Wednesday, 12 October 2016

WEDNESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2016

WEDNESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2016

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Housing Affordability and Availability—Special Housing Areas

1. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Is the Government on course to meet all the targets it has set; if not, which is it missing?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): The Government has a large number of targets for the various things we want to achieve, from the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband to reductions in welfare dependence and contributors to poverty. Generally, we are on track, but, as I said when we set the Better Public Services targets, they are deliberately challenging and we may not meet all of them. For many we will not know the results for a number of years, so it is not feasible to give a comprehensive list of which will be missed. It is important not to make judgments too early, though, as the member found when he described the 2014-15 Budget surplus target as “the biggest political deception … of our lifetime”. How wrong he was.

Andrew Little: Does he stand by his statement that “We’ve set targets within the Auckland Accord to ensure the city’s housing supply and affordability issues are addressed.”; if so, what proportion of houses in special housing areas needs to be affordable to meet that target?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In answer to the first part of the question, yes. In answer to the second part of the question, you need to direct that to the Minister for Building and Housing.

Andrew Little: After 3 years, what is the minimum number of affordable houses in Auckland special housing areas sold to first-home buyers that would be acceptable to him?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not have that particular data, but what I am proud of is the Government’s first-home buyers grant scheme through KiwiSaver HomeStart, which has assisted a great many young New Zealanders into buying a first home.

Andrew Little: Of the roughly 1,400 houses completed in Auckland special housing areas, how many have been affordable according to the definition in the Auckland Housing Accord?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not have that data with me.

Andrew Little: I seek leave to table a letter from the Auckland Council to my office, dated 5 October 2016, showing that 18 affordable houses have been sold to first-home buyers in Auckland special housing areas. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table that particular letter from the council to Mr Little. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is objection. [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! I put the leave; objection was given. There is no need to further explain why the objection was given.

Andrew Little: Is just 18 affordable houses in 3 years enough—or, to put it another way, is that it?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member’s numbers are quite incorrect. If he goes out to Hobsonville or Weymouth, or a number of other projects, he will see that it is considerably more than that. In fact, I recall reading the front page of the New Zealand Herald on Monday, where the Minister of Finance was quoted about the extensive number of affordable properties that will be sold as a result of the redevelopment of Housing New Zealand projects. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Before I call the member, can I have less interjection when an answer is given, even if the answer is one that the Labour Opposition might object to.

Andrew Little: After all the public outcry and all the official advice about the chronic housing shortage in Auckland and across New Zealand, and given the thousands of young families missing out on the Kiwi Dream of homeownership, does he really think 18 affordable houses in 3 years is anywhere near good enough?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: If the member wants to believe some dodgy number, he is welcome to, but then, he believes a whole lot of dodgy numbers sometimes. If one goes and has a look at the number of houses being sold, the consenting that has been going through, the additional people working in housing and construction in Auckland, and the number of people drawing down on first-home buyers and the like—the member will know that when I first became Prime Minister, 10 houses a day were being sold in Auckland; now it is probably on its way to 45 or 50 houses, and it will be considerably more next year.

Andrew Little: With only 18 affordable houses sold to first-home buyers, developers pulling out, land bankers sitting on sites instead of building houses on them, and a Minister incapable of doing his job, is it not now just time to admit that National’s flagship housing policy has been a complete and unmitigated disaster?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In answer to the last part of the question, no, that is not true. In answer to the first part of the question, it is not 18, but even if it were 18 it would still be five times the number of people who voted for Andrew Little to be the leader. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Question No. 2—[Interruption] Order! I have just asked for some cooperation from my left. I will get more severe if I have to, with reluctance.

Child Poverty—Definition and Measurement

2. METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Ka tū a ia i runga i te mana o ngā kaupapa here katoa o tāna Kawantanga?

[Does he stand by all his Government’s policies?]

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

Metiria Turei: Does the Prime Minister still believe, as he said in this House yesterday, that it is better and more effective for the Government to set individual targets on components of child poverty rather than a specific child poverty reduction target?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes.

Metiria Turei: When the Prime Minister talked yesterday about the Better Public Services targets, like rheumatic fever and early childhood education, did he know that the expert advisory group on child poverty provided a comprehensive list of 51 child poverty - related indicators, including both of those?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, but that is exactly the point, is it not? Last week the member was saying that the target should have 17—today she seems to be saying it is 51. For the last while she has been saying that the number of children is 360,000 and then she said yesterday that she wanted to accept that the Government’s number of 85,000—or at least, 60,000 to 100,000—was correct. She is all over the map, and that is the point. The Government is far better to approach—

Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. He has not addressed the question, and has instead talked about a Green Party position, which he has no authority over.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No. When the Prime Minister rose to answer the question he addressed the question immediately. He certainly has gone on to enlarge on that answer, which is probably unnecessary, but he certainly answered the question immediately.

Metiria Turei: When the Prime Minister committed to his Government using individual indicators and targets to address child poverty, did he mean that he would adopt the expert advisory group’s recommendations for a comprehensive list of child poverty - related indicators?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: What the Government did—and, I think, quite correctly—was to say that poverty is a very complicated issue, but that there are some individual component parts that, if the Government focuses resources on and gives attention to, can make significant gains. We are doing that in terms of rheumatic fever. We are doing that in terms of the number of children being immunised. We are doing that in terms of the number of children having access to early childhood education. We are doing that in terms of the number of teenage pregnancies, with young mums on the equivalent of the domestic purposes benefit. I think it is far more sensible for the Government to approach this issue in a systematic and thorough way, dealing with each of these issues, rather than the member spending, as she wants to, her lifetime dreaming up some dodgy number that she knows is wrong.

Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was an unnecessary and personal attack—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I could not hear correctly what the point of order is.

Metiria Turei: I take personal offence at that personal attack on my integrity, and I ask him to withdraw and apologise.

Mr SPEAKER: I do not think that the final part of the answer was helpful to the order of the House; I accept that. But I hardly think it was a personal attack on the member.

Metiria Turei: So will the Prime Minister expand the Better Public Services targets to include all of those other indicators that experts have said contribute to child poverty, such as household crowding, infant mortality, self-harm and suicide by children, and serious skin infections?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I doubt we would have an individual Better Public Services target for each one, or there would be so many individual targets that it might lose some of its meaning. All of those issues are on the Government’s radar, and all of them are getting attention.

Metiria Turei: When the Prime Minister is refusing to establish official measurements of child poverty, and also will not set targets for a comprehensive list of child poverty - related outcomes, is he not really telling the country that he will avoid any attempt to identify, to measure, or to reduce child poverty in New Zealand?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Quite the opposite. This is the first Government in the history of this Parliament that has had a list of Better Public Services targets and has been quite happy to be measured against them, and has set those targets in quite challenging areas. The Government produces a raft of different measures and reports in relation to poverty and income, including the longitudinal study by Bryan Perry, which shows that income inequality is not getting worse. The reason the member does not quote it is that she does not like it, because it does not suit her arguments.

Metiria Turei: So what has changed since 2012, when the Prime Minister said: “If you don’t measure, monitor and report on things, I don’t think you can make progress.”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Absolutely nothing, and that is why the Government has these individual targets and has a range of different measures. But it is not this Government; there has been longstanding advice from officials that one single measure of poverty in this country would be an inappropriate way of dealing with it.

Household Savings and Debt—Monthly Economic Indicators Report and OECD Comparisons

3. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on household debt?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The latest Monthly Economic Indicators report from Treasury shows that average household debt as a proportion of household disposable income is now at 165 percent—slightly higher than the level between 2007 and 2010. However, Treasury notes that, somewhat surprisingly, household bank deposits have been growing at around the same rate or slightly higher than the accumulation of debt. This is in contrast to the experience prior to 2009 when debt accumulation increased faster than household savings growth. Overall, Treasury concludes that the household debt levels remain manageable.

Andrew Bayly: What are some of the factors that Treasury points to as mitigating risk from rising household debt?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think it is pretty much common sense that households that are borrowing very large amounts of money against uncertain incomes, and assuming that interest rates will stay where they are, are taking a risk. Treasury has set out four reasons why for many householders the debt would be less of a concern—that is, currently, low interest rates mean that debt servicing rates, which is the proportion of household incomes spent on interest, are well below the peak reached in 2008. So, in 2008, households spent 14 percent of their incomes paying interest. Today they spend just under 9 percent. It also points out that household net wealth has been increasing and debt to asset ratios have fallen to their lowest level since 1998.

Andrew Bayly: How does New Zealand’s household debt compare with household debt in other OECD countries?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: It depends a bit on which measure you use. Under a definition of debt that excludes borrowing for rental properties—that is, including debt where people are borrowing just for their own home—New Zealand’s ratio of household debt to income is in the middle of the OECD. If you include rental loans, that puts New Zealand into the top third. So our ratio is 165 percent. Others such as Australia are at 199 percent, Norway is at 211 percent, and Denmark is at 266 percent.

Andrew Bayly: How are higher household incomes and savings helping to offset risk associated with household debt?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Probably an unusual feature of this cycle of increase in debt has been a marked change in household savings behaviour since the global financial crisis. Between 2010 and 2014, household saving was positive, following negative savings rates over the previous decade. Savings turned slightly negative in 2015, reflecting a fall in farm incomes, but it is possible that savings will again become positive as farm incomes rise. And, as I pointed out earlier, one indication of a change in household behaviour is that bank deposits have been rising just as fast as household debt.

Mental Health Services—Demand, Funding, and Quality

4. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statement that “it’s important people can access the appropriate mental health and addiction services that they need”?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Yes. That is why this Government has increased mental health and addiction services funding from $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion. That includes $64 million as part of the Prime Minister’s Youth Mental Health Project and an extra $24 million in Budget 2016 for increased access to mental health services. That includes support for early access to services via a telephone triage service. Working in mental health is always a very challenging job, and I value the professionalism and dedication of our mental health workforce.

Hon Annette King: In light of that answer, how does he account for the Waikato District Health Board (DHB) reporting on 24 August “extreme risk to patients’ safety”, because the number of patients needing treatment had led to “excessive wait times for emergency departments and delay with assessment and treatment”?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: As the member knows, those comments were made following a very serious incident, and unfortunately it was a tragedy in the Waikato. As a result the director of mental health went there. He undertook an investigation. He made a series of recommendations, which have been acted on.

Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a memorandum from the board dated 24 August—well after the event, and the public were excluded, so it is not available; I got it through the Official Information Act (OIA)—showing that the risks are current now.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular memorandum. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.

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

Hon Annette King: Is he aware that mental health patients presenting to emergency departments have increased by nearly 30 percent between June 2011 and December 2015, while at the same time DHBs are reporting blowouts in their mental health budgets?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: There is no doubt there has been an increase in demand. There are a full range of factors that explain that. One of the reasons around increased presentations at emergency departments is that the police are now taking those patients directly there, as I understand it, rather than them being assessed out in the community. At the same time, as the member will know, there was an extra $568 million that went into the health budget this year. There is a mental health ring-fence and, on top of that, DHBs have the discretion to direct part of that money—on top of the ring-fence—into mental health services. So I am confident that, although it is a tough area to work in, we actually have a very good mental health service.

Simon O’Connor: How is mental health demand increasing, and how is the Government providing better access for these services?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Demand for mental health services has increased from 2.3 percent of the population a decade ago to 3.5 percent of the population in the last year, so that is a huge increase, from 96,000 people to 164,000 people accessing specialist services each year, but that is consistent with international trends. Despite that steady increase in demand, more Kiwis are being seen sooner by mental health services. For example, back in 2011 only 60 percent of young people seeking mental health help for the first time were seen within 3 weeks. By 2015 that had risen to 70 percent—so from 60 to 70 percent being seen within 3 weeks. The system is improving, but there is more work to be done. Officials also advise me that the district health boards have in place crisis response teams that will respond to psychological emergencies within a target for 24 hours.

Hon Annette King: Does the Government’s allocated funding for mental health and addiction services to DHBs fully fund its ring-fenced mental health expenditure?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes.

Hon Annette King: Is Canterbury DHB a beacon of his success in adequate funding for mental health, when it revealed a $23 million shortfall in mental health funding this year and is now forecasting a $37 million deficit by the end of the year, with one of the main reasons being a demand in mental health services?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I do not accept the member’s interpretation of those figures. I mean, the Canterbury DHB budget went up $44 million this year. The population statistics that we use are those that are provided by Statistics New Zealand. Funding in Canterbury for health has gone up, there is a ring-fence, and Canterbury DHB has the discretion to spend extra money on mental health. On top of that, in February the Government put in an extra $20 million for mental health services. It consulted the sector, and that was widely accepted. So people are not missing out on mental health services in Canterbury.

Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a letter from the Canterbury District Health Board under the Official Information Act showing the $23 million shortfall this year in mental health funding. That is dated 24 June.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there another document?

Hon Annette King: And the second document I seek leave to table is the board minutes from the Canterbury District Health Board dated 15 September, showing a predicted $37 million deficit for this year.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just clarify, with the second document, is it—

Hon Annette King: I got it through the Official Information Act.

Mr SPEAKER: In both cases, the response to the OIA? I will therefore put the leave for both the letter from the Canterbury DHB and then the minutes of the board meeting of the Canterbury DHB. Is there any objection to those two documents being tabled? There is not.

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

Hon Annette King: Does he still think there is no need for an inquiry into mental health in New Zealand, in light of the recent reviews into Waitemata, Waikato, and Capital and Coast DHB mental health services, and Northland, MidCentral, and Nelson Marlborough carrying out their own reviews around patient and workforce safety?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: No, I do not accept that there is a need for a further inquiry. It is always a difficult area. The Government has increased funding, and, as I said, more New Zealanders are receiving more services more quickly than previously.

