Thursday, 15 September 2016

THURSDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 2016

THURSDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 2016

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Leader of the House: When the House resumes on Tuesday, 20 September, the Government will look to complete the first reading of the Statutes Repeal Bill, the third reading of the Evidence Amendment Bill, and progress a number of other bills on the Order Paper. Wednesday will be a members’ day.

Motions

Battle of the Somme—Centenary

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I seek leave to move a motion without notice and without debate on the centennial of the New Zealand Division’s arrival on the Somme, which falls today.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection for that course of action being followed? There is no objection.

RON MARK: I move, That this House marks with reverence the centennial today of the New Zealand Division going over the top during the Battle of the Somme.

Motion agreed to.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Economy—Growth

1. DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the economy?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Today Statistics New Zealand released the GDP figures showing the New Zealand economy grew by 0.9 percent in the June quarter and by 3.6 percent in the year to 30 June. This puts New Zealand’s growth rate at third in the developed world, behind Luxembourg and the Slovak Republic. Overall growth was broad-based with 11 of 16 industry sectors growing and 15 of those sectors growing over the previous year, which shows that the New Zealand economy is continuing to diversify and growth is broad-based.

David Bennett: What were the main drivers of economic growth in the year to June?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Unsurprisingly, growth was driven by construction or led by construction, which grew 5.1 percent over the quarter. Residential construction is up 10 percent over the year, reinforcing the fact that New Zealand is in a significant building boom. Growth was broad-based. Even though the dairy sector has been doing it tough, exports were up $3 billion, and in the last quarter, exports grew at the fastest rate in 18 years. This growth means that the value of the New Zealand economy passed the quarter of a trillion mark for the first time ever.

David Bennett: How does New Zealand’s growth rate compare with the average among OECD countries?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: A lot of OECD countries are caught in a situation of pretty high public debt, high unemployment, and relatively low growth rates, so the average for the OECD is just 1.6 percent. Our rate of 3.6 percent compares with 2.2 percent in the United Kingdom, 1.2 percent in the US, and 0.8 percent in Japan. It is a solid result for the economy, but there are many risks around and if we want to continue to deliver higher incomes and more jobs for households, there is plenty to do.

Grant Robertson: Is it not correct that our real per capita growth of 0.7 percent puts us behind Germany, Canada, the United States, the UK, and Japan, and is not real per person growth, the measure that his Budget says we should be looking at?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: As we have discussed at some length, actually, in the House, it is another measure of the economy, and in the long run, per capita income matters a lot. At the moment it is not surprising it is a bit soft, because we have faster population growth than any of those countries. So, with a surge in population and New Zealanders staying home rather than leaving, it is not surprising income growth per head is softer, but as immigration turns down it is quite likely that that number will rise again.

David Bennett: How does the growing economy help support vulnerable New Zealand families?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Household Incomes Report recently published by the Ministry of Social Development notes that a growing economy is having a noticeable impact, particularly on measures of hardship, helping those who are in not quite so severe hardship and those who describe themselves as “just getting by”. However, it is still the case that even in a growing economy those who are suffering persistent deprivation do not see an automatic uplift from higher growth rates, which is why the Government has such an active programme of working with the most vulnerable to deal with the barriers that they face, particularly getting into work but also to getting better incomes.

Children’s Rights—Benefits, Child Support, and Youth Justice

2. METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for Social Development: Ka whakaae a ia ki tā Te Kaweneti o Te Kotahitanga o Ngā Whenua o Te Ao mō Ngā Tika tamaiti, e tono rā kia whakatūturu tana Kāwanatanga, me noho taungaroa rawa atu ngā pānga pai o te tamaiti, i roto i te hinengaro, ka whakamanahia ana ngā ture e pā ana ki ngā tamariki?

[Does she accept that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child requires her Government to ensure the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration in the enactment of laws relating to children?]

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Acting Minister for Social Development): Ko te whakautu tuatahi ki te mema nāna i pātai mai, kāo! Ēngari mō te whai haere i tōna pātai, te āhua nei e kōrero kē ana a ia mō tētahi atu kaupapa.

[The first response to the member who asked the question is no. But in terms of following up her question, it seems like she is referring to some other matter.]

I accept that article 3 of the convention states: “In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.” The member, however, appears to be referring to principle 2 of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which dates back to 1959 and was the basis of the convention adopted by the United Nations in 1989 and signed up to by New Zealand in 1993. Minister Tolley is currently leading a delegation to Geneva to discuss New Zealand’s report under the United Nations Convention—

Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was actually quite simple: it was whether she accepts the convention. The issue of Minister Tolley travelling wherever she is is of no relevance to the question that was on notice.

Mr SPEAKER: It was a very lengthy question. I am listening very carefully to the answer. I think the Minister is certainly addressing the question. If the member does not like the inclusion of the visit of the Hon Anne Tolley to somewhere, that is her problem. I am the sole determinant as to when the answer has gone on for too long, or whether I think it is moving into areas that are unnecessary to be an answer to the question. At this stage, I am not at that position. The Hon Hekia Parata—does she wish to continue?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I answered the first part of her question in Māori, since she had asked it in Māori, so I gave a very definitive answer to the first part—

Mr SPEAKER: And I have addressed that matter.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: —and I went on to elaborate in answer to the second part of the question.

Mr SPEAKER: And I have accepted that, so there is no need to raise that as a point of order. I was then allowing the Minister, if she wanted, to add anything further to complete her answer. But I think, in view of the time and that we have now had such a substantial break, we will move immediately to the supplementary questions.

Metiria Turei: How does the fining of sole mothers $28 a week protect the best interests of their children?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Benefit entitlements have long been associated with child support, and in those arrangements there are both expectations and sanctions. In the particular case that the member is asking about, there are sanctions where both parents are not contributing, but there are also exemptions against which an application can be made.

Metiria Turei: How has the convention been considered in the Government’s decision to keep benefits so low that the poorest parents in New Zealand are now paying over 50 percent of their income in rent alone?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The relevance of Minister Tolley reporting to the United Nations at this time is to report on the significant range of support that this Government has put in for the most vulnerable, of whom the large proportion are children. That has included the $790 million increase in hardship support; it has included the establishment of the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki; it has included the children’s teams; and it has included—for instance, in the education area—the targeting of operation grants to those young people who have spent a significant amount of their time in benefit-dependent families.

Metiria Turei: How many of the 148,000 New Zealand children currently in hardship will be brought out of that hardship because of the $25 a week benefit increase?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I do not have that detail to hand, but I can say that it is not one thing or another; it is the mix of investments that the Government is making that are directed at how we help all New Zealanders, including those most vulnerable.

Metiria Turei: How many of the more than 20,000 children and parents currently homeless will be housed as a result of the $25 a week increase?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Again, I cannot provide that detail, but in respect of the previous question that the member asked, I can tell her that over 17,000 children are affected by fathers who are not contributing to child support. [Interruption]

Metiria Turei: They don’t get it; that’s right.

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Metiria Turei: Is it not a fact, Minister, that the payments that are made by those fathers, in the main, do not go to sole parents—the sole mothers—who are potentially fined; they just do not go to those parents if they are on a benefit?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Well, there are two avenues by which a father can contribute. One is by meeting their requirement under the benefit dispensation to the sole mother, and another is by contributing directly to the mother of their child.

Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a clear question. She did not answer it.

Mr SPEAKER: Can we just have the question again please for the benefit of the Minister.

Metiria Turei: Is it not a fact, Minister, that the payments made by those fathers do not go to the sole parents—mothers—who are responsible for those children?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: As I answered the first time, there are two ways by which support is received by young people. One is by the father paying his apportioned share to the Ministry of Social Development so that it supports the benefit paid. Another is whereby the parent pays directly.

Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a straight question, it was a clear question, and it has not been answered.

Mr SPEAKER: I accept that it has not been answered to the satisfaction of the member. It has been asked twice now and the answer has not been clear. I will allow the member two additional supplementary questions.

Metiria Turei: Will the Minister meet the challenge from the Children’s Commissioner, Andrew Becroft, this morning and set clear targets for child poverty reduction to make sure that the Government meets its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I can say that she is already right now reporting on the commitments and the investments and the actual practical arrangements that this Government has made in respect of young people. In terms of whether or not she will choose to respond directly to the invitation that has been made publicly today, I cannot pre-empt her decision on that.

Metiria Turei: Will the Government meet the challenge set out by the Children’s Commissioner, Andrew Becroft, this morning to change the age of criminal justice from 17 to 18?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: That was one of the recommendations included in the expert panel. My understanding is that Ministers Adams and Tolley are working on that now, and we are yet to receive their recommendation.

Economic Growth—Economic Growth Per Capita

3. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all his statements?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes.

Grant Robertson: Does he stand by his statement, made as recently as yesterday, that what really matters for higher material living standards is real per capita GDP; if so, is annual per capita GDP growth of 0.7 percent going to give Kiwis meaningfully higher living standards?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Bill English. There were actually two questions; the Minister can address either one.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes, I do stand by that statement, particularly in the context in which it was given. As I explained to the member, when you are looking at per capita income, two things drive it. One is the number of people, and that has been rising strongly in New Zealand because New Zealanders have stopped leaving for Australia in their thousands, so there has been sharp population growth. In respect of income, that has been held down by a significant drop in dairy income. So it is not surprising that growth in per capita income—which was, I think, 0.5 percent in the quarter, which is not too bad—is a bit soft under those circumstances. It is likely to grow as dairy incomes grow and migration turns.

Grant Robertson: Why is he pleased about a growth rate per person that is at a level that has been described by leading economists as lacklustre, far from perfect, and subpar?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: If the member spent a bit more time with economists, he would find out what a miserable bunch they are.

Grant Robertson: I’m tempted to ask what his degree is, but, anyway.

Mr SPEAKER: No, we will have the supplementary question.

Grant Robertson: Does annual per capita GDP growth of 0.7 percent represent acceptable value creation from the population growth New Zealand has experienced?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am not exactly sure what the question means, but if the member means “Is it enough?”, well, of course it is not enough. We would like it to be higher. That is the whole point of a raft of policies run, particularly, under the Business Growth Agenda, which are all designed to promote more investment and capital deepening so that we can deliver higher incomes. I am pleased the member understands that the Government is not complacent in any way, even though the top-line GDP number is pretty good.

Grant Robertson: Is it correct that today’s Statistics New Zealand release shows that real disposable incomes for New Zealanders have dropped in the last quarter?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: What impresses me—and surprises me—is that the member got through 20 pages of statistics before he found that one. I used to think he hardly ever got past the first two pages, but there you go. That measure is a negative number in this quarter, and, actually, it is historically quite a volatile measure. In some quarters it has been plus 5 percent—way higher than GDP—and today it is lower than GDP. In the long run—

Dr David Clark: It’s soft, isn’t it? It’s soft. You’re meant to say it’s soft this month.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Of course, we want real disposable income per capita to be positive.

Grant Robertson: In light of that answer, if, per person, New Zealanders are not getting welfare and their disposable income has actually dropped, can he blame New Zealanders for feeling that whatever spin he puts on it, the economy is not working for them? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question is to the Minister of Finance.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: With the amount of confidence in the economy, it does not need any spin for New Zealanders to believe that, actually, they are not doing too badly under the circumstances.

Grant Robertson: Is it not correct that no amount of spin that he puts on the numbers can get away from the fact that, as Paul Glass of Devon Funds Management says, “We only grow our share of the economic cake when GDP per capita grows, otherwise we are running hard to stay still.”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I think I said the other day, I do disagree with Mr Glass, actually. For the 30,000 Kiwis who decided to stay home this year instead of going away—we do not regard that as some kind of statistical blip that upsets that per capita calculation; we regard it as an indication of success that New Zealanders have decided to stay here instead of going to Australia. If that makes that particular statistic a bit “soft” for a few quarters, it is a small price to pay for success, when people are voting with their feet to stay home.

Science and Research—Endeavour Fund

4. MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister of Science and Innovation: What new investment has the Government announced in high-quality scientific research?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Science and Innovation): This week I announced funding of $209 million over 5 years for 56 new scientific research programmes through the Government’s Endeavour Fund. The fund, which is part of the Budget 2016 Innovative New Zealand package, is also part of the Government’s 10-year vision for a highly dynamic New Zealand science system. It supports both Smart Ideas initiatives and larger research programmes. Smart Ideas catalyses and rapidly tests promising innovative research ideas, and contracts are awarded for that one for 2 to 3 years. Research Programmes are awarded for 3 to 5 years and support ambitious research programmes with high potential to deliver a significant impact on New Zealand’s economy, environment, and society.

Matt Doocey: What sort of research is being supported by the Endeavour Fund?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There have been a large number of high-quality proposals received, with 56 of them being granted across a range of research areas. Otago University and Crown research institutes the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Scion, and Landcare Research were particularly successful with research programmes, along with Nelson’s Cawthron Institute, which has a project on improving feed efficiency in salmon; a world-first proof of application test of trojan female pest control by AgResearch, and a University of Canterbury project to produce high-quality titanium from waste products. Overall, this wide variety of projects will help lift innovation in economic growth and improve the lives of all New Zealanders over time.

Matt Doocey: Why did the Government create the Endeavour Fund?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The new Endeavour Fund replaces the previous Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment contestable fund and refocuses our investment towards longer-term, high-impact, mission-led programmes of science. Although the economy, as we have heard today, is performing very well compared with most of the OECD, it is important we continue to invest in new scientific technologies and areas of growth. This fund, along with other investment the Government has made to grow the level of scientific research in areas like health research, the Marsden Fund, and the Catalyst Fund, plus business-led research and development, will continue to ensure we diversify and grow our economy.

Schools, Funding—Proposed Global Funding Model and Funding Systems Advisory Group Recommendations

5. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: Will she now recommend to Cabinet that the global budget proposal not proceed, given the sector advisory group recommended it not proceed and the Prime Minister has said that the Government “wouldn’t really be progressing the issue unless they could get the other stakeholders on board—the unions and others”?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): As I have said many times in this House, we are in a process and no decisions have been made. It would also not be appropriate for me to be discussing what I would recommend before Cabinet. What I can say is that I have read the advisory group’s report, I am taking it seriously, and I look forward to an education funding system that has at its heart the achievement of the children and young people of New Zealand.

Chris Hipkins: Does she agree with the advisory group’s concern that the proposal has the potential “to either reduce the number of teachers in the system or lead to more casualisation of the school teacher workforce,”; if not, why not?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: As I said, I am in a process of considering the arguments that it is making. They will be weighed up and taken seriously, and they will form my advice to Cabinet.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I am just going to invite the member to have that question again.

Chris Hipkins: OK, thank you. Does she agree with the advisory group’s concern that the proposal has the potential “to either reduce the number of teachers in the system or lead to more casualisation of the school teacher workforce,”; if not, why not?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: It is my intention to provide my analysis of the advisory group’s report, first, to Cabinet, and to do so at the end of this process, which we are still in.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That is a fairly straight question about a consultation process the Minister has engaged in that has reported back, and I am asking her to, basically, give a response to the advisory group’s report, which she has received. I do not think those are unreasonable questions, and the Minister is not answering, or not even coming close to answering them.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I think it is very similar to a case we had earlier, where I can accept that the member is not satisfied with the answer. I am not responsible for the answer. We have had two goes at the answer. The best way forward is I will allow the member an additional supplementary question.

Chris Hipkins: How could schools reduce the number of teachers whom they employ under a global funding model without either increasing class sizes or reducing the number of subjects that they offer?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Just to be very clear about the process that we are in: the proposals are ideas to be tested, and that is why they have not been modelled. We wanted to understand how much support there would be for them before we went to the next step. All of the questions that the member is asking are legitimate ones that would be considered in that process, but we are not yet at that stage. So to be giving the member arbitrary answers to each independent question when there are a mix of variables would be misleading.

Chris Hipkins: How can members of the education sector test the proposals that she has put forward if she will not actually explain what they are?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: By referring the member to the Cabinet paper that has been online for the last 3 months, which elaborated to the extent necessary to know whether or not testing these ideas was something that should be pursued. The member may also then ask why there are paid union meetings to make a decision if they do not yet know the full detail.

Chris Hipkins: Does she agree with the advisory group chair, Allan Vester, who said regarding the proposal “The fear is that if the Government squeezes the budget, as it sometimes does, effectively that squeeze will be downward pressure on staff.”; if not, why not?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I can acknowledge that that was Mr Vester’s fear, but it is not one that I share.

Chris Hipkins: How many fewer teachers would schools be able to employ if global budgets were in place today, given that this Government cuts schools’ operations budgets, in real terms, in this year’s Budget by $7.8 million?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I reject the presumption that that question is based on. In the years between 2010 and 2015, Consumers Price Index inflation went up by 9.6 percent, whereas operational grants went up by 15 percent.

Chris Hipkins: Are the figures that she just quoted in nominal terms or real terms?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I think that they are in real terms. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just need substantially less interjection from both sides, so I can hear the question and the answer.

Chris Hipkins: Is it not the case that the only additional flexibility schools would have is the flexibility to employ fewer teachers so they can cover their running costs with reduced Government funding, and that she refuses to rule out implementing that proposal because she has a long-running commitment to increase class sizes one way or the other?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: No.

Road Safety—Overseas Drivers and Licensing

6. DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) to the Associate Minister of Transport: Is he satisfied with current requirements for overseas drivers in New Zealand?

