Zealand and internationally.

I am committed to ensuring that we are getting the best and brightest people into the teaching profession. That was why I was delighted to announce just recently that we are expanding Teach First by another 10 places, focused on science, technology, and maths, in 2017. With the extension of a further 3 years, this means that we will have 50 newly trained Teach First teachers by the end of 2018. Teach First has been successfully recruiting high-achieving graduates and placing them in secondary schools that need them the most: lower-decile schools and those with large Māori and Pasifika populations.

The New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER)—in line with the changes that this bill makes, the Education and Science Committee has recommended that this bill be amended to modernise the NZCER. These changes to modernise the NZCER Act will establish that the New Zealand Council for Educational Research has nine members, that new members are appointed by the Minister or the council and, that when appointing new members the council and the Minister must have regard to the skills, experience, and knowledge that makes up the overall composition of the council. This is a streamlined process for council elections that allows the council to make its own rules relating to elected members.

Tertiary amendments—I am also pleased to speak on behalf of my colleague, the honourable Minister Joyce, about the amendments relating to tertiary schooling policies. The tertiary education amendments strengthen and modernise the regulatory framework for investment in related entities. This change will give the Government access to better information about the investments tertiary education institutions (TEIs) are making in related entities. This will enable us to better support TEIs to manage any potential risks posed by those related entities. There are also changes aimed at streamlining the process for setting conditions on fees charged to domestic education students.

Overall work programme—this is a busy Government that is ambitious for New Zealand’s future. Education is a passport to the future. This Government recognises that, and that is why in this Budget, for the first time, we are spending over $11 billion in education. That spend is an investment in the future and one that is already paying out with great results. I was delighted to announce earlier this month that more of our young people are leaving school with National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2. The latest data shows that 51,299 18-year-olds—that is, 83.3 percent—achieved NCEA level 2 last year. That is around 38,000 more young people achieving our minimum qualification for success than if the achievement rate had remained at the level it was when we came into Government in 2008. We also have record numbers of children taking part in quality early childhood education. Student stand downs, suspensions, and exclusions are the lowest that they have been since records began 16 years ago. Since 2008, suspensions have fallen by 40 percent, stand downs have dropped by 30 percent, and exclusions have fallen by 35 percent, but of course we can do more.

We need to modernise our education system to meet the challenges of the 21st century and to ensure our young people and children are part of an economy where they can be locally and globally competitive. As part of this work we are reviewing the way that early childhood services and schooling are funded. My goal is to have funding systems based on the size of the education challenge, not the size of the institution, and on learning growth and achievement of all children and young people. A number of proposals are currently being considered, and I look forward to hearing recommendations from the funding advisory group.

On the ground we are seeing growing numbers of schools coming together to share best practice to raise student achievement. The number of communities of learning continues to grow, and we now have 117 communities, which account for a thousand schools and more than 320,000 students. Individual communities of learning are agreeing their achievement challenges and making key appointments.

The Education Legislation Bill, alongside everything that we are doing, is designed to lift our education system into one that puts children and young people at the very centre of everything we do in education, and it delivers great education outcomes. I now commend the Education Legislation Bill to the House.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I respectfully suggest to the Minister of Education that she ask the people who write her speeches to perhaps mention a little bit more about the bill being debated, rather than talking about all of the other things the Government is doing that are not actually in any way connected to the bill currently before the House.

The question that the House should turn its attention to in any debate on education is twofold: first of all, how will this improve learning or impact on students’ learning, and what does research tell us about whether it is going to work or not? I want to go through several of the provisions of the bill and pose those two questions as we go through. So, first of all, in terms of enabling a principal to manage more than one school, the question has to be: what impact will this have on student learning, and what does research tell us?

I will deal with the second one first—what does research tell us? It tells us that we have already got provisions in law to allow a board of trustees to manage more than one school and to employ a principal to manage that group of schools. It has barely ever been used. So we have an existing provision that allows the Government to do exactly what it wants to do, and it is barely ever used. So what is the demand for having a principal managing more than one school, and how would that work? That is where the question: “How this will impact on student learning?” comes in.

Well, what is the role of the school principal? Any school principal will tell you it is more than a full-time job. Running one school is more than a full-time job. They are not only the supervisor and mentor to all of the teaching staff and all of the support staff working in their school; they are the curriculum leader for their school. They set the tone of the school. They set the culture of the school. They provide leadership to the students. That is more than a full-time role, so how would a principal doing their job effectively manage more than one school, and what would happen if things started to go wrong?

Those were the questions that we, rightly, asked at the Education and Science Committee, and those are the questions that many of the submitters who came to the select committee also asked. No answers were forthcoming. Officials were unable to say whether the principal would report to more than one school board of trustees. So if there were several boards involved and a principal is managing more than one school, who would the principal’s ultimate accountability be to? Well, the officials told us that one board would ultimately be the employer. What would happen if other boards in the employment arrangement had a problem with the principal? Would they pull out, and then what would happen to the principal when their job, effectively, was disestablished? Would they express that concern to the board of trustees that was the employer, and what would happen if the employing board of trustees did not agree with those concerns that were raised?

None of those questions could be answered by the officials who attended the select committee. So if this is a good provision, how is it going to work and what is the impact going to be on student learning? We could not get answers to those questions. I am open to the debate about it. I am absolutely open to debate about whether or not this is a good idea. I have not yet seen any evidence to suggest that it would work or that it is a good idea.

How would changes to school opening hours impact on student learning, and what does the evidence and research tell us? Again, this is a debate that I am completely open to. For example, I have seen some research that suggests that young kids—very young kids—learn better in the mornings and older kids learn better in the afternoons. The teenagers prefer to stay in bed in the mornings, and their concentration span is better in the afternoon. I am open to that debate, but let us consider the obvious implication of that for families if they have got kids of multiple ages attending different schools. What happens to those families if those kids are all attending school at different times during the day? What are the implications for their parents of their doing so?

What happens if the primary school decides in consultation with its community that it wants to open earlier and close earlier in the day, and the secondary school where the other kids go wants to open later in the day and close later in the day? What are the implications of that for parents? How are they going to be able to juggle that, and what are the implications for their participation in the labour market—i.e., their jobs? Nobody can answer that question, and the Government does not even seem to have considered it. When we put those questions to the officials, they sort of said: “Oh well, communities can manage it, and we are not going to force any schools to do it.” But that is not the point. The schools can consult with their communities and still come up with arrangements that will be a nightmare for parents to juggle, and there is not really any evidence to support them doing so.

So then we come to the issue of enabling tertiary institutions to sponsor partnership schools, or charter schools. How will this impact on learning, and what does the research tell us? Well, the research tells us, of course, that this is an admission by the Government that its partnership schools policy has failed. Let us go back to the very first debate when the Government proposed introducing partnership schools. This was not necessary at the time because the whole notion behind partnership schools was that there would be these external sponsors who would put their own capital into establishing them. Well, let us do a fact check. Not one of the existing charter schools has had a significant injection of capital from its sponsor. They are almost exclusively reliant on 100 percent taxpayer funding, and they have not had enough applications.

The Partnership Schools Authorisation Board, as the glorified name suggests, has constantly come back to the Government and expressed its disappointment at the calibre of applications. This is the board that was set up by the Government to champion the policy, and it is saying that it has been disappointed by the calibre of applications. So what is the Government’s solution to that? It is to say that polytechs should now go setting up charter schools. And what are the implications of that? Well, ultimately, some of those polytechs are struggling to run their own institutions. Many of them are in deficit. The Government—Steven Joyce—has serious concerns about the financial viability of them, and now the Government is saying that it wants them to set up partnership schools, or charter schools.

But it gets even better than that, because if they do set up a charter school, they will be exempt from the Official Information Act and all of the public accountability that goes with it in respect of the operation of the partnership school. Despite the fact that it will be a 100 percent taxpayer-owned organisation establishing them, using 100 percent funding from the taxpayer, there will be no scrutiny of them. That is absolutely wrong. There is no evidence to suggest it, and if there was the Government would have produced it, but it has not.

Then we come to the issue of partnership schools dual provision. That sounds like a fairly innocuous term. What does that mean? Again, it is an admission of failure. What it is is the Government saying that charter schools should be able to go along to the local State schools and say: “Oh, by the way, can you teach our kids, because we don’t have the ability or the subject matter knowledge or the resources to teach the kids?”. Despite the fact that they are getting significantly more funding than the local State school, they can now palm their kids off on the local State school. Talk about double-dipping—they can claim the money and then get the State school to deliver the education. There is no evidence base to support that.

But let us come back to my first fundamental question: what will the implication of that be for student learning? Well, not so good for the State school that now has to teach not only its own kids but the kids who are attending the local charter school as well. There is no evidence to suggest that is a good idea.

Then we come to the next provision in the bill, which is to enable home-based early childhood education services to offer out-of-school care. This is an interesting one because there are some good arguments in favour and some good arguments against, but let us just look at some evidence.