New Zealand Residence Programme—Changes

5. JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) to the Minister of Immigration: What recent announcements has he made regarding the New Zealand Residence Programme?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): Yesterday I announced a number of changes to the New Zealand Residence Programme. The Residence Programme is reviewed every 2 years to ensure we have the right number and mix of people gaining residency. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has been asked; I want to hear the answer. I want less interjection from one member in particular.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The changes to the programme include lowering the maximum range for residency approvals for the next 2 years from 100,000 to 95,000, raising the number of points required for residency under the skilled migrant category from 140 to 160 points, and reducing the number of places for the family categories to 2,000 per year. Migrants make a valuable contribution to New Zealand, both culturally and economically. The Government periodically reviews all its immigration settings to make sure they are working as intended.

Jonathan Young: What effects will these changes have on the New Zealand Residence Programme?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Demand for residency is currently high. Increasing the points required to gain residence from 140 to 160 will maintain the long-run average of residents visas granted. It will also prioritise visas for higher-skilled migrants to ensure we get the right balance between attracting skilled workers who allow companies to grow, and managing demand in periods of high growth. The changes to the Residence Programme demonstrate that this Government is taking a responsible and pragmatic approach to managing immigration.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Can the Minister confirm that reducing the target band from 100,000 to 95,000 could mean that just 68 fewer permanent residency approvals are made in each of the next 2 years, given that over the last 2 years there were 95,137?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: No, I cannot confirm that—and, quite the opposite, because if the member breaks down those numbers across the previous 2 years, 2014-15 was 43,085, and 2015-16 was 52,052. And the projections are for that number to continue to grow were it not for the changes we are announcing.

Iain Lees-Galloway: What changes to the system for temporary work visas is he considering; will any of them include Labour’s proposals, which he described as “thinly-veiled xenophobic rhetoric”?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: In answer to the first question, the member will just have to wait and see; in answer to the second question, I can tell the member that it certainly will not have any reference to people with Chinese-sounding surnames.

Immigration Policy—Parent Category Visas

6. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he stand by all his statements; if so, how?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): Yes; and in the usual manner.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: That’ll be true enough.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We will just have the supplementary question.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If parents from China still overwhelmingly dominate the parent category, what happened to his 2014 promise of “a much fairer system to spread the origin of parents over more countries”?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That is a question that is open to speculation, but I would certainly be prepared to speculate that the policy that was in place under the previous Government—which was a home alone policy giving favour to Chinese parents because of China’s one-child policy, and which this Government dispensed with some years ago—is likely to still have a resonating effect on the number of applications coming from that country.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why has he allowed tens of thousands of migrants into this country without any real skills, or a backlog of well over 2,000 parent category applications, of which 70 percent are from China, against the statement he made in 2014?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The Residence Programme covers three main categories. They are “humanitarian”, including our refugee commitments and our Pacific Island commitments; they are “partnership”, including the children and spouses of people returning home; and they are “skills”. So the broader programme includes a number of things, skills notwithstanding.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why has he allowed and facilitated the parent category to be so grossly abused when, in countless cases, the New Zealand taxpayer has been “ripped off”—his words—because parent category promises made at the time of application were simply not kept or monitored by him or his department?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I reject the prefacing statement about that category being grossly abused, but there will be a review of the parent category visa because of some concerns about higher costs, and I look forward to the outcome of that review. [Interruption]

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What did you say, midget? What sort of system is he running when, first of all, 31 percent of migrants using the parent category have abandoned this country and dumped their parents on the New Zealand taxpayer and not looked after the commitments they gave in the first place?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: A system that has increasingly high levels of confidence on the timeliness and quality of decision making at Immigration New Zealand, and certainly a lot better than under the previous regime.

Government Financial Position—Tax Cuts and Budget 2017

7. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Is the Prime Minister correct with respect to tax cuts that “The options are: either include it in Budget 2017 or we campaign on that as part of Election 2017. Those are the two most likely options, taking into consideration we have a responsibility to take into account two things, which are the fiscal and economic conditions, and how well we are doing in terms of addressing the reduction in debt”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes, the Prime Minister is correct, and in my experience he is correct a lot more often than the member is. And, as he pointed out, lowering taxes is Government policy; so is investing in infrastructure and better public services. We have always made it clear that tax cuts are dependent on supportive fiscal and economic conditions.

Grant Robertson: In light of that answer, why are tax cuts still the most likely option when he has failed to meet one of the core tests, reducing net debt, which he admitted yesterday had not decreased in dollar terms at all on his watch?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is trying to talk about the Government fiscal objectives in a way that is simply incorrect. For instance, in respect of net debt, the target has been to reduce it to 20 percent of GDP. That has been the target for a number of years. It is now starting to decrease, at the same time as the Government is managing increased spending on infrastructure, reinforcement of core public services, and an overhaul of much of the Government machinery so it is more customer friendly. All of these things can be achieved, as well as reducing taxes, if fiscal conditions are good enough.

Grant Robertson: Are his officials working on a tax cut plan for Budget 2017?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, but they will certainly be working on the longer-term fiscal outlook. In fact, I think Treasury is going to publish the long-term fiscal outlook shortly, and we would expect in the run-up to Budget 2017 to look at all the options. The member should not be surprised about that, but he is probably quite concerned at the range of choices the Government has, because with good fiscal management over the last 6 or 8 years, including rebuilding Christchurch, we are one of the few developed countries that have rising surpluses and, therefore, choices, which this Government intends to make wisely.

Grant Robertson: What does he consider to be a meaningful tax cut for the average wage earner in dollar terms per week?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have not been considering that matter, but the member can be reassured that the Government will look, as it does each Budget, at the whole range of options. I know that it concerns him greatly that this Government is making a lot of progress on dealing with New Zealand’s most intractable social problems, for instance. We will be applying more funding, for instance, to caring for our most vulnerable children, but doing it in a way that is focused on results, unlike the Labour Party, which is stuck in the best thinking—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We do not need to go there with the answer.

Grant Robertson: Which is a higher priority for him: restarting contributions to the Superannuation Fund or tax cuts?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member will just have to wait and see, but I know he is concerned at the range of choices the Government has. I think that New Zealand is one of only three developed countries in the situation we are in, with growth around 3 percent—

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister did not address the question, and even if you argue that he did, by saying I have to wait, he has now moved into utterly irrelevant material. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! He certainly did not answer the question to the satisfaction of the member, but when I consider the question, it was never going to be answered to the satisfaction of the member.

Child Health Services—Free GP Visits and Prescriptions

8. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Health: Can he confirm that there have been 190,807 more children’s visits to the GP, an increase of 16.6 percent, in the last 12 months since the Government introduced free GP visits for under-13s?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Yes. Back in Budget 2014, we committed $90 million over 3 years to extend free GP visits and prescriptions to children aged under 13. As a result, we now have more than 780,000 children under 13 benefiting from those free GP visits during business hours and also from free prescriptions, with over 99 percent of general practices signing up to the scheme. Importantly, this data shows that there has been a 17.1 percent increase in visits for Māori children and a 13.5 percent increase in visits for Pasifika children.

Dr Shane Reti: What positive effects have the introduction of free doctors visits and prescriptions had?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: As a result of the under-13s visits, we have seen an encouraging decrease of 1,600 presentations to hospital emergency departments. That is a drop of 4.7 percent. We have also seen an increase in access to medicines, with the number of prescriptions dispensed increasing by 23.9 percent, showing that the removal of costs has improved access to medicines. It is clear that the free-under-13s policy is supporting the Government’s strategy in health, which aims to have interventions delivered much earlier in a community setting, which means that children are prevented from getting sicker, and that is going to be a good thing.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: When will his Government acknowledge that this visionary, far-sighted, inspirational policy came from New Zealand First and was delayed to 12-year-olds only by an obstructive, jealous, recalcitrant National Government?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Probably never.

Accident Compensation Corporation—Noah Wakelam Case

9. RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Minister for ACC: Is he confident that ACC is making decisions in accordance with the purpose, principles and intention of the Accident Compensation Act 2001, and in the best interest of claimants?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Minister for ACC: Yes.

Ron Mark: Why did ACC ignore treatment recommendations for Northlander Noah Wakelam despite (1) sending him to multiple specialists; (2) ignoring the advice of six doctors who favoured Mr Wakelam’s case; and (3) declining his claim because one specialist provided a report that suited ACC’s interest?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I cannot answer those questions.

Ron Mark: Does he think it is acceptable for ACC to take over 9 months to make a decision on Mr Noah Wakelam’s claim and then deny him access to the public health system while his symptoms continued to worsen?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The person concerned may be dealing with distress related to health issues, but the entitlements are determined by the legislation or by subsequent review. If the person concerned feels he is not getting his entitlement, then he is able to review.

Ron Mark: Does he think it acceptable for ACC to pressure claimants such as Mr Noah Wakelam to return to work after 3 months when he (1) had not recovered; (2) had medical specialists saying he had not recovered; and (3) needed a transition period that should have included intensive rehabilitation and a staged transition back into work?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I hope that the person he is referring to gets the best treatment and gets a path back to work. That is one of the purposes of ACC. But I cannot comment on the individual case.

Housing Affordability and Availability—Government Measures to Address

10. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister of Finance: What has convinced him to announce a Government-backed building programme to build medium-density housing using economies of scale to drive down costs, and why is it now a priority after 8 years in Government?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The member is wrong. The Government did not need to be convinced. Since the day we took office in 2008 we have been working on the Tāmaki redevelopment programme—

Phil Twyford: Rubbish. There was a 5-year hiatus.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: —which will deliver 7,500 houses to the Auckland market in the coming years. Well, the member should ask Mr Pat Snedden about the meetings that were held at that time. We started working on a Government-backed—

Phil Twyford: You did nothing for 5 years.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, no. The member should listen. In February 2011—for the member’s information—a large earthquake hit Christchurch, which required a Government-backed building programme to build 700 new houses and repair 5,000 Housing New Zealand houses in Christchurch. Of course since then we have accelerated the work at Hobsonville. Now that we have the new Auckland Unitary Plan, the member is starting to take notice of the large-scale Government building programmes that have been going on through the last 8 years.

Phil Twyford: Can he confirm that the compelling new information that shows that his housing policies have failed completely and that his housing crisis is spinning out of control was provided by that well-respected housing policy thinktank Curia Market Research?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Absolutely not. As I have pointed out to the member, he may not have done his homework but a number of large-scale programmes have been under way. In fact, I invite the member to visit Christchurch to see the 700 new Housing New Zealand houses that were built and the 5,000 repairs. I invite him to visit Hobsonville. I invite him to visit Tāmaki, which is out in the market right now, procuring large-scale developers so that 7,500 houses can be built there. And we have only just got started.

Phil Twyford: Why is he refusing to guarantee that all the new houses he now promises to build will be for first-home buyers and Kiwi families, and not for property speculators, or is he still on the side of the speculators?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: It shows the member fundamentally misunderstands housing markets. The fact is that under the Auckland Unitary Plan the Government owns sufficient land already in Auckland to now build another 30,000 houses. They will be a mixture of houses sold to the market—medium-priced houses for first-home buyers or lower-income families that can afford them, but, most importantly, social housing, because the Government is responsible for meeting the growing demand for social housing in Auckland. We will make those decisions as we go.

Phil Twyford: How many of his promised “maybe 30,000 homes in Auckland over the next maybe 7, 8, 9, or maybe 10 years” are to make up for the deficit of 42,000 homes in Auckland, built up on his watch, or are they in addition to the 42,000 homes he is already running behind on delivering?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am not exactly sure what the member means, but I can tell him this. It is only in the last couple of months that it has now become legally possible to build at the scale that I have indicated. The Auckland Unitary Plan, and previous Auckland plans in which that member participated, prevented the building of the number of houses that Auckland needed. Now it is going to be possible, and that is a major achievement on the part of Dr Nick Smith and the Auckland Council.

Phil Twyford: Would he agree that with his track record of flogging off State houses, pensioners living in campgrounds, property speculators running riot, and his so-called building boom, delivering 18 affordable homes in 3 years, the public are likely to see his latest musings for what they are: another poll-driven diversion from his failed housing policy?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I can understand the member’s concern that the Government’s policy for social housing is now so popular that we cannot meet the demand for changes and for transfers and for better services. I can also understand the member’s concern that the size of the Government’s rebuilding programme has become apparent even to him—even to him—and that is not going to help him politically.

Pesticides—Safety and Government Policy

11. STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Will he set a pesticide use reduction policy for Aotearoa New Zealand, such as exists in many Scandinavian and EU countries?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): The Government’s policy is to focus on reducing the risk and harm from pesticide use rather than any arbitrary reduction. The New Zealand situation is quite different from Europe. Our greatest environmental challenge is the threat that introduced pests pose to our unique biodiversity, and, as the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment said, we should be increasing the use of pesticides like 1080 if we are serious about ensuring the survival of our special birds, like kiwi, like kea, and like kokako. There is actually far more harm caused by rats, stoats, and possums than the pesticides to control them. Our major industries, like kiwifruit, apples, wine, and other horticultural industries, are making enormous progress—

Steffan Browning: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —in reducing the risk of pesticide use by using smart technology—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Is there a point of order?

Steffan Browning: There was a point of order. I did ask around the reduction—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I know the question. What is the point of order?

Steffan Browning: Well, what was the dribble-on that was—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I accept it was a long answer—[Interruption] Order! I accept it was quite a long answer, but I thought the Minister was actually making a relatively genuine attempt to explain why we would not be following a policy that is prevalent in Europe.