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Associate Minister of Transport): If the member is asking about the requirements for those with overseas licences who drive in New Zealand, then yes. Under the relevant driver-licensing rule, New Zealand accepts—and has under successive Governments since the late 1990s—drivers’ licences issued by any overseas authority, provided they are written in English or are carried with an accurate English translation. We also accept international driving permits issued under the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. This Government, in partnership with other organisations, has introduced numerous initiatives to better inform and educate visitors who intend to and who do drive in New Zealand. Those initiatives cover all stages of an overseas visitor’s trip: planning, booking, in flight, on arrival, and on our roads.

Denis O’Rourke: If it is good enough for countries like China to require visitor drivers to sit a driving test, what are the reasons his Government does not require the same here, given the number and seriousness of accidents involving foreign drivers?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: To put the member’s last point there on the number of serious accidents involving foreign drivers in perspective, in the year to March 2016 there were 3.3 million international visitors to New Zealand. In 2015 there were, sadly, 291 fatal crashes in New Zealand, and, sadly, 1,822 serious injury crashes. Of those, overseas drivers were at fault in 16 fatal crashes and 79 serious injury crashes. I reiterate: any crash, any fatality is a tragedy, but we must keep it in perspective and context.

Denis O’Rourke: In the case of the Chinese nationals recently caught driving tour buses on fake or borrowed licences, has he seen to it that Alps Travel’s transport services licence is cancelled or at least suspended pending a full investigation; if not, why not?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I will not comment particularly on that case because actions are being undertaken, but we take driver’s licence fraud and driver’s licence misdemeanours very, very, very seriously. I would note that on the allegations in that particular case, many laws, rules, and regulations have, allegedly, been broken.

Denis O’Rourke: Is he concerned that his Government’s softness on overseas drivers is being reflected in similarly soft sentences for overseas drivers who cause fatal accidents here; if so, when will he do something about it?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I will not comment on matters that are under investigation and/or before the courts.

Conservation, Department—Funding

7. JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Conservation: Does she stand by her statement that Vote Conservation has not been cut?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) on behalf of the Minister of Conservation: Yes. Vote Conservation is estimated this year to be $451 million, and that compares with $362 million in the last year of the previous Government.

James Shaw: When adjusted for inflation, has Vote Conservation been cut since her Government took office?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Inflation has been at record low levels, and that is good news for households as well as for departments like the Department of Conservation (DOC). But if you calculate the increase that the Department of Conservation received in this year’s Budget, as compared with that in the last full year of the previous Government, it is more of an increase than that from inflation.

James Shaw: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was short, straight, and factual. It was whether Vote Conservation has been inflation-adjusted since her Government took office, not in the last 12 months.

Mr SPEAKER: I am going to invite the member to repeat the question.

James Shaw: When adjusted for inflation, has Vote Conservation been cut since her Government took office?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I repeat the figures: in the last full year of the previous Government the Department of Conservation’s budget was $362 million. The estimated budget for this year is $451 million. If the member calculates, that is an increase greater than the rate of inflation.

James Shaw: I seek leave to table this graph, prepared by the Parliamentary Library, which shows cuts to real funding for Vote Conservation since National took office.

Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave, and the House can decide. Leave is sought to table that particular graph. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.

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

James Shaw: Does she now accept that when adjusted for inflation, Vote Conservation has been cut since her Government took office?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, and can I give you a very simple example of why the member’s figures are incorrect. In the 2008 year, the previous Government, as the member will recall, spent $40 million on the St James Station. That artificially increased the appropriation in that year, but was actually taken from the budget for the next 7 years for the Nature Heritage Fund. Labour did that quite openly—it raided the fund to buy that particular station. But that distorts a fair assessment of what the actual level of commitment has been by this Government to the important work of conservation.

James Shaw: So is she saying that the corrosive effects of 13 percent inflation since 2008 have had no impact on the Department of Conservation’s operating budget?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, the Minister is not saying that; what the Minister is saying is that this year she secured $28 million for the Predator Free 2050 initiative. In last year’s Budget she secured more than $11 million for the kiwi recovery initiative. In this year’s Budget she also secured—

James Shaw: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —with the Minister for Primary Industries, $4 million for wilding pines. The member also secured substantive funding—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I was diverted, trying to attract the Minister’s attention to bring his answer to a conclusion. Point of order, James Shaw.

James Shaw: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: What is the point of order?

James Shaw: My question, again, was about the effect of inflation on DOC’s budget—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! No, no, absolutely wrong. On this occasion the Minister, with his very first word, answered the question. He was then given some significant lenience to explain why he had said no. I was pleased to see that the answer was finally coming to a conclusion.

James Shaw: What, if anything, will she do about making up the cumulative shortfall of $424 million, in real terms, to DOC’s budget over the last 8 years?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member is not listening to the answers. Let me give it in very simple terms: this year’s estimated DOC budget is $451 million. In the last full year of the previous Government it was $362 million. That is an increase. That shows the commitment that this National Government has got to the important work of the Department of Conservation.

James Shaw: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister was not clear whether those figures were nominal or real-terms funding, and that was the nature of the question.

Mr SPEAKER: Then that is a debating issue or a topic for a further supplementary question. But on this occasion, again, the Minister has addressed the question that was asked.

Schools—Asian Language Programmes

8. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister of Education: What recent announcements has she made regarding teaching Asian languages?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Ni hao, Mr Speaker. It is New Zealand Chinese Language Week. I recently announced in Auckland, alongside my colleague the member for North Shore, Maggie Barry, the next round of funding for new or expanded Asian language programmes at 63 schools across the country. A total of $10 million was set aside by the Government in 2014 to provide two contestable funding rounds that would increase Asian language programmes in our schools. In this most recent round, $2.36 million is being provided from the fund to the 63 schools that applied. I am really impressed by the way schools are working together to share resources and teaching skills; many are establishing links with language and cultural organisations, helping them to get the most out of the programme.

Melissa Lee: How will this announcement support our young people to engage in the global economy?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Languages are an important tool for our young people to have as they venture out into the world. Today’s announcement is part of our drive to encourage and support our young people to truly become global citizens. Learning a language helps to build closer relationships with other cultures and countries, and currently there are now 203 schools, from Southland to Tai Tokerau, receiving support for Mandarin, Japanese, or Korean language programmes. Kamsahamnida.

Crime—Offending Against Police

9. STUART NASH (Labour—Napier) to the Minister of Police: Does she stand by all her statements?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Police: Yes.

Stuart Nash: When she said in 2011 that the Government wanted to “send a message that offending against law enforcement officers was unacceptable”, does she think that this is reflected in charging a man who knocks out an officer being charged with only assault and not aggravated assault?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I know what the member is trying to get at here, and, as he knows, it would be entirely inappropriate for the Minister of Police to comment on the judicial process. That is quite different from offering really firm backing for police officers in terms of condemning behaviour—two very different things, which that member is very trickily trying to conflate.

Stuart Nash: In light of that, can she confirm that when she openly spoke about Constable Kane’s assault in 2011 the case was still before the court; if so, what has changed between then and now, when she claims she cannot comment at all?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I would have to say that they are two very different cases, different timings. That member knows that the Minister of Police cannot possibly comment on the judicial process. It would be inappropriate in this case.

Ron Mark: Can the Minister explain to the House why neither her Government nor the previous Labour Government has ever introduced mandatory jail sentences, called for by New Zealand First, for anyone convicted of assaulting emergency responders like police?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman, in response to the Government’s position, not—

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, if it is a Ron Mark idea, it is a pretty suspect one.

Stuart Nash: What makes them two different cases when, in fact, they involve the same police officer and the same charge, but only 5 years apart?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: No, the circumstances were totally different. In the earlier case, the Minister of Police was condemning behaviour. But as that member knows, it would be inappropriate for the Minister of Police to interfere in the judicial process—totally.

Stuart Nash: Does she agree with the comments made by Police Association President Greg O’Connor that police are unhappy with the light sentence handed out to Kane’s attacker?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: If his comments are that the police are unhappy, you would have to take that at face value, would you not?

Stuart Nash: When will she and the PM deliver on her admission that they got it wrong in the 2016-20 strategic plan when they said that no more police were needed, and deliver on their now promise for more police in our communities?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The premise of that question is fundamentally flawed.

Biosecurity Management—Import Health Standard for Mushroom Compost and Biosecurity

10. RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First) to the Minister for Primary Industries: Why is the Ministry for Primary Industries developing an import health standard for mushroom compost which contains animal manure?

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): The reason why the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is developing an import health standard is so that mushroom compost, which contains animal manure, can be imported in a regulated and safe way.

Richard Prosser: To the Minister—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Sorry to interrupt the member; I just want a little less interjection so I can clearly hear the supplementary question.

Richard Prosser: Can he categorically rule out any risk of importing the foot-and-mouth virus, equine influenza, or the virus that causes porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome in mushroom compost that will contain bovine excrement as well as, probably, the faeces of horses, pigs, and other farm animals?

Hon NATHAN GUY: What we have from the member is another crappy question. MPI—

Mr SPEAKER: I will have just the answer, please.

Hon NATHAN GUY: MPI will be assessing all of the risks to do with the import health standards, which will then go out for public consultation. It will be based on scientific evidence, and the public will be able to have their say before the import health standard is implemented, if they can indeed satisfy and manage the risks.

Richard Prosser: Why is he trusting European certification given that in 2013 certificates labelled horse meat as beef, and, this year, MPI was assured that fodder seed shipments from Europe did not contain pest plant seeds when they were full of velvetleaf?

Hon NATHAN GUY: On this side of the House it is all about fair trade. MPI, of course, has been over and investigated the Netherlands plant through the whole process. They are now working on the technical aspects of the import health standard. As I said before to the member, that will then go out for public consultation. I am sure that if the member looks in his Rangiora supermarket on the weekend, he will find that there is New Zealand meat and there is imported meat as well.

Richard Prosser: If the Government is prepared to put New Zealand’s biosecurity at risk and expose local producers to unfair competition on the basis of nothing more than trade ideology, will it take responsibility for the economic and other catastrophic consequences when it all goes wrong?

Hon NATHAN GUY: We have many import health standards. As the member is aware, and as I have told the select committee, we are reviewing the import health standards on the seed pathway. These are very technical—we balance up the risks. This is all about fair trade and making sure that we have very strong biosecurity processes. And if the member is interested, he might want to read this week’s Farmers Weekly article where it talks about how “Nathan proves to be a good Guy” when it talks about the focus I have on the biosecurity system. If the member has not seen a copy, I am happy to table it for him.

Small Businesses—Small Business Development Group Report 2015 and Engagement with Government Agencies

11. NUK KORAKO (National) to the Minister for Small Business: How is the Government addressing the recommendation from the 2015 Small Business Development Group report to continue to make it easier for small businesses to access information and advice?

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business): In its response to the 2015 Small Business Development Group’s working report, the Government outlines how it is making it easier for small business to access information and advice. The Government is providing support and advice through a number of channels, such as business.govt.nz, which provides many online tools to assist business; support through the regional business partners network, such as mentoring for small business owners; and through the Better for Business initiative the Government is working to make it simpler for business customers to work across more than one Government agency. Small businesses have also had the opportunity to access information and advice directly from Government agencies at the Taking Care of Business events that I have been hosting around the country.

Nuk Korako: What opportunities have small businesses had to engage directly with Government agencies at the Taking Care of Business events?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I have now hosted more than a dozen of those Taking Care of Business events, which bring together a number of Government agencies and local agencies. Small businesses have the opportunity to engage directly with agencies to learn more about what support is already available to them to make it easier to do business and access information and advice. Over 1,200 small businesses have already benefited from this opportunity. In fact, the road shows have been so successful, earlier this afternoon I announced five more events—

Grant Robertson: Wow!

Hon CRAIG FOSS: —to be held in Porirua, Masterton, Rotorua, Blenheim, Christchurch, and one last location that will be of interest to that member.

Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary—Consultation with Māori and Treaty Settlement Rights

12. RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) to the Minister for the Environment: Does he accept that consultation with Māori was inadequate prior to the announcement of the Kermadec Sanctuary; if so, will he now apologise for that mistake?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): No. I do note that the member’s party committed to establishing the sanctuary in 2014, prior to any consultation with iwi or Te Ohu Kaimoana (TOKM).

Rino Tirikatene: What compromise is he offering, if any, that would allow the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary to go ahead without running roughshod over Māori fishing rights?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: If you are going to have an ocean sanctuary, it needs to be an area in which there is no mining or fishing for it to have integrity. The challenge we have with the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary and other marine protected areas around New Zealand is not just in terms of quota rights of Māori but quota rights of others. I do not think it is a sustainable position to say that non-Māori fishers who have fished in that area for the last 20 years cannot but Māori who have not been fishing can.

Rino Tirikatene: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister what compromise is he offering.

Mr SPEAKER: On this occasion—

Hon Annette King: He said none.

Mr SPEAKER: I do not agree. The question has been addressed, but, I accept, not to your satisfaction. If the member wants to continue with supplementary questions, he is welcome to do so, but if he would rather move on, I am happy to do that as well.

Rino Tirikatene: Why has he put the future of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary at risk by disrespecting Māori, taking away Treaty settlement rights, giving no recognition of loss, and refusing a reasonable compromise?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: In my discussions with TOKM, the only Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary legislation that it was prepared to accept was one in which the fishing bans specifically exempted TOKM and enabled it, at its choice, to be able to fish at any time in the future. In my view, that would not be a Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary that had integrity, and that is why we were not able to reach agreement. We have said we are going to have ongoing discussions with the Māori Party. In my view, it would be the right thing for New Zealand and this Parliament to still establish that sanctuary.

Rino Tirikatene: Why does he think Māori property rights are dispensable, as he ignored Ngāti Whātua over Crown land last year and is now trying to extinguish Māori fishing rights this year—is it disrespect, or just flat out incompetence? What is his problem with Māori?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I would quote from the policy that that member campaigned on in the last election. In that, it sets out where Labour would create a world ocean sanctuary—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I have not been able to hear the answer because of the yelling coming from my left-hand side. It is to cease, and the Minister can now give his answer.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The policy that that very member campaigned on at the last election was to provide—

Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will listen to the point of order, but if it is one to suggest that there is no ministerial responsibility, the member will be wasting his time. I invite the member, before he raises it, if that is the point—when you ask a question like that and you effectively accuse a Minister of incompetence, which was the word used in the question, it gives a very wide licence for the answer. I will hear from Iain Lees-Galloway.

Iain Lees-Galloway: So what is the ministerial responsibility for Opposition policy?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have explained that, if the member had only bothered to listen before he raised his point of order.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I seek leave of the House to table Labour’s 2014 policy—

Mr SPEAKER: No. [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! If Mr Smith wants to stay for the balance of question time—and I acknowledge that that is not long—when I rise to my feet I expect the Minister to sit down. There has been one other occasion when it happened on a second day, and that particular person was ejected from the House. The same rules will apply to Dr Nick Smith. Does the Minister want to give his answer?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, I was seeking leave, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I said I am not prepared to put the leave. That information is publicly available to any member who wants it.

Rino Tirikatene: After running yet another Government policy aground, will he excuse himself from further negotiations with Te Ohu Kai Moana so that the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary can go ahead or will he go down with the ship?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I have been involved in creating 18 different marine protected areas around New Zealand—for instance, in Akaroa. In every one of the ones I have been involved in, there have been some bumps and there has been some controversy. I think the reality is that people are reluctant to give up their rights to mine, to recreationally fish, or to commercially fish, and I am equally confident that in this case, with time, we will find a solution.

Bills

Land Transport Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Associate Minister of Transport) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: I move, That the Land Transport Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to consider the bill. It gives me great pleasure to introduce the bill to this House. The bill aims to promote better regulation, improve safety, and promote greater economic growth and productivity. The purpose of this bill is part of the Government’s ongoing efforts to create better and more effective regulation.

The Land Transport Amendment Bill has six components. The bill will enable innovative small passenger services to operate and deliver benefits to consumers while managing safety risks. It will also introduce mandatory alcohol interlock sentences for repeat offenders and first-time drink-driving offenders with high alcohol levels. The bill will also create a more effective deterrent to reduce the numbers of fleeing drivers. It will also strengthen the framework for managing evasion of public transport fares. The bill will also create opportunities to increase productivity of heavy freight and passenger vehicles. Finally, the bill will make a range of minor amendments to make sure that the Land Transport Act is clear and is operating as intended.

Regarding small passenger services, the bill, together with amendments to land transport rules and regulations, will overhaul small passenger services by removing outdated provisions and bringing the sector into the 21st century. That is because new technologies, like smartphone apps, have changed the ways that the sector can operate. Modernising our regulation will make sure it is flexible enough to accommodate new business models, while managing safety risks. Ensuring an effective small passenger services sector has a range of wider benefits for the New Zealand economy, including using the transport system more effectively and helping to reduce congestion. The bill will create a single, simple category of small passenger service. Current rules that impose costs on operators but no longer provide any significant benefits will be removed. The New Zealand Transport Agency will consult on the new rules. The purpose of these changes is to encourage innovation and enable new kinds of services, while managing safety risks to drivers and passengers. Making the regulatory environment more flexible will allow transport operators to compete on a more even footing.

The second component of the bill follows on from recent changes to the Vehicle Dimensions and Mass Rule 2002, which have enabled the introduction of more productive freight and passenger service vehicles. The changes will enable more efficient enforcement of heavy vehicle weight limits, make it easier to redirect vehicles for weighing, increase the maximum penalty for overloading from $10,000 to $15,000, reduce the tolerance before offloading is required, and empower the police to order trucks to be offloaded when they are overloaded by more than 10 percent or more than 2 tonnes, whichever is the lesser. Further changes to the rule are currently under way and will lead to more gains in public transport, road transport, productivity, and safety, with fewer heavy vehicle trips being required on the transport system to transport the same volumes of passengers and freight.