Why did the Government cancel the review into home-based early childhood education services when there are concerns about the quality of some of the home-based services? I have had home-based service providers come to me and say “We want this review to be resumed because we are worried that our reputation is being dragged through the mud by some of the services that aren’t delivering good quality.”, and yet the Government cancelled the review because it did not like where it was going. It was going to highlight that there are serious and legitimate quality issues with the standard of some of the home-based early childhood education that the Government is currently funding, and now it wants to compound that problem by extending that to include not only early childhood education but out-of-school care, or after-school care, for kids who are currently in schooling. There has been no evidence base produced to suggest that that is going to be good for kids’ learning.

The final thing I want to talk about is the decision that Hekia Parata and the Government made to create trainee teacher positions—introduced after public submissions had been heard on this bill. We basically had to beg to get them to allow us to open public submissions for 2 weeks. There are some good arguments in favour of a much greater on-the-job component to initial teacher education. Some of the initial teacher education providers would say that, and some of the schools would say that. But there was no opportunity for us to have a proper, robust debate about how to do that whilst maintaining the quality of teaching graduates. What the impact of that is going to be on student learning we do not know because no evidence base was produced to support the amendments put forward by the Government. On those two measures, what does the evidence tell us and what is this going to do for kids’ learning? This bill fails because it does not produce the evidence base to support the changes that it makes.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): The previous speaker, Chris Hipkins, gave us a picture of gloom and doom, but the reality is just the opposite. It is just the opposite. We have a very, very hard-working and innovative Minister of Education. Our families and children should be very grateful we have such a capable Minister. As I said here earlier—a few weeks ago—education is a huge responsibility for any Government. In New Zealand we have a million children going to school. These kids are the future citizens and future workers. They are the future of New Zealand. For that reason the Government has been investing heavily in education, and also we have been working very hard to make sure we have a modern education system that reflects New Zealand today and in the future. This bill is yet another example of our effort.

The Education Legislation Bill is an omnibus bill, as the Minister said. It aims to improve administrative and also governance arrangements for education entities and also funding organisations. The bill enables a principal to manage more than one school. That is very important. Both of my girls went to Newmarket Primary School in Auckland. It was a great school with a great principal. Whenever I recommended the school to someone, I would always say that the school had a very good principal. So we all know that principals are extremely important to schools and to students’ achievement. However, not all schools are able to recruit or retain great principals, especially small schools and schools in isolated rural areas. For that reason we may need to expand our ways of getting great principals for those small schools in isolated areas, and this is the option.

The bill enables the boards of schools to agree to—to agree to—a principal managing more than one school. It is an option. It is not compulsory; it is an option. It depends on the will of the boards of schools. That is very important. Some schools may not agree to a principal managing more than one school. However, some schools would say: “This is good for us. It is good for the school and good for the community.” That is why we need to have this innovative way of solving the problem. I would like to congratulate the Minister on that.

Another area is minimum school opening hours. Schools are seeking more flexibility simply because they need a flexible timetable to adjust to, to cater for, or to care for their particular students. The bill allows schools to vary their hours so long as it will not result in less school time for students in this particular school than for students in other local schools. However, to do so, school boards of trustees must meet the requirements that are currently placed upon them by the Minister of Education. More importantly, school boards of trustees must adequately consult not only parents, staff, and the local community, but also “any other person who the board considers may be affected”. This is an option, again, and also it will not be done without adequate consultation. So “any other person who the board considers may be affected” could include local and regional councils and school bus operators.

Another point is about licensed, home-based early childhood education (ECE) providers. This bill will enable these people to offer ECE and an out-of-school care service at the same time to children aged 13 and under. This change provides flexibility for families with preschool and school-age children, as their children can be cared for together. Simultaneous care is currently an unregulated activity, and the proposed amendment would allow Government oversight of that. It is also important to note that this is subject to limits on child numbers, the maintenance of stringent adult to child ratios, and existing regulations around safety and the provision of quality learning environments. The Ministry of Education will continue to monitor home-based ECE services, and will intervene if the health and safety or the quality of learning of any enrolled child is being compromised.

To quote the Minister, Hekia Parata: “These changes and others in the Bill are all about providing more flexibility throughout the education system for the benefit of students, parents, schools and other education providers.” National’s unrelenting focus is on raising achievement for all our students. Thank you.

JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): I rise to take a call on the Education Legislation Bill. The purpose and principles of this bill, as proposed by the National Government, are to look at improving the “administrative and governance arrangements for educational entities and funding organisations.” The changes proposed are going to run across the entire education system.

The bill will allow tertiary institutions to sponsor charter schools, which this Government calls partnership schools. It will look at allowing the creation of “super-principals”, adjusting the opening hours of schools, and so forth. These are wide-ranging changes to our education system, and dragging in their wake will be a range of issues that we in the Labour Party believe will be detrimental to the futures of our young people. New trainee teachers, for instance, which the honourable Minister of Education spoke about—when this was presented to the Education and Science Committee, most of those who came to give us their submissions were actually against having trainee teachers. It is one thing to allow trainee teachers at the high school level, but what this bill actually proposes is to allow trainee teachers at all levels of the education system—one of the things that are being proposed under this that we think are just cost-saving measures. Instead of allowing trainee teachers across all of the levels of education, we should have 100 percent qualified, registered teachers.

It is clear, as noted in the minority view from Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens, that there is not really a strong case for allowing a “super-principal” to manage more than one school; nor do we actually have the details, as my colleague Chris Hipkins spoke about. At the select committee we asked our ministerial folks to explain to us why it is that we are having this proposal in front of us to allow a “super-principal”—to allow having a principal of not just one school but potentially two schools and in some cases possibly even three schools; to actually have one principal overlooking a lot of schools. When we asked some of our principals—I actually went out and asked several of the principals in my area. One of the schools that we have in our area, in Ōtāhuhu, is actually a really successful school—McAuley High School. In fact, it actually won the Prime Minister’s Supreme Award for education, and it also won the Excellence in Engaging - Atahāpara Award this year.

I asked Anne Miles, the principal over at McAuley High School, what her thoughts were on becoming one of these “super-principals”. Her answer to me was that she is dedicated to her students at McAuley High School. She looks after around about 800 students, she has put together teachers and a school board and support staff, and she works well with the parents. She said to me that it would be putting the success that she has actually got for her school at risk if she were to then divide her time between her school and other schools—possibly not even two schools, but up to three schools. It would be, in her words, diluting the success that she already has—stretching it across many schools. In her words, as a principal, she found it hard to know how she would take it if another principal was a “super-principal”, who would come into her school and tell her what she should be doing and tell her from experience what might possibly work based on theories from another school. In her words, she would prefer not to actually do that to another school.

McAuley High School outperforms many schools across the country. It produces marvellous educational achievements, but it actually did not get to this place overnight. In fact, it has taken 10 to 20 years or so for McAuley High School to get to the really good academic results that it has right now. For instance, last year the university entrance results from McAuley High School were 74 percent, compared with the national average rate of 69 percent. National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 1 was 95 percent at McAuley High School, compared with the national average of 81 percent. Level 2 NCEA was 91 percent, and for level 3 for McAuley High School it was 91 percent, compared with the national average of 78 percent. However, McAuley High School is a decile 1b school. In terms of the socio-economics of the kinds of students who attend McAuley High School and of the surrounding area, there is a high unemployment rate. The average median funding that is coming into these families is between $19,000 and $21,000 per family in these places, but they have turned their school around.

I now want to talk about charter schools, because one of the things that this current bill would allow is the expansion of the charter school model. After actually covering the academic results of an outstanding school in one of my areas, given the socio-economic area that we have in Ōtāhuhu, what this current Government has done is, two streets away—only two streets away—it has actually opened up a charter school to be in direct competition with McAuley High School, a school that has outstanding results, and a school that has excellent results, according to this Government, which has given it the Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Award this year.

You would think that a principal like Anne Miles of McAuley High School would be just the kind of principal who we would look at to be a “super-principal”—you know, to actually spread her expertise around, to lead other schools—but she does not want a bar of this kind of initiative or to be a “super-principal”. Looking at this pragmatically, a “super-principal”—and Chris Hipkins already discussed this earlier on—would also have other issues that they would contend with. They would be accountable not just to one school board. They would potentially be accountable to two or, possibly, three school boards, and at the same time, given that they are already a principal of one school, they would also be accountable to that particular school and to that community. So there would be quite a few things that this “super-principal” is supposed to be trapezing just to make sure that it actually works.

But back to the charter school model. When the charter school model was first proposed, we were told that this was a model that would be one that would turn around the educational achievements of Māori and Pacific children. But here in Aotearoa New Zealand, the charter school model has already failed. Whangaruru charter school is a model that has failed. It has been closed down. This Government has invested $5.5 million in that charter school, and we, as taxpayers, do not know whether we will get even one dollar back from that $5.5 million investment, yet what does this Government do? It is expanding the charter school model, investing even more millions and millions of dollars into even more charter schools across New Zealand.