Steffan Browning: Given that the EU has recently recommended that the highly toxic polyethoxylated tallow amine (POEA) in weed killers such as Roundup be banned, will he instruct the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to objectively reassess the full formulation of these products, to protect New Zealanders’ health; if not, why not?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: This Government makes its environmental decisions on the basis of good quality independent science. The Environmental Protection Authority has responsibility for the regulation of our chemicals. The advice that it has provided to me, in respect of Roundup and the active ingredient glyphosate, is that there is not sufficient evidence to warrant a reassessment.

Steffan Browning: When will he give us the names of the 69 herbicide products on the market that include POEA, or will he continue to stand by commercial confidentiality as a reason for not telling New Zealanders that they are exposed to a chemical that has been described as deadly to human embryonic, placental, and umbilical cord cells?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I simply do not accept the claim by the member, which contradicts the technical advice that I have received from the Environmental Protection Authority. If we are to make smart regulatory decisions about the effective management of chemicals, we should follow the evidence of scientists, and not of politics.

Scott Simpson: What are the greatest risks posed by pesticides in New Zealand, and what steps is the Government taking to address those risks?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The greatest concern that we have is older, less safe pesticides, and also older chemicals that are stored in farm sheds and garden sheds in deteriorating bottles and drums. That is why the Government initiated a major collection programme in 2010, the agrichemicals collection programme, which has collected and appropriately destroyed 54,000 tonnes of older chemicals like DDT, Lindane, and Dieldrin. The second priority is phasing out chemicals like some persistent organic pollutants, as per the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, and we are on target for phasing out those chemicals that are unsafe. I note that our agricultural industries have moved away from those—what I refer to as hard pesticides—to those that are far safer and pose very low harm and environmental risks.

Steffan Browning: When the EPA reviewed the carcinogenicity of glyphosate, why did it not use the independent published research but instead used a narrow selection of mostly Monsanto-funded unpublished research that did not reflect the full herbicide formulations actually used in our streets and parks?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I just simply have far more confidence in the independence and the scientific integrity of the work of the EPA than I do in the Green Party.

Primary Sector—Mystery Creek National Fieldays

12. BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country) to the Minister for Primary Industries: What recent reports has he received on the economic impact of the Mystery Creek National Fieldays?

Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Primary Industries) on behalf of the Minister for Primary Industries: The Minister is this afternoon heading to Mystery Creek, where a report will be released tonight that shows that this year’s national Fieldays generated $430 million in sales revenue for New Zealand firms. This included $125 million in revenue for the local Waikato economy. Gate entries were the second-highest ever, at 130,684, up 3.7 percent on last year. Each one of these entries generated $3,300 in sales revenue on average. The event also attracted 500 international guests from 42 different countries, many interested in the showcase of our $1.2 billion in agritechnology exports.

Barbara Kuriger: What did the event highlight in regard to confidence in the primary sector?

Hon JO GOODHEW: The event demonstrated that although dairy prices have been low, the overall primary sector is very diverse and in good heart. A wide range of Ministers and MPs attended the Fieldays, including the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. Over the course of the Fieldays, the Government launched the primary industry champions initiative to encourage young people into the primary sector, the Fieldays Careers and Education Hub, and also an extra $600,000 of funding to help strengthen local mental health networks for farmers in rural communities across New Zealand. The team at Mystery Creek includes 240 volunteers, without whom the event could not be such a raging success.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. “Barbecue at Phil Goff’s” has gone down in New Zealand political folklore as a euphemism for a coup plotting meeting, and, boy, does the Labour Party need such a get-together just now, because it is in an absolute dire strait. But the problem for it is that Phil Goff has pulled down the hood on his barbecue, wheeled it away, and, quite frankly, these days he is far more interested in spending time with National Government Cabinet Ministers than with his previous colleagues. The real question is, with the Labour Party in the state that it is, where it will be having the 2016 equivalent of the barbecue at Phil Goff’s. I do not know. It might be the DJ mega-mix session at Jacinda Ardern’s; that is a possibility. It will not be the Chinese takeaway at Phil Twyford’s. But my money, really—I tell you—is probably on the mid-afternoon nap at Grant Robertson’s, and I do not know how far that is going to get them.

In his valedictory speech, you will notice that Phil Goff spent a lot of time praising the Roger Douglas years. He was not too keen to talk about the current Labour Party. He was very much aligned, I think, with Nick Leggett and his comments that in 8 years in Opposition, the Labour Party does not have anything to show. Those guys are in real trouble, because when you have got Andrew Little getting advice from Helen Clark that “You know, son, you’ve got to get back to the centre.”, and he is saying “Well, that’s actually meaningless and a little bit hollow.”, and when you have got Vernon Small saying “Well, that response sounds strangely intense and odd.”, you know that those people over there will be looking for a place for a barbecue pretty soon, and they know it is going to be urgent.

Literally and metaphorically for Andrew Little, it is going to be interesting to see what is on the barbecue for 2016. When you stand back and look at the big picture, as the Minister of Finance was saying earlier, you know, there are only three other countries in the world that are in New Zealand’s position. You have got to look at that helicopter view. I mean, wage is growing far faster than inflation. Wage is up 25 percent over the last 8 years, compared with inflation of about 12 percent cumulatively. You have got unemployment continuing to drop, and you have got the books in balance. I mean, that is an amazing position to be in—a future track of 3.5 to 4 percent growth for out-years, depending on whom you listen to, giving the Government options over what happens with those surpluses. So when you look at the state of the public services and what we have focused on, there is a lot to celebrate.

The health system is running fantastically. There has been a great injection of $560 million in the Budget, and we have record levels of expenditure—$16.1 billion. We are doing more elective surgery than ever before. We have raised those electives by about 60,000 a year, from around 120,000 to 180,000. We have raised the availability of appointments by 110,000, from 430,000 to 540,000. I was talking today in the House about what has happened in terms of those free GP visits for under 13s. There are far fewer people going to emergency departments as a result of that. Our young people are staying out of hospital, and they are staying well for longer. This is very much aligned with the health strategy. We have heard about housing—in my electorate of Northcote, there is a fantastic redevelopment of the Northcote town centre, where 400 State houses are going to be replaced by 1,200 affordable houses. That is the sort of progress that we are getting. We have had great house building projects in Christchurch, we have heard about Tāmaki, and we have got land for 30,000 new dwellings across Auckland. Real progress is being made.

Really innovative steps are being taken by the Minister of Education to raise standards to get the education system moving. The Minister for Social Development, Anne Tolley, is continuing to get people off benefits and back into work. We are focusing on the things that really matter for people. When you look at the choices that the electorates are going to face in 2017, there is going to be a real clear difference there for them. There are going to be these 8 years—9 years by that stage—of clear achievement, focusing on the things that are important to New Zealanders: the economy, law and order, health, and education. Meanwhile, what will those on the other side have to show for their 9 years in Opposition? Very little. We have not heard any policy from them and no new ideas. All we hear are these rumours of dissent and how they would like to remove Andrew Little, but, of course, with their crazy constitutional arrangements, they have got absolutely no chance of ever achieving that. Christmas 2016—where is the barbecue going to be? It will be interesting.

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): What makes a house a home? What is it that makes a house a home? It is things like having your kids’ birthday parties in the backyard. It is things like planting a vege garden for you and your family and to share with your community. It is a photo album full of the years of tears and laughter in the house that you have made a home, where you and your family have been safe and secure.

New Zealanders need safe and secure rental homes in which to raise their kids, put down roots, and build a decent life. There are families in Aotearoa who have never and will never own their own home. They will rent their whole lives, and, the chances are, so will their children. We need to do what is right, and help them make their rental house a home—a home for them and their children. Why is this so important? We have always had renting in Aotearoa New Zealand. Well, it is because renting is growing at twice the rate of homeownership in Aotearoa. Over half a million households now rent their home—it is a third of all households in this country. In just the last year there were 13,700 more renting households than owner-occupied households, of which there were only 6,000 new ones in the last 12 months. Renting has become the new normal for Aotearoa New Zealand. Families cannot afford to buy their own home, so they are raising their kids, from little babies to high school, in rental houses. They need to be able to build, from that rental house, a home, even if they do rent the property itself from someone else. It is still their home, in which their kids live and should thrive.

We must modernise our renting legislation so that it meets the growing needs of families who need safe and secure rental homes. This is the principle on which my member’s bill has been based. It is due for its first reading soon—possibly as soon as next week. It is building a law that meets these 21st century challenges for families who will rent for their whole lives. My bill makes modest changes to the Residential Tenancies Act—only modest changes—so that renters will have a real chance to turn their rented house into a home where they can raise their children and be safe and secure.

Under my bill, renters will have certainty about how much the rent will go up and when it will go up. They will have certainty about staying long term in the home that they have created for the sake of their kids. They will not have to pay fees to land agents just for the privilege of renting a home. They will not have to fear being kicked out with just a few weeks’ notice and nowhere else to go. That is the uncertainty that families today are living with—families who have children to raise and lives to lead are living with this constant uncertainty that they will lose their rented house. Families can make their rental house their home if my bill succeeds when it comes up for its first reading.

Renting can no longer be the second-rate option for New Zealand. If we modernise the tenancy rules to provide more secure and stable renting—stable long-term tenancies are great for both tenants and for landlords. Properties get looked after better when tenants can truly call these houses their homes. Landlords can develop great relationships with their tenants so that they are both invested in maintaining a healthy, quality home. When families can trust that they will not be kicked out with just a few weeks’ notice and when landlords know that their tenants will care for their property because it is their home, we will have a much more secure and sensible renting situation in this country. So let us change the laws so that those good relationships between landlords and tenants are formed and are protected. Let us do what is right to help renting families make their house their home. Thank you.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Huri noa i tō tātou Whare i tēnei ahiahi, tēnā tātou katoa. I am part of a Government led by John Key, who, from 2008, has ensured that we are focused on what really matters for New Zealanders and, in that context, on those most vulnerable—those families who most need the help of a caring and compassionate Government. We have seen very deft and prudent management by our Minister of Finance to ensure, as is reflected in the statistics, the kind of growth we are getting in our economy—growth that is essential to be able to invest in the way that we have across our country.

We have also had leadership about a social investment approach, which basically argues to invest early with impact to make a difference for those who otherwise would not be leading the best possible opportunities in their lives. We have Minister Bennett, who has been leading in one of the most difficult areas—around social housing—challenging some of the—

Phil Twyford: What a disaster.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: It is not a disaster at all, although I understand that the Opposition is afraid to embrace the changes that we are making and the comprehensive plan that we have in housing.

We have heard from Dr Coleman this afternoon, who is leading effective investments in health, and we are seeing the results of that for young and old New Zealanders—those with challenges, whom we are concerned with, to ensure they enjoy good health.

Just recently, the extremely competent Minister Adams launched our investment into family violence, understanding that this is very difficult for New Zealand. It has been a long-established one, and we must not shy away from it, so she has taken the approach there. Minister Tolley, in social development generally, but specifically in terms of the most vulnerable—the establishment of the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki. There is the inescapable challenge that we have to make sure that those kids who end up in the care of the State through no fault of their own get the best care of the State. She has been prepared to confront some very long-established problems there, and is supported by our Government to make a difference.

On to the Hon Judith Collins and the work that we have to do in the corrections system and Police to make sure that as crime rates come down, we continue to assure New Zealanders of a safe community that they live their lives in. And so it goes on.

But let me turn to education. Let me turn to education, the portfolio that is the most exciting in Government because it has the most durable solution for those who live in hardship. A great education makes the difference for many, many people.

Ron Mark: What happened to the Māori Education Trust?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The member asks, because he knows how much progress we have had in Māori education. It is significant. It is significant—Māori education.

What we have seen is more Māori participating in early childhood education. More Māori are getting the interventions they need at primary school around reading together and reading recovery. There is more attainment for school-leavers, who are staying longer. There are more National Certificate of Educational Achievement results for young Māori—in fact, about a 62 percent increase. Māori, Pasifika, and all New Zealanders are doing better under our Government, and that is the most sustainable answer to poverty or hardship.

I know that the Opposition members want to whinge on, and we can hear them whingeing on, but this Government, with our coalition partners, the Māori Party, ACT New Zealand, and United Future, knows that sustainable answers come from a strong economy, from a great education, from investing in communities, from trusting New Zealanders know what is best for them, and from creating an environment in which they can take a lead in their own lives.

In education, this year, for the first time, we have targeted funding to those who we know from research and evidence have the most difficulty in being educationally successful. That amounts to $12.3 million in 2017. That is in addition to $1.35 billion of operational funding to schools. There has been no funding freeze.

Ron Mark: How much money did you give to the Māori Education Trust?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The member wants to go on about a particular trust. I suggest he does some actual work and fixes stuff in his own area. What we are doing is focusing on New Zealanders as a whole.

In learning support for those kids most vulnerable in terms of clinical, behavioural, physical, or psychological needs, we have invested an additional $42 million in Budget 2016, and that reflects a 29 percent increase overall for learning support. Overall, Vote Education—in which there is now over $11 billion for the first time ever—represents a 30 percent increase since we came into Government.

Within that, of course, is the critical area of early childhood education. When we came in it was $780 million. It is now $1.79 billion. We are putting the hard-earned tax from New Zealand taxpayers into what counts: growing the quality of participation and the quality of achievement. Kia ora.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Both National Party speakers so far seem to have lost track of time. They have certainly missed the last week—not one reference to the local body elections. We know in history that Tories, particularly in the UK—actually, many a Tory loves a good thrashing, just not in public. But last weekend they were thrashed publicly by voters across New Zealand. And I think it is true that National has been truly humiliated—humiliated publicly—and those members hate it. Their arrogant response, particularly on Sunday and Monday, just showed how much scorn they have for the voters who voted them out and their opponents in.