Regarding mandatory alcohol interlocks, the third component of the bill relates to those alcohol interlocks. Alcohol interlocks are a very effective tool for reducing the incidence of recidivist drink-driving. An alcohol interlock device requires a driver to pass a breath test before they can start their car. This has been proven to reduce drink-driving reoffending by an average of 60 percent where the device has been fitted. The bill proposes to make alcohol interlocks mandatory for first-time high-alcohol offenders and repeat offenders. There are limited grounds for exceptions proposed.

To support the new mandatory alcohol interlock sentence, the Government will fund a financial assistance scheme to assist low-income offenders, for whom the cost of alcohol interlocks would be—or could be—prohibitive. Greater use of alcohol interlocks by high-risk offenders will help improve road safety outcomes and supports the Government’s road safety strategy.

The fourth component of the bill will increase the penalties for drivers who fail to stop for police. When drivers attempt to flee police, they endanger the safety of other road users and the police, as well as their own safety and that of their passengers. All too frequently, the actions of fleeing drivers result in crashes involving serious injury or death. Increasing the penalties for fleeing drivers will send a clear message that this behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. The disqualification penalties for failing to stop will scale up, based on whether it is the driver’s first, second, third, or subsequent offence of this kind. The bill also proposes strengthening the powers of the courts to permanently confiscate vehicles involved in fleeing driver incidents. I would like to acknowledge my colleague Stuart Smith and his strong advocacy for increasing penalties for drivers who fail to stop for police.

The fifth component of the bill strengthens the legislative regime for managing the evasion of public transport fares. The Government wants to prevent a culture of evasion of fares from becoming established. That is because the evasion of fares impacts on security, which can reduce patronage and the efficiency of public transport services. The bill will give enforcement officers new powers to require passengers to provide evidence that they have paid a fare, provide their contact their contact details where a valid ticket is not produced, and/or order a passenger to disembark the public transport service. It will be an offence for a person to fail to comply with an enforcement officer’s directions.

Regarding miscellaneous provisions, the final component of the bill makes a range of minor amendments to clarify interpretations or the intent of the legislation, improve the legislation’s operation, remove inconsistencies, and make minor technical amendments and adjustments. Although minor, these changes are a sign of the Government’s commitment to better regulation. In closing, the changes proposed by this bill demonstrate the Government’s determination to ensure the country has an effective, efficient, and safe land transport system. I now commend the bill to the House.

SUE MORONEY (Labour): This bill, in its first reading, is another example of what we saw in Parliament last week, where the Government has a big problem to solve but it takes a small number of measures that actually will not address the elephant in the room. So just like with housing, where it is just tinkering around the edges and not addressing the main problem, here we go again, but this time it is tinkering with an ever-increasing road toll. That is the problem that this bill ought to be trying to address. We are in an environment where, over the course of several decades now, the road toll has been progressively coming down in New Zealand—as it should, because as we get safer roads to drive on, as we get safer technologies into our vehicles, of course that has an impact on bringing the road toll down. But somehow that Government has managed to turn that positive trend around, and what we find is that right now this Government is leading us into the third consecutive year in a row where the road toll is going up—where the road toll is going up.

In 2013 we hit an all-time low for the road toll, and that was great news—there were 253 total road deaths. I should not actually call that great news, because for those families and the friends of those people who perished on our roads, obviously that is a tragedy. But it was a sign that the road toll was coming down. However, since then this Government has managed to turn it around and get it going up—in the wrong direction. In 2014 there were 293 deaths on our roads, and in 2015 we were back up to 319 deaths on our roads. The news this year—so far—is even worse because, as at 15 September this year, 225 people have perished on our roads. That equates to a road toll of 220 at the same time last year. So, again, this Government is about to break its record. It is about to have an ever-increasing road toll.

This bill should be addressing that issue, but it is not; it is simply tinkering around the edges. Although the bill does actually address heavy vehicles and purports to bring in some measures to make it easier to ping the heavy vehicle operators if they are not complying with the rules, unfortunately the rules that that Government brings in keep letting heavier and heavier trucks on our roads. Of course, that drives up our road toll. That alone—that measure that that Government is pursuing—is one of the things that is driving up our road toll. How do we know this? We know this because about 18 percent of the deaths on our roads are caused by a truck or have a truck involved in that accident. It is 18 percent despite the fact that heavy vehicles actually account for only 6 percent of the vehicles on our roads. So they are disproportionately causing harm, and yet our Government thinks that the way to address that is to keep introducing heavier and longer and higher trucks on to our roads. Well, it is no wonder that our road toll keeps going up.

Sadly, this bill is not addressing the measures that it ought to. However, the measures that it does bring in are slight improvements. There is nothing here that we would oppose, so the Labour Party members will be supporting this bill at its first reading, but we will be very interested to listen to the comments from the submitters as they come and submit on these measures.

I cannot speak on this bill without cautioning the Government about the things that it needs to address that it is not addressing in this bill and that will bring down the road toll. For a start, this Government can pass any law it likes, but that law is not worth anything unless it is prepared to enforce it. I want to hear from a Government member about their commitment to enforce this legislation, because at the moment this Government is allowing small passenger services to openly flout the law, to skite about it, to publicly acknowledge that they are flouting the law, and the Government is turning a blind eye. Part of this bill does bring in new regulations to cover the small passenger services. I want that Government to understand that there is no point in changing the law, there is no point in bringing in regulations, unless it has the guts to enforce those measures, and, to date, the Government has not shown that it actually has the ability to do that when it comes to the small passenger vehicle fleet.

While I am talking on that measure, the Government also needs to get some guts when it comes to actually ensuring that all the players in the small passenger services area are paying the tax that they are supposed to be paying as well. I hope that the Government will bring a measure in another bill to ensure that that continues to happen. On the issue of small passenger vehicle services, Labour does agree with the measures that the Government is taking in terms of regulatory changes that it is making, because we believe that we need a safe, accessible, and efficient small passenger service. But we want one that provides decent-paying jobs, and that should be the subject of another piece of legislation. In fact, that could have been the subject of a piece of legislation that that Government voted down only 2 weeks ago in this Parliament. The bill brought forward by my colleague the Hon David Parker to ensure that contractors had to be paid at least the minimum wage actually is an issue that needs addressing when it comes to the small passenger vehicle services that are provided in this country. So, again, the big issues that actually will impact on safety, will impact on regulations, will actually make sure that we have a safe and efficient service in place are being voted down by this Government. They are the ideas being brought forward by the Labour Party that would actually make a difference.

It is also very disappointing to see that there is nothing in this bill that addresses that Government’s shameful record when it comes to driver licensing fraud. We know that there has been—and in fact it was uncovered by the media; not the Government itself but it was uncovered by the media—substantial driver licensing fraud happening on our roads here in New Zealand. That puts every other motorist in danger, and yet in this amendment bill, which does cover a whole range of regulatory issues in the transport sector, not one of these measures is designed to address that problem. So, again, that is another example of the Government trying to look busy in this area, trying to look like it is doing something to bring the road toll down, but ignoring the major features that make our roads unsafe—and they have become more unsafe under that Government.

I want to conclude my contribution by reminding people that this Government has also cut the road policing—the amount of road policing that is happening in this country—and, again, this legislation does nothing to address that. In fact, this legislation brings in a whole range of measures that need to be policed. If you look at the legislation that is being brought in under the six parts of this bill, they all require more resourcing from our police department. But what has that Government done? It has actually sidelined the resourcing from our policing department, and what we know is that it is the road policing that has taken a big hit, and it is no wonder that our road toll keeps climbing under those circumstances.

The Labour Party is supporting the small measures that are being implemented in this bill. There are some areas that, I am sure, we will have some robust discussion about at the select committee, but our great disappointment is that the Government has not taken the opportunity to fix up the very big problems that exist on our roads. It is of concern to me that we do not have transport Ministers who understand what the big drivers are of the deaths on our roads, and I hope that through the select committee process we can convince that Government to take the measures it really needs to take in order to address this issue. I look forward to that discussion at the select committee, and, hopefully, we can make this a meaningful bill.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand in support of the Land Transport Amendment Bill 2016. It touches on six major components. Let me just speak very briefly on the area of vehicle dimensions and mass.

I was having a conversation not so long ago—maybe only a couple of weeks—with a transport operator who was running one of these 50MAX trucks, which is the sort of vehicle that the previous speaker, Sue Moroney, was saying is dangerous on our roads. They have an extra axle. They are new-technology trucks. They carry a load that is heavier than what was the standard, 44 tonnes. The transport operator’s comment to me was that instead of having to do four loads—four trips—with this vehicle, they could bring it right down to three. It took out a journey of that truck, from Taranaki to the Waikato, so there is one less truck on the road. The other thing that he said to me was that because of the heavier load that they are able to carry, the trucks actually feel safer on the road. I would agree with that, because I went for a ride in a ute without a load on the back, and I said to the person who gave me his ute for the weekend: “It’s very bouncy.” He said: “Yeah, but wait until you get a load on it, and it feels safe like a car.”

The point is that these vehicles are designed—

Sue Moroney: Look at the research and evidence.

JONATHAN YOUNG: —to be safer on the road, and the evidence is—as the member opposite, Sue Moroney, will know, and as the Ministry of Transport has informed us—that the number of kilometres travelled by transport vehicles up and down this country has increased considerably over the last decade, but the number of accidents involving them has decreased by about 38 percent. That is because of better technology, better roads, better vehicles, and just the way that they travel.

What this bill is doing is addressing technology advancements in the transport sector, by and large. Here in the area of transportation, what we see does not just enable different dimensions but also, when we do that, we create better productivity for our companies, and that is very important because these are the companies that are employing New Zealanders out there. If they can have better productivity and if they can shift and move freight in a better and cheaper way, then not only the consumer but the producers are winners in all of this, and this is a good thing for New Zealand.

I want to just touch on one other area—there are a number of areas, but I want to touch on the mandatory alcohol interlocks. This is a very important part of this bill. You might ask the question: how many injuries and deaths are caused by drink-drivers every year? Well, drink-driving contributes significantly to vehicle crashes in New Zealand. It causes an average of 77 road deaths, 436 serious injuries, and 1,252 minor injuries each year, so this has a devastating effect on the people of New Zealand. Over the last 5 years, the social costs associated with drink-driving averages over $700 million per year, affecting our communities.

Having mandatory alcohol interlocks is going to be a very important step forward in using technology, particularly regarding areas of people who are convicted. First offenders who are 3.2 times the current blood-alcohol limit of 50 milligrams or 3.2 times the current breath-alcohol limit of 250 micrograms—these people will have a mandatory alcohol interlock placed on the vehicle. For those drink-driver offenders who are subject to mandatory alcohol and drug assessments—these are people who have had two or more drink- or drug-driving convictions within 5 years and have a limit of four times the current blood-alcohol limit or a breath-alcohol level exceeding 1,000 micrograms, four times the current limit—these people too will have this mandatory alcohol interlock placed on their vehicle.

What an alcohol interlock does is it is a breath-testing device that is wired into the vehicle, into its starting system. Before the vehicle can start, the driver must blow into the device. Actually, as the driver is driving along on their journey, there will be random times when the interlock device will require them to breathe into it again, because a lot of people would say: “Well, why can’t a friend just come in and breathe into this device, get the car operational, and then he or she can just drive off?”. This is a very good system that is going to bring, I think, some great changes to our road statistics. It has been surmised that the mandatory alcohol interlocks for specified offenders could save 8 lives a year, 43 serious injuries, and 126 minor injuries. That counts in our society.

No doubt we are going to have a great discussion as we open this up to the public through the select committee process. I am very happy to stand in support of some very good measures that this Government is bringing forward to this Parliament. Thank you.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): One of the defining differences between the Labour Party and the National Party is that the Labour Party believes in having a capable Government and capable public services that can actually deliver positive outcomes for the New Zealand public, whereas the National Party believes in dismantling the Government, in dismantling and minimising public services, and in cutting public services.

One of the ways in which that has manifested itself is by the cuts to our police force—in particular, the cuts to our police force’s ability to enforce road rules and to actually be out there and keeping people safe on our roads. So whereas on this side we believe in having a police force that is capable of enforcing the law, members on that side have cut funding and they have dismantled the police force, and the result is the road toll is going up. That is what happens when you have an ideological fixation on cutting public services. Things happen, like the road toll goes up.

Good policing and good enforcement is not the only thing that has brought down the road toll over the last few decades, but it has been an important component in bringing down the road toll. So what happens when the National Government fixates on cutting the public sector? People die. That is the result. That is certainly the result in this case, with its fixation on cutting police resources. For decades we had a steady drop in the road toll, but for the last 3 years, against all the trends, the road toll has steadily been going up, and what the Government is trying to do through this legislation is fix a gap that will not be fixed by changing the law. It will be fixed only if the Government actually acknowledges its mistake and starts to fund our police force properly.

This bill makes a number of other changes as well, which are all fine and we will support them, and we look forward to having the conversation at the select committee. But if the Government is not prepared to actually resource its public sector to enforce these law changes, then we are all wasting our time. So, I mean, of course ride sharing is here. It has had a huge impact on the taxi industry, it has had a positive impact on a lot of consumers, and it certainly has brought prices down for a lot of consumers, and so it is appropriate that as technology has changed the landscape, we respond to that in the legislation. But it is absolutely pointless—absolutely pointless—if the Government is not prepared to enforce the law, and in this space of private vehicle transport, it is already failing to enforce the law. The Government is failing to enforce the laws we have right now. We have one particular ride-sharing company that proudly flouts the law. It came to the select committee and told us how proud it was about flouting the law, and the Government’s response has been utterly limp.

Many of these changes are extremely positive; let us go through some of the changes. Drivers will no longer need to have an area knowledge certificate. Well, all the drivers have got GPS, so that kind of makes sense. I must say, a couple of taxi drivers have said, well, actually, one of the things about having your local knowledge is you know when the GPS is going to take you through all the traffic lights, and with your own local knowledge you actually know that there is a much quicker route than just to follow the GPS blindly. But, you know, in the 21st century, with that kind of technology, that change makes sense. Not requiring a driver to pass the full licence every 5 years—I think that is perfectly reasonable, as long as we ensure that those drivers still have a P endorsement. This bill says, yes, they will still have to have a P endorsement. The problem is there are ride-sharing drivers driving passengers around New Zealand today without a P endorsement. They are breaking the law and this Government does not do anything about it.

So the Government says: “We’re going to keep the P endorsement in the law. That is a really important component of keeping strong law to protect passengers and to protect other drivers on the road, and we’re going to keep it in this law, but we’re not really going to bother enforcing it, because that costs money.” National is ideologically fixated on having a smaller Public Service, so it is not really going to enforce it, and it is going to be even harder to enforce it—because you can tell when a taxi is driving down the road. It has got a sign on top of it and it has got signs on the side of it. You cannot tell when a private vehicle that is being used for ride sharing is driving around. You cannot tell just by looking at it, so enforcement becomes a whole lot harder, in fact.

So the Government actually needs to resource the enforcement agencies to tackle that much more difficult problem of enforcement—of actually figuring out who is operating a ride-sharing vehicle and whether or not they are adhering to this law that we are debating in its first reading right now. But the Government has no plans to ensure that the resources are there to enforce this law. The Government does not care that we have already got people breaking the law, putting people at risk. It does not care. It just does not care. That is why the road toll is going up. Just a lack of care is what it comes down to, ultimately.

So, you know, we can debate this. We can feel really good—we can feel really good—that we are passing new legislation, but as long as we have got a Government that is that disinterested in public safety, then passing all these laws makes absolutely no changes at all, in reality, and the road toll will continue to go up. We can bring in alcohol interlocks—that is great. We support that. We think that is a fantastic initiative. We can strengthen the framework for managing public transport fare evasion—fine, no problem—and create more effective deterrents to reduce the incidence of fleeing drivers.

Great, let us do all that stuff—wonderful. Who is going to enforce it? Where are the resources? How is this Government going to make sure that our overstretched police force actually has the resources to deal with these things? Where is the backing of our front-line public servants? Where is it? It certainly is not coming from this Government, which cut funding, put more pressure on that workforce, put greater demands on it, and passed legislation like this that says “There’s more enforcement that you are going to have to do. You are going to have to do more with less.”, and then those members are surprised when bad things happen. They are surprised when it goes wrong. They sell themselves and the public this story that you can endlessly cut funding to the public sector and nothing will change. Nothing will go wrong. You can squeeze people harder and harder and harder and put more expectations on them, and nothing is going to go wrong. And then when the road toll goes up—“Oh, that is a surprise. We need to change the law. We need to change the law and bring it into the 21st century.”

This is the problem with this Government. This is the fundamental problem with this Government: its ideological fixation on a variety of things. It is why it cannot deal with the housing crisis—it just cannot bring itself to intervene in the housing market. It is just not in its DNA. It is just not what the National Party does. Likewise, properly funding our public services, like the police, is just not in the National Party’s DNA. It cannot do it. So when we have issues like this we have to actually ask ourselves who is capable of responding to them. Time and time again the National Government members demonstrate that they are just not capable of it. They often know what the answer is, but they cannot bring themselves to implement that answer, because it is just not in their DNA.

I support this legislation. I suspect that there are aspects of it that are not perfect yet, and that is why we are going go to the select committee. I look forward to hearing from all the submitters. I particularly look forward to the people who are operating in this space: the traditional taxi companies and the ride-sharing companies. I really want to make sure that we do everything we can to get this law right. But all our work—and I say this of the National Party MPs, as well, who are here just like us. They are legislators. This is the way in which we get to have an influence. This is the way in which we try to create a better society. All our work will be for nothing if the Government is not actually prepared to put the resources in to implement this legislation, to enforce this legislation.