Most Māori and Pacific students do not attend charter schools. There are only a few hundred who actually attend charter schools. Most of our Māori and Pacific students attend State schools right now—thousands and thousands. Our State schools are the ones that are serving Māori and Pacific students. We contend that instead of investing—wasting—millions and millions of dollars more in charter schools, we should be looking at what we are doing in the State schools that we have right now. Already this Government is freezing the operational budget of the current State schools, and instead spending millions on charter schools. It is not even investing in special schools like Salisbury School over in Nelson. Instead, it is wasting millions and millions of dollars on charter schools. It is, to me, really just ridiculous that here we have a chance to turn around educational achievement where the majority of Māori and Pacific students go to school right now, which is State schools. But no, we are trifling, experimenting, and wasting millions and millions of dollars on charter schools instead.

This bill also allows for the charter school model to be funded by vesting it in polytechnics—yet another sign that this Government is not actually that successful in attracting other people who are out there to come through and actually establish charter schools. It actually has to now reach out to the current public system, to polytechnics, to open up their doors, because it has failed at actually expanding the charter schools in any other way. Thank you.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): It is a great privilege to stand and speak for a few minutes on the second reading of the Education Legislation Bill, which is in the name of Minister Joyce and, of course, the Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, who I believe is demonstrating day after day an absolute philosophy to have child learning and supporting them to ensure that they can be the best they can be at the core of this Government’s delivery in education.

It is absolutely critical that we do this because, in my view, we are on the cusp of extraordinary technological change, not only here in New Zealand but across the world, and it is an absolute obligation on this House and on this Government that we create conditions, that we provide the opportunity for our young people to be able to enter that changing world equipped with skills and resilience and capacity to be able to be successful. That is what this bill does. It creates flexibility in the governance framework of education, and I have found it not that surprising, to be honest, but extraordinarily consistent of the left and of Labour and others on that side, who are unrelentingly ideological, that when this Government puts choice in hands of the board of trustees they oppose it, because we cannot have that, can we! We cannot have a board of trustees given the choice as to whether they should consider employing a trainee teacher, because that is not appropriate because the unions have said that is not appropriate. So let us block it!

Well, I find that quite remarkable, and if you just look through some of the key recommendations that we reflected on—yes, the debate at the Education and Science Committee was quite heated, and we have heard some of it already this evening. When we considered Supplementary Order Paper 176 relating to creating the opportunity for the new teacher training category in schools, the key word that we discussed, which is encapsulated in this bill, is the “enabling” of this position. It is not telling the board of trustees to do it. There is no direction from the Secretary of Education, but it enables a board of trustees and a school so that if they think this is an opportunity that is going to enhance the learning of their children, they have the choice.

The Opposition says: “Oh, where’s the evidence?”. Well, I will tell you what the evidence was. The evidence was the schools where this is in place turning up to the select committee and saying: “This is working for our kids.” Well, as a parent who has kids in school, when I hear teachers turn up and when I hear people from the school turn up and say this is adding value, then for me that needs to be part of what we are offering, and this is what that particular clause enables, and so should it.

Then, on the debate about principals leading more than one school—yet again—from Chris Hipkins, what do we hear? We hear: “Oh, I agree about it in principle. It sort of feels OK. But where are all the permutations of the contract for when it might turn to custard, maybe somewhere in 5, 10 years’ time?”. Well, with respect, Mr Hipkins, we trust our boards of trustees to have the competency to have the community at heart and the capacity to enable a contractual interface between them and this principal of great talent to make it work for their school and their kids.

Again, it is a kid-centric model—not a union-centric model that sits over that side, but a kid-centric model—and that is why I am so proud to be able to support this Government and the leadership in the education sector that Hekia Parata provides. At her core, and you see it expressed every day, is an absolute determination to keep our children at the front of our focus—not those who protect the interests of those involved in the sector, who do not always agree, but the children are at the focus.

Tracey Martin: Rubbish—absolute rubbish.

TODD MULLER: It is not rubbish, Tracey Martin. It is not.

I just conclude with the reference to the school opening hours to reinforce the point. Again, in this bill is the freedom for the conversation to occur around a board of trustees, their communities, and their parents. No compulsion—there is no compulsion in this. This is enabling. It is for boards of trustees, it is for parents, it is for communities, and it is for our kids. Long may that continue, and long may this philosophy being led by Hekia Parata hold the day. Thank you very much.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. He mihi nui ki Te Whare Pāremata mō tēnei pō.

[A huge acknowledgment to the House in regard to this evening.]

Is it not great to be talking about something that really matters, even though everybody is claiming to be child-centric—whatever that is? Child-centric is not a very pretty word; I do not even know what it means. It sounds really odd—child-centric.

Alastair Scott: It means the child is at the centre—it means the child is at the centre.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: I think it means children at the centre, but child-centric sounds very mechanistic. But, of course, this is a very mechanistic bill. It has got all kinds of bizarre processes and ideas that nobody asked for, and I would have to ask where it comes from.

Where is the evidence of educational benefit to children, whom those members are supposed to be so centred on? Who asked for these changes? Who came and begged for more flexible hours for schools, so that children could all finish at different times? Which schools came and said: “Oh, please, we need a ‘super-principal’. We need three or four schools under one principal.”? No one came and asked us that. No one came and said that was a brilliant idea, either. All of these “wonderful” changes in this bill—which I would describe as a mishmash of dubious ideas—were not asked for by the education community or parents. But it was somebody’s idea, because—

Hon Hekia Parata: Tomorrow’s Schools.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Yeah, Tomorrow’s Schools. They have had some very odd ideas—ideologically consistent ideas.

If you think a principal is like a business manager, an inspiring captain of the ship, a distant figure with an entrepreneurial gleam in their eye, gazing across the vista of a number of schools where they give the odd bit of inspirational guidance—that might be what this Government imagines a “super-principal” does. But a real principal—and we all talk to them—is up to their neck in multitasking and building relationships within their school every single day.

There might be one or two rural schools that would benefit from this provision, but most of the schools actually need somebody who has that relationship with the students, and the member Jenny Salesa described one example of that very clearly. It does seem like an odd provision, given that there is no outcry in the community for taking the idea of a principal who is intimately involved in the relationship with students in their school and spreading them around. But I do think it is part of an ethos.

If you see education as a business, then of course efficiency is a key value, and it is sometimes more “efficient” to do things with one leader over a number of modules, shall we call them, or a number of widgets, or a number of organisational blocs. It is a business idea, much like the idea of getting people to come in who are not particularly well trained, so long as they have got a graduate degree, and then saying that they have got the pedagogy of education after 6 weeks. That is another idea of efficiency. It is pretty efficient, because you do not want to waste your graduates; some of them might be quite good at it!

However, the values behind education are a lot more profound, and that is why we cannot support the bill. We looked through it and we thought: “Well, what can we support?”. There were a few good things that happened at select committee. A few improvements were made, but most of the time, as Chris Hipkins said, we could not get any of our questions answered about the practicality of some of these ideas. We could not get that question answered about who would be the employer of the principal. We could not get the question answered about how you would manage school transport when you had a complex family arrangement—probably already complex, and then the schools decided to make it even more complicated. We could not get questions answered about home care. It is a very, very contested space.

Again, these provisions open up and facilitate the further development of a business. It is fantastically lucrative in some ways, for some of the franchises—these businesses that have not been properly reviewed, some of which do a great job and some of which do not, but none of which experience the kind of scrutiny or rigour that the kindergartens and the community-based education centres that are under scrutiny actually receive.

We did manage to improve some of this section, because, originally, they were going to be allowed to have no more than six children but they could have—I do not know—12 of their own. We managed to tighten up some very loose drafting there and make it a little bit safer, but we are concerned about home care. We are very concerned about the frozen review and what that actually means for children, because the Government’s goal in early childhood education is participation, not quality. Participation—meet the target, 98 percent. Home care plays a big role in—it is not education, mainly it is home care—actually meeting the target. From a business point of view, the Government has met the target, but we do not know whether the kids are safe or not, and that is not really acceptable.

Other aspects of the bill were pretty interesting. The Teach First issue—you can debate its contribution to secondary schools, but the New Zealand Educational Institute made a submission in which it raised some concerns about primary schools. When we asked the Teach First people who came as submitters, they did not seem to know whether it was for primary or secondary, or who it was for. We did not have a whole lot of schools come and actually attest to their brilliance. They did not seem to know what the law said, but the law actually does say in this bill that it could possibly be primary schools as well.

What it is suggesting is that subject graduates in specialist subjects can now teach in primary schools under this model because the pedagogy of learning is not important. That is what concerns me about this Government’s members’ attitude towards the education system as a whole—that the teaching pedagogy does not exist as a thing in their minds. What exists are ways of being innovative or ways of being flexible, but the core ideas about what it is that one needs to be able to do to understand how children learn do not get much of a look-in, so we do not get much discussion about children as learners. We get a lot of discussion about measuring, targets, flexibility, choice, efficiency, blah-blah-blah, but we do not get much talk about how different children learn, particularly at the primary level, where it is not focused on subject but focused on child.