National lost badly in the big cities. It lost badly in the regions. It lost in the South, in Dunedin and Christchurch. It lost in the North, in Wairarapa, in Wellington, in Whanganui, and in Rotorua. And in Auckland, John Key’s home town, National was truly humiliated. It was so bad that John Key heartlessly, on Monday, denied the parentage of Auckland Future. Did anyone else hear him on national radio? It was shocking. He cut off his Auckland arm. He denied he knew about it. This is the man who was there, present—by video link—at the launch. His Ministers were behind the push at Auckland Future. It is run by the National Party’s former president Michelle Boag, and what happened? Humiliated.

The only person elected for Auckland Future was a retread, rebranded, existing councillor. They had the ambition of winning the mayoralty and taking a majority of the council. They got slammed by Phil Goff, and they went backwards on the council. So what was their response? Well, having lost numbers, what did they do? They turned around and they, effectively, criticised the voters and told them they got it wrong and told Phil Goff to adopt their policies to cure the housing crisis in Auckland—which they deny—and gridlock.

Why would any politician with half a brain follow the National Government to the dead-end of the million-dollar house crisis, people living in cars, pensioners in camping grounds, and gridlock in Auckland? But that has been their message to Auckland voters and councillors since the election. The arrogance of this is that it is not just the voters telling them that; it is the CEOs and the mood of the boardroom. They say they have got a housing crisis in Auckland and it is adversely affecting their business, and so is gridlock. We have had Michael Stiassny, a very senior director, saying that in Vector they are losing staff. When teachers and nurses cannot afford to live in Auckland, then the city is going backwards and it is unsustainable.

Still the National Government members—8 years into their Government—make excuses, deny that it has caused the crisis, which it has, deny responsibility for the crisis, which it has, and deny that there is a crisis, which is still their line.

The truth is that some of those commentators following the local authority elections quite rightly say that these are not national Government elections—I agree. They are not. They are not a predictor of the outcome of the next election. But they are not good news for the Government. Some of them seem to have swallowed the snake oil parleyed by the National Government, that being humiliated in local elections is somehow good news and a harbinger of better things to come.

The truth is that National is around 45 percent in the polls. Look at the polls, and that is where it is. Some polls have it as low as 40 percent. Some of the polls have it at 47 percent. The Greens and Labour together are around 45 percent.

Hon Nicky Wagner: How much is Labour?

Hon DAVID PARKER: We are around 33 percent—33 percent. The Greens are around 12 percent. Even you should be able to add that up—33 plus 12 equals 45. New Zealand First and Winston are on the rise, and they are already at about 10 percent. That is why National is panicking. That is why, having being humiliated in Auckland, their own organisation has been treated like a gangrene-ridden, festering pustule and has been cut off. I think that is a rather tough treatment of Michelle Boag, but others might disagree.

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I love hearing the Labour Party members trying to cheer themselves up. They have had more leaders than we have had hot dinners, and if they want to look at the local body elections over the last weekend, the reality of the matter is that there has actually been very little change. More to the point, let us look at Phil Goff. There he was out there campaigning with blue hoardings because he did not want to be associated with red ones, and Lianne Dalziel—well, Lianne is a lovely person, and who was she up against but John Minto. Well, she was probably perceived as being the right-wing candidate.

I have to say there was not much about the local body elections that should cheer up the Labour members, but I guess they can say that in most parts of the country they got a result. Back in Hamilton, we do not even know who our mayor is, and I do feel for Andrew King and Paula Southgate, who are waiting on the knife-edge of a cliffhanger election, and good luck to both of them. I thank them for standing—and everybody.

I do want to acknowledge the Hon Phil Goff, who is a respected parliamentarian and who has made a significant contribution. I think it is right that we should wish him well, and I congratulate him on his election to the mayoralty. I wish him well because it is a vitally important job. And, as has been acknowledged by others, he is now very keen to be a good friend of National Cabinet Ministers. So he should be, because the relationship between central government and local government is important, and I do not think he expects to be spending quality time with any of his former colleagues any time soon.

What we have seen in the last few years—and one of the reasons why I am so proud to be a member of the Government on this side of the House—is that it has been a Government that has governed through incredibly challenging times, with the global financial crisis and the earthquakes being the two most obvious examples, but other challenges have beset us as well. We have managed to get the fundamentals of the economy back on track. We are now held up as a model to be followed—one of the best in the OECD—and many countries look to our programmes that we are implementing across a range of different areas and say: “New Zealand’s on the right track. New Zealand’s the country to follow.” I am very proud of that.

We have heard today from our Minister of Health, who is doing a great job, that no longer—as we did under the Labour Government—have we got people having to go over to Australia for cancer surgery, people waiting in hospital corridors, and that sort of thing. There will always be a bottomless pit—a huge demand for health services. There is no question of that, but the good thing is that we have seen the provision of healthcare services going up and up and up over the years and we have some of the best services available that we have ever had, and I am very proud of that.

In education, we have just heard from our outstanding Minister of Education, the Hon Hekia Parata, who is doing a superb job, that one of the real focuses of all of the decisions that she has had to be making is: how do we lift that core of people at the bottom who are at the risk of falling through the cracks and not achieving in education? That is why our Government is targeting additional resources in this Government—$43 million worth—at those families who are most likely to miss out, and I am very proud of that. That means that we are using the data, which has told us what is necessary in an evidence-based way, to get better outcomes.

Another one that I want to focus on—and I am going to use a local example—is the whole issue of housing and homelessness, because, as Phil Goff said yesterday, all MPs come here because we want to make New Zealand a better place. We may disagree on how we are going to do that, but we are all here because we want to see our fellow New Zealanders better off—those who are most at risk of falling off the rails or into some form of deprivation or hardship are lifted up—and that is what we are doing.

In Hamilton they have embraced the project that is firmly at the heart of the way the Government is tackling the issue of homelessness and the provision of social housing. Rather than having this sort of ideologically blinkered approach, which some of our opponents have, that only the Government through Housing New Zealand can provide and that the way that things have always been done is the way they have always got to be done because you could not possibly look at alternatives, we are saying: “No, let us make sure that we grow the stock of social housing.” It is not so important who owns it as the fact that it is there. That is one of the reasons why I am such a strong supporter of Whānau Ora, because it is part of the policy of ensuring that we meet local needs with local solutions.

I want to acknowledge the People’s Project in Hamilton, based in Garden Place in the CBD in my electorate, which is working incredibly well. In the last couple of years since it got started—I think it was back in July 2014—it has housed quite a large number of homeless people. Nobody wants to see people sleeping rough—we will still see the odd person sleeping rough, but far fewer in Hamilton—and the really important thing is not only are they getting it; they are getting wraparound services that ensure that their overall needs are met.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): In response to a comment that was just made by the last speaker—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just have the point of order, please?

RON MARK: Can I seek leave to table a table that I have just put together, showing political party leaders in the New Zealand Parliament since 1996, which shows National has had five, Labour has had five, and New Zealand First has had—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. I am not prepared to put the leave. It is a matter of some authenticity to the document. It is not about tabling a document to make a political point. Does the member wish to take a call?

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. We have had a very interesting week with regard to announcements by the National Government around immigration, and that is what I want to address most of my comments around.

I want to go back to 1993, though, when New Zealand First was founded with 15 fundamental principles. Principle No. 8 reads: “Whilst this country, with such a small population, will continue to require an infusion of overseas skills and expertise, immigration will cease to be used as an excuse for our failure to train, skill, and employ our own people.”—New Zealanders. The reason why I say that is that in this amazing little piece of difficult information that Minister Woodhouse has had to swallow over the last few days with regard to the minuscule tinkering around the cuts to immigration in this country, what we have heard not a single word about is students—international students.

So I want to put a few facts and figures on the table. There is a really good reason why we have not heard anything about international students. First of all, since 2008 this Government has, up to 2015—not taking in this current year—approved 730,640 student visa applications. If that was export education, that would be brilliant. That would be brilliant. But what is inside that is the fact that if those 730,640 international students do 1 year or more of education inside a particular course, a degree, they get 20 hours a week working rights. That is not uncommon. Across the Western World, that is pretty much a norm, actually.

If this Government had more than 53 labour inspectors—when we receive emails like this one from a student, which says: “I have a terrible and confused trouble about finding job because I found a job, the owner told me I need to pay her to get a suitable position. She wants me to pay her $30,000. I am very confused about that.”. When the educational institutions actually ring up the labour inspectorate to report this sort of abuse for international students—if we had more than 53 labour inspectorates, and that is after a recruiting drive by this Government in December last year, we might actually be able to get on top of the exploitation of students that is taking place.

So the 20 hours a week is a standard norm, but, possibly, what most people do not know is that—take an international student who has come into this country and has signed into a 1-year course. It is a certificate course—a level 4, level 5, or level 6 course. They get, at the end of that course, a 1 year hunt year. That means they have 1 year inside any place of employment in this country to hunt for a job that has something to do with the qualification they studied. So they get a 1 year hunt year. If they find a job that has something to do with the qualification for which they studied, they get a 2-year opportunity to work in that job. During that 2-year opportunity, generally, they apply for permanent residency.

These are not 730,640 students coming in, taking away some really high-quality education from New Zealand, being treated appropriately, not being exploited in this country, and maintaining the high standards that we expect and we need across the planet with regard to this nation and the way we treat visitors. These are 730,640 individuals who get 3 years’ worth of working rights—3 years’ worth of working rights. This is not what this Government would have you believe. This is not the way that the system should currently be managed. It should benefit not only the international student but the nation, so that it is truly export education.

All I can say is bring on 2017 and New Zealand First coming into a place of influence, because we know how to manage this business. We know how to manage this economy so that our education providers are well supported, well worked with, and consulted with appropriately so that we turn this into export education, instead of it being an exploitation of the New Zealand taxpayer. Kia ora.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): As the National list member of Parliament based in Mount Roskill, I want to first acknowledge the outgoing member, the Hon Phil Goff, and I want to wish him well in his new role. As the National list member of Parliament based in Mount Roskill, as I always say, one of the most important things for me is supporting families and businesses. I understand communities in Mount Roskill, and I know their issues. There are some families that need some special attention, there are some children who need special attention, and how I see these things is that if these children are doing well now, they will have a good future. If they have a good future, our country will have a bright future. For me, education is the key to success, and I know that if our children are doing well in school, they will go out to make an impact on this ever-changing world.

We want to prepare them to compete in this highly competitive world, and that is why I am really happy to see more and more schools in Mount Roskill becoming part of communities of learning. Halsey Drive Primary School and Waikowhai Intermediate School are part of the Lynfield community of learning. We know that Monte Cecilia Catholic School is part of another community of learning. Mount Roskill Grammar School, Mount Roskill Primary School, Mount Roskill Intermediate School, Dominion Road School, and Three Kings School have formed the Mount Roskill community of learning.

What does this mean for Mount Roskill students? This means that Mount Roskill students will be doing better. We will have better educational achievements for these students in our classrooms, because our teachers will be working together and our schools will be working together in a collaborative manner. Students will now be able to benefit from shared practices and expertise, which is a great thing. The targeted funding approach that we have for our students is great news, because this is to help students—those who are at risk of not achieving in education. We need this targeted approach. We do not want these children to derail. We do not want these children to come in to contact with our justice system. We want them to do well in their life.

Talking about the justice system reminds me of the reform that we are doing in the Child, Youth and Family system. That is a very important reform. When I am talking to small businesses in Mount Roskill—most of our businesses are small businesses—what I see is that it is our young people targeting these businesses, so I am very, very confident with the reform that we are doing to the Child, Youth and Family system, which will reduce our young people from getting into offending. Those people do not want to see these young people getting into any kind of that behaviour.

Moreover, when I am going around, I am getting a huge amount of positive response for GP visits for under 13s being made free and a $25 increase in benefit. That increase that time was not just for families who were dependent on the benefit; it was also for Working for Families, so we are helping low-income families. Moreover, I am really pleased to see this new $4.2 million that is going through the community funding partnership, again to help low-income families. We are very careful where we spend taxpayers’ money, but when I look at the Opposition members—the Labour members when they were in Government—what did they do in their first term? They were taxing and spending. In their second term, again they were taxing and spending. In their third term—again taxing and spending. I believe in respecting taxpayers’ hard-earned money.

As I said, education is the key to success, and if I look at their education policy, which they announced sitting in Opposition, they thought they were being very, very creative, but we all know that they were just stealing another party’s education policy—the party that was rejected in the general election 2014. That was a new party that, I can understand, had no credibility, but Labour has shown that it has no fiscal credibility. Moreover, I am really happy to see a huge amount of residential construction activity that is happening around Mount Roskill, because that is not just about housing people, that is not just about making houses affordable, that is not just about helping first-home buyers get into their first homes; that is also about local jobs, because that construction activity is creating hundreds of local jobs in Mount Roskill.

Mount Roskill is being held back because of the influence of the Opposition—yes, Mount Roskill is being held back because of the influence of the Opposition. I am working hard in Mount Roskill with families, with businesses, with schools, and with our young people to help them realise their potential, and also to help them benefit from this ever-growing economy under this National Government. Thank you.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): That was an interesting campaign speech from the National MP Parmjeet Parmar, the presumptive National Party candidate for the Mt Roskill by-election. She has not been selected yet, but we all know she has been campaigning for quite a while—we knew that from an email from Nick Smith’s private secretary, who said that Parmjeet Parmar was quite keen on using taxpayers’ dollars to raise her profile in the Mt Roskill electorate where there is likely to be a by-election at the end of this year. So we can be in no doubt that that was the opening of Parmjeet Parmar’s campaign in the Mt Roskill by-election.

She must be shaking in her boots—she must be shaking in her boots after last weekend, because let us face it, National got smashed in Auckland—absolutely smashed in Auckland. We know that it gave up on winning the mayoralty months ago, but—a bit like the Republican Party in the United States, which has given up on the presidency—it thought it could save the council.