So I support this bill. Let us take it to select committee. But if we really want to bring the road toll down, if we really want to see real change for the better in New Zealand, then there is only one answer, and that answer is change the Government.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): It is a pleasure to speak on this Land Transport Amendment Bill. I particularly want to focus on the provisions around fleeing police. I must actually acknowledge the thanks that the Associate Minister of Transport gave for my strong advocacy, which actually took the form of a member’s bill. I am not the person, really, who deserves the credit for that, because I have a really strong policy group in the Kaikōura National Party branch. It was fantastic to have, particularly, Joe Sim, who is a former policeman who comes up with some fantastic policy ideas. He came along and said: “Do you know what? One thing police would really like would be stronger provisions around fleeing police.” So we did a lot of work on that. We developed a member’s bill, and lo and behold, it ended up as part of a Government bill.

I think that is a fantastic result. It could have languished, as one of my colleagues said, in the biscuit tin for quite some time, but it is actually going through the House now. I think that is a great result for everyone.

I think, actually, it really speaks to what is the essence of politics, which is getting into the grassroots, which is something that is just really in the DNA of the National Party. It is part of the actual fabric of society, particularly because we are made up, I guess, of so many electorate MPs—my fine colleagues. We are right in amongst the people, talking to them all the time and finding out what it is that actually matters, and fleeing police matters. It matters to the enforcement, which we heard a lot of rhetoric just before about—in fact, we would never let the facts get in the way of a good story in that particular speech. It was really a ramble about making a difference in enforcement, and this will make a big difference in enforcement, but not a word about it from the other side.

So I think this is a great provision in the bill. I really take my hat off to the Minister of Transport for including this in the bill. I think it is a great step forward. I think our members’ bills are really focusing on the things that matter. I am really pleased. I have got more in the pipeline. Some of them will probably end up as part of other Ministers’ bills as well, and I think that is fantastic. So it is with great pleasure that I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to support this bill to the select committee, the Land Transport Amendment Bill 2016.

It is the day after we saw the final funding agreement for the Auckland central business district City Rail Link, one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in terms of our largest city, in terms of the national economy, and it is fantastic to finally see that happen. I do not know whether members are aware, but for the Green Party it has been a campaign for an awfully long time. There are actually Hansard records from this House from the 1880s that reference that rail line linking up the current rail network. It was Mayor Robbie in the 1970s who really pushed it. There are some wonderful 1970s orange - style concept designs of what it could have looked like. At least when we finally get it in the 2020s, it will probably look a little bit more modern than that beautiful 1970s sort of decor that it would have had. It is fantastic to see that project going ahead.

Another area where the Green Party has won when it comes to transport is in terms of cycleways. I note the Government’s investment in this area. We have worked with it in terms of rolling out the national cycleway network. So when it comes to public transport, better transport options for all New Zealanders, I think it is fair to say, without a bit of gloating, that the Greens have been ahead of the curve. It has been great to see the other parties play catch-up.

When you look at this legislation, we are grappling with some of those impacts of new technologies—for example Uber—the opportunities of new technologies, when you look at alcohol interlocks, and how that comes to this House. So although we are debating the Land Transport Amendment Bill, dealing with some more sort of regulatory and administrative features of transport, let us not take our eye off the prize, which is that we can have high-quality, modern ways that people can get around.

People want more choice to get their kids to school, to get to work, and to go and have fun and enjoyment, and they want a variety of options. People want to take a modern fast train in downtown Auckland. They want to have faster and more frequent trains from the west. They want to get to the airport and catch a train when it comes to Auckland. In Wellington we want to have light rail that links up our railway station with our airport through our city. We want to have better, more affordable buses. We want to have more affordable fares for groups such as students. So that is our vision and this is what we are going to be clearly articulating—a positive, fully costed transport plan for this country. This is what Kiwis want to see—these tangible projects. We have been at the forefront; we will continue to do it.

When it comes to the six provisions in this law—I want to touch on a few in this first reading debate. The first is around Uber. The Green Party takes the position that the proposed amendments are pretty reasonable. We are, basically, amending the taxi regulations relating to Uber and taking a less bureaucratic approach. I understand the arguments of Uber and some of its drivers that the current consent conditions can cost up to $2,000. That does seem incredibly high, particularly when you have got most of the information available via your smartphone. You can track the driver, you can see the driver’s photograph—all those sorts of things. But I would note that all the drivers have been flouting the law, when it comes to the existing law, which never can be on.

The amendments do look pretty reasonable—for example, drivers not having to have tests on their driver knowledge in terms of the cities they are going around. It does not really make sense in 2016 when you have got all the information on Google Maps or Uber’s files. So we support it. We want to hear from both the parties in the select committee, and we are going to welcome that discussion.

When it comes to alcohol interlocks, this is a good clause to be progressing. I remember sitting in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee hearings many years back when the Government was refusing to move the blood-alcohol level from 0.8, which was out of line with the rest of the world, to 0.5. I am glad that common sense has prevailed and we have gone more into line in terms of a safer blood-alcohol level, but the key message I heard from police officers and experts back then is that alcohol interlocks are the surest, safest way to get those repeat drink drivers off the roads. The existing law says that a court can mandate it, but this amendment will make sure that repeat offenders do have alcohol interlocks applied.

When you look overseas, the efficacy of them is in the order of 35 to 90 percent. The AA, I note, estimates that currently we have only a couple of hundred alcohol interlocks installed in New Zealand. We could be seeing 100 repeat drink drivers not on our roads. As someone who drives my kids around our cities and towns, it is a terrifying thought that a drunk driver could come screaming down the road through no fault of my own or my wife or any other person on our roads. It is a terrible thought that we could have these repeat drunk drivers who continue to get behind the wheel. Alcohol interlocks make sure that it is massively reduced, in the order of 90 percent.

When it comes to the third substantive section, which is increasing penalties for fleeing drivers, I would note on the record that the Green Party does have some concerns in this area. I note that the Attorney-General in his New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report also had some concerns. These changes are increasing the provisions the Government has for penalties when it comes to those fleeing drivers. I know that the Government claims there are about 2,300 people fleeing police every year, resulting in 460 crashes. I know it is an incredibly concerning phenomenon that innocent victims, including our police officers, are, in many tragic cases, killed or injured when it comes to fleeing drivers. I support the intent of it, but we do note those New Zealand Bill of Rights Act concerns.

The Attorney-General has suggested some drafting amendments, and we will pick that up at the select committee. But I would also note the comments of Victoria University criminologist Professor John Pratt, who has questioned the logic behind it in his comments, which are “I don’t think it’ll have much effect on these particular cases, because people who do these sorts of things, for the most part, are likely to be young men who don’t have much to lose in the first place.” Let us have that debate in the select committee. We really welcome that.

There are some changes around public transport fare evasion. In Auckland it is estimated to cost between $1.4 million and $2 million. As a party that has put out a huge volume of public transport policy, has delivered those wins in the past—for example, the electrification of Auckland’s public transport network, the CBD City Rail Link, and national cycleways. We want to see appropriate funding. When you are seeing maybe 6 percent of the network not being funded through fare evasion, we do have some concerns. We are going to be interested to explore how these new powers are actually going to work. We think a balance needs to be struck.

Then, fifthly, is the regulation of heavy vehicles and, sixthly, are the miscellaneous changes. There in particular we are going to be looking at the clause that says “clarifying the powers of Police to take certain actions, including forbidding driving and immobilising vehicles, in the interests of public safety.” This is something we want to delve down into in a little bit more depth, talk to the experts on, and find out exactly what that means. We do have to strike a good balance between our civil rights as New Zealanders and the rights that the police need to protect our public safety.

All in all, it is a pretty good bill. We will be supporting it to select committee. We will be hearing the debate there before deciding our final position. But let us keep our eyes on the prize, if I can make that key point in this contribution. There are so many public transport, better transport, and active transport opportunities New Zealand has. It is all about making sure the Government, with its scarce funding resources, is investing in the best infrastructure projects that deliver the best economic, best social benefits for New Zealand. We have questioned some of the very unwise spending decisions—for example, the more than $10 billion being spent on these roads of national significance at a time when road volumes are flat. Many people are delaying getting their licence or refusing to at all because they would rather sit on a high-quality train. They have been overseas; they have seen what is happening in Singapore or London or New York. They want to be on Snapchat and playing Pokémon GO as they speed through the city, not stuck in congestion.

So let us make sure we focus on the big picture, which is that we have got some great opportunities and big decisions ahead of us. It is good to be dealing with the regulatory, administrative stuff, but let us focus on the big picture too.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will also support this bill, to at least as far as the select committee, when we will take another look at it to see whether we can support it further. That is because it addresses some of the most urgent changes that are needed to transport law currently, especially through effective deterrents for fleeing drivers, which is a very urgent issue, and creating a level regulatory playing field for all small passenger vehicle operators, including Uber. That is a pretty contentious issue at the moment as well.

But we in New Zealand First do have some reservations and criticisms, which I will come to in a moment. But I just want to go through the various parts of the bill bit by bit. The first relates to the mandatory alcohol interlocks. As we know, currently it is discretionary as to whether alcohol interlock sentences are imposed on first-time offenders with high alcohol levels and offenders with repeat drink-driving convictions. This bill proposes to make that mandatory for those offences. We in New Zealand First applaud that. That is exactly the right thing to do. I observe that overseas experience shows that alcohol interlock devices result in an average improvement, in terms of offending, of 60 percent, and that is spectacular. So this is one of those examples where modern technology can be used to reduce offending. So this is great. I am glad to see that in this bill.

We also applaud measures to assist enforcement officers in dealing with cases of fare evasion. As people in Auckland know, Auckland train services are notorious for free-riders—notorious for it. That has got to stop. Currently it is an infringement, of course, to free-ride, but there is no way that the enforcement officers can enforce it, because they cannot require the offenders to give names or addresses, and therefore they cannot really do much, effectively, about it. So what the bill proposes to do is create new powers that will enable those officers to require passengers who have not got a ticket to prove that they have paid a fare to either give their name and address so that they can be prosecuted, or to actually be ordered to disembark from the service. It will be an offence for a person to fail to comply with that as well. Police officers can, of course, be called to deal with the stroppy offenders in that respect, so it is good to see that that sort of issue is also finally, after all these years, being tackled. I think that we will see an improvement in the quality of Auckland train services as a result.

The next issue is the increases to penalties for drivers who fail to stop for police. As I have already said, that is a very urgent current issue, and something really does need to be done about that. Like Gareth Hughes said, I noted what Victoria University criminologist John Pratt said about that: “I don’t think it”—meaning penalties—“will have much effect on these particular cases because people who do these sorts of things for the most part are likely to be young men who don’t have much to lose in the first place.” Well, they will have a lot to lose if they lose their vehicle as a result of that behaviour, and they will have a lot to lose if there was a possibility of losing their freedom through an additional penalty of imprisonment for the worst cases. So I do not agree with the professor; I think, and we in New Zealand First think, that very tough penalties are one of the most important things you can do about this problem.

I read what is proposed here: “The mandatory driving disqualification period for a first-time [offender] will increase from 3 months to 6 months …”. That is not enough; 3 months’ to 6 months’ disqualification for first-time offenders is not enough. There can be some pretty bad examples, even from first-time offenders. That should be up to 1 year, we believe. It goes on to say that there would be another offence for a second conviction—this is where it involves speeding or driving in a dangerous manner—and the penalty then would be mandatory disqualification for 1 year. We think that should be at least 2 years, perhaps more. It goes on to refer to third and subsequent offences of that kind—an increase from 1 year to 2 years. That really, really is far too light—far too light. We think that should be up to 4 years, and, in addition to that, we believe at that point you should start to impose the possibility of imprisonment.

This is a very serious offence we are talking about, and we are talking about third and subsequent offences. That has to be deterred by really strong sentences. Imprisonment has to be a possibility, then the young people will have something to worry about. So we would like to see that happen. After all, people are dying as a result of this.

I am going to read another thing that I saw—I think it in was the Dominion Post today. It gives the figures: “Overall fleeing drivers were involved in 29 deaths—of themselves or [of others]—in the five years to 2014/15.”—29 deaths. It then says there were 2,735 fleeing driver incidents in the 2014/15 year. That is an increase, in 1 year, of 371. So it shows you that it is not only serious but it is getting worse and it is getting worse rapidly. So we say that we want much stronger penalties, with the possibility, for the worst offenders, of imprisonment.

Just moving on to the updates for heavy vehicle regulation—I think that you have got to look at this in the context of these changes. We do not oppose any of these changes, but you have to think about it in the context of what has been happening in recent times, when we are getting more very heavy vehicles—I think far too heavy, far too long—and huge vehicles on our roads that are capable of, and doing, extraordinary damage to the roads, to the bridges, and, of course, there are serious ramifications for safety as well. So looking at these provisions, that is fine—the provisions themselves are fine—but if it is going to be an excuse that because you have got these harsher compliance requirements we can have even heavier and longer vehicles on the roads, then I, on behalf of New Zealand First, want to express the most serious possible reservations, if that is the ultimate effect of that.

Finally, I want to talk about the regulatory system for small passenger services. What we are really talking about here is what has happened as a result of the introduction of Uber. I agree with what is stated in the introduction to this bill—that it is silly to have separate rules for taxis, private hire services, and shuttles, and that we should have one set of regulations covering them all. It is important that there is a level playing field. That is what most of the taxi drivers really complain about—Uber getting away with what they call “blue murder”, and I agree with that, whereas the taxi drivers have to comply.

I want to, particularly, in my last minute or so, mention two things that we will oppose. Amongst the proposals will be to remove a number of the current regulatory requirements. One of those is the requirement for mandatory signs on vehicles. I think they should stay, and I think Uber vehicles should have mandatory signs on them as well. Everybody needs to know whether this is a taxi or whether this is an Uber service, because that assists in enforcement and assists them in being identified. That is important, so we will be opposing that particular provision. Secondly, we would oppose the removal of the requirement for an operator to belong to an approved taxi organisation. We think, again, that is one of the best ways you can enforce the level playing field, because if you are a member of an organisation, there is a way to identify those people. Those organisations help with the maintenance of standards, they help with tracking people for income tax purposes—and that is another thing that Uber does not provide very well.

Those are two things we will be opposing, but we are going to have a very close look at the rest of those provisions as well. We do not oppose the level playing field, the single regulatory system, but there are things within that that need looking at, and we are going to look very closely at it.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be talking on the Land Transport Amendment Bill. I have got to say, the last couple of contributions by the Opposition members have been very useful and thoughtful, but the contributions from the Labour members who are also members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee were, I thought, shameful, actually. The reason why I say that is that both of them, but particularly Ms Sue Moroney, made the allegation or inference that this Government is not concerned about how we see these things being enforced around transport issues. I really do think that neither of them has actually taken the time to read this bill.

As we have heard, there are six provisions in this bill. The first three, I think, are quite relevant in terms of enforcement obligations. So just to recap for a moment, the first one deals with strengthening the legislation relating to alcohol interlocks. For people listening in from home, these are devices that are attached to the steering wheel and stop recidivist drivers from actually starting a car. The rules that have been proposed in this bill will mean that, effectively, first-time high-alcohol drivers or people who are recidivists will have to have one of these interlocks installed in their cars. That is the first issue about enforcement.

The second issue is about strengthening the framework for managing public transport services. I represent Hunua, in Auckland. I have been on the train many, many times. I have observed young people—and it is particularly young people I have observed, but that is not saying it is all young people—who have come on to the train, have often not paid, and have been taken to task by the people on the train, and they have simply walked off, sometimes getting into the next carriage. The rules that are proposed in this bill deal with that quite comprehensively, and I fully support it, having witnessed that.

The third issue is around making sure we are bringing about adequate enforcement deals with an effective deterrent to reduce the incidence of fleeing drivers. I do want to compliment my colleague Mr Stuart Smith, who has proposed some of the measures that have been incorporated. Again, these include quite a few issues around how we deal with these drivers—often younger people, again—and the ability to confiscate their cars, which I think is a really important issue around deterrence.

The fourth one, which I do not think these Opposition members have actually looked at, is contained in the sixth, which is sort of covered by the topic that talks about minor amendments. But if you look at those, they are comprehensive. I am just going to read out a couple about prosecution issues. The explanatory note of the bill talks about “allowing a stationary vehicle infringement notice to be served by providing it to the person who is apparently in charge of the vehicle at the time of service”—I think that is a good prosecution issue—“closing a loophole so that a person whose driver licence is suspended by the Police is also suspended from obtaining a driver licence:”, and “correcting an error to allow vehicle seizure and impoundment warrants to be signed by Justices of the Peace or Registrars:’’. I think those are all good enforcement things.

There is also “enabling automated enforcement of certain traffic signs:”—mmm—and probably the last one, which the previous speaker just referred to, “clarifying the powers of the Police to take certain actions, including forbidding driving and immobilising vehicles, in the interests of public safety:”. This is comprehensive and I am really looking forward to discussing it in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. I rise to speak to the Land Transport Amendment Bill. I want to just pick up where the member who has just resumed his chair, Andrew Bayly, finished, but perhaps with not as much creepiness.

When I look at these kinds of bills, these amendment bills, I always get a little concerned when I read “Miscellaneous amendments”. It makes people think that they are just some little minor things; “we’ll just sneak it in the back door and people won’t really pay too much attention to it, and we’ll just brush it off as miscellaneous”. But if you have a good, hard look at the details—and the member for Hunua has just spoken to some of those—there are actually quite a lot in there. I do think it is an important opportunity for the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to do due diligence, if you like, on this bill to make sure that the amendments are not just miscellaneous, tagged on into other parts of the bill, where, once again, the wool is being pulled over too many people’s eyes. I look forward to that, and I want to reiterate that point—miscellaneous; it is just too common to find in a lot of the bills from this Government, where it just tries to sneak stuff in through the back door.