A graduate might turn out to be the most brilliant teacher, or they might not have a clue how a child with dyslexia entering the school system actually learns, or how a child who is non-verbal or a child who will become a capable learner but is relatively slow and does not “meet the standard”—how they operate in the complex new environment for that child. We all know that early childhood and the early years of primary are the most important time in a child’s life, so let us throw some untrained people at them and see what happens. Would that not be a good idea! We are particularly concerned about that.

As for the charter schools being sponsored by the universities, I think Chris Hipkins is right. I think this relates to the disappointing, patchy performance of the existing charter schools, and also the problem of getting new ones on board. When there is a strong push to make this work, because the ACT - National Government agreement says we must have these schools—and then there are incidents that take place like Whangaruru, which was a disaster for those children. It is the children, we should never forget, who suffered from what happened at Whangaruru.

The evaluation of the first round of charter schools showed that this expensive model failed some children, and the only area in which they were innovative, educationally, was in governance—which is actually not particularly innovative. What it means is, again, they got rid of the parents, they got rid of the boards of trustees, and they have corporate sponsors, who can be unaccountable governors with no input from parents. So that is the big innovation in charter schools.

But educational innovation is not about governance, it is about education, and we are not seeing amazing educational or pedagogical innovation in those schools. If you look at the results, some of them are as good as other schools; some of them are worse. It is not worth the money we are putting in, let alone trying to get the universities—which have a very interesting pedagogical model, but it is really not about young people who are unconventional, not neurotypical, different types of learners. It is actually about lecturing people and hoping they can go away and do their own research. That is not the model we want in primary schools, let alone charter schools, which are not accountable.

So we have got real concerns about some of those issues. I think that an education bill like this—a sort of dubious mishmash like this—could have been improved by answering questions at the Education and Science Committee, and that is what we did not get. We could not get any answer to the question on flexible school hours. We could not get any answer on the employment of principals. We could not get any clarity. What we did get was Supplementary Order Paper 176, which was forced upon us, and then we had to go into a rearguard action and debate. So, really, it has been a mess, and it is still a mess. Thanks.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to oppose this bill. There is a lot in it that we wish to oppose. There is one single thing that I want to acknowledge. Inside this bill the Education and Science Committee has managed to amend clause 53, which amends the part of the Pacific Islands Polynesian Education Foundation Act—that is, the interpretation of what “Pacific person” means. We were able to gain Kiribati and Tuvalu to be able to be recognised inside that Act, because they are now part of the New Zealand community. So that is a big up. That is a big win. Thank you very much. That was it. That was the positivity that came out of what was the most bizarre select committee I have ever sat on. It was very, very, very interesting.

I just want to make this point, too, about the National Party member who spoke last, Todd Muller. Not a single school came to submit to us on Teach First NZ. Not a single school came to submit. I go to the comment that the member made suggesting that a whole lot of schools came to submit to us—not a single one came. So I thought that was a very interesting participation record.

I want to go back to—make sure we put on the record—the background of how we got this Supplementary Order Paper 176, first of all. Nobody heard a word about it. But where this came from was that back in December 2015, there was an Employment Relations Authority determination that the employment of Teach First NZ graduates, who were largely untrained teachers, was illegal. That was a determination of the Employment Relations Authority back in December 2015. Why was it illegal? It was because they were shoulder-tapped to go into jobs inside schools. They were shoulder-tapped to go into jobs inside State schools. That meant that registered and qualified teachers were disadvantaged, because they could not apply for the job. The Teach First NZ graduates—they are not graduates; I mean, they are graduates of a degree, but they are not teaching graduates—were able to go in there for a job that was not advertised and get that position. So that was why it was deemed illegal.

After that employment relations case, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA), the Ministry of Education, and Teach First NZ came to an arrangement. Teach First NZ said: “We don’t have a problem with our graduates having to apply for advertised positions. We are confident in our young people that they are totally capable after a 6- to 8-week Christmas course of being able to be put unsupervised in front of the classroom, but with the support and recognition of Auckland University.” That was the arrangement that was in place until suddenly, in this Education Legislation Bill, with no notice to anybody at all, after the full period of submissions had been heard, Supplementary Order Paper 176 came in from Minister Parata.

Then there was an enormous row—the biggest row I have ever seen at a select committee, which is normally a collegial environment. This was because the Government members decided that this was not a big enough change—this was not a big enough change—to actually ask anybody inside the education sector whether there was anything we should be concerned about. So there was the biggest spat I have ever seen inside a select committee, and, strangely enough, we ended up with the Government overturning the original position of not having any submissions, and we opened it for 2 weeks—so a 2-week period of submissions. I can tell you exactly how many submissions we had. We had submissions from the PPTA, we had the New Zealand Educational Institute, we had two members from Teach First NZ, we had a gentleman from a teachers’ training college down in Christchurch, and that was it—that was it—on this bill.

The only people to speak in favour of this particular amendment were from Teach First NZ itself. Why should they do that, do you think? Well, what is interesting is that if you have a read about what this bill actually does, it gives Teach First NZ a monopoly—a monopoly—to have the Secretary for Education designate positions at a school for the “employment-based trainee teacher”. This is the really large title that the ministry came up with, because calling them trainee teachers—well, that has already been taken. Student teachers has already been taken. Teachers are teachers, actually registered and qualified, and they have done the hard yards. So the ministry had to come up with another way of saying this to try to suggest that these individuals, who are going to stand in front of our children—quite possibly from year 1 all the way through to year 13—have some form of qualification.

They actually should be called apprentices, because that is what they technically are. They are learning on the job. They are apprentices. They have done a degree, and good on them. They have done a degree in science, biology, engineering, or whatever. Then, supposedly, after a 6- to 8-week block course, they can now stand in front of 5-year-olds—because that is what this legislation allows them to do; stand in front of 5-year-olds—and kid those parents that they are teachers. They are not teachers, and if there is a barrier to these young people becoming teachers, because 1 year’s teacher training is, what, too long for them, or too expensive, then for goodness’ sake, give them a scholarship and put them through the whole 1-year training and then allow them to teach only in secondary schools—allow them to teach only in secondary schools.

Hon Hekia Parata: They do 2 years. The programme is 2 years.

TRACEY MARTIN: Ms Parata rants on that they do 2 years. They do 2 years as apprentices in the classroom, practising on real live children—real live children—and that is not good enough. That is not enhancing the profession. That is not raising the status of the profession. That is not good enough for our children. Parents have the right to know that the person standing in front of their child has been fully qualified before they get there, and if they are not good enough they should not be there practising on them. There was another way to do this. There is no way that New Zealand First will actually support that sort of amendment.

Let us talk about the suggestion that there are all these people asking for principals to be able to manage or be principal across several schools. I think what Mr Muller said was really, really interesting. He said a contractual interface—that the principals can have a contractual interface with a variety of schools. I think he has hit the nail on the Government’s head. It sees this as a business. The Government sees this as a business. It has no concept whatsoever that principals are the leaders of teaching and learning inside of a school. It has no concept about how hands-on a principal inside a school is. They set the tone and the culture for the school. I think what is interesting is that the only way that this will work for multiple boards is if the principal becomes a contractor. The principal will have to become an independent contractor. It will not be an employment agreement, because how could a principal have five employment agreements unless they are contracting part of their time? So this is a move—and I think it is a really interesting move—to turn principals into contractors.

The other thing we have got here—let us just go to charter schools and this dual provision that is in this bill. Charter schools are funded in a cashed-up way. They are bulk funded, basically, in a cashed-up way that includes the property dollar. The property dollar is supposed to be given to provide all the technical classrooms and so on required for them to deliver the curriculum for those students. What has happened? Charter schools have not spent their property dollars. They have banked them or they have paid big salaries to their chief executive officers, or whatever, whatever, and now they want to use the technology rooms of other schools—the State schools that have to provide them for them. So on one hand they have been given the money to provide the technology classrooms; on the other hand they have banked it and decided they are going to use somebody else’s. The State schools are required to maintain, they are required to shift around their own timetables so that they can facilitate—it is another failing of charter schools. Charter schools, if you are given the dollar, spend the dollar.

The last thing is around the opening hours. Schools can already do exactly what this amendment says. There is one major change. The schools have to consult with business. Before this bill they did not have to consult with business. This bill says they have to consult with business about their opening hours. I guarantee you this is not about shortening opening hours; this is about extending opening hours to suit the workplace, not to suit children, and not to suit parents.

MELISSA LEE (National): It is a pleasure to take a call on the second reading of the Education Legislation Bill. I heard Tracey Martin speak, and I will just make one comment. I believe that during the select committee process, which Supplementary Order Paper 176 actually came through, the Education and Science Committee as a whole agreed on the process and we did actually open it up for submissions, and we did get only five submissions. With the select committee, there is a process that actually happens and the committee does it together as a whole. It is not like we, in fact, strong armed the Opposition to reduce the time or extend the time; it has actually happened. I thought it was actually quite a nice committee. Even the Opposition members—I have tremendous respect for them. Their opinions differ from mine, but I do actually feel that they care about education in a different way, and I thought the Education and Science Committee worked very well.