I remember talking to a Cabinet Minister who was absolutely certain that the Auckland Council would have a majority of the National Party surrogate, Auckland Future. Well, where is Auckland Future today? It got hammered in the Auckland Council election, so Parmjeet Parmar and everybody else in the National Party must be very, very nervous about where National stands in Auckland.

After Phil Goff won that mayoralty with such a resounding mandate, what did John Key say? The arrogance of the man, after that fantastic mandate that Phil Goff received from the people of Auckland, going out and saying that he wanted to deal with the housing crisis, that he wanted to fix Auckland’s transport woes, that the Government needed to address the challenges that the huge rate of immigration is putting on Auckland at the moment. When Phil Goff won a mandate on those issues, the arrogant Prime Minister said that Phil Goff had to shift and cuddle up to the National Party.

Well, National, think about it: you have just been hammered in Auckland on housing, on transport, on incomes, on immigration. I think National needs to realise that it is completely out of touch, not just with Auckland, but with the rest of the country, because, let us face it, Labour did pretty well all around the country in the local body elections. National is out of touch with the people, and it is time it realised that it has to actually get perhaps a little bit closer to what Phil Goff was saying, not make Phil Goff come closer to them.

I know National likes a poll, and it likes to make its policies based on polling. We have seen that in the last few days with immigration, because after years of saying that anybody who even wanted to debate policy settings around immigration was racist and xenophobic, the National Government came out yesterday and told the country that it was going to reduce the number of people coming in through our immigration system. The problem was, of course, that those members actually changed their policy in the one area that most New Zealanders are not that concerned about—the permanent residency numbers—and what have they changed it by? A paltry amount that will actually result in a minuscule, if any, drop in numbers at all.

But, actually, that is not what we should be talking about. We should be talking about the bit that National avoided altogether, and that is the abuse of the temporary work visa system to bring in people to do low-skill, low-wage jobs, because employers would rather bring people in from overseas than pay decent wages and provide decent conditions. Do you think I am wrong on that? Let us look at the industries that are most reliant on temporary work visas: forestry, farming, and fisheries—do we really not have people in New Zealand who can work in our forests, who can work on our farms, who can work on our fishing vessels? What are the other areas? Hospitality—have we really not got people in New Zealand who can be trained to cook a meal and to look after people when they come and visit New Zealand? What is one of the other ones? One of the other ones is administration. Administration is hugely reliant on migrant labour—people on temporary work visas. Can we not get people in New Zealand to work in administration?

The reason New Zealanders are not participating in those sectors is that the pay is low and the conditions are bad. This Government should be encouraging employers to improve pay, to pay people more, to give people better working conditions, and to make sure that they get basic things like having a written employment agreement—because those industries that are most reliant on temporary migration are also the worst for actually adhering to their basic employment requirements.

This Government is out of touch. National got smashed on the weekend, and they are going to get smashed next year, too.

MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): There was one reason I came to Parliament—one reason only—and that was to improve the lot of our children in this country. When I consider the place of, specifically, our tamariki Māori in New Zealand before coming into this Parliament, it was in a state of emergency. Our children suffered under poverty. It is still there, it has not been rectified, and we must do more to alleviate the hardship for children.

I have listened in this House to people stand up and blame each other for why we are in this situation. But do you know what? Left wing, right wing—same bird. It is time for a new bird. It is time for an independent voice, because an independent voice will tell you that Māori tamariki need to have a specific, targeted response to the issues that they are facing. They might be called race-based interventions by some people in this House, but, actually, that is putting a targeted response in the area where it is most needed.

We have a ministry called the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki. Those two terms are an oxymoron. They actually are combative to each other, and if Bishop and Berryman taught us anything, surely they taught us that we need to stop talking about ourselves in deficit language. I want to work with the Government to ensure that the new model—an operating model—for the Child, Youth and Family reform is done in a way that will enhance and better the placement of our tamariki. But we must be careful—be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past, and not to simply take away children and place them somewhere else and create a whole new stolen generation. If we do not think that identity, language, and culture are important to the placement of those children, we are not listening. Yes, we must put the child at the heart of the solution, but all that is encompassed in ensuring that that child is supported means they have to know their identity.

Those provisions in the current Act were hard-fought for. They were hard debated, and our Māori whānau have said that if we alienate our children from the knowledge of who they are, the knowledge of who their tribe is, and the knowledge of how their people came to be where they are today, then we are not helping the situation. We are not setting them up for a brightness of hope for their future. We are further adding to the pain and despair of those children who, through no reason of their own, have been place in State care, and the State has come in and they have another double jeopardy because they have continued to be abused in our State care. We know that; we are trying to fix it.

I am asking the Government to be careful. Do not come with “DAD”—meaning we decide and then we spend all our time arguing and defending our decision. Come with “EDD”—engage first, develop the conversation, go out to the people and find out how they can support this process, and then make your decisions.

There is a group of women in this country who have sent an open letter to the Government, and I am not sure whether it has seen it, so I am going to quote from it directly. It says: “Over the past months a number of Māori women have worked collaboratively across Aotearoa to raise issues regarding the documents released by the Crown related to restructuring of current Child, Youth and Family services … We have advocated strongly against the development of a Ministry that is based upon deficit approaches to tamariki … We have not been alone in such a position, which has been advocated by a range of organisations including both the previous and current Commissioner for Children. The recent announcement that the government will remove the requirement to prioritise the placement of tamariki with whānau is alarming to us all. The associated statements of abuse in kin placements is largely reliant on an unpublished report which we believe raises critical issues in regards to how CYFS manages the placement of our tamariki and mokopuna.”

Even Dame Tariana Turia has said that “these actions are a further act of Institutional Racism and that Iwi Leaders need to actively speak out against these reforms.”, and I join with that call. We must continue to care for our children and place them in loving and secure homes, but do not further harm them by alienating them from their identity. Kia ora.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): As other speakers have said, it was a great weekend last weekend, with a rout right across the country: in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, even in Wanganui—Hamish McDouall, Labour Party to the core, wins in Wanganui. It was good to see Auckland Future—although I understand it is changing its name to “Auckland Past”—passed over, passed away, dead on the ground. It got only one councillor on to the Auckland Council. I listened to Parmjeet Parmar speaking just before, and I want to say two words to her: Michael Wood. Those are the two words that you will wake up to every morning, thinking “Oh my God, I don’t want to face Michael Wood, because he is beating me.”—and he will.

It has not only been a good weekend but it has actually been quite a good start to the week as well, and I want to tell you why. We see this National Government looking at policy and developing policy through its polling. Michael Woodhouse admitted the other day, on Monday, that tens of millions of dollars were being lost to parents of immigrants who have been coming to New Zealand and that he was going to curb those immigrants coming. The question we have is not how pathetic his policies are, because they are pretty pathetic, but why it has taken him so long. We have been telling him, as other Opposition parties have been, to start curbing immigration because it is putting pressure on our infrastructure, pressure on our housing, and pressure on our wages as well. Australia has already acted months ago, the Reserve Bank was warning about it ages ago, and this Government has taken months and months and months of sitting on its hands doing nothing about immigration. It is another example of this Government, which has run out of ideas, now turning to the Opposition for ideas instead.

Just to prove that point, Bill English yesterday announced that 30,000 houses were going to be built. What does it look like to me?

Hon David Parker: KiwiBuild.

DAVID SHEARER: Thank you, Mr Parker. It looks like KiwiBuild—KiwiBuild, a Labour policy to build 100,000 houses, actually. It is a whole lot more ambitious—

Hon David Parker: Announced when you were leader.

DAVID SHEARER: It was announced when I was leader in 2012, and if this Government had listened and picked up that policy, we would not be in the situation where we are now, where Aucklanders are paying an average of $1 million for each of their houses.

Just to pour salt on the wound, how many affordable houses have been built and finished in Auckland? How many have been built in the special housing areas? It is 18—18. Nick Smith knows the names. He knows every single one of those people, because there are only 18 people who have been able to move into affordable homes in special housing areas. Actually, seven of them are in Mt Albert. We thank you for those seven, Dr Nick Smith, but I am afraid we are going to expect more.

I am making a prediction, because the Government has stolen the Opposition’s policies on immigration and it has stolen them on housebuilding. My prediction is that within the next few months, the Government will ban foreign buyers in New Zealand or it will tax them. That is what is going to happen—mark my words. It is what Phil Goff has been asking for in Auckland. It is what Aucklanders have been asking for. Vancouver, in Canada, put it in. Its housing market was on fire and now it has gone down. This Government will do it because it knows its polling is telling them that that is what Aucklanders and people right across New Zealand want.

If you are going to get these wishy-washy, weak, limp, pathetic policies that are coming through from the National Party, why do you not get the full McCoy—the wholesome, red-blooded Labour policies that they were copied from? Next year, you get that opportunity. The Labour Party has been around for 100 years. It has transformed New Zealand and it will do it again in 2017.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Could I just say that last speech by David Shearer was an example of an Opposition that is arrogant, tired, lazy, out of touch, and out of ideas. Can I say, as the member of Parliament for Waimakariri, what an exciting place the Waimakariri is to live, work, and play. We are the third-fastest growing electorate in New Zealand. We are the third most populated district in the South Island. We have just recently taken over from Invercargill, so now it goes Christchurch, Dunedin, “Waimak”, and Invercargill. Our annual house price inflation is only 2 percent. Not that long ago we lost a lot of houses after the earthquakes, and it is a good example, when you free up land, of an increase in supply, and it equals demand. That is a real lesson for the rest of New Zealand from the “Waimak” and from Canterbury.

We have an unemployment rate of 2.8 percent. When I am out and about in my local electorate, business after business is saying to me: “How can we get more staff into Canterbury and into ‘Waimak’?”. We have a buoyant local economy fuelled by residential and commercial construction, and a very high-achieving retail sector. It was great to see the opening of the new Farmers building in Rangiora recently. That is very much the last of the anchor projects for our regeneration. It is great to see that district moving forward. I get to meet a range of people through my work, and people tell me that “Waimak” and Canterbury are on track and we are heading in the right direction.

We see that nationally, when you see the GDP growth rate that we have, which is the envy of all OECD countries, and an unemployment rate around 5 percent, which is one of the highest rates of workforce participation we have ever had in the history of New Zealand—it is great to see a vibrant economy. And let us not forget—because on this side of the House we know that a developed, competitive economy supports and protects its people and, especially, its vulnerable people.

We discuss a lot about Kiwis coming home, but let us never forget the tens of thousands of Kiwis who are leaving every year on that great Kiwi tradition, the OE. Those Kiwis get out there and they travel the rest of the world, and they quickly realise that in a globalised world, a country that has a competitive and a developed economy is a country that increases the living standards of its people and increases the sustainability of its environment. Countries that do not have a competitive and developed economy do not. It is as stark as that; it is a choice.

It is great to see that this Government is supporting a competitive economy, because what we know is that a developed economy will protect our vulnerable people. Look at the Salvation Army’s state of the nation reports, which clearly demonstrate, when you look at them, that the hundreds of thousands of jobs that this Government has provided in the last few years, and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that we will go on and provide, have a direct correlation with reducing child hardship. Child hardship is reduced by job creation. When you look at our ambitious target of removing tens of thousands of young children out of beneficiary-dependent families—that is, in fact, what we have done, and that is, in fact, what we are doing. We can be proud of that.

On this side of the House, we can be proud of a competitive, developed economy that is providing support and protection for our vulnerable. As a first-term MP, I am proud to be part of a Government that gave beneficiaries their first-ever benefit increase in 44 years—since 1972. I know that because I was born in 1972. So I know it was 44 years ago. We gave $25 per family, and then a $12.50 increase for Working for Families, and we increased expenditure in the allowance for childcare. When you look at increasing access to GPs for under 13s—the statistics came out: increased enrolment by 16 percent; prescriptions have gone up for children by 25 percent, showing that we are increasing access to medicines; Māori participation with GPs is up 17 percent; Pacific Island participation is up 14 percent; and the best benefit of all is that serious presentations to A & E for under 13s is down 5 percent. Thank you.

JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): For a party that likes to pride itself on its economic acumen, National does seem woefully incapable of grasping some basic principles. You cannot buy real stuff with Monopoly money, and you cannot make progress on climate change with fake credits. I am talking, of course, about the use of fraudulent Russian and Ukrainian carbon credits to offset our own greenhouse gas emissions. The Government’s whole approach—its entire approach—to climate change so far has been to pay other countries to cut down on their pollution so that we do not have to. It allowed New Zealand businesses to buy certificates from the Russians and the Ukrainians at rock-bottom prices, by the way—at rock-bottom prices—saying that those countries were cutting down their emissions so that we here in New Zealand could continue to pollute the atmosphere.

Well, it turns out that you get what you pay for. Virtually all of those carbon credits were completely worthless. No actual emissions reductions took place. No dirty coal power stations were shut down. No electric trains were built. No trees were planted. It is like Murray spending the entire band’s savings on intergalactic real estate. Well, the certificates might be real, but Planet Jemaine is not. It is like buying a car that has no wheels off the internet and then insisting that you can still win the race because the certificate of sale says that it has got wheels on it, when it does not, and you bought the certificate of sale off the internet, from some Russian website.

What is worse is that when it was caught out, the Government went on to say that because those fraudulent credits were legal at the time they were bought, we can continue to pretend that our emissions went down, when, in fact, nothing of the sort happened. This is the Government’s shibboleth. It cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is fake. I started my career in the world’s largest audit and advisory firm. It has thousands and thousands of accountants the world over, and they will tell you that accounting does not trump chemistry and physics. The Government is pretending that these credits represent something real. What matters is not whether the credits were legal; what matters is whether our emissions came down, and they did not. And here is the thing.