We support this bill going to the select committee. The fine members from the Labour benches on that select committee will be sure to debate and will be sure to listen to those stakeholders in relation to this bill. One of those important ones has been mentioned today during this debate. It is the police. I just happen to be sitting here next to the spokesperson for police, Mr Stuart Nash.

I look across the House, and Mr Jami-Lee Ross, we understand, has a bill about window washers. I think about the busy road in my electorate, the Great South Road, and I wonder, with that particular bill and some of the provisions in this bill, just how the police are going to find time to go to every intersection on Great South Road. Let me tell you, Great South Road is a very, very big road—in fact, from Tāmaki-makau-rau all the way down to Hamilton with busy intersections all the way. Now the police are going to be keeping an eye out for window washers—now they are going to enforce many of the parts in this bill. It goes to what my colleague Mr Lees-Galloway was saying, which was: how are they going to do that? Where are they going to get the resources? How are they going to find the time to make sure that the bills passed in this House actually mean something out there to the people?

We do support some of the things about making sure that the roads are safer, and making sure that when whānau and people are driving on the roads, going about their daily business, they can be safe in the fact of knowing that they are going to be safe on the road. I think about a particular place just south of Whangarei, which in the past 6 months has had no less than eight truck crashes.

Su’a William Sio: How many?

PEENI HENARE: Eight in the past 6 months on this one spot on State Highway 1. I wonder, then, when we look at this particular bill: how can we improve the safety on our roads? This side of the House—well, certainly myself and my colleagues on this side—would argue that, while we welcome some of the provisions about tightening up heavy loads on trucks, what we actually want to see is something more comprehensive—“more comprehensive” seems to be the catchword nowadays—to make sure that we can still meet the demands of freight transport and also keep the interests of your everyday road user in mind and make sure that safety is paramount.

There were eight heavy truck crashes, and in half of those—thank God—no other vehicle was involved, but for the other half there were serious injuries for the other road user but not for the heavy truck driver, who, with a heck of a lot of cargo and in command of a very large vehicle, sustained some minor injuries. Sadly, on half of those occasions, the driver in the other vehicle did not fare as well. So we want to make sure that the bills that we pass through this House have that in mind: safety must be paramount.

As other members have spoken about in the House there are other parts to this bill, such as the vehicle locking device for recidivist drink-drivers. I think that is a good thing. It keeps up to step with technology, but it has been a little bit late coming. I can recall when I first got into the House, members of the public were crying out for this kind of technology. It has been around for a long time. So we commend the Government for taking this step, but we do ask: why did it take so long? Since the time when I first started hearing the cries for this particular piece of technology to be utilised until now, how many have fallen victim to drink-drivers on the road? We support that particular clause.

I do now want to talk about some of those miscellaneous amendments. There are no less than a dozen in this particular bill. Some of them talk about simple things like digitising some of the functions for licensing and a few other things—those make sense to me. But I can tell you that, as a member of the public who quite enjoys going online and paying for things instead of walking into the post office, it says in the explanatory note of the bill “allowing recovery of bank charges associated with payments by credit card:”. People say that that is miscellaneous but, you know, for those of us who use our credit cards more and more, and who are going online to do these types of transactions, it is important that the public get to know about those things, and that it is not just a simple miscellaneous matter pushed through in this particular bill.

I want to now draw our attention to fare-fleeing. The member from the Greens talked about how up to $2 million is being lost from those people who actually skip paying a fare on public transport, in Tāmaki-makau-rau, in particular, where this Government crows about how great the public transport network is—and this is beside the point but I can tell you it is actually not that great. I think it is a good thing, but, once again, just like the infringements and the enforcement requirements of the police, we ask the same question: who is going to do that? How exactly are the people put in charge of fulfilling the particular duty that is prescribed in this bill going to make sure that they can carry out their duty? Or are we simply wasting our time, and will we continue to see more of it and people getting away with it, despite passing through this House the legislation that will supposedly smack those people on the hand and make sure that they do not do that again? Sadly, I do not believe the resources are put in place so that this bill is actually something meaningful for the general public.

There are some good parts in it. We do look forward to the debate, and I do take exception to the comments by the member from Hunua, Andrew Bayly, about my colleagues and our role on the select committee. My experience, in the short time I have been on that select committee, has been that we are, in fact, the hardest-working members on it, and we make sure that this Government is listening. Kia ora.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you for this opportunity to take this call to support the Land Transport Amendment Bill in its first reading. I have to say that it is good to see the support to take this bill to the next step, which is the select committee process. I want to clarify to the Opposition that this bill is not about police numbers. This bill is about enhancing passenger safety. This bill is about allowing flexibility in the small passenger service industry to adopt technology, and this bill is also about fairness in competition.

In the small passenger service industry we know that the traditional taxi industry has been advocating for a level playing field, and this bill addresses that issue. Currently our rules for different operating models across the small passenger service industry are not consistent. The compliance requirements and restrictions on them vary a lot. This bill addresses that issue. This bill also brings in a requirement for small passenger service licences. So if commercial operators operate without that licence, it will be an offence. We have heard about mandatory alcohol interlocks, and, yes, the evidence shows that these interlocks work as an effective tool to reduce drink-driving. When people are drunk, they cannot make sensible decisions, so we want to use technology to reduce drink-driving, and that will definitely help us reduce the road toll.

Fare evasion is becoming a big problem and we need to address it, so this bill addresses that problem by giving more powers to enforcement officers. We have also heard about people who flee the police. This bill sends a strong signal to people that not stopping when asked to stop by a police officer or an enforcement officer is going to be a serious offence. For that, I want to acknowledge my colleague Stuart Smith for his contribution to this bill.

Finally, this bill is about updating heavy vehicle regulations, and that is about fairness in that field. As I said before, this is about bringing fairness into the competition that is in the transport industry. This is about bringing fairness into the small passenger service industry. This is also about allowing the flexibility to adopt technology, as we know that some small passenger service industries are adopting technology faster than others. I am looking forward to working on this bill in the select committee process. I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): As someone who, I assume, is going to contest a by-election in a couple of months, I would have thought that member would have taken more time than simply 2½ minutes to practise speaking; but, anyway, that is the way it is.

I stand to support the Land Transport Amendment Bill. There are six points that I would like to make. What I would like to say is that I think this bill has some fantastic initiatives. I am really interested to see what the experts round the nation have to say when they present in front of the select committee, but on the face of it there are some really good things here. What I want to do is work through them, and then make a final comment.

The first thing is these interlockers. I actually think this is a fantastic idea. In fact, I would almost like to see these compulsory in every car, and certainly in cars driven by people with P plates and learner licences. It is a great idea. Drink-driving is unacceptable in this day and age, but there is still too much of it. Let us accept the proposition that when people have been drinking their judgment is impaired. It is not just their judgment on driving down the road in a straight line; it is whether they should drive or not. What an interlocker does is it is a device that you blow into and if there is any alcohol detected then it locks the car. You cannot drive it. Fantastic! But let us see whether it does work. The small measures in the bill will, I suppose, provide a trial, and if it works, then perhaps we can have an evidence-based approach on how we roll this out across the country.

The second thing is fleeing from the police. We are going to increase the penalties for this. Again, it is a great idea. There are three reasons that have been given in the bill for why this is in here. The first one is that it will deter drivers. I have my doubts about that, to be fair. I think all the evidence shows that when people are committing a crime they do not think about the consequences, because they always think they are going to get away with it. The second thing is it will reduce the number. Again, I have my doubts because, like I mentioned just 2 seconds ago, I think when people are committing a crime the last thing that goes through their heads is a rational decision around the odds of being caught versus not being caught. But the third objective, which I completely agree with, is to send a very clear message that fleeing from the police is totally unacceptable and is a serious crime. There is a debate every time this happens and a driver crashes. Luckily, in the last two that I can remember no innocent bystanders were killed, but the risk, every time someone flees a police car, is that not only will they kill themselves, which is enough of a tragedy, but they will kill an innocent driver or an innocent pedestrian. The thing is that it also puts the lives of the police at risk.

As the Opposition spokesperson on the police I am asked, every time there is a media comment on this, whether I agree there should be chases or not. What I do believe is that the police use their discretion, and I think they do that very well and I back the police on this. But what I also believe is that this is a serious offence, it must be taken seriously, and the message we must send is that it is totally unacceptable to flee the police. The bottom line is you are going to get caught anyway; you are probably going to get done. If you flee, you have obviously done something seriously wrong. Just stop and take the consequences, for goodness’ sake.

The third thing is fare evasion. I actually did not know, until I read the bill, that when a passenger is asked to prove they have bought a ticket, they do not have to. There is no obligation to do that, and no obligation to give their name and address as well. They can be absolutely belligerent. If the conductor or someone comes up and says “Sir, can I have a look at your ticket, to prove you have purchased one?”, they do not have to show it and they do not have to give their name and address. This seems a little weird. So I think this is good because it means that you do have to provide proof of purchase. If you cannot provide proof of purchase, then you are required to give your name and address. It just makes sense, really. It is a pragmatic approach.

The fourth point is the update to the heavy vehicle registration. I listened very carefully to my colleague Sue Moroney’s thoughtful words on this. I must admit I will need to hear what the experts say before I am sold on this initiative. The thing that people do not realise is that the wear and tear on the roads from these heavy vehicles is significant. It is not a linear curve. You have got a small car here versus a big truck; it is exponential. In fact, the wear and tear on our roads from these large trucks is significant. We need to understand the cost benefit around this, and whether it is going to increase productivity or not, and the cost to our roading infrastructure. It will be interesting to hear the submissions on this point.

Taxis—the fifth point. Well, it ensures competition; competition is a good thing, we cannot argue with that. It engages with technology and updates the regulatory system to the 21st century. I think what it does do is it takes into account the disruptive business models we are beginning to see in this industry, and that is only fair, in my view. But, again, it will be interesting to hear what the submitters have to say, because I suspect this is going to be hotly contested and I suspect there will be some very thoughtful submissions presented to the select committee on the taxi regulation.

The last point I would like to make—and it is something I will spend a little bit more time on than the rest—is police resourcing, because, by and large, what we are going to ask the police to do is ensure that they are the ones who enforce the vast majority of the provisions in this bill. The irony is that it would have been about 2 months ago that the police Minister herself said that about 111 police are going to be taken off the road. I must admit, the irony of “111” police taken off the roads was not lost on a lot of people, but the thing that we know is that having officers on the road acts as a deterrent itself. We all know that if we are driving along at 103 kilometres an hour and we see a police officer, we will slow down to 100 kilometres an hour—I know that no one in this House drives over 103 kilometres an hour, but you know what I mean. It acts as a very serious deterrent; if we take the police officers off the road, there is no deterrent at all.

I am really concerned that what we are doing is loading up the police with yet more work. The interesting thing is that in the latest workplace survey, 55 percent of police said that they had unacceptable levels of workplace stress, and 60 percent of police officers actually said they do not believe they are delivering on the promises they make to the public. But the interesting thing about this survey is that over 80 percent of police said that they enjoyed their work, and 80 percent of police said that they had a commitment to the New Zealand police force. So what we have got here is a group of highly professional men and women who want to do what is right—they know what is right; they want to have the tools to get out there and make it happen, but they are just under-resourced. They are highly engaged, highly committed, but with a hell of a lot of stress and not meeting promises.

As mentioned, this bill does some really good things, but there is no way we are going to be able to enforce this if we continue to cut policing resources. The interesting thing is that in the 2016 to 2020 police strategic plan, signed off by the commissioner and signed off by the Minister on 27 May this year, it actually highlights the fact that there was a slight drop in police numbers from 2014 to 2015, and then from 2016 to 2020 there will be no additional police. No additional police, and yet we are dealing with a force that says itself that it is stressed—that says itself that it cannot meet the promises that it makes to the public. Police want to—they work hard, they are committed to their communities, and they are committed to the people of New Zealand—but there are not the resources. Luckily, the Minister of Police and the Prime Minister himself have come out and said: “Look, maybe we got it wrong in that strategic plan. We are now requiring police to investigate every single burglary, instead of the 70 percent investigated in the past. As a consequence of that we need more police on the street, we need more police in our communities, and we need more police on the front line.”

The thing I would say is that it is all very well to come into this House and say to the media “Yes, we need more police.”, but it is a different matter to actually deliver on that promise. Before this bill passes through this House, what we need, I believe, is a firm commitment of how many police and when they are going to come online, because there is no point in passing this law through the House if there are not the men and women out there to enforce it.

Just to sum up, I think there are some great initiatives here, I think there are some pragmatic provisions in this bill, and I am looking forward to hearing what the select committee and the submitters say, but—and that is a really big “but”—I think we are wasting our time putting these measures in place if there are not the men and women on the front line to enforce them. We need more police in our community, and we need a firm commitment from the Minister of Police and the Prime Minister around when these police are going to arrive, how many, and where they are going to be deployed. Thank you very much.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

Bills

Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 13 September.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I am happy to just pick up, for a couple of minutes, where I left off earlier in the week, and to add a little bit more on this topic. Firstly, the bill sets out clearly—and some significant discussion was had—what these charges in the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill apply to. The charges apply to demand services, and a demand service is described as a service that “is provided only on the request to an individual or organisation … and is of direct benefit to that individual or organisation …”.

During the course of the select committee discussion on this bill, there was a lot of discussion on this very topic, and, I think, some nervousness initially as to what that might extend to. I think, as we progressed the discussion on that, we got to a position where most members on the select committee were comfortable with what that would apply to. For the purposes of this debate, the discussion related to what is known as police vetting. There was a lot of discussion as to who might use that, and as I said earlier in my contribution on this, the Minister of Police has now signalled strongly that our charitable organisations will not be subject to those charges, which I think was also quite a significant relief to the select committee and to many of those charitable organisations. The fact that in overseas jurisdictions this service is almost always paid for—and I accept that that is no reason for us to implement this in New Zealand—did give us some satisfaction that, at least, we were in territory that was justifiable.

It also proposed that the charge be a charge of about $7 per police vet check. When you compare that with the charge in Australia, which is some $52, it is significantly different. This charge will bring in about $2 million to the police, which will enable them to supply a significantly better police vetting service, and I think, again, that is a pretty important factor for many organisations that use that service. They need to have confidence that the service is sound and will provide them with the information and the surety they require when they are getting those police vetting checks.

The discussion then moved to how broad an application these charges may be allowed to have. I said earlier that there was some discussion of what a demand service was. Again the select committee moved to tighten the primary definition of a demand service, as concern was again expressed both by members of the committee and the submitters as to what these may pertain to. So I think, having got through those two or three pretty important points, the select committee was comfortable enough with where this bill had got to. As I said, I was pleased with the decision to waive the charge on charitable organisations, and so, after some early concerns, I am pleased to be able to support this bill as it moves through the House and becomes law. Thank you.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Green Party is opposing this bill because it is about the Government retreating from providing a core service: policing for safe communities. We have seen today the State exercising its powers of punishing people—punishing mothers on a benefit, because they will not disclose their child’s father because they may have been the victim of sexual abuse or the victim of incest. Yet here in this bill this Government is saying that we will be prepared to ensure that the police cover a lot of their costs and we are moving to user-pays policing, which is undermining the role of the police in ensuring public safety and community safety.

There were a lot of submissions on this bill highlighting the major impacts on voluntary organisations from the vetting charges and from this move to user-pays and cost recovery. Yes, there have been some changes made in the select committee, but those changes are not substantial enough and they are alongside the provisions in the bill that allow the Government to introduce regulations by stealth to expand the opportunities for the police to recover charges for their services. So restrictions on the cost recovery provisions are not nearly clear enough in the bill, and, instead, we have seen this Government, because of its underfunding of the police, putting the burden on the police to try to find some money to try to move to user-pays. So there are not sufficient concessions, in the select committee’s consideration of the bill, to actually provide the certainty that the Green Party needs that we are not, step by step, moving to user-pays policing and undermining their statutory role in safeguarding community safety.

My colleague David Clendon has a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), which we will be debating in the Committee stage, to make it very clear that teachers of State schools should be exempted from having these cost recovery charges applied. This is because it is essential that teachers and people in childcare situations all have the opportunity to go through that vetting process without those organisations then having to pay for that. It will have an enormous impact on their budgets, and that is what the Government has failed to recognise—the impact of these charges on the voluntary sector. The way to address this issue is to increase police funding, not to shift the charges on to the voluntary sector by requiring it to pay for vetting. So we have got major objections to the bill. We encourage the Government to seriously consider the SOPs that are being promoted to ensure that critical parts of society do not have these significant costs imposed on them.

It is a bad bill. It is taking away the fundamental responsibility of the State, through the police, to provide for community security and safety. We do not want user-pays policing where community organisations, where schools, and where others are having to pay for basic police services. I think we all agree that where there is a significant commercial benefit, as with large concerts where the police provide services there, there is the potential for some cost recovery there, but not for our childcare organisations, not for our schools, not for our charitable organisations. That is just shifting the costs on to the community sector, which the Government should be paying for by adequately funding the police. We oppose this bill.

MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the second reading of the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill. The three pillars of our democracy are the Parliament, the judiciary, and the police. These three pillars are independent of each other, with specific responsibilities, and they are all fundamental to providing a safe, free, democratic society where people are free to raise their families and go about their lawful business—running their lives and raising their children with the security that if their right to exist safely in society is impeded by anybody, then the State, through the police, will protect them.