It was a key bill for the select committee for the first half of this year, and I would like to take my hat off to the chairperson, Dr Jian Yang, who does a tremendous job, and quite a difficult job, I would have thought. Sometimes I think it is sort of like he is the teacher trying to keep the students quiet and in order at the committee. [Interruption] He was a professor. I do not know if he actually went to school to become a teacher, however, but he did a tremendous job. I would also like to thank the committee secretariat for all its hard work during the discussion of this bill.

As the Minister of Education and other members have actually said, this Education Legislation Bill is, in fact, an omnibus bill that updates eight Acts to better improve the administrative and governance arrangements for education entities and funding organisations. This bill is an example of the hard work that this Government is undertaking to ensure that all young New Zealand learners have the skills and qualifications that they need to successfully participate as a part of our community.

One of the key aims of this bill is the ability to give more say to the school boards of trustees to determine when and how the required minimum opening hours of a school can be. During the select committee process we amended the suggested legislation in favour of a more streamlined process for when variances in operational hours are short term and on an occasional basis. I know some members have said that that kind of flexibility may not be a good thing. In my opinion it is actually a good thing because not all communities are equal. Schools in regional New Zealand may differ. Schools’ needs and the students’ needs are quite different from region to region as well, and I think having the flexibility allows schools to operate in the optimum way that they can as a community, and they can decide for that school community what is required for their student body as well as the school.

I also believe it is important for the ability of tertiary education providers to help sponsor partnership schools and kura hourua schools. Such a process will help forge links between younger students and older adult learners, and will overall continue to work to create better learning environments across New Zealand. I think one of the best ways I can talk about the learning thing is through culture. We revere the elders, and often teachers and mentors and seniors of universities actually come back to teach kids at school. In my culture that is actually celebrated, and I run something called a Kimchi Club in my Korean community, where a more experienced professional actually comes in and mentors the younger kids who are currently at high school or university to teach them about some of the pitfalls they can get into and also talk about the career prospects that they might face. I think young students, both in high school and university, appreciate this kind of mentoring, and I think even in schools we can actually learn from that experience.

This bill, of course, is just part of a great plan that we have undertaken to improve education in New Zealand, and on that score I would like to commend the tremendous Minister of Education, Hekia Parata. I have said this many times over in this House: every time I see her talk about education and children, I see great passion in her eyes, in her voice, and in her heart. I know that some of my friends might actually laugh at my pronunciation, but there is a great Māori proverb “He aha te mea nui o te ao?” What is the most important thing in the world? “He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.” This proverb has been quoted many times over in this House, but for me the most important people are our children because they are the future of this country. They are the future of our families, our whānau, our districts, our regions, our country. Our children need to have the best education system in this country, and I believe that this Government, this Minister, and this bill actually deliver for our children. I commend this bill to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Jan Logie—5 minutes.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a call on behalf of the Green Party on the Education Legislation Bill. The Green Party continues to oppose this piece of legislation. As has been mentioned by other speakers, we have struggled to find any compelling reason for this legislation and struggled to see any coherence in the provisions that are being put forward. What this bill does is several things, really. It will enable a principal to manage more than one school, it will make changes to school opening hours, it will enable tertiary education institutions to sponsor charter schools, it will enable those charter schools to have their students use the facilities of a State-funded school, it will enable home-based early childhood education (ECE) services to offer out-of-school care services as well, and it will create a new category of teaching position that will enable unqualified teachers to enter our school system, and presumably to have similar responsibilities as teachers—formally qualified teachers with educational training—but without the experience and qualifications.

If you look at all of those different provisions, it is really hard to see what the common thread is, and it is also very hard to see where the arguments of some of the speakers from the Government come from, where they are saying: “This Government is all about putting the children first.”. It is really, really hard for me to see how enabling a principal to manage more than one school is putting the interests of the child first. I really struggle to see how enabling a tertiary education institute to sponsor a failed charter school concept is putting the interests of the child first. And I really do not see how enabling home-based ECE services to provide after-school care as well is putting the child first, either. I would like to speak a little bit more on that point because I think it does need talking about.

Home-based care has proliferated under this Government. There has been more than a doubling of home-based ECE services between 2000 and 2013, to over 20,000 places now. They are services that get the same amount of funding as, say, kindergartens, where they are trying to have 100 percent fully qualified teachers. A home-based service, which, in effect, in many instances is just a childcare arrangement, gets the same funding as an educational service like a kindergarten. Most home-based services have a teacher who is qualified sitting off somewhere else. That qualified person sitting way over there on the end of a phone may oversee 20 different home-based services. There may be 80 children across those 20 different centres, with only one qualified person sitting somewhere over there, and the same funding is provided to that service and those children—supposedly—as to a kindergarten, where it is trying to have 100 percent qualified teachers because it knows that that is what will set those children up for life.

And now this Government is introducing into that very, very chaotic system the ability for those same providers to provide after-school care. So you have a dynamic where you have got babies and you have got very young children, and now you have older children all in the same mix—supervised by one person without any qualification whatsoever, and with external supervision way out there from one teacher for over 20 services. That in no way puts the interests of our children first. I was at a kindergarten yesterday, and because of the funding system that has been set up, kindergartens are now having to fund-raise to provide paint for their children. It is an essential ingredient in the learning and play of our children, and kindergartens are now having to fund-raise to provide it because of this system. The Government, in this legislation, is just making it worse.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call the Hon David Cunliffe—5 minutes.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): Labour opposes this bill. It is bad in conception, it is bad in detail, and it sets up what is already a very, very dodgy system in the tertiary sector to infect our secondary sector through its tertiary provisions. That is what I want to focus on today.

The background to this is that the tertiary education’s private training establishments have had a sorry litany of woe over the last year, and the Tertiary Education Commission is having to pedal very fast to catch up. The Labour Opposition has blown the lid off scandals that have required paybacks and, in several cases, the closure of institutions at places like the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki, Tai Poutini Polytechnic, Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre, Agribusiness Training Ltd, the Intueri Education Group, Quantum Education Group, and Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. That is just some of them, and there are plenty of others under investigation. In fact, 19 others are under investigation, according to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment.

Against that background, which has been driven by the Government’s virtual starvation of tertiary education, with yet another real-terms funding cut and the insistence that the sector goes private to get more foreign students and become more innovative in the market place, now it is handing that fox the door to the chicken coop in terms of charter schools. That is another disaster area of the application of market ideology to what should be a State-provided service—quality education for all our children based on ability and common standards, not money and the ability to pay. That is what is fundamentally wrong with this.

In the detail it gets worse. Tertiary education institutions have a change of definition so that they become a sponsoring body of charter schools. That then enables several things to happen. The first is that they get an exemption from the Official Information Act in the same way that charter schools do. But, hang on—this is public money that is being invested in these godforsaken market experiments. The second thing is that they are exempted from the provisions of the State Sector Act, the Act that normally provides governance and fiduciary constraints on State sector organisations. Thirdly, they are exempt from the full provisions of the Ombudsmen Act. Taken together, these three exemptions continue what is a very clear trend by the current Government to shrink the purview and the resourcing of the independent watchdogs of the State and commercial business and to hand power to investors, in this case, blurring the line in a very unfortunate way between tertiary institutions and the failed charter school experiment.

Our education spokesperson, Chris Hipkins, has asked the obvious question: why? What evidence is there to suggest that one jot of this is going to be good for our students and our children? The answer is that that has never been the point. This legislation is designed to suit the investors—the National Party’s donors.

Hon Hekia Parata: Ha, ha!

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: That is the group whom this education seeks to serve. The Minister laughs with apparent innocence, but when one sees time and time again the running down of the watchdogs of the State, the gradual ringbarking of those institutions, and, in this case, the deliberate removal of the protections of the Official Information Act, the Ombudsmen Act, and the State Sector Act from any sponsoring tertiary institution that gets into a sponsorship deal with a charter school, either it is naivety in the extreme or it is the deliberate application of market ideology to an area that should be for the benefit of all our children.

Politics is a tipping game—we all know that—and this crazy neo-liberal experiment has been trundling on and on and on. But, you know what, it is very rapidly approaching a cliff—a cliff based on the housing crisis and the dislocation in the market, which this Government is very soon to fall off. If this bill does pass, it will not be long before we are back in the House repealing it and putting right what should be a fundamental obligation of the State to ensure the good education of every New Zealand child.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): I rise to take a short call on the Education Legislation Bill in its second reading. As we have already heard, this is an omnibus bill that is to amend eight statutes to improve the administration and governance of educational entities. This is a Government that is committed to delivering a world-class education system to our children. As such, to do that we must ensure that there is a modern framework to enable our teachers and administrators to deliver that.