Here is the thing: New Zealand actually has an enormous store of surplus, authentic carbon credits that we could use to pay back the debt that we owe on those fraudulent credits. But this week the Minister for Climate Change Issues, Paula Bennett, said that she was not going to do the right thing. It is like we were using Monopoly money to pay for dinner when we have still got real cash in our back pocket. She can cancel out those fraudulent Russian credits by using the authentic surplus credits that we have got, restoring our international climate commitments all at the same time.

We learnt this during the global financial crisis (GFC): when you build a tower out of imaginary credit, sooner or later that tower comes crashing down. The implications of the global climate crisis will be so much worse than the GFC. Our international reputation on the climate will be damaged if we knowingly continue to use these dodgy Russian carbon credits, to claim them as real and meaningful reductions in our own climate pollution. The Green Party is calling upon the Government to protect our international reputation as being clean, green, and free from corruption by dumping these false carbon credits and using real ones in their place.

The window is still open. The Government still has the opportunity to do the right thing. This is how we maintain our international reputation and how we maintain a seat at the table during future climate negotiations rather than having our face on a picture on the door saying: “Have you seen this person? Wanted in connection with climate fraud.” We do not want to be like the emperor—caught out in our fancy new clothes. The clothes were cheap because they did not exist, but now Paula Bennett is saying that they were real because they were somehow legal at the time they were purchased. Well, the emperor is still naked, and no amount of paperwork is going to cover up that fact. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Points of Order

Committee of the Whole House—Amendments, Māori Purposes Bill

CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. One of the bills that you will shortly declare the House in Committee on is the Māori Purposes Bill. I want to draw your attention to a number of Supplementary Order Papers that have been tabled today in the name of the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell, the Minister in charge of the bill—Supplementary Order Papers Nos 231, 232, and 233. I want to talk particularly to the first two of those amendments.

The first two Supplementary Order Papers I have just mentioned insert new parts into the Māori Purposes Bill that amend Acts that have not previously been part of the Māori Purposes Bill and are not consistent with the purpose of that bill. The purpose of that bill, as specified, is relatively narrow. Although it is an omnibus bill, the purpose, as specified in the bill on the Table, is that it is “an omnibus bill that seeks to amend the Māori Purposes Act 1991 to improve the governance and operational capability of the Wī Pere Trust and to correct a minor technical error in the Māori Trust Boards (Transitional Provisions) Order 2012.” That is the purpose of the bill as currently tabled and as it has been through the select committee.

The Supplementary Order Papers as presented by the Minister make amendments to the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Act. That has no connection whatsoever to the omnibus bill already before the House or to the provisions of it. Another one makes amendments to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993. Again, that has no connection whatsoever. I want to draw your attention to McGee, on page 320: “In the case of a bill introduced as an omnibus bill, substantive amendments to it are confined to those Acts already proposed to be amended by it …”. I seek your clear ruling that that still continues to be the case and that those amendments as tabled by the Minister are out of order.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member for his comments. What I intend to do is seek further advice on the matter. I intend to put the House into Committee. There is other legislation that can be considered first, and I can seek some advice. I am not aware of the detail of the Supplementary Order Papers but I know they will have been checked by the Clerk’s Office. The member is saying they are inconsistent with the original Act. I need time to consider that. It may require me coming back to the House before we actually move to the Committee stage of that particular bill.

Bills

Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 11 October.

Parts 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3 (continued)

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I rise to oppose the provisions of the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill, and I want to turn particularly to new section 79B(2) in clause 4, Part 1 of the bill, where it defines what a “demand service” is, because this allows the police to charge for what are regarded as demand services. Subsection (2), basically, says that the demand service “(i) constitutes policing; and (ii) is provided only on the request of an individual or organisation; and (iii) is provided to the individual or organisation requesting it and is of direct benefit to that individual or organisation (even though provision of the service may also be of indirect benefit to the public as a whole);”. So that pretty much includes most things that the police do. But then it goes on to specifically exclude: “(i) the response of the Police to calls for service relating to potential offending: (ii) the conduct of criminal investigations: [and] (iii) the prosecution of criminal offences.”

The point I want to make here is that pretty much everything to do with crime prevention could be covered by that definition. Anything that does not involve responding directly to potential criminal offending or criminal offending, or the prosecution or investigation thereof, could be a service that the police would recover costs for. So if a school approaches the police and says “We want you to come into our school and do some crime prevention sessions with our kids.”, the police could charge the school for doing that. That is a basic function of the police, and this legislation would allow them to charge for doing it, because it does not fit within the exclusions that this bill sets forth.

Let us just run through that again. Would the police going into a school to do a crime prevention lesson constitute policing? Yes, it would. Is it provided only on the request of an individual or an organisation? Yes, it would be on the request of the organisation, which is the school that is requesting it. Does it benefit the organisation? Yes, it does benefit the organisation. So it is a service that is a demand service and can, therefore, be charged for.

Would it be covered by the exclusions? Well, is it a response to a call for service relating to potential offending? No, it is not. Is it the conduct of criminal investigation? No, it is not. Is it the prosecution of criminal offences? No, it is not. So it is regarded as a demand service, but it is not covered by the exemption, and, therefore, it could be charged for.

So the question I have is: why would the Government put in place provisions that allow for police crime prevention work to be charged for if those crime prevention services are requested by an individual or an organisation? It seems to me that the whole emphasis of policing strategy for some time now has been around crime prevention. It is much better to prevent crime before it happens, rather than to have to investigate and deal with it afterwards. Why would the Government propose legislation that would allow for a user-pays environment for all of the police’s crime prevention work? By my reading of those provisions in this bill, that is, effectively, what it is doing.

There are no provisions that I can see here that would suggest that a crime prevention programme requested by an individual or an organisation is not to be regarded as something that the police could charge for. I am not saying they would charge for it in the first instance, but why would we create a law that would allow them to do so, when preventing crime and protecting the public must be one of the core responsibilities of the New Zealand Police? So I am strongly opposed to these particular provisions.

I want to turn, then, to the other issue that I have a particular concern about, and that is the police-vetting process. This is probably the most likely police service that we would see charges introduced for if this bill is passed through the House. Let us consider which are the types of organisations that use police vetting—in particular, organisations that deal with young people. I want to start with early childhood centres and then move on to schools. We have some requirements in regulation for early childhood services to have all of those staff who are working with young people and children—babies even—police-vetted before they are allowed to work in those early childhood centres. That is a Government regulatory requirement, and it is a damned good one. It is one that we should continue to uphold.

What this bill would do is it would allow the police to charge for those vetting services that early childhood centres may be requesting. For private early childhood services, there is a private benefit to that, one could argue, but there are community-based services such as kindergartens that receive all of their funding from the Government—or they now receive a little bit of funding from parents, but, predominantly, their funding comes from the Government. So, ultimately, the cost of the police vetting is going to be met by a different branch of Government by, effectively, cutting funding from early childhood services, because it is transferring the cost of a service currently provided by the police on to early childhood services without increasing the funding to early childhood services correspondingly. The same provisions apply to schools. So, in the case of schools, teachers are required to undergo police vetting to renew their teacher registration requirements.

Here is an interesting one: the Government, as part of a collective bargaining round, agreed to cover the teacher registration fees for teachers renewing their practising certificates. Will the Government also cover the police-vetting costs if the police introduce that? It seems to me that it is finding a back-door way to undo a commitment that it has made to cover the cost of teachers renewing their practising certificates. It is a very good provision that we have in our education system—that those people who are working with young people should have a police-vetting certificate.

I then want to turn to another issue around schooling. I have talked about teachers. Schools will have police-vetting requirements for their support staff as well, but what about those volunteers who work with young people? There have been a couple of cases in the media recently around coaches—so parents who coach sports teams—and whether police vetting should be required there. Or if a school wishes to use police vetting for positions that it does not have to vet—at the moment schools do not have to vet parents who volunteer to coach sports teams, but they may choose to do so—under this bill, they would be discouraged from doing so by the cost that could be imposed, and, ultimately, the question then comes back to the very basis on which we fund policing in New Zealand. Is it consistent with the public interest to discourage those individuals and organisations that could benefit from using police vetting in order to protect young people or their clients or their customers? Is it in our best interests as a society to discourage them from doing so by imposing additional charges?

My view is that it is not, so I have put forward Supplementary Order Paper 126, which would specifically exempt schools and early childhood education services from the charges for police vetting, because, ultimately, that is a transfer of costs on to schools and early childhood services. It is not going to improve child safety and student safety, and it is ultimately going to result, I think, in a compromising of that. So I look forward to the Minister’s response to those two issues.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police): I would like to take the opportunity to respond to some of the questions raised by the member who has resumed his seat, Chris Hipkins, and others. When I first became the Minister of Police, at the end of 2008, one of the areas of risk for the Police was actually the vetting service. The reason for that is that it was so far behind in dealing with the massive requests and demands for vetting that had been made, and doing checks on them, that what we found is that people were waiting months, in many cases, for vetting. We looked at the fact that it was taking so much police time and looked at what we could do about it. Some years later, we now have this bill going through the Committee of the whole House stage. Let us have a look at some of the comments that have been made and concerns raised by Mr Hipkins—he is very concerned about the cost of vetting.

Well, all indications that I have are that the police-vetting fee will be $7 or around $7. I think teachers are actually paid sufficient amounts of money to pay $7 for vetting. Why should this happen? Well, actually, because the requests for vetting have gone up hugely over the last 10 years. We now have police having to deal with more than half a million requests a year. That is a staggering number of requests for vetting. Who is asking for these vetting services? Are they all schools? Are they all teachers? Are they all early childhood education centres? No, they are not. Sometimes, in many cases, with the million New Zealanders living overseas, many of them are overseas employers who are asking for this—people who, in many cases, are in positions of responsibility and who are well paid. I think around $7 is a very reasonable fee. That is the main area that we are talking about here. Yes, there is an opportunity for other areas to be brought in where they are demanded by people and are not actually core police business, but that is not something that can be brought in by the Police itself; it has to go through an Order in Council process and regulation, and, actually, Governments are not keen to do those sorts of things if they believe the public would not agree with it.

Let us have a look at what police actually do for this vetting service. For a start, they might release information about a conviction history, the location of the court where the matter was heard, the date of the offence, the offence itself, and the sentence imposed. They may also release any further information that may not strictly be part of those areas but that is important for someone who is seeking to have themselves vetted. There are occasions when police hold relevant information that they would be unwilling or unable to release. In these instances, a withheld details statement is provided to the agency. All of this work takes a lot of care and a lot of attention, and if police get it wrong, who gets blamed? Who gets blamed? Actually, it is the police. The police get blamed if they get it wrong. Can they afford to let just anybody do this? The answer is no, actually. They need to have people on this work who know what they are doing and who understand how important it is.

Actually, vetting requests at around $7 each, I have got to say, is not that much. If you are, in fact, applying for a job as a teacher or even in early childhood centres, it is not that much, frankly, for the amount of time, the amount of responsibility, and the amount of care that goes into it. I would much rather that the Police was able to charge a very reasonable fee—particularly when compared with any other jurisdiction; as far as I am aware, we are the only comparable jurisdiction that does not charge any vetting fee—to charge something for that, to get some recompense towards being able to resource that area properly, and not to see it simply as a cost on Police and its budget. Some people might not think vetting is important, but I think vetting is important, and the fact that the vetting requests are now well over half a million a year tells me that this is a big area for police, and one they do need to have some extra help with. It is also important for people to just be aware that it does cost money.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I just want to deal with some of Minister Judith Collins’ comments before I get on to a specific part of the bill. She did make the comment that when she became the Minister of Police in 2008, police vetting was one of the most acute pressure points, in terms of the workload, for police. I can understand that. But it has taken 8 years for her Government to get a bill to the Committee stage, to be able deal with that issue. There have been three Ministers of Police since National has come into power, and one of the most acute—apparently acute—issues of demand for the police is still at the Committee stage here in this Parliament.

I do also want to ask some questions of the Minister around the level of the cost for the police vetting. I do not want anyone out in the public to be mistaken: police vetting is a good thing. We want to make sure that anyone who deals with the public, whether it be in a public or private sense, is safe and is not a risk to anyone that they are dealing with. But what we need is some up-to-date information from the Government about the pressure points and the cost. We have heard about some of the demand—I think the Minister said there are half a million police-vettings that the police are currently considering.

I ask for some more information because I want to know how up to date the figure of $7 per police vetting is now. The range of $5 to $7 was first proffered up in a regulatory impact statement that came along with this bill, which was provided by New Zealand Police on 4 October 2013—some 3 years ago. It is interesting to read further into the regulatory impact statement. I think I am channelling the Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel at the moment, who heavily relied on the regulatory impact statements, because New Zealand Police said, in table 2 in part 1 of its regulatory impact, that “The total cost of providing the vetting service is likely to increase over time due to demand for the service and the operational costs of the service provision.”

The situation is that we have got a range of $5 to $7 back in 2013, approximately 3 years ago, when the level of demand was X. We are now told by the Minister that demand has increased to about a half a million police-vetting checks per year. The police have said in this 3-year-old regulatory impact statement that, yes, prices will increase for vetting, because demand will increase. My question—and, I think, the question of those people who submitted to the select committee—is: what is the price? Is $5 to $7 now an obsolete range? Do we now have, because of demand increases, a different price that we should be looking at? That would be of major concern to the people who submitted on this bill.