Policing is a service, it is a duty, and it is a responsibility of the State. It is not a charitable commodity from which the State should derive a revenue stream. It is not a service that can in any way be equated to the services provided by the Department of Internal Affairs or the Customs Service—providing such things as passports and charging people for them. The police force is a police force. It is there to protect and serve. It is there to provide protection to all New Zealanders regardless of one’s race, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, or, indeed, the size of their wallet.

New Zealand First believes that keeping a community safe through policing is the core responsibility of the State and that police vetting is inseparable from these basic policing functions. The police force and the services it provides are funded from our main tax revenue, and we believe that it should stay that way. We believe that police should carry out vetting as part of their core police work. We see this amendment, which asks New Zealanders to pay for a vetting service with a separate fee, as the thin edge of a very, very fat National Government wedge, which will be steadily and quietly tapped into, extracting, at every tap of the hammer, money from New Zealanders who are seeking help from the police force. We believe that this bill will provide the impetus for the police to start charging for other services that they currently provide as core business, such as attending to emergencies, family violence incidents, property crime, or child abuse.

Where does this stop? Will we be charging for emergency services such as attending to burglaries, or thefts, or violence? That cannot happen. We cannot support any kick-start to our police being a pay-as-you-go, or a user-pays system. That is not the Kiwi thing to do. The Vulnerable Children Act 2014 requires standard screening and vetting of all central government staff and Government-funded contractors working with children. This is a voluntary regime for business. NGOs and volunteer organisations are covered under these amendments, and it will be reviewed in 2 years.

Community groups, non-governmental organisations, and other community organisations that rely on volunteers and are not resourced financially may well be prevented from going through the vetting process because of this amendment. The cost will not be bearable for them, because they do not have the resources to fund these activities, which are currently being provided by the police. When that happens, children, women, the elderly, and other vulnerable members of our society may well be put at risk, due to caregivers and others working with these vulnerable citizens not being vetted. I am sure this Government was not intending to put our vulnerable members of society at such risk.

Finally, it is the State that requires all paid and unpaid staff in schools to undergo a police check. Paying for the service will increase compliance costs for those schools, which will have a negative impact on the operational budget of the schools, particularly small schools. This Government is wanting to tighten the funding belts of its public schools, and now it is adding more financial constraints with this bill—that is criminal. New Zealand First does not support this bill, because New Zealand First does not support the police charging for any of its core services. Kia ora.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am pleased to stand in support of this Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill. It is notable that every jurisdiction in Australia has this same provision. They face similar situations to those that we do, and yet we do not have this provision. We hear, all the time, the criticisms across the House that police need further resources; this is one measure in which those resources can be increased. We are requiring greater levels of service from the New Zealand Police, and every dollar that is spent on fulfilling these requirements is taken away from front-line spending. What we are doing, in this quite complex age, when we have to place all sorts of measures and requirement upon safety and security and requirements for vetting, is putting this measure into place.

There have been concerns, right through our committee hearings, from charitable organisations that they do not have the capacity to absorb these costs. It is good to hear that the Minister of Police has responded to those concerns and has signalled her intention to progress a waiver, through regulations, for registered charities. I would say that that was the greatest objection we heard from submitters—around the cost absorption that they were required to do, so there is the response that has come through on that.

It is also worthy of note that there are many commercial activities and events in our communities that request the services of police. Why is it that a commercial activity that, in terms of the success of its event, can request the police, and by and large they are always very, very willing to assist those organisations and those events that make a profit—why can the police not recover some of their costs? I think that is a reasonable proposition. What this bill does is enable some of that to be done. So it is very good to see that we are having a robust debate, and I am very happy to support this bill at this stage. Thank you.

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

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koutou. The Green Party is opposing this bill because we support the public benefit that occurs as a result of public organisations—like the 138,349 requests from education agencies in 2013-14—who need police vetting. That is absolutely a public benefit and should not be carried by a user-pays model. It appears that this bill wants to enable police to recover costs in respect of the provision of certain police services. The process is that the Minister can recommend any regulation to establish a fee or charge. Again, I acknowledge my colleague David Clendon as our spokesperson proper on this legislation. But it appears still, in my initial reading, that there are not enough safety checks, or a check, on how far the police can expand the services that they wish to cost recover. So that is of some concern.

As well as this, the police apparently have suggested a fee and provision for some exemptions for specific organisations for recovering costs, but as of August it seems that any proposed regulations still have not been presented to Cabinet. I am happy to be corrected on that, and I just seek some clarification that we might get on that in the Committee stage—so some sort of clarity around what the police are actually suggesting here, and how many services they are wanting to expand the recovery costs to, as well.

I want to be quite clear—I mean, as I mentioned, this absolutely should not be a user-pays model. That is not where we want our country to go, for so many reasons, and one that sprang to my mind, as I familiarised myself with this new piece of legislation, was my experience when I went to a smaller school in Hokianga. It was a lower-decile school and not hugely resourced, and I was involved in an investigation of a teacher. I was, basically, a whistleblower with regard to a teacher—this is all on the public record; I was probably 10—who was conducting some serious sexual abuse of my fellow students at my school. This was a small, quite isolated school at that point, as well, and, you know, we need—we need—our schools to not even have to think about doing the checks, the safety requirements, that they need to do, without a single thought, because it actually, literally, does impact on the safety of the children in that community.

As I pointed out earlier, a large number of the requests for police vetting come from educational agencies. Surely, with the resources of this Crown and this ministry and the Minister involved, we can actually work out how we can exempt particular public-good services. If there is a concern about commercial benefit, then let us have a look at that, but let us not scoop up too many of the organisations that would actually have to think—the fact that they would even have to think about taking the necessary steps to put in place all safety requirements for their community is why we oppose this bill.

My colleague David Clendon has noted that the better-off schools, for example, often pay for their teachers’ registration but poor schools do not. So we have the evidence to show that these are hindrances and these are restrictions, and we need to ensure that every single school—all schools—early childhood centres, and charity organisations do not have to think, and do not have another barrier in the way of the work that they are already doing in our communities, to be able to ensure that they can keep their workers safe, their communities safe, and their clients safe. And, primarily, that is why the Green Party is opposing this bill. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Chris Hipkins—5 minutes.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): The protection of the public is the core business of the police, and it seems staggering in this day and age that members have to rise in the House to state that very obvious fact. Let us look at the purpose of this bill that we are debating, the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill, and in the Law and Order Committee’s commentary it says that this bill will allow the police to charge people, effectively, for services that are “of direct private benefit to that individual or organisation”.

Let us look at the first one that has been identified as a service that the police might be charging for, and that is police vetting. Let us consider the example of an early childhood centre using police vetting and being charged under this bill for the police vetting that they are using. Under this bill, that would be deemed to be a private benefit to that individual or organisation, but I would put it to the members opposite: who actually really benefits from the police vetting of people working in early childhood education centres? It is not actually the centres that are the primary beneficiary of that; it is the children who are attending those services who are the primary beneficiaries of police vetting. That is why we have a regulation that requires centres to do that. So, yes, it helps centres to meet their regulatory responsibilities, but, actually, we do that because it keeps the children safe, which is the core job of the police—keeping people safe. That is why we have police vetting.

So the members opposite mentioned that all the police districts in Australia do that. Interestingly enough, the cost of doing so for the organisations that pay for police vetting is over $50 per police vet. The Government is talking about a cost in New Zealand of around $7 per vet when it introduces this, so how long will it be before we catch up with Australia—which seems to be the goal of the members opposite, if you listen to what they are saying—and people are having to pay $50 per police vet?

Take an early childhood education centre that might have half a dozen staff, or maybe more, actually—let us say, a dozen people are working in an early childhood education service. That is a significant cost, and, ultimately, where does its funding come from? A community-based early childhood education service—most of their funding comes from the Government. So this is the Government kind of robbing from one recipient of Government funding in order to give to another, and all of the transaction costs that go with that. Of course, we have got a Government here that does not like transfer payments; it is actually just creating a whole new regime of them. But the fundamental issue, which is missing here, is that the job of the police is to keep children safe and keep people safe, so why would they be charging and making it difficult for organisations to vet the people they are working with?

Consider a voluntary organisation—a club or a society that uses police vetting in order to keep children safe. We are told by the Government to simply rely on the Minister exempting those organisations, and yet there is no guarantee in this legislation that the Minister will do so. And what is even more concerning is that if you look at the second part of this bill, which creates the regulation-making power, it basically allows the Minister of Police, without reference to the House, to impose a new form of tax. So the Minister of Police can decide which police services will be charged for. It, basically, gives the Minister of Police the absolute power to determine which police services are charged for and, aside from the ability of the Regulations Review Committee to review that, this House has no say in that. That is not right.

That is why we are elected. If the Government want to come to the House and say “We think these police services should be charged for.”, as it does with tax—it has got to come to the House and say “These are the taxes and levies that we think New Zealanders should be charged.”, and Parliament then debates them and votes on them—this does not create the environment where that would happen. This just says that it is completely up to the Minister and they can do that without reference back to the House, and they can change that at will simply by Order in Council. That is not good enough. If the Government is going to start charging for police services, it should at least have public scrutiny around that. It should at least bring those proposals to the House and have them debated in the form of a bill, but it is not willing to do that. I think that that is wrong, and I am sure that we will get into the debate on that when this bill comes up for its Committee stage.

Ultimately, this is the first step in user-pays policing. The Government has given the example of police vetting as a service that may be charged for, but there could be others. There could be plenty of others that fall within that definition, and the question becomes—go right back to that comment I made at the beginning: determining what is a private benefit to the individual or organisation is very difficult because, actually, most police services, even if they are provided directly to an organisation, are for the purpose of keeping the public safe, which is the core business of the police.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): I am not on the Law and Order Committee, so it is a real privilege for me to be able to take this call to support the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill in its second reading. Sitting here, I have heard contributions from various parties—the Green Party, the New Zealand First Party, and the Labour Party. I have to say that it is really appalling to see that they are not supporting this bill that is to support our police force.

Our police officers work really hard. They do a lot more than they are required to do for law and order maintenance. We know that there are various work fields that require police clearance for their people to be employed in that industry—for example, people working with young children, people working with the elderly, and people carrying passengers, and there are so many other industries that require a police clearance for people before they are employed in that industry. These kinds of requests for a police clearance can be made on an individual basis, and this is above and beyond the role that we want our police force to focus on, which is law and order. When I say law and order, I mean preventing, reducing, and resolving crime. It also, of course, involves investigations and prosecutions.

This bill is the right move because it will provide the ability for our police force to recover the cost of such services. This will also shift the cost from a taxpayer-funded service to an individually paid service, because, as we have heard, it is the individual who requests a police clearance who is actually going to benefit from that police clearance. This is about making our police force more effective. I support this bill and commend this bill to the House.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): Can I just say, in responding to some of the earlier remarks by the previous speaker, Parmjeet Parmar, that she is completely wrong when she says that the Opposition does not support the police force. I think if she considered that the Government has underfunded the police force by more than $300 million—

Hon Ruth Dyson: How much?

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: —$300 million—she would recognise that it is her Government that has failed to continue to support the police force, and it is forcing the New Zealand Police to skimp around and find ways of funding itself. The Labour Party will not be supporting this bill, because we just believe it is wrong. It is wrong for this Government to set the police on a course where they think it is OK to start charging the public for services that are currently being undertaken by the police force and considered under legislation as core, fundamental services—including the maintaining of public safety, crime prevention, and community support and reassurance.

I suspect that the members of the public who would be listening to the debate should see a red flag with this kind of bill, because I think most New Zealanders would agree with me when I say that many of us agree with the principle of solidarity. That is that we pay our taxes and give them to the Government to collect in order for the Government to ensure that certain services are available for all—certain services are able to contribute to the general public good for all peoples. The reason that I pay my tax, and that I think most of us do so, is that we pool those resources together and we ensure that every child in our neighbourhood gets a good education. We pool our resources by taxing ourselves, ensuring that if anyone gets sick, they are able to see a doctor, or if they need medical treatment, they are able to go to the hospital without being told that they have to pay. We do so with housing, and we do so also with our police force. We pay our taxes and we collectively pool those taxes for the sake of ensuring that a police force is there to provide a public good.

The public good is public safety. It is the maintenance of law and order. It is the ability to give confidence and assurance to every citizen of New Zealand that our Government is doing its job. But this bill now introduces the debate about what private good is versus public good. I have always thought—and most New Zealanders will not have a problem with this—that those in the area of business, where they are making profits for delivering a service or selling a good to the general public, have a right to make a profit. This is the same principle that this Government is now asking the police force to undertake. A service that was delivered as part of the core function of police is now being charged for. I look at what the Law and Order Committee has done, and my colleagues tell me that when they asked the officials what other services would be charged for, the officials were unable or unwilling to disclose this.

So it seems to me that this is the first step on the slippery slope towards a paid police force. That is what we are heading towards. That is not New Zealand. I heard Mr Jonathan Young say earlier that this is what Australia is currently undertaking. I want to say to Mr Jonathan Young: so—so? That might be Australia—but we are not Australia; we are New Zealand. We are an independent sovereign nation. We are different from Australia. This is not the Kiwi way. So I suspect that Mr Jonathan Young might be suggesting that if Australia asks us to jump, we might be saying: “How high?”. I would say that we need to maintain our Kiwi way, the way that we do things, the way that is in line with the principle of solidarity that most New Zealanders live their lives by.

I want to say that the Government is saying that police vetting—as it is currently being done—is to ensure that those who are working with vulnerable people, for example children, are fit and proper people to do so and that the community’s safety is assured. It now seems that under this legislation if an early childhood education centre, which is the example given by a colleague earlier, is asking for the police to vet someone, it is going to have to pay. The report suggests that it is $7, but we also know that Australia charges for this same service about A$50. Where will it stop? Some early childhood centres have more than 10 staff. Others will include volunteers. But there also is a concern from the Salvation Army and organisations that are at the coalface of trying to meet some of the challenges that have been imposed on this country because of a lack of caring and because of the direct consequence of this Government’s public policy.

I understand that most, if not all, of the submitters on this particular bill were opposed to this. Let me read out what they say here. Most of the people who made submissions on this said that they believed that it was totally inappropriate to make future major changes—for the police to start charging for these services. The fact that the officials were unable or unwilling to identify what other services will be charged for as part of this new regime is also concerning.

I also want to raise the other part of this bill that is concerning. Hopefully, when it comes to the Committee of the whole House, we will have the opportunity to debate and consider it more. It is the fact that under this legislation changes can be made by regulation—that is, without coming to this House, which has the supreme authority of our laws. These changes can be made without any knowledge of this House. I dare say that this is the slippery slope that I do not think is appropriate. I said earlier for the public listening to this debate that this should alert them, like a red flag, as to where things are going under this Government. I say that there has been a pattern that has emerged where, in terms of the debate of private good versus public good, we are slowly but surely and more deliberately, despite the subtleness, being moved towards paying—a user-charge society. More of our services are being privatised.

I give the example of our prisons. This Government came into power and invited Serco to run some of our prisons. We know that in the case where private business is involved in the delivery of public service for public good there are often bad examples that we note—in America, for example, where that sort of going-on is rife with corruption. I note, also, that last night we debated a new bill in terms of education. The Government’s own reports say that the charter school system has failed—has failed—and yet the legislation that we debated last night is going to extend the charter school system and extend a failed system at that.

Now, today, we are seeing the first changes in what I believe is a move towards the privatisation of our police force. I do not know what it is, but it seems like we are trying to follow the American style of providing services that benefit the public. Is it because Mr Key has suddenly found a new friend in the American President? I would hope that if he does rub shoulders with him from time to time he remembers that New Zealand is a sovereign nation, is an independent nation—and that, as small as we are, we have to maintain those things that make us different from the rest of the world. I want to say that, in terms of this bill, it is wrong. This is the start of a slippery slope: where first we are charging community organisations that may want individuals to be vetted for the sake of maintaining the safety of our community. What is next? Does that mean that if my house gets burgled, I am going to have to pay the police before they come and investigate that burglary? Is that where we are heading to? I hope not, but I do not believe that this Government knows where it is going.

JONO NAYLOR (National): It has been an interesting debate this afternoon as I have been listening to members on the other side of the House coming up with all the reasons why this bill should not go forward. Actually, a couple of them might have had a small point, but in singling out organisations that they think would not benefit from this, they very conveniently forget that just about all the ones they have mentioned, I think, are ones that the Minister has already said will likely be exempt from this. Those members have conveniently left out those organisations that absolutely are commercial operations. They are private businesses that, at the moment, have free access to get police vetting done, and there is only a private benefit and yet the taxpayers are, in effect, subsidising those private companies to get information that they have chosen to use for their employees.

For that reason, I believe that this legislation is appropriate. It is not about a carte blanche approach where we are going to charge for all police services, as the previous speaker, Su’a William Sio, alluded to and did some scaremongering on. This is a sensible approach to ensure that the taxpayers of New Zealand are not subsidising or cross-subsidising private business in this way, and, therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment 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 13; New Zealand First 11.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Associate Minister for Primary Industries: I move, That the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill changes how Government agencies both use and protect data supplied to them with applications to register agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines. Data protection is obviously hugely important, as it provides time for businesses to recoup the costs of developing data to support a registration application. With greater certainty about being able to recoup their costs, businesses are more likely to invest in research and development, and register new products or uses in New Zealand. New products and uses will support better productivity, competitiveness, and safety outcomes for our primary industries. Before I talk about the bill in detail, I want to thank the Primary Production Committee for its very good work in considering this bill. I also want to acknowledge the valuable input provided by the submitters.