I have listened to the Opposition’s arguments very carefully and, notwithstanding the latest conspiracy theory, what I can hear, especially from the Green Party, is that we should not make any changes if there is a lack of evidence as to the effect. That, to me, suggests that we should not be innovating. I mean, if Homo erectus was told not to rub two sticks together, where on earth would we be? So from my perspective, I think we need to deliver a flexible framework to our boards of trustees that are based in the community, that can make decisions for their students and look at the community around them, and that are best placed to make decisions as to how to deliver education for their students. I think that we should enable that. I think we should celebrate that, and we should celebrate the fact that the people who are elected to these boards are elected, and that they are the right people to deliver that service for our children.

In respect of trainee teachers, I also want to say that this is a Government that invests in our teachers, and training is an important part of that. On-the-job training, again, should be celebrated. What better way to learn than to be in the classroom, to be experiencing what it is like to teach students, and to have the ability to be mentored by more experienced teachers on the job? There is nothing that can substitute on-the-job training.

So I celebrate these changes, especially in the rural sector. If I look at my electorate, in respect of building on communities of learning to incorporate these concepts of trainee teachers and shared principals—in rural areas we have some problems attracting people. To have the ability to share expertise and put in place mechanisms to deliver quality education across a rural sector is nothing but good news.

These changes are necessary. They are part of an evolution of an education system that is going to deliver quality education moving forward. I commend this bill to the House.

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, otirā, tēnā tātou katoa. Well, this has been an interesting discussion, or debate, tonight. We have heard about “He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.” Well, if that was correct, then why is it that the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, in its submission to the Education and Science Committee, said the following: “On the surface, they might be described as a collection of ill-conceived baseless changes which lack any intelligent rationale. They might otherwise be described as changes without openly expressed rationale yet intended to enable further expansion of certain policies and direction.” That is coming from one of the most important education organisations in our country. That is what it has got to say about it.

So why is it, then, if we can quote such whakataukī in this House, that we do not uphold it and listen to this New Zealand Principals’ Federation? Why is that? Why do we not listen also to its supplementary submission, where it says it has not had the opportunity to consult widely amongst principals because there is only a 2-week period for submissions on Supplementary Order Paper 176? We have heard from other members, and I support what the member Tracey Martin had to say on the process—that it was totally inappropriate for the Government majority members to try to stop this consultation.

So I ask the question again: if people are so important, why are we not giving them enough time to consult with their constituents so that they can make a more effective and widely consulted-on submission to the select committee? We might actually have better outcomes if we used better processes. I pose that question for the House to consider. Not only the Principals’ Federation but others as well who submitted—there were many submissions on this. Of course, only those submitters were advised personally or by letter that there was another part to this legislation that had not been considered by the select committee or given the opportunity by organisations to make submissions on it.

Within that, the main issue was around trainee teachers. I ask the question again: he aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. Well, what about the children who are in front of those trainee teachers? Are we putting them front and centre of this discussion? From my point of view, no, we are not. We are putting other dynamics front and centre in that discussion.

I go back to what the Principals’ Federation has said—that it is to enable the expansion of certain policies and direction. I also ask about the charter schools because I remember reading quotes when charter schools were first proposed. I think what we have got is quite different from what was even being proposed back then. But that is one of the areas that has been, in this bill, a policy and direction that has been expanded, so now tertiary institutes are able to sponsor charter schools. I have got to ask myself in reading through all of these things—because we have not been given a rationale, as a number of submitters have pointed out—as to why we are taking this overall direction through this bill. I think that these changes collectively do exactly what the New Zealand Principals’ Federation say they do.

I think that in opposing this bill, we are quite right to oppose this bill. It takes New Zealand down a track in terms of education, and, actually, not only education. Let us look at the principals managing more than one school. Principals are seen as professional leaders of their schools. Not only that; quite often they are one of the leaders of their community. They are required to have good relationships with their families, with iwi, with whānau, and with a number of groups within their communities. Under this bill they will be expected to do that perhaps amongst three or four communities. That kind of tells me that within each of their communities they are going to get only part of the attention of that one principal. We have to ask again, what does that do to small communities? What does that do across a number of communities? Well, I think that diminishes their role as professional leaders, not only of their school but also leadership roles within their community.

I also question, as a number of submitters did, is there really a need for this? Are we fixing something that does not really exist? As others have pointed out, there already exists opportunity for principals to manage more than one school, so why are we going down this track? I think, again, it is to perpetuate and fulfil the expansion of certain policies.

Hon Hekia Parata: That’s what Governments do.

ADRIAN RURAWHE: Yes, OK then. Absolutely. Governments should do that, but they should tell the country what they are doing, not do it by stealth by making several changes within a bill like this and not actually saying what the overall effect to the education system and our society is going to be. That is a fundamental issue around what is happening in this bill.

I suggest that Minister Parata and members opposite actually go and read the submissions properly because they are really serious ones. I think we do both the New Zealand public and the submitters an injustice by not taking seriously their submissions on this bill.

I agree with the points made about opening schools, being able to alter school hours. That would be great if you can alter all the bus timetables as well, say, particularly in a provincial area where schoolchildren catch buses to school—that would be great as well. I am not convinced. Again, some of the submissions that I sat in on, I heard there were concerns about such things as families that have children who go to a number of different schools, and trying to align all of those along with extracurricular activities and along with all the other issues that families have to cope with. There are a lot of families out there that are trying to cope with poverty. These changes do not address and do not help them. In fact, they probably make it more difficult for children to attend school if their siblings are attending other schools that have different hours.

We can make fun of what I am saying but I am saying to the House that this House needs to consider more carefully these issues. It gives me no pleasure at all, actually, to be standing speaking on this bill. We could be speaking on much better legislation than what we have in front of us. Nō reira, tēnā tātou katoa.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Education is something that the National Government takes very, very seriously. I think that is best demonstrated by the 2.5 percent increase in the Budget to $11 billion for education, which is a phenomenal actual bet—putting all our money where our mouth is and actually ensuring education goes forward, but this Education Legislation Bill takes things another step. I think it is about enabling excellence—that is what this legislation is about. It does, as has been said, amend eight different Acts, some of which date back over 70 years—or one of them does—and another one dates back just over 60 years. You know, we do need to have legislation that is fit for the modern purpose. I would like to challenge the last speaker, Adrian Rurawhe. I was on the Education and Science Committee, and all of the submitters who came and gave evidence to the select committee were taken seriously and all were listened to. That does not mean to say that we agreed with them. We all have a brain—

Carmel Sepuloni: Well, hmm!

STUART SMITH: —we were all round there; we made our own choices. Yes, there are exceptions, but not on our side. I would like to say that when we come to the principals being able to manage more than one school, what we have in the Opposition is really a triumph of ideology over good sense. What we have here are people who are very, very capable people who—with the board of trustees’ consent and agreement, the principal’s consent and agreement, and the consent of the board of trustees of the other school—are getting together and agreeing that that principal will share their skills across two schools. I think that is about getting excellence out there.

We all know from our own experience at school that there will be a teacher whom we remember who made a tremendous difference to us and to others, and that teacher did that. I said this last week in the House. It is not about the knowledge that is in the head of the teacher; it is about the skills they have to get that knowledge across to their students. That is something that is almost intangible. Some people have it in spades; other people do not. For those who do, it is quite right that they share their skills out for others so that the students might benefit from that.

We also talked about initial teacher education, or Teach First NZ. In fact, we had a cross-party briefing here last week from the Teach First NZ organisation. We also had the deputy principal of Tāmaki College, and she spoke extremely highly of the progress that has been made by those Teach First NZ teachers. All of this nonsense about the pedagogy—I do not know how many times I heard that from the Green person; it must be the new word—that came out in that speech. It is about what those students got out of those teachers. Those teachers brought their experience from other backgrounds—in fact, one of them came from a banking background and a graduate programme, got involved in teaching, and he loves it. His passion when he spoke about it was there for all to see, and the deputy principal could not speak highly enough of the contribution that he is making, both in the education sense, directly to the students, but he is also now the teachers’ representative on the board and is making a tremendous difference to that school.

It is with great pleasure that I commend this fantastic bill to the House.

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

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

Ayes 63

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 13; New Zealand First 12.

Question agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Education Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 13; New Zealand First 12.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Building (Pools) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 5 July.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I would like to just reiterate a couple of the points that I was making when this debate was interrupted several weeks ago. This is the second reading of the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill and it was a very good select committee process that saw us sit in a number of places around the country, not just here in Wellington. This is a bill where emotions did run high amongst some of the submitters, for very good reasons, because this is a bill that is designed to ensure the protection of unsupervised young children from drowning in swimming pools and hot tubs and things of that nature.

This bill amends the Building Act 2004 and it repeals the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act 1987 and incorporates that Act into the Building Act. The dedicated safety pool requirements of the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act now become part of the Building Act. That is a sensible step, in my view.

I want to just cover a couple of the main aspects that the bill covers. One is that, under this bill, spa pools and hot tubs with safety covers would no longer require a fence or a barrier around them. That is because those spa pools that have safety covers do provide the adequate and proper protection required for unsupervised children. As a result of this bill, retailers will now be required to inform buyers of the new rules relating to swimming pools and hot tubs.