When this bill was first introduced, we thought that it would be looking at the likes of event operators. If you were to be holding the likes of the Wellington Sevens or the Auckland Nines, where there may be a demand for increased policing because of the numbers of people and because of the potential behaviour at those events, extra police resources would be required. But it is interesting to see who is being focused on here for the first charge that the police are looking at, because it is the likes of charities. It is the likes of the Cancer Society of New Zealand. It is the likes of the Salvation Army. They are the types of community organisations that have come under the microscope, that have asked to be heard at the select committee, and that really want to know what the financial impact of a potential cost around police vetting is going to mean for them.

I think that if we are going to seriously consider this piece of legislation, which will affect their bottom lines, they deserve the most up-to-date estimation of what this bill means to them. If there are half a million police-vetting checks and the upper range is $7, then my maths says that that is about a $3.5 million cost for all those people who are going to be affected by this bill. And if, as the police said 3 years ago, costs will increase, what is that cost now? I think that is a fair enough question to ask. I will ask the Minister to answer that, because I think those entities deserve to know.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police): I will just take a short call to answer the questions raised by Mr Faafoi. The first is what the most up-to-date figure is, because, of course, I was using the figures from a few years back. With the fact that we are now proposing that police have waivers and exemptions for all organisations with 20 or fewer requests for vetting, and also for all registered charities, the fee is going to be $8.50. It is still less than two commercially purchased cups of coffee for the entire vetting.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a short call. I understand that my colleague Mahesh Bindra, who sat on the Law and Order Committee through this bill’s hearings, has already spoken, but I guess I need to put on the record, as the police spokesperson for New Zealand First, that we opposed this bill when it was introduced. We have sat through the hearings and heard the evidence and heard the explanations, but we remain opposed to this legislation and we will not be voting in support of it. I guess that for New Zealand First, we see this as the thin edge of the wedge. We are well used to the introduction of user-pays philosophies and principles. They are the hallmarks of Rogernomics and “Ruthanasia”, both economic policies that brought along with them user charges. We see this bill as an extension, a continuance, of that.

I guess the thing that worries us when we look at this definition of what makes a fee chargeable is that it introduces an element of grey. It introduces the issues of ambiguity and of interpretation, and, on that basis, it is better simply not to have the definition at all, actually. If we just said, specifically, “This is the one thing that would be charged for—end of story, no discussion, nothing else.”, then it might well be worthy of further consideration or reconsideration. But the fact that you have a definition that is itself right now open to debate and open to discussion means that it is ambiguous and means that it can be stretched. Who knows what a police administration might decide to stretch that into beyond here—because, of course, it does not come back to Parliament to be re-debated; it just requires an Order in Council. So we can say $8.50 today, but that does not mean it will not be $10 in a year’s time, $15, $20, and, hello, bob’s your uncle—before you know it, it is $50 a shot.

If boards of trustees are required to have police vetting done on all applicants, then the next question is: if this cost is so huge and we are going to compensate the police by charging the applicants, then what provision has been made in the Budget to up the Ministry of Education’s budget by the commensurate amount for every individual applicant for a job in education who might require vetting? Are the boards of trustees going to be compensated for that? We see nothing of that. Therefore, it lends more weight to the suspicion that this is really about user charges.

Here is the bottom line: if it is only half a million—well, bearing in mind that we blew $30 million on a flag-change referendum that nobody wanted, half a million dollars—

Hon Judith Collins: No, it’s not.

RON MARK: Well, the quote that was just given was half a million dollars per annum.

Hon Judith Collins: It’s a half a million vetting requests.

RON MARK: Vetting—OK. So what is the total cost, Minister? Because we would say—New Zealand First’s philosophy would be this: give the money to the Police in its budget. Allow them to go on doing the work they do in crime prevention, law and order, and enforcement, and give them the appropriate resources to do that. Do not levy the costs back out on to the taxpayer, who has already paid the taxes to provide for that one thing that is the Government’s first duty, which is policing and keeping our people safe. The Government’s first duty is the safety of its citizens. The Government’s first duty is the protection of its citizens. That means allocating adequate funding, adequate resources, to the police so that they may do that work that the taxpayers are paying for. To flip it back out again and say “Oh, you’re going to have to pay for this again.”—well, that just does not seem right to us.

So we will oppose this legislation. The ambiguity, the greyness, the fact that it smacks very much of an extension into user-pays, which we do not agree with, tells us that the legislation is actually fraught with problems and should not be proceeding beyond this stage.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): I would like to continue from where Ron Mark left off and clarify a few points about what the police are doing. First of all, the police are providing safety to the citizens of New Zealand. That is the paramount duty of the police, and we agree.

Vetting is a totally different thing. Where vetting is provided, it is to make sure that people who are dealing with children—who are dealing with schoolgirls—or taxi drivers, who are dealing with the public every day, are properly vetted so that we can ensure the safety of everyone. I remember that there was a case when somebody changed his name a few times and was working in a school, and he was a sex offender. We want to make sure that these people are not in schools or in childcare centres. We want to ensure that, and $7 or $8 is not too much for us to be asking for.

Kris Faafoi: Oh, for you it might not be.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: It is for 2 years—the vetting is valid for 2 years, and if you have to pay $8 or $7 for 2 years, I do not think that is too much. If you are applying for a job, it is a reasonable cost. If you compare it with some of the Australian jurisdictions, they are charging $30 or $50. We are charging just $7, which makes a lot of difference. It is very reasonable, and I think the police will be doing a great job in doing this.

It is very important that we should ensure that the budget that is given to the Police is utilised for what it is supposed to do. It is not for funding someone who is looking for a job or going for some business. They have to pay $7 or $8, and we are funding that from the Police budget—that is not appropriate. I think, Minister Collins, it is very appropriate that you mentioned that these are the provisions.

The police are funding almost $4.2 million every year for vetting at present, which is not the right thing. I think that money should be utilised by the police to resource their own things so that they can maintain better law and order. I think that this is a very good idea and that we should support it.

DAVID CLENDON (Green): It is interesting listening to this debate and reflecting on how closely it follows the submissions we heard at the Law and Order Committee. We have heard from Mr Bakshi and others this magic figure of $7, which keeps popping up. At current demand—half a million times $7—that is about $3.5 million that we are arguing about here. In the context of the entire Police budget, that is not a big amount of money.

I do not for one moment believe that, actually, the intention of this bill is to enable a $7 charge on vetting across the board. This is opening the door for wholesale charging for all sorts of police services. The definition in this bill of what constitutes a “demand service” is broad enough and inclusive enough that, in time—think about things like search and rescue, which, arguably, is not about offending, is not about criminal investigations, and is not about prosecuting offences; it is a service provided to New Zealanders and, indeed, guests—visitors—to New Zealand. On occasion, it is a service that is necessary as a result of their own foolishness, but more often it is about people simply venturing into the outdoors. How long will it be before people who are rescued—and there is police involvement—are handed an invoice at the end of that? Is that the New Zealand that we want? I do not really think so.

The Minister of Police and, indeed, other speakers have suggested that $7—well, it is hardly worth fussing about, is it? It is a very small amount of money. So it is, but, in fact, using vetting as the first opportunity to use these new powers to charge for police services is a peculiar choice. It is in line with the old saying that no good deed goes unpunished. We have a large voluntary community sector in New Zealand. We have a lot of people who volunteer their time, their skills, and their experience to work in all sorts of community organisations. Now we are going to say to those people: “Well, thank you for being community-minded and for contributing in some way to a voluntary organisation, and, by the way, we are going to clip the ticket. We are going to charge you for giving up your time.” We must not forget, as well, that one vetting will not cover multiple organisations. If a person happens to volunteer for two or three organisations—working with children, working with elderly people, working in some way with vulnerable people—that ticket will be clipped on each occasion. For older people on fixed incomes, for young people with low incomes, or for students earning but still wanting to do some voluntary work—these are the people who are going to be hit.

It is very peculiar politics, actually, to use vetting as the initial point of entry into this whole brave new world of charging for policing, which is, and ought always to be, a core public service and one which should be resourced properly. We have heard good news from the Minister recently: apparently, we are to get some more police officers. That is to be congratulated. It is 18 months late—it was 2 years ago, even, that most other people recognised, and certainly the New Zealand Police Association did, that the police force was overstretched and under-resourced, and not least of all in rural areas. But this legislation is not the solution to that. I think most New Zealanders would much rather that we have a well-funded and well-resourced taxpayer-funded police force, rather than this privatisation by stealth—using this piece of legislation with this very innocuous little $7 fee as an opening to a point where we will, in future, almost certainly see quite significant charges placed on people.

We heard from the NGOs and we heard from the voluntary sector that this relatively small amount of money—the voluntary service providers are going to be very unwilling to say to their volunteers “By the way, you need to sign the cheque.”, and often, in many cases, they will pick up the cost of this vetting if it does go ahead. The cost will not remain at $7 or $8.50 for long, or at whatever it might be; inevitably, it will go up. So those hard-earned dollars, those hard-won dollars, that the voluntary organisations appeal to philanthropists for and to fund-raising means—all of that—a lot of that money is simply going into this money-go-round to pay an invoice for a service that ought to be funded in the normal way through the Public Service vote.

This legislation is unreasonable, and, as I say, I keep coming back to the point that I do not really understand the politics of it—and Mr Faafoi touched on this. Had the first target been concert promoters or large sports events where there is a commercial interest, you could almost understand that.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I rise on behalf of the Labour Party, along with my colleagues, to oppose the provisions of this bill. If we look at section 79A,“Purpose of this Part”—this is in new Part 4A, inserted by clause 4—I find it ironic that the focus of this bill is to recover costs in respect of the provision of certain policing services. The Government is focused on doing this at a time when we need our police out on the streets on a regular basis—at a time when there is high demand for our police services to be investigating cases of shoplifting and to be turning up to ensure that people are safe. But the whole focus of this bill is about cost recovery.

I also find it ironic that this Government came into power promising tax cuts, and did, in fact, restructure our tax system, and now we are seeing what the end result is. There has been a pattern, and this pattern has been repeated in this particular bill. In section 79B we are not given a whole range of what it is that the police are going to be charging the public for. The only thing that we see is in section 79B(3), where they give an example of vetting services by the police. We do not have any other idea of what other services will be charged to the public.

I have to say I am glad that my colleagues are opposing this. I understand that those who have sat through the select committee process heard that the majority of submitters are also opposed to this bill, and I am glad that we are opposing it. I pay my taxes for the sole purpose of this Government providing these kinds of services for the public good. I do not expect to pay my taxes for our police service and then be asked to pay additional money when I need the services of the police. If you look through Part 1 and Part 2, there is nothing in the bill that makes any reference to safety or community safety. This is all about cost cutting. It is about cost cutting at a time when we should be fully resourcing our police services.

I understand that this Government has underfunded the police service by about $300 million. Vetting is a service that has been done by the police because we require the police to do so. I make reference to table 2 of the regulatory impact statement, which Kris Faafoi spoke to: “we currently have “over 12,000 agencies”, it says, “(with about 6,000 active users) … registered to use the service, and up to 500,000 vets are processed each year.” Why are those vettings required? It is for community safety. It is for the purpose of ensuring that our community is safe. I want to reiterate, with regard to the $7 that the Minister of Police has said is nothing, that $7 may be nothing to somebody earning $250,000 a year, but it is something significant for a community organisation. It is significant to an early childhood centre, for example, that is having to work on the smell of an oily rag to ensure that our young people get a good education, and we give it the responsibility of ensuring that the people who are working with our young people are of a good nature and are safe to be around our children.

We have had an example where the community of Māngere recently raised the fact that we had a child sex offender placed next to the school. That was not safe—that was not safe at all. The Minister and others might say that it was, but it was not. Although the Minister says that $7 does not mean anything, table 2 of the regulatory impact statement also says that “The total cost of providing the vetting service is likely to increase”. We know of the example in Australia where this similar service is being charged at A$50—not NZ$7; A$50. I suspect that the equivalent of that, if it continues to rise, would be somewhere around NZ$80. I do not know what the foreign currency exchange is, but it could be anywhere between NZ$50 and NZ$80.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): If I was Pita Paraone, I would actually be worried. Pita Paraone is the chairperson of the Waitangi National Trust, and every Waitangi Day there are about a hundred Māori policemen standing around protecting politicians. If the Government has its way, it could possibly be charging the Waitangi National Trust for those policemen to be there protecting politicians, because if we look at this bill, it says: “For the purposes of this section, demand service”—so, basically, it is a demand that those policemen and women be at Waitangi Day—“(a) means a service that—(i) constitutes policing;”—they are there, policing—“(ii) is provided only on the request of an individual or organisation;”. I am not sure whether it is the Waitangi National Trust that requests those police personnel to be there, or whether it is actually the Government. Is the Government going to end up charging itself to protect itself?

The definition also says it “is provided to the individual or organisation requesting it and is of direct benefit to that individual or organisation (even though provision of the service may also be of indirect benefit to the public as a whole);”. So the public, as a whole, does benefit from having police personnel at Waitangi Day, but the thing is that they are not responding to police calls for service relating to potential offending, they are not conducting criminal investigations, and they are not prosecuting criminal offences. So chances are the Government, if it is the Government that is requesting police to be at Waitangi Day and other events such as that, may actually end up charging itself, which actually sort of negates the cost of charging for service.

The charge is $8.50. Three years ago it was $7; now it is $8.50. Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi actually proved our point when he stood up and said “Oh, in Australia and other jurisdictions, the cost is $50.”, because that is exactly what we are afraid of. That is exactly our point. We were starting off at $7. It is now $8.50. Who knows whether in a couple of years’ time it is not going to be $50?