It is very important to distinguish between data protection and patents. Data protection prevents Government agencies from using data that they hold to assess subsequent applications to register similar products for the duration of the protected period. Data protection does not stop other parties from generating their own data and registering a competing product. Patents, on the other hand, enable the holder of a patent to restrict other parties from using their idea without their approval.

The committee has recommended a number of revisions to this bill. At a high level, the revisions extend, expand, and clarify data protection. The committee has recommended the following revisions: first, for innovative products and uses, extending data protection to 10 years and simplifying how it applies; secondly, for non-innovative products and uses, extending data protection from 3 years to 5 years; thirdly, for new uses for innovative and non-innovative products, clarifying what qualifies as a new use; and fourthly, for data supplied as part of reassessments, introducing 5 years’ protection. The bill now also clarifies transitional arrangements and the scope of data protection. So, as one can see, the changes are quite significant, and so I want to explore them in just a little more detail.

First of all, innovative products and uses: for registrations of new innovative products the revised bill would establish a base data-protection period of 10 years, in place of the current 5 years. This would apply to applications under both the current Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Innovative products are those that contain an active ingredient not previously registered under the principal Act. Nearly all submitters called for a longer period of data protection, with many supporting a base protection period of at least 10 years. I consider that 10 years is about the right period of time. It should result in more registrations and greater competition in the medium and long term, without too much impact on competition in the short term. Where companies are applying to register new uses for their innovative products, the revised bill would confer data protection for whichever is greater: the period remaining of the original innovative product’s 10-year data-protection period, or 5 years. This approach should encourage suppliers to register new uses early to take advantage of the 10-year period, without deterring registrations later once there is less than 5 years remaining. This new approach is much simpler than the original policy and, I submit, would create the right incentives for suppliers.

Then there is the issue of non-innovative products and uses. For these types of uses, the revised bill would establish a base data-protection period of 5 years, in place of the 3 years that was in the bill when it was introduced. These products are those that contain an active ingredient previously registered under the Act. Nearly all submitters called for a longer data-protection period for these types of applications, but I consider that 5 years strikes the right balance between encouraging registrations of non-innovative products in an appropriate period on the one hand, and allowing for competition on the other.

Then there is the issue of new uses. The revised bill clarifies and expands what qualifies as a “new use”, both for innovative and non-innovative products. The bill, as introduced, proposed that a new use should qualify for data protection if it enabled a product to be used on an additional species of plant or animal. Submitters thought that this proposal was unclear and too narrow. They were concerned that it would not encourage products to be registered for a sufficiently broad range of new uses. The revised bill seeks to address this issue by making new use applications qualify for data protection if they enable one of the following: the product can be used on one or more additional species of crop or animal; the product can be used on one or more additional pests or diseases; or the product can have different application rates, methods of application, or withholding periods. I support these changes, as they are going to ensure that our growers and farmers have the tools they need to be productive and internationally competitive.

Finally, with the issue of reassessments, the revised bill introduces 5 years’ data protection for information supplied in support of reassessments. These reassessments involve a Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) review of all products containing particular agricultural compounds. These reassessments determine whether the agricultural compound should remain on the market and, if so, under what conditions. To inform reassessment decisions, MPI often needs access to data held by other product suppliers. Originally, the bill did not propose data protection for reassessments—however, nearly all submitters commenting on reassessments supported data protection being introduced. Submissions by both suppliers and users alike argue that in the absence of data protection for reassessment, suppliers have little incentive to supply data as part of reassessment processes.

I want to conclude by talking about why this bill is so very important. It is going to give suppliers of compounds longer to recoup their data development costs, so suppliers are more likely to register new products and uses when there is more likelihood that they will recoup their costs. Suppliers are also more likely to provide the data needed to support the ongoing registration of reassessed products. Increased data protection should, therefore, result in the latest products, with more uses being available to the market, and that is going to create a number of benefits.

First, new products and uses mean higher levels of investment in research and development. Secondly, it means higher productivity and international competitiveness, particularly for the smaller sectors. Thirdly, new products and uses mean new options to manage pests and diseases. Fourthly, new products and uses mean less off-label use, resulting in fewer trade risks associated with breaching default maximum residue levels. Finally, new products and uses mean stronger supply-side competition, as substitute products are introduced into the market over time to compete with registered products. So, all in all, I believe these benefits will more than offset the short-term impact on competition associated with longer data-protection periods. So, before commending the bill to the House, can I say how much I have enjoyed reading this, because I feel that I have learnt a lot in the last 10 minutes.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I hope so.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): This is quite a technical bill, and those people who do not understand that now were asleep before Minister Finlayson started, if not by the time he had finished. I will not go into the technical details of the bill—I know that the chairman of the Primary Production Committee will probably do that—other than to say that Labour supports the bill. It is basically about updating the protections for people who do some research to investigate whether a product is safe to use in the New Zealand agricultural system.

The select committee worked across the board with all parties to try to get the most sensible outcome here, and the balance was one of ensuring that the people who did the work—the research—and spent the money, got some ability to recoup that investment by being able to sell their products for a specific purpose for a reasonable period of time, be that from 5 to 8 years or to 10 years. We have heard the Minister explain the adjustments that the select committee, on balance, thought were necessary to ensure that the people who spent the money got some ability to get a return on it.

Why is this important? Well, Kiwis are great innovators, and the terms that the Minister used—innovative products, non-innovative products, and all the rest of it—which put most of us to sleep, are, effectively, about trying to protect Kiwis from ourselves, because when we see a chemical that kills certain weeds or certain pests in a crop, or when we get provided with that chemical, the classic Kiwi farmer or grower will say: “Well, that could be quite good to use on this other crop or pest.” That probably occurred in the past, more often than it should have, but in the new world of maximum residue levels, of off-label use—and that is the kind of innovation—the reality is that all of our food products, all the produce that comes from our country, are scrutinised by the importing countries around the world to ensure that we have not, by mistake or by design, incorporated the use of a product that they may consider a contaminant.

The ability now for people to test, right down to parts per million, if not parts per billion, and identify an unwanted chemical means that we have to ensure our systems are right up to speed and do not allow the use of chemicals in an inappropriate way. But we want to continue to innovate, so just as we are breeding new plant species, improving productivity rates across the board, and looking to chemical companies to assist us to control disease, we want to make sure we are doing it in the right way.

The major change in this bill is actually encouraging the innovative use of products, but only when the research has been carried out to ensure that if they are applied, there is no danger to consumers or to the land or to the people applying the chemicals. So there will be research that arrives at recommendations, and if you pick up a can of chemicals and you have got very good eyesight or you have got a magnifying glass, you can read the instructions, because they are quite detailed—and they have to be. It is important that people get trained to use chemicals properly to ensure that they do not use them at twice the rate they should, meaning that there are chemicals left behind in the food they produce. It is important too that they apply them at the right time. All of these things are absolutely crucial if we are to run the finest, safest, food production systems in the world.

So what we have done in this bill is we have made some adjustments to say to the companies—they might be New Zealand companies or they might be offshore companies that are selling into New Zealand: “If you see the potential for the use of an active ingredient in one chemical and you think it may be useful on another crop, then you can do that, but you have to abide by the process to get registration. But if you do that, we’ll ensure that you get 5 years’ or 8 years’ or 10 years’ protection of the intellectual property that you’ve developed.” The alternative is that someone just comes along, gets access to that information, writes a different recommendation on their spray, or changes a compound, and then sells it for a price just under that of the company that has done all the work, and makes, perhaps, an unfair profit.

We need to encourage innovation across the agrichemical sector, and we need the sector to be able to make a fair return. There is always an interesting debate about what is fair and what is excessive. On the other hand, the farmers and the growers want to buy the product as cheaply as they can. They want competition in the market. They want two or three or four people producing the same kinds of chemicals so that there is competition to keep the prices down. But there does have to be discipline, and that is where Government and agencies such as Agcarm and others come in—to ensure that, in having healthy competition, we do not cut corners and we do not put at risk any part of our food production system and do not end up with a product offshore being tested, a residue being discovered, and that consignment being rejected or sent back to New Zealand with the reputational damage that that would cause us.

I think every member of the select committee had that at the back of their mind—that we are trying to protect our food production systems. As I say, I am sure that the chairman of the committee will explain in detail the reasons for the change in the time line protections. They were quite complex, I have to say, but as chairman of the committee, he is in the positon to do that, plainly.

I will speak to the general principles and say that Labour does support the bill. We have worked with committee members to come up with what we think is a fair and reasonable solution that protects those who are doing the innovation and those who are carrying out the research but does not protect their rights so as to remove competition and downward pressure on those chemicals. The reality is that the production of the chemicals themselves usually costs very, very little, but the research required to get them approved as safe, and to get them approved to be used in a safe way that must be upheld—that is where all the money has to be spent. I guess it is an ongoing dilemma in the pharmaceutical sector, but also in the agrichemical area.

I am not going to speak for too much longer, other than to say that I think we have a reasonably robust system. I think we do need to keep ahead of international guidelines around maximum residue limits. We do have traditional practices in agriculture that need to be updated and upgraded, and we need to look carefully at a number of things that we are still using that might end up being unwanted over time.

The ongoing use of conventional fertilisers and other chemicals, such as glyphosate, are coming under scrutiny around the world. In Europe they are looking to ban it. I have to say that we have got to stay ahead of that and look for alternative, safer chemicals—or chemicals that they consider are safe—so that we can continue to sell our high-value produce into high-value markets around the world.

So Labour supports the process we have gone through as a select committee and supports the outcome of this but does leave a word of warning by saying that this is a very active area of monitoring and management. The passage of this legislation will be good for a short time, and we will then need to stay ahead of monitoring of maximum residue levels and other chemicals that we are using across New Zealand, to ensure that our reputation is not ever undermined by the sale of produce that people perceive may be unsafe for consumption. Labour supports this bill.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. It gives me great pleasure to follow that very well-known farmer from Rongotai, who introduced this topic today. I say that with very good reason, because if you think about the contribution that Minister Finlayson has made to agriculture in New Zealand—in my electorate particularly, where you have got Ngāti Apa and Atihau-Whanganui Incorporation partnering in a pretty amazing farming arrangement—he will be known in the future as someone who established some of New Zealand’s great farms in his time as a Minister. So I think that it is very appropriate that he should introduce this bill.

I want to go into the background of this bill a little bit because—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): He’ll be calling you “hayseeds”.

IAN McKELVIE: There are no hayseeds on him! I want to go into the background of this bill a little bit because there was a lot of discussion in the industry leading up to this bill coming to the House, and some disagreement as to how this bill might, I guess, take place. As it turned out in the end, it was pretty much unanimously supported by all participants and all those who commented on the bill and made submissions on it.

I just want to go into the history of it a bit, though, because you have got to remember that we are a small country—not a very attractive market place. If our compliance and costs of entry are too high, we are then precluded from accessing some of the best products in the world. We are a small but very diverse market for both veterinary medicines and agricultural compounds, and many of these are multi-use. If the cost of application for that use is too great, they will not come to New Zealand.

The introduction of new generations of products into the New Zealand market is hugely important for us—and I am sure that will be gone into, a little later. One of the reasons it is so important is it enables us to get rid of a large number of older products that no longer have a useful place in agriculture but are being used in places in the world simply because the new products either have not got there or are not able to be utilised in those markets. It is very important that we enable that to happen. It has also been a long-held view in the industry that too long a period of protection for data or patent was deferential to the industry, as the prices stayed high for too long. However, the access to new product is seen as a much greater advantage to the industry than the fact that the price might, I guess, remain a little higher for a little longer. So there was almost universal agreement among the submitters as to the best solution for New Zealand. I think that was quite exciting. I think it is also a very opportune time to be putting through legislation like this, because we have probably never seen changes like this in the agricultural and pastoral sector at the rate that we are seeing at the moment. The opportunity is amazingly different from what it has been in the past, and we need to keep up with the times and enable change to happen very quickly.

As a matter of interest, there are about 300 companies with about 3,000 products that are registered for sale in New Zealand under the principal Act. It can be as simple a product as an insect repellent that can be claimed under this Act. It can be rat poison. Clearly, under the Act there are a number of the products that have already been talked about, like some of the chemicals that are very prevalent in New Zealand today, particularly in pasture farming. For those of us who have been around the industry for a long time, it could be the simple old drench—all those drenches that we use for worm control and things like that in animals. They are all registered under this Act as well.

I want to thank the Primary Production Committee for its pretty good work in the course of getting through this bill, and also Minister Goodhew, who brought this bill to the committee.

I want to make a very brief comment on the Greens’ opinion. They have chosen to introduce a minority view on this bill, which I think makes a number of political points—the relevance of some are questionable. Of course, the Greens have every right—everyone has every right—to bring a minority report to a bill, but I do think that, from a New Zealand Inc. point of view, as I said earlier, it is very important that we enable these new-generation products to come on to this market and be utilised as they are.

I just want to comment on a few of the changes to the bill as introduced. We are extending the base level of data protection from 5 years to 10 years in New Zealand, for the reasons I have outlined before. Just as an example from around the world, in Australia, I think, the time that this data protection is in place is for about 8 years. In the USA and the European Union it is for 10 years, and in Japan it is for 15 years. We have placed ourselves at 10 years, which I think gives us a much stronger place in the market. It enables our companies to come into the country with some confidence.

There are new uses for innovative compounds. The previous speaker, Damien O’Connor, went into this to some extent. With New Zealand being an innovative kind of country, we have always found ways of using products designed for one thing that can easily be used for something else. In the past they have been used in that way, but not necessarily in a manner that we would perhaps approve. This legislation enables that to happen. It allows those compounds to be protected for the remaining period of either the original 10-year period or 5 years after the new-use application is decided, whichever is the longer. The committee decided to do this because it encourages the early registration of new uses. It covers what I just talked about, where there are so many different uses we can have for these products.

We also went into the ability of the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to reassess this stuff. That is necessary because MPI—and I am sure this will be raised later in the discussion—needs the ability to look into these products if they are suspicious or if it is suspected that they are not performing as they should.

I have probably used my time. I look forward to the discussion that will take place during the Committee stage of this bill. Thank you.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): It is a pleasure to speak on the second reading of this bill, the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. That is quite a hefty title, but this is a very important piece of legislation. For those who may not know what we are talking about here, we are talking about the regulation of agricultural compounds. These are agricultural chemicals, also known as pesticides, veterinary medicines, vertebrate toxic agents—for example, pest control agents—and a range of other compounds used to manage plants and animals, such as fertilisers and some other—

Richard Prosser: Surfactants

RINO TIRIKATENE: Surfactants, that is it. That is what we are talking about here.

It was a pleasure coming in midstream on this bill, on to the Primary Production Committee, just to hear the submitters and to find out the rationale of what we were doing. This came down to a fine balance: ensuring that suppliers of these agricultural compounds were able to recoup the significant investment that they had put into, in particular, new and innovative products. Under the existing legislation there was a 5-year protection for new innovative products. The bill that was introduced extended that to 8 years. But following quite detailed examination by the committee, it was felt that 10 years would be a more appropriate protection for the confidential information that accompanies these applications. As we know, once the protections have expired it is open slather for any other competitor to create their own generic products, based on the data that had been protected.

So we are increasing that data protection period out to 10 years. It may seem like a significant period of time, but in the context, and as has been touched on by the Minister, that extended period is a fair amount of time for the suppliers to recoup that investment. It also allows the suppliers a bit more flexibility to apply for new uses of those compounds, and also to have the benefit of the extended time frame. At the end of the day it was a call that needed to be made, but I think that the committee has come to a pragmatic outcome. We listened to the concerns of the industry. Giving it that extra period of protection seemed a very sound, pragmatic move. I know it was not wholly supported. There are concerns, I guess, in terms of making sure that there is competition available, more choice, more competition for the consumer, for our farm producers, and for our horticultural industries, right across the country. But at the end of the day I am comfortable with the extended period that we have included in the bill at its second reading.

I know that Mr Prosser, who I think is about to make his contribution, wanted to extend the protection for 20 years, 30 years, or 50 years. I think he might be putting in place a Supplementary Order Paper to extend the time. But I think 10 years is a very good, even-handed outcome that we have come to. Of course the bill does make the extension for innovative products, and also the same applies to non-innovative products. Initially it was 3 years’ protection—that has been extended to 5 years. Also, for the applications on new use, we have expanded the definition of “new use” as it was considered a bit too narrow in the bill as it was initially introduced.

We certainly hope that we will see the benefits from this legislation: that we will see more applications made to extend through more uses of existing products. And that also, because of the confidence that companies will have, they will be able to go through the process to register their compounds in the knowledge that they will have extended data protection. That will, hopefully, lead them to reinvest and to look into other various innovative products that they can come up with—because we need these products. At the end of the day, they are vital to our economy, and vital to our food production, especially. They underpin our whole GDP and our whole standard of living that we have as a nation, so it is very important that we do have access to world-class products, agricultural compounds, and veterinary medicines. The bill may seem full of jargon—in terms of the language of the bill—but, practically, it is very, very important to the livelihood and, indeed, to the standard of living that we have as a nation.

I do commend the Minister Christopher Finlayson for his second reading speech. He did sound like an absolute expert on the area—much like I do—the great farmer from Rongotai, who has single-handedly boosted the Māori economy, exponentially, in his time as Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. So I do acknowledge the Minister for his contribution there. I do look forward to seeing greater productivity, greater innovation, and the greater exports and foreign exchange earnings that can be achieved through this piece of legislation. I commend it to the House.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): It is a great committee to work on, the Primary Production Committee. Having a bill like the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill, we really got our teeth into it—no pun intended—and we had a lot of good evidence that came before the committee. It was fantastic.