As a result of the changes made at select committee and recommended to the House, councils will be required to inspect pools every 3 years. It became clear during the submission process that some councils were already doing that; many were not, and some not at all. It was the case that Auckland Council was inspecting every 3 years, but there were a number of councils that did no inspections at all and some that did them on an irregular basis. The original proposal in the bill at first reading was that the mandatory period should be 5 years, but upon hearing some very good submissions from a range of submitters, we have recommended to the House that that period be reduced to 3 years.

The bill also provides for independent inspectors to be able to conduct pool inspections. These would be independent, suitably qualified inspectors who had been approved by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. It would not preclude councils from maintaining their own inspection regime and own inspection staff, but if councils wanted to contract that role out to independent, suitably qualified inspectors, then that would be available under this bill.

Another major aspect of the bill is that it provides clarity about the rules for installing new pool barriers. The bill extends the definition of fencing to barriers, and it is an area that I think helps the legislation. It will mean that a barrier must be as effective as a current fence, so I think that is a good move. I commend this bill to the House, and I look forward to watching it proceed through the House. Thank you.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): For about the last half of the hearing of submissions and the consideration of this bill, I sat on the Local Government and Environment Committee. Can I thank the chair for his chairing of that committee; I thought he did a good job. I have to give a wee flick to officials here, and I suspect my National Party colleagues agree with me on this: the officials were appalling, in their description to submitters and in the commentary on the bill, at explaining what was going down in the legislation. Indeed, I think it took some input from the Opposition, amongst others, to point out the fact that they were not actually doing a very good sales job and, as a consequence, there were lots of people in civil society who had the wrong end of the stick as to what was going down in the legislation.

The effect of the legislation is to codify under the Building Act, as an acceptable solution, the earlier practice under the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act. In broad terms, that was the stated intention of the Government, but it was not well described. There were also a couple of holes in the way in which they were codifying the old Fencing of Swimming Pools Act provisions into this new Building Act means of compliance, which were not well understood. They came through from submissions from the submitters who appeared before the select committee, and most of those things have been sorted out.

One of the changes that was proposed was to make it clearer that there needed to be a consistent inspection regime across the country. As the chair of the select committee, Scott Simpson, has just said, there are varying practices around the country. Some councils were inspecting every 5 years; some were inspecting every 3 years. Some councils, in fact, had very poor inspection regimes and were probably not doing a decent job at any time. So I think the Government is right to try to make that consistent across the country. The proposal for 5 years was pointed out to be flawed, apart from anything else, by some of the councils. The statistics that the Auckland Council provided us showed that after 3-yearly inspections, 65 percent of the pools they were re-inspecting had become non-compliant. Imagine if you left that to 5 years—the level of non-compliance would be even worse, and, of course, that would increase the number of drownings caused by swimming pools.

There have been some critics of the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act, saying that it added an unnecessary regulatory burden to people who own private swimming pools. I disagree with that, and, indeed, the evidence that came to the select committee was that drownings from home swimming pools decreased in the 10 years following the passage of the original Act, from around 100 drownings in the 10 years before the Act came into force to 30 drownings in the 10 years that followed. Every one of those was a tragedy, but those statistics show that there was a 70 percent decrease in children drowning in swimming pools as a consequence of the passage of the original Act. Undoubtedly, that Act has saved many lives.

For those reasons, the Labour Party was determined to try to make some improvements in the bill to get it as close to the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act as was possible and to make sure that any changes from it were justified. It was notable that during the period that elapsed from the original discussion document, which had been put out by Shane Jones some 5 years earlier when he held the ministerial portfolio, the language had changed in the discussion document, which was initially withdrawn by the incoming National Government. Shane Jones’ discussion document focused on child safety; the focus in the subsequent document that came out some 5 years later from Nick Smith placed a lot more emphasis on reducing compliance costs. So we were determined that we would put child safety first. Obviously, compliance costs are relevant—you do not want to over-regulate things—but, first and foremost, this is about reducing drownings.

As my colleague Jacinda Ardern mentioned in her contribution, there is one remaining aspect that worries us, and that is the change to the definition of four-sided fences. There are two parts to this; one part does not worry me, the other part does. Presently, in law, it is arguable under the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act that a natural barrier like a cliff cannot act as a fence on one side of the pool. I actually think that it should. So long as the effect of that natural barrier is the same as a fence, I do not think it matters that it is a natural barrier rather than a fence, so I do not mind the law being clarified to say that natural barriers can be treated like fences.

But the other part of the change does worry me, and that is that instead of having a fence between a house and a pool, you will now be able to have an alarmed door from a room in the house to the pool. That is a change that the Labour Party opposes, because the evidence is that those alarm systems do not work as well as a fence. There are a number of reasons for that. We see it in human nature: people get tired of alarms going off and they disable them. We have had recent occurrences in Dunedin—quite tragic ones—where the fire alarms that are installed by landlords had been disabled by students because they do not like the fire alarm going off when the toast burns, or whatever other reason there is that they are going off. That is human nature. The same thing will happen in respect of alarms on doors. People will get sick of the noise—there might be an alarm that jams or something—and some of them will be turned off.

I think that the evidence of the Auckland Council, that even after 3-yearly inspections 65 percent of the pools had become non-compliant in some way, is evidence that if we introduce another option around alarmed doors we are going to see that be less effective than a fence around a swimming pool. So the Labour Party says that we are supporting this bill at this second reading but that we will be bringing forward a Supplementary Order Paper so that we actually go back to the old Fencing of Swimming Pools Act rule in that regard and require a fence between a house and a pool, not merely an alarmed door. I would hope that this House would give consideration to that at the Committee stage so that we do not have alarms that people can disable.

The other thing we know is that most of the drownings that do occur in respect of fenced swimming pools is when people are distracted. You know people can be distracted. It is another source of error that can occur when a parent is distracted, and I fear that parents or grandparents or friends are going to be shocked when they realise in future years that if we proceed, as is proposed in the bill in its current form, to allow alarmed doors rather than a fence around a pool, we are going to have a worse outcome. That said, I agree with the select committee report that in all other aspects this legislation effectively codifies the old tests and, for that reason, I think that the Labour Party will support it if that other change is made.

I want to very briefly say something about spa pools. Spa pools were caught within the definition of a “pool” under the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act, but it was never enforced. It was always a bit of a nonsense that they were caught up. It was not properly thought through at the time. We have clarified in this bill that a spa pool that has a lockable lid is not a “pool” for the purposes of this legislation, and I think that is a practical step as well.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): I rise in support of the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill in this second reading, and I have to pick up from where Mr Parker left off.

I came into the select committee process later. I did not see the full process through, and although the ancillary purpose of this bill was to codify conditions around the fencing of swimming pools and to repeal the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act of 1987, and to amend the Building Act to bring it all into one, from my understanding of where the Local Government and Environment Committee was going, this was a system brought about to protect young people, and people in general, from drowning, and to prevent the injuries sustained from near drownings. So I think it is important to make that clear from the select committee process.

I heard information presented by officials to the select committee that showed that according to evidence from the old Fencing of Swimming Pools Act, the changes did reduce the risk of drowning for young people. It said that 80 percent of young children who drowned were 2 years or younger and that fencing certainly does prevent drowning. Some would say, of course, that that is common sense, but certainly, as a mother of two young children, I can appreciate the fact that when children see water, they get pretty excited, and if you are not keeping an eye on them they could, certainly, unwittingly wander off and find themselves getting into difficulties. So fencing and cordoning off of swimming pools is an important part of our society here in New Zealand, where we are so active in the water.

I think one element that I am really pleased about in respect of this bill is the inspections regime. Obviously, it is being taken now to a 3-yearly basis, to make inspections. Authorities will oversee that, and suitably qualified independent inspectors approved by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment can also make inspections, but I think that that 3-yearly basis is an important time frame to implement. It obviously keeps pool owners on their toes, and if owners are found not to be complying with the regulations, then there is a stepped framework for enforcement, and that includes not only warnings but then infringement notices, and then, ultimately, court prosecutions, if that is needed.

We have already heard, in speeches prior, that one of the practical things about this bill is that it incorporates hot tubs and spas into the regulatory regime, so a spa pool that has a locked, sealed cover when it is not in use is an appropriate barrier to keep people—certainly, little people—out, and that means that it is also easier to enforce. So when a person goes to buy a spa pool, the seller of that spa pool can educate the buyer about the regulations there and then, and make sure that the buyer is aware of those regulations and to make sure that they put them into force.

So I am quite happy with this bill. It brings about some minimum standards. I think it is a good thing that that is being codified in the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): This Building (Pools) Amendment Bill will lead to a child dying from drowning. Let us not try to use technical language to get around the fact that this bill loosens the rules on the fencing of swimming pools and that all of the evidence is that a child will die as a result of the provisions in this bill. The evidence from the experts is also that for every child drowning, there are nine child near-drowning incidents—near-drowning incidents—that lead to brain injury. So from this bill we can expect children will die and children—many more—will be seriously injured for the rest of their lives. Those are the consequences of this legislation. That is why the Green Party will not be supporting this bill.

The primary reason given by the Government for this legislation is this. It is about “striking a balance between reduced compliance costs for residential pool owners and territorial local authorities … and maintaining child safety”. This Government is pitting the lives of children against some cost savings for people who are rich enough to own a swimming pool and for some local councils. On that balance, striking a balance, the National Government has decided in favour of the pool owners, against the risk to the lives of children who may drown or be seriously injured in a pool accident.

We heard submissions from a large number of experts in child health and well-being who expressed serious concerns about this legislation. The Auckland Regional Public Health Service said that under the previous legislation—the 1987 Act that this legislation is now going to undo—there were 200 lives saved from the fencing of swimming pools and several thousand children were prevented from near-drowning as a result of strong rules and clear rules, around the fencing of pools. The National Government is about to pass legislation that will undo that, and increase that risk.

Water Safety New Zealand estimated that the cost of child drownings and hospitalisations from near-drownings since 2005, in the last 10 years, is around $110 million. That is the cost to the families, and that is the cost to the health system. That is the cost, if you just want to look at it in dirty money terms, like National wants to—saving a bit of cash for a few residential pool owners, and $110 million in the cost to families and the public health purse from changing these rules and making it easier for children to drown.

We heard from Mr Neil Price, paediatric surgeon and President of the New Zealand Society of Paediatric Surgeons. He was the one who said that “for every drowning up to 9 children suffer a near drowning [incident].” He said: “These consequences have grave social [costs] and significant financial costs.” He said that the current law reduced the drowning rate from around ten to only three a year, saving seven lives every year since 2002. Every single one of those lives saved by the previous legislation has meant a family has not had to suffer the terrible tragedy of a death, and for many, many hundreds of others not the terrible tragedy of a near-drowning.

We heard from some of these families. They came to the Local Government and Environment Committee and they told us: “Don’t change the law. We lost our child to a drowning. We know what that means for a family. We do not want a single other family to have to suffer that unfairly, unjustly.” And yet the Government just did not hear them. Those families did not exist, for National, because, as Paul Foster-Bell argued, people want to have infinity pools and would rather not have a fence. That is fine for that person; it is not so fine for the child who drowns as a result of changing the law to allow someone to have their little infinity pool that is not marred by the ugliness of a fence.

The Children’s Commissioner came to the select committee. He also argued very strongly for the select committee to make changes to the bill to strengthen the existing law to fence off pools, for the sake of children’s lives. He and others argued that all around the world, including in Australia, the most recent changes to these kinds of laws have been to strengthen the fencing provisions to protect the lives of children. So what does National do? Protecting the lives of children is not as important as reducing some costs for those who are rich enough to own pools, and so it is softening the law and making it easier for children to access swimming pools, without supervision, and to subsequently drown or suffer a serious injury. The Children’s Commissioner also talked about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which New Zealand is a signatory, saying that in all actions concerning children the best interests of the child must be the primary consideration. What is the primary consideration in this legislation? Saving money for some residential pool owners, balanced against children’s lives.

We know that this bill will lead to increased risk for children, and death, and injury. And the purpose of making law, surely, by any Government—particularly regulations like this—should be to improve safety for children: to make it easier for children to live well, live long lives, and to meet their full potential. So how did we end up with a Government that would rather save a few rich people, who can own pools, a little bit of money and still allow for children to be at increased risk?

Plunket has come and said that it is seriously concerned about the impacts of this bill on children’s lives and on families’ lives. They expressed deep, deep concern that the law is changing around fencing to allow for untested, experimental systems to keep children out, because the standard that is being set in this legislation is not a standard about the kind of fence, and the kind of latch on those fences, but a performance-based standard. Children are being used—their lives are being used—as an experiment by this Government. The Government is saying: “You can use any kind you like; you can pretty much do anything you like, as long as we think it might keep children out.” But when those experimental systems fail, it will be a failure that costs a child their life. On what basis would any rational Government decide that it is OK for pool owners to experiment with the kind of fence that they might use, knowing that it is children who will pay the cost with their lives and their livelihoods for that experiment? Because that is what this bill does.

This is really clear from the Water Safety New Zealand submission, which talked about the cost, the risks to lives, about its efforts over many years to prevent New Zealanders from drowning—and, particularly, to prevent New Zealand children from drowning. So much of the work that has gone in to protecting children from exactly this risk is now being undone by a ridiculous, selfish piece of legislation that National has dreamt up, because some rich pool owners want to save a little bit of cash. Shame on you, National.

Hon Member: Ha ha!

METIRIA TUREI: You think it is funny? I am sorry, does the Minister—sorry, let us just be clear about this. One of the members of National just laughed at the prospect that children are at risk because of this legislation. That is the kind of National Government we have. Thank you.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to indicate that we will be supporting the passage of this bill. I think the points have been pretty well traversed at this point in time. It is always the case when you get one of the late speaking slots that most of the members have covered off the points, but for the record I will state that New Zealand First does accept the logic behind the bill.

I am going to digress just a tad. I do accept that there are some people who think that lowering the compliance costs for pool owners might well be aimed at one particular sector of the community—that is, the people who are fortunate enough to have very flash homes and big flash swimming pools. I am just going to put on record in Hansard the admiration that I have for a gentleman who lives in Carterton who, out of the kindness of his heart, gave a family who are not what you would call a rich, wealthy family a swimming pool for Christmas because they had done things over time to assist him and make his life better.

One of the things that he thought he could do to help them was to provide some entertainment and a facility that their children had never been able to enjoy, and probably one that the parents could never have afforded to pay for themselves—a swimming pool. Of course, with that came the obligations of meeting the requirements of the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act. So the compliance issues around pool fencing are not compliance issues reserved for just the wealthy. These are compliance issues that affect ordinary, everyday people—what some people might term a family in the low socio-economic group. I want to take my hat off to that gentleman. I will not name him in the House because he would just be embarrassed, but he knows who he is.

New Zealand First does not have a lot of problems with the issues that were traversed at the Local Government and Environment Committee, and, in fact, we understand them. The six key changes that are being made to existing law lie around child-resistant covers, which were deemed to be an adequate means of restricting access to spa pools and hot tubs. I acknowledge the Labour speaker who pointed out that spa pools and hot tubs were caught up in the legislation. As time has moved on, the design of spa pools by the manufacturers has been such that they have provided a perfectly secure means of providing that protection and safety for children, to stop them drowning in these pools, which makes the legislation somewhat redundant as far as they are concerned.

We particularly like the fact that retailers and manufacturers are now going to be required to inform buyers about their obligations under the Act when they buy these spa pools, these hot tubs, and these portable pools. We like the fact that they will be required to instruct the purchaser as to how to maintain and keep secure the pool that they have purchased and undertake to put on their property, and that, in doing so, they undertake to accept the responsibilities that come with that—that is, the responsibility of keeping that pool safe and, particularly, keeping children safe from any accident that might occur. Those seem to us to be perfectly sensible.

The other thing that is perfectly sensible is getting some rationality, consistency, and standardisation in terms of how the territorial authorities exercise their duties and responsibilities in respect of inspecting and certifying residential pools. This has clearly been an area where territorial authorities all over New Zealand have either struggled, simply not complied, or been somewhat inconsistent across the board. It is interesting, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch—and you yourself, being from rural New Zealand, provincial New Zealand, know full well that some ratepayers out there actually have their property in two territorial authorities. It is just a matter of luck as to where the swimming pool is placed as to whether you are subject to inspection from, for example, Tararua District Council, or Masterton District Council, or Vicky Verker down in Carterton and South Wairarapa.

If you are a ratepayer who owns two properties—one might be in South Wairarapa and one might be in Carterton—you may well have portable pools in both locations, and to find that you are subject to different inspection criteria and different compliances from two different councils can be somewhat frustrating if you are such an owner. I do not know that there would be many cases such as that, but there will be some, and it is nice to see that we are going to have some consistency applied across the board between territorial authorities due to the passage of this bill.

The bill introduces a graduated enforcement regime, with infringement notices as the preferred tool for compliance, and court prosecutions only in serious breaches. It also allows for barriers other than fences to be used for restricting access to residential pools. It was an interesting conversation, this one, at the select committee. There was some debate as to whether a natural cliff provided adequate protection. Well, I guess if you are a child who has been trained and schooled by the SAS and you know how to shimmy up a sheer face of a cliff and then, having exercised those talents and skills, you are then not able to swim in the pool that you might have fallen into when you got to the top of the cliff—we just do not quite see some of those things as being rational arguments. So if there is a sheer cliff, it will now be considered to be a suitable barrier.

New Zealand First will support this bill through. We will watch for the amendments from the Labour Party members, and we will judge the legislation on the merit of the debate as we go, but we will be supporting the bill.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe. This is a very sensible, practical, pragmatic, and sound bill from a pragmatic Government, and I agree with the comments made by Major Mark. I completely refute what are, I think, scurrilous and revolting accusations made on this sensitive issue by Metiria Turei.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.