I think the heart of this bill is about protection of data, and, I guess, the only crunch point that came—particularly with the Green member of the committee—was around the length of the data protection. I think that that is obvious in the report back to the House. I think, certainly from my own practical point of view, that where you have a chemical, which I have seen, like a fungicide that is commonly used in cereal production, and was registered in New Zealand for that use, to be able to use that in horticulture and viticulture, a company needs to do the work behind the scenes—do all the research, get all the data—around making a label claim. You cannot use it until it has a label claim for a particular crop, and that costs a lot of money.

I have seen the trial work in the field. It is a lot of work out there, it is hard work, and all of that data and the costs associated with that—companies simply will not do the work if they will not get a return on that investment. As it stood in the past, if they did not have an adequate period of time, as has already been alluded to, the size of the market dictates that they just will not make enough money to recoup that investment, so they simply will not do it. The same thing goes for veterinary medicines. So a medicine or compound that could be used for a particular ailment or condition in an animal—they may not necessarily want to claim for another animal, but they would need to have trial work done for it using either a slightly different formulation or for a different condition, which would need different doses, and so on. All that work costs a lot of money.

I think the bill has covered all of that, but during our select committee work, we expanded what was in the bill. We have gone back and recommended an extension on periods due to the evidence that came back to that select committee, and it was really quite heartening to hear from the industry. As I say, it was not unanimous on those particular points—the length of time—but very important, none the less.

I also want to talk about reassessments for data protection. There was no existing protection for data when products were being reassessed, and that can happen from time to time, so we recommended extending that to be covered in section 29(3) amended by clause 4A, and section 30 amended by clause 4B. We are taking that out to 5 years—once again, the evidence was that that data costs a lot of money to be collected, and it deserves some protection under the Act. We also amended section 74A(1)(a) in clause 6 to clarify confidential information because, as it stood under the Act, there was some room for doubt that the director-general could disclose confidential data to Ministry of Primary Industries officials. I think this is a fantastic bill, and I really commend it to the House.

STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak to the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. Colleagues have waxed lyrical on the need for safety and training, and some sort of reliance on the regulatory authorities for getting it right around the safety of these chemicals. I note that Damien O’Connor said that some of them will become unwanted over time—of course they will become unwanted, because they are patently dangerous. They are patently risky for the community, for the workers, and for the environment. Over time—

Hon Damien O’Connor: I didn’t say that.

STEFFAN BROWNING: —is too late—yes you did—for far too many in our communities. It is far too late. It took a long, long time to rid us of DDT—and it is still in our soils—and it will have caused many, many cases of breast cancer in its time. And then there is endosulfan: the Government has sat on its hands because it was seen to be convenient for industry, for the primary production part of New Zealand. But was it necessary? No, it was not, as a lot of agriculture chose not to use that; it did not need it. It is totally dangerous but was taken off only when trade was affected—when trade in meat into Korea was affected, which it was when it was taken out. Our Environmental Protection Authority (EPA)—or Environmental Risk Management Authority in the day—did not look at that in terms of the community health in the way it should and nor will the EPA or Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) for the raft of pesticides that this bill is meant to be allowing, or encouraging, in. That is what they want. They want better data-protection so that it seems more lucrative for those big pesticide companies like Syngenta and Bayer and BASF and the numerous other ones—DuPont and so on. They somehow need help? No, they do not.

We in the Green Party did a minority view and clearly opposed this, and I am very disappointed that other colleagues in the House have not persuaded their parties to oppose this as well, because 5 years’ data protection was any amount—absolutely any amount. It was seen as maybe being too small, and deterring companies from registering products because they would not get enough time to get their loot back out of developing them. Well, actually the statistics prove otherwise. Since 2008—the time National has been in—1,100 new agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines were registered but only 239 were cancelled or expired. During that time industry could have applied for new ones, MPI or the EPA could have pulled them. We are getting a gross increase in pesticides—there are some other products in there; it is not all pesticides, but a lot are—and this is meant to encourage more of them.

There is the Covec report—and I will have to read this: “Considering the widening [use] of existing products,” ahead of this bill, “the fact that most innovative agricultural compounds were eligible for a 20-year period of patent protection meant that a 5-year period of data protection did not appear to have a significant impact on the registration of new products.” So what is this about? Why are we doing this? It is actually to increase the monopoly for those big corporates. I call it a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA) bill. It is listed as one of the bills to give effect to the TPPA because it goes right to it. It changed from an extension to 8 years—5 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 to get to the 8 years and new uses—up to 10 years’ data protection to go in sync with the TPPA. In fact, the Law Society did that in its submission and said we should do that to match the TPPA. It is a TPPA bill, looking after those big corporates that do not give a toss about the community health of New Zealanders. All those kids with endocrine disruption, all those cancers that we are seeing in our friends and relatives—how many of them are from these pesticides? We know that some are.

Covec went on: “Companies’ apparent reluctance to carry out the extra testing to add other uses to innovative compounds for the New Zealand context is therefore more likely to reflect the small size of the market rather than the lack of data protection.” Here we are, doubling data protection to give these guys even more protection. We think it will lead to more monopoly by the large companies. Yes, there may be two or three small companies in New Zealand that may see some gains. There may be some intellectual property that some innovation in New Zealand has seen to be an advantage. Overall, there will not be an advantage and it will not be an advantage for our producers, because the costs will be held up—less competition—and if they want to go down the pesticide route, they will still be paying more for their pesticides because of the monopolistic outcome of this bill.

The regulatory impact statement from MPI focused on the cost of new innovative or non-innovative products to the market, to the users. It at no time reflected on the real externalities of these pesticides. It did not look at the cost to the environment, the cost to human or animal health. MPI will be leaving that to the EPA under the Hazard Substances and New Organisms Act and its ability to assess properly. It has no ability to do a decent job and I will go into some of that in the few minutes that I have left.

I will mention glyphosate—

Hon Members: Oh!

STEFFAN BROWNING: —and hear the orchestra over here—because they are not addressing that properly in this country. Glyphosate-based herbicides are the dominant herbicide used in the world. In New Zealand we have 91 different formulations—91 formulations—and I cannot find out what the adjuvants are—those stickers, those penetrants, and whatever is in those—because of data protection.

Europe has just banned a dominant one, called “POEA” for short—something like polyoxyethylene tallow amine. It is a big name—POEA. They have just said to their countries “Ban it.” Guess what? It is in 69 of our 91 glyphosate-based herbicides and I cannot find out, even with writing to the Minister, which ones they are. So POEA should be pulled in New Zealand. Has our EPA got the presence of mind to reassess it and kick it out of use in New Zealand? What this Government is doing—and unfortunately is supported by some in the Opposition—is that it wants to double that data protection so that people like myself, people in the Pesticide Action Network, the Safe Food Campaign, and others who have the vested interest of the community’s health cannot get that information. They cannot get that. They cannot find that out. They cannot tell the New Zealand community: “Steer away from that product. The EPA is not doing a good job for you.”

The EPA was also saying: “Hey, roll on with the use of it in our streets and our parks and our kids’ playgrounds. We think it’s OK, because we’re only looking at industry science.”

Ian McKelvie: What about Monsanto?

STEFFAN BROWNING: Industry science, provided a lot by Monsanto—thank you, Ian. Monsanto has given the biggest dump of information to our EPA around the safety and risks of glyphosate. It is a good example—yes, I talk about glyphosate a lot because it is a clear, ready example, and it is in our streets, our parks, and our playgrounds, and we need it out of there.

I went to Europe in the last major adjournment to look at pesticide reduction strategies and some other policy issues, and I went and met with officials and the like. Denmark has a strategy to protect water, nature, and human health. It has a strategy to reduce pesticide use by 40 percent in a very short time. We will be opposing this bill, still.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): Does time not fly? It has been 11 months, almost to the day, since we debated this bill last. I was going back through my notes and I knew that we supported the bill—I had to refresh myself as to precisely why, or, more to the point, find reasons that we should not if we were not going to. Yes, it was 11 months ago the day before yesterday that we first debated this.

When we did last examine this bill, we in New Zealand First indicated that we would support it to the select committee stage, but not necessarily beyond, depending on what we might find within it. Once we got it on the operating table, so to speak, and cut it up and dissected it and had a look, we would decide again. So we did that, and I am happy to report that New Zealand First is sufficiently satisfied with the bill and will continue to support it. That does not mean that we think it is perfect. We do still think that it can be improved, and this has actually become a bit of a recurring theme for New Zealand First—we find ourselves in agreement with some of the Government’s proposed legislation.

In the roughly 50 percent of the cases where we are in agreement with Government legislation, we find ourselves thinking that, in some ways, it just does not go far enough. In one aspect, at least, that is the case with this bill. I want to focus on that, and I want to raise a flag—if in fact the psychic and perhaps prescient Mr Rino Tirikatene has not beaten me to it—that New Zealand First does intend to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper, come the Committee stage, when we reach the Committee of the whole House, to address an area where we feel this bill could be significantly improved to the benefit of “New Zealand Inc.” as a whole.

I say that now because I would very much like the Government members and the Minister—and I thank the Minister for his informed contribution—to take the time to look at what we are calling for and think about how that could be incorporated into the bill and why the outcomes that it could produce may be of benefit to “New Zealand Inc.” They will be in the area, as other members have alluded to, of the length of time that intellectual property (IP) owners have as a protected period for their IP. It centres on the fact that we regard the proposed increase, even as it has been extended by the officials after the select committee stage, as being insufficient, or if not insufficient then at least not as good as it could have been.

So what we will be asking Parliament to consider at the Committee stage is an increase beyond the levels that even the industry itself was asking for. I do not know why the consensus of the industry—and it was a consensus amongst many of the submitters—was to request an extension from the existing 5 years to 10 years, rather than the 8 years that was proposed. I am wondering whether perhaps they had a think about this and thought that maybe it was as much as they were going to get. I did question a number of submitters and make suggestions. It became apparent that almost all of them were certainly open to the idea and keen on the idea of getting as much protection as they could get. So I do wonder whether it goes back to them perhaps making a value judgment as to how much extended protection Parliament is likely to offer and aiming at that, and I wonder whether perhaps we could go beyond that.

There has been some discussion as to the relevance—and my colleague from the Greens raised the issue—of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA). There was some concern that whatever we did in terms of the length of the period of protection for IP under this bill, the TPPA would overwrite it. The 10-year period, which was suggested, would be the same as that which was suggested within the TPPA, some technicalities aside. I do not actually think that is relevant, because for all the contention around the TPPA and the fact that we do not support it as a party, it is not going to happen anyway, because both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have come out and said that they oppose it. One of those two will become the next President of the US, they will veto it, and the TPPA as we have been negotiating it will not fire.

But that is not to say that something else may not grow out of the negotiations that have led up to it. In a few years’ time other countries may get together and may create something else that started life as the TPPA and became something else. But what we are faced with now is an industry that requires some changes. We have this proposal, which is the TPPA, which is kind of a side issue. We have got some extensions that have been proposed to it, and, irrespective of any other legislative changes or treaty changes that may come to affect this, what we have got at the moment with this bill is a set of alterations to current legislation that we are looking at as a Parliament, regardless of what may or may not happen in the future.

On the face of it—and other members have made mention of it—the bill does ostensibly extend the protected period from 5 years, as it currently is, beyond the 8 years, which was originally proposed, to 10 years, as the officials have recommended, following the submissions process in the select committee, and that, supposedly, will bring us into line with Australia. But when you actually look at the fine print, it is not quite that straightforward, because what happens in Australia is that IP owners get a 10-year, blanket protection on any first use. What is being proposed for us under this 10-year extension is that we have the period extended to 8 years and then there is a further 3 years that can be tacked on to that for additional uses. They will get the total of 10 years but only if more innovative uses are added on to it, so it is not really quite the same degree of protection that other jurisdictions provide.

So what that means is that if you are an owner of IP, you can get the maximum protection only if you continue to evolve the uses, the applications, that the particular compound that your IP refers to can be utilised for. As I think the select committee chair mentioned, some jurisdictions do have a greater degree of protection—running out to 12 and 15 years in Europe, the US, and Japan—and, again, that is a variety of blanket protections and then additional protections, depending on changes in use types. So what New Zealand First will be doing by way of a Supplementary Order Paper is proposing that the complex 10-year period that has been proposed by officials and accepted by the select committee be extended to a blanket period of 12 years, with an extension possible to 15 years, when the additional new uses and so forth are added on to it.

The reason we are doing that is that this will encourage agrichemical companies and veterinary medicines companies to look seriously at it. It will give them another reason to look at relocating their current research and development activities and their manufacturing activities from where they are currently based to New Zealand, because this is the sort of foreign investment that New Zealand First welcomes.

Todd Barclay: What!

RICHARD PROSSER: You did hear that right—New Zealand First does welcome the right kind of foreign investment. There are companies that do not currently operate here and are not going to because of the environment. When you can give them a reason to come here and to bring in new money that would not have come here otherwise, and to invest in new businesses that would not have existed otherwise, and to create new jobs that would not have existed otherwise, and to generate new foreign exchange that the country would not have had the advantage of otherwise, that is good foreign investment. Foreign companies coming here and simply buying up houses, buying farms, and buying existing businesses, and not injecting any new capital into the country, and directing their money offshore is not good investment.

We believe that a bill that gives companies of this type an incentive—a further incentive—to bring their business to New Zealand and to do their high-tech research and development here is a good thing for New Zealand, and that is the primary reason why New Zealand First is proposing this further alteration to the bill. Irrespective of that, we are continuing to support the bill. We do think, as I say, that it can be further improved. I reiterate that I would like the Government members, and the Minister in particular, to seriously look at the proposal when we bring it up, to have a look at how they think it may be able to be incorporated in how the bill functions in their approach to the industry as it relates to the bill. Perhaps they could consult with some of their industry contacts.

OK; we are making this bill better than it was when originally proposed—I think we can make it better again. That is what our suggestions and proposals will be based upon. Irrespective of that, we do support the aims and intentions of the bill. We do think that it will be a good thing for New Zealand, for the companies that operate here, for the farmers and horticulturalists, and for everybody else in the sector who takes advantage of those advances in chemical science that make agriculture easier, better, cleaner, and safer. For those reasons we will continue to support the bill anyway, but we would like the Government and other parties to give serious consideration to making it even better than it is going to be. Thank you.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): Well, I will eat my hat. Mr Prosser and New Zealand First saying they support foreign investment—that is fantastic.

Richard Prosser: The right kind.

TODD BARCLAY: One more time, Mr Prosser: New Zealand First supports foreign investment.

It is a privilege to be able to speak on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill in its second reading. It was quite an interesting bill to hear submissions on in the Primary Production Committee, because it was quite a unanimous view—it was not a fully unanimous view, but it was a strong steer that we got from the industry and the participants who came to present to us, around the direction that the bill should be heading in and the large levels of support that it had.

As we know, the bill extends the period of protection for confidential information given in support of an application to register an innovative trade name product from 5 years to 8 years. One of the recommendations that the committee put forward following the submissions was to extend that period to 10 years’ time. We think that it strikes the right balance, as has been remarked by a number of members so far, between incentivising the registration of products that our primary sector needs and encouraging competition in the agricultural workplace—and the market place, indeed, as well.

My electorate, the electorate of Clutha-Southland, is a significant food producer. A significant part of our local economy is primary industries—agriculture, food production—whether that is crops or whether it is animals into meat produce. The thing is that our producers say the same as every producer in the primary sector across the country, and that is that the sector flourishes when competition is enabled and when we have got the right protections in place to be able to protect our brand internationally and also incentivise home-grown innovation in this space. The Government, across a various array of disciplines, has been heavily focused, particularly over the last 6 years, in trying to incentivise investment in New Zealand. If you look at the Primary Growth Partnerships and the Sustainable Farming Fund managed by the Ministry for Primary Industries, there are a number of examples within them that incentivise innovation in New Zealand.

I will remark on one of the points that the Green member Steffan Browning just mentioned. For a strong supporter of the organic sector, he neglected to acknowledge that the organic sector stands to benefit quite considerably from the changes that have been set out in this piece of legislation. There were participants from that sector who contributed towards some of the recommendations that the committee has put forward and that are being debated today.

As I say, we got a pretty clear steer from submitters, and both sides of the industry—suppliers and users of these products—were concerned that before this bill was introduced, the current data-protection level was not sufficient and actually inhibited registration of the latest technologies. That was also backed up by a Government review that found that the incentives were not as strong as what they could have been in order to incentivise innovation in agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines in New Zealand.

It was a privilege to have sat in on the submissions and to have heard from our submitters. I would just like to acknowledge the other members of the committee, acknowledge the Minister for Food Safety for bringing in this bill, and also acknowledge the people who took the time to come and submit to the select committee to make this bill even better. Thank you very much.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to take a short call on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): It will be, tonight.

EUGENIE SAGE: Yes. The Green Party, as my colleague Steffan Browning explained, does not support this bill, and that is largely because we think the Government, through the bill, is interfering in the market to actually benefit the big multinational companies. We think that the balance is weighted too heavily in their favour and too far against the public’s interest in what is in these agricultural compounds, what the active ingredients are, and what their impacts are on crops, on animals, and on human health.

The Primary Production Committee, in terms of the changes that it has made, has actually worsened the bill by increasing the period for which the information must be maintained in confidence by the Ministry for Primary Industries. We have got some information that has come through in terms of the Covec report, but there is not the solid information that actually justifies—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I regret interrupting the member. This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption on the next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 20 September 2016.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.