I was thinking about the school I used to be principal of. We had about 40 staff members including caretakers and other support staff. At $7 per staff member, that comes to only about $280. That is not too bad. That is actually pretty easy for a school to absorb. But then, if the cost of police vetting goes up to $50, that is something like $2,000 that the school needs to find. When I looked today at the amount of money that schools across Tai Tokerau are going to lose because of the changes that Hekia Parata is putting in place, something like 81 percent of the schools across Tai Tokerau are going to be losing funding, and this is just something else that is going to be added on top of those costs. Kōhanga reo—how are they going to afford extra costs? Kōhanga reo are way underfunded, but it is really essential that staff at kōhanga reo are actually police-vetted. You know, we are not opposed to police vetting; we are just opposed to the public having to pay for something that is, essentially, a service that the police should be providing anyway.

But here is a novel idea for the Government. We know, and the Minister knows, that the police have had to absorb $300 million worth of costs over the last 4 years. The novel idea is: why does the Government not actually just fund the police to do the job? As David Clendon said, $3.5 million is not a lot in the scheme of things. Why does the Government not just fund the police to be able to do their job and stop putting it back on to members of the public? Stop putting it back on to New Zealanders to dip into their pockets to do what the Government could just do for itself if it decided that it was going to fund the police to a level that they actually deserve.

Search and rescue—David Clendon raised a really important point there. If people are lost in the bush and they fear that they may be charged for the search and rescue, does that not jeopardise people? Does that not jeopardise their safety if they believe that they may actually be charged for search and rescue to come and look for them? That comes down to the Government actually putting people’s lives in jeopardy.

Just finally—just very briefly—the other important point I would like to make is: what may happen if police are called out to a false alarm? I know now that when fire brigades are called out to false alarms, they charge people. What is in the future? This is the problem. We are worried about what is going to happen in the future in terms of this bill, whether the cost will go from $8.50 up to $50. What is the thin end of the wedge that Ron Mark spoke about? Will police, in the end, start charging for false alarms? If you look again at what I read out earlier: if police went out to a call, it would constitute policing, it would be provided on the request of an individual, and it would be provided to the individual or organisation requesting it. But in respect of the response of the police to calls for service relating to potential offending—yes, potential offending; it is not actual offending—they are not conducting an investigation; they are just turning up and there is nothing to investigate and it is a false alarm and they will not be prosecuting anyone. Will people be charged for false alarm callouts to the police?

There are so many unknowns in this bill. That is the real concern, with, of course, the biggest concern being that the greatest unknown is how much this is actually going to cost individuals in 3, 4, or 10 years’ time. Kia ora.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move, That the question be now put.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Kia ora. I want to take a short call on the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill, and I want to start and preface my contribution by saying that legislation that is passed in this House, in my humble opinion, should be very clear, it should be removed of any ambiguity, it should be based on the most recent information and statistics that are available, and where possible—and I think it is a sign on this side of the House—ministerial interference should be at a minimum.

So let us turn to this bill. This is why Labour is not supporting this bill. On reading it, it is not only unclear—and I will reference the particular parts of the bill—it is dated, and, of course, for me it has too much of the Minister in it. I will draw your attention to the first clause, new section 79B, “Policing services that may be subject to cost recovery”, which says: “(1) The Minister may recommend a regulation under section 102A only if the Minister”—only if the Minister—“is satisfied that the policing service in question is a demand service.”

If anyone should know what a demand service is, it would be the Commissioner of Police, surely. Surely the Commissioner of Police would know that, but in this instance, we have “the Minister”. The Minister, in his or her ivory tower, is going to determine what meets the criteria for a demand service. So I would put that down and I would probably want a response from the Minister in the chair.

The second point I make is that it is unclear. Minister Judith Collins got up and shared with this Committee, particularly around new section 79F and the payment of fees. We in this House were led to believe that it was going to be $7 per vetting service, but the Minister responded and said “No, it’s $8.50.”, and other colleagues have actually put up the point: how sustainable is $8.50, and could it go beyond that? So I think that having the Minister in the chair making up decisions like that is not a good process when we are coming to examine particular bills, and that should have been put on a Supplementary Order Paper, in my humble opinion.

The third point that I mention is that it is dated, and this is in response to new section 79G. Others have talked about the figure in the regulatory impact statement, the police—which is 3 years old. You know, it talks about approximately half a million vettings being processed each year. I would like to know whether that figure is the current figure. This Committee should have the most up-to-date vetting numbers per annum, and using figures that are 3 years old does not give this Committee the necessary information to make a decision on this bill, because it is a police cost recovery bill. We should have, in this Committee, the most up-to-date figures that the police are currently having to deal with. This is what I am saying: it is outdated, it is unclear, and the Minister of Police is tampering with it.

The other point that the Minister made when she took the chair was in terms of new section 79G—the exemptions. She mentioned that if you do 20 or fewer vettings per year, you might be exempt. As my colleague Kelvin Davis mentioned, in my electorate we have something called Iron Māori, where we have thousands of people converging on the Pandora Pond in Napier and we have hundreds of volunteers. I can see that this is potentially going to cost what has become an iconic event in my electorate. I have Kahungungu Waitangi Day, where we have thousands of people come there and we have, again, lots of volunteers, and I can see an impact on those organisations. I have Tamararo, which is one of the largest kapa haka in Gisborne, and, of course, this Labour weekend we are going to have Māori rugby league converge on Wainuiōmata. These are just some of the many, many local events that I believe could be impacted if we do not give a clear signal about who is in, who is out, and how much it is going to cost. Kia ora.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Everyone who is going for the call has already had a call, and it is some time since we have had a new argument.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 126 in the name of Chris Hipkins to clause 4 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 63

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The question now is that Part 1 stand part. Those who are of that opinion will say Aye; of the contrary opinion will say No. The Ayes have it. The question now is that Part—

Carmel Sepuloni: No—party vote. I said: “No, party vote.” Sorry, it was meant to be louder—sorry.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I think the member does need to be louder.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Part 1 agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I would remind members that as well as saying “No” loudly, they need to call for a party vote loudly as well.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 97 in the name of Poto Williams to clause 5 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 63

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of David Clendon to clause 5 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 63

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

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 be agreed to.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Part 2 agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Clause 1 agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 be agreed to.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Clause 2 agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 3 be agreed to.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Clause 3 agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I will report this bill without amendment presently. Members, we now come to the Māori Purposes Bill. I am now going to seek leave of the Committee to report progress, seek leave to sit again presently, so the Speaker can rule on it. [Interruption] Is there any objection to that? If there was, I would toss them out. That will be agreed.

Progress to be reported presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill without amendment, and no progress on the Māori Purposes Bill and the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill.

Report adopted.

Speaker’s Rulings

Committee of the Whole House—Amendments, Māori Purposes Bill

Mr SPEAKER: Shortly before the House went into Committee today, Chris Hipkins raised a point of order about three Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) on the Māori Purposes Bill, which had just been released. I have had time now to study the issue. The point of order queried the relevance to the bill as introduced of amendments set out in the Supplementary Order Papers. It also asked whether the statement on page 320 of McGee, “In the case of a bill introduced as an omnibus bill, substantive amendments to it are confined to those Acts already proposed to be amended by it substantively …”, still applies.

The general rule around the scope of amendments is that they must be relevant to the subject matter of the bill and consistent with its principles and objects. This applies to general omnibus bills. However, a Māori Purposes Bill is a special kind of omnibus bill that makes tidy-up amendments to legislation relating to Māori affairs, and I refer members to page 323 of McGee. Its scope is a little different in that it allows a broader range of amendments than those permitted for most other types of omnibus bills, provided they relate to Māori affairs.

The three SOPs released by the Minister for Māori Development (1) amend Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 in relation to reporting requirements for Māori incorporations, (2) amend Te Rarawa Claims Settlement Act 2015 in relation to post-settlement governance, and (3) amend the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Act 2003 in relation to redundant provisions covering output agreements. These amendments may not be in the scope of a general omnibus bill, but they do fit within the scope of a Māori Purposes Bill. I would remind Ministers that it is good practice to release SOPs early, particularly where they propose to insert new parts into a bill.

In answer to the second question, the rule described on page 320 of McGee no longer applies. The 2011 Standing Orders Committee recommended the removal of the rule, and the House adopted that recommendation, so it is now permissible in the case of an omnibus bill to make amendments to Acts not amended in the bill as introduced. I refer members to page 47 of the Standing Orders Committee report 2011. The new edition of McGee, due to be published by the Clerk early next year, will reflect that change. I thank members and return the House to Committee.

Bills

Māori Purposes Bill

In Committee

TIM MACINDOE (Senior Whip—National): Pursuant to a discussion in the Business Committee yesterday, I seek leave for the provisions of the Māori Purposes Bill to be considered in one debate, with the votes to be taken separately.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is.

Part 1 Amendments to Maori Purposes (Wi Pere Trust) Act 1991

Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Kia ora tātou katoa i tēnei ahiahi. Ka nui te mihi ki a tātou. Can I just acknowledge that there was a need, I suppose, to take the debate apart. It was my view, if I can just talk to the Māori Affairs Committee, that the amendments that were proposed in the paper were relatively minor in significance and that we had general agreement. But, be that as it may, I will leave that there, because we have voted on it and we will move on. We will go through those bits and pieces as we get there.

This is an omnibus bill that amends, basically, the Māori Purposes (Wi Pere Trust) Act of 1991 to improve the governance and operational capability of the Wī Pere Trust and to correct a minor technical error in the Māori Trust Boards (Transitional Provisions) Order of 2012. The trust that we are talking about is the Wī Pere Trust. It was set up in 1899 to administer the estate of Wī Pere, who was a prominent East Coast MP in his day. Of course, he was setting up this trust for the purposes of his whānau and the beneficiaries. It later became a statutory trust, and we have made some amendments to the trust deed. I will talk to those shortly but will also add that we have added on a couple of Supplementary Order Papers, which I will talk to as well, while we have the opportunity, which, as the Speaker has outlined, is able to be done in this process.

As the bill states, this is all about improving the governance and operational capability of the Wī Pere Trust. It removes ministerial involvement from the trust’s governance, which is something that the trustees themselves asked for. Currently, the Minister for Māori Development appoints the trustees for the trust and can remove trustees for misconduct. However, we are passing that responsibility back to the trust.

This bill establishes a new trust board structure, providing the trust board with autonomy to make decisions for itself and amend its accountability arrangements back to the beneficiaries. The bill also enables the trust to hold general title land, supporting the trust’s economic aspirations to do more with the land if it so wishes, increasing the trust’s economic development activities, while reinforcing the protections of Māori freehold land. The bill clarifies the trust’s succession arrangements through the provision of lineal descent from Wī Pere to succeed to beneficial interests, and the bill also clarifies the jurisdiction of the Māori Land Court and the High Court.

I will also be introducing these Supplementary Order Papers; there are three of them, which have been mentioned earlier. They are to do with providing, in three places—the first one is to do with the Māori Television Service. That is talking about making technical amendments to the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi) Act 2003. That needs to be tidied up to remove references to Te Pūtahi Paoho, an entity that will no longer exist, actually, when Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori Act 2016 is enacted. That is pretty straightforward. It is addressing the fact that we have an entity in place, it will be out of existence, and, therefore, we are adjusting the law to deal with that—relatively minor in the scheme of things.

The second Supplementary Order Paper is amending Te Rarawa Claims Settlement Act of 2015 with a new Part 1B. This Supplementary Order Paper provides certainty as to the mandated iwi organisation, commonly known as an MIO, its status for Te Rarawa, enabling Te Rarawa to manage its fisheries assets on behalf of the iwi and make contributions from those assets to various marae. I will talk about that a little bit more later on.

The third Supplementary Order Paper is amending Te Ture Whenua Maori Act of 1993, in a new Part 3 later on. This Supplementary Order Paper amends inequitable and, in some cases, unachievable financial reporting requirements for Māori incorporations inadvertently introduced through what is called the Financial Reporting (Amendments to Other Enactments) Act of 2013. So as you, Mr Speaker, in your statements in respect of how we have ended up in this position of having to go clause by clause—basically, these are relatively minor and not controversial issues to be addressed, and I look forward to what people have to say from there.

NUK KORAKO (National): Āe, e mihi atu ki a koe e Te Kaiwhakahaere, huri noa i Te Komiti nei, e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa.

[Yes, I thank you, Mr Chair, and acknowledge you all throughout this Committee.]

I want to address the four Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in the Māori Purposes Bill’s Committee stage, which propose amendments to this bill. The first three SOPs, which the Government will be supporting, are from the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell. They amend the Te Rarawa Claims Settlement Act 2015, Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993, and the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Act 2003. The SOP on Te Rarawa Claims Settlement Act, first of all, simply recognises the intention of Te Rarawa iwi for the mandated iwi organisation status of the charitable trust Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa. Under the Māori Fisheries Act 2004 this is to pass to the post-settlement governance entity, also called Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa. This change tidies up the issue and appropriately ensures that Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa’s mandated iwi organisation status applies retrospectively.

The second SOP is to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 and will ensure that smaller Māori incorporations do not have the same onerous financial reporting requirements as large incorporations. Our other legislation around financial reporting for charitable organisations recognises that different reporting requirements should apply to organisations of different sizes, and it is appropriate that this be reflected in the requirements for Māori organisations under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993.

The third SOP makes changes to the Māori Television Service Act 2003 and removes the soon to be redundant requirement for Māori Television to set money aside for operating costs of Te Pūtahi Paoho. Te Pūtahi Paoho will soon be replaced by Te Mātāwai, which receives its funding directly from the Government and, therefore, this provision does not need to be transferred to the new entity.

We have another SOP that addresses the primary purpose of this bill, the Māori Purposes Bill, and that is the changes being made to the Wī Pere Trust. Meka Whaitiri’s SOP proposes to remove the part of this bill that clarifies the jurisdiction of the High Court and the Māori Land Court over the Wī Pere Trust, and wants to return it to the status quo. Currently, the High Court and the Māori Land Court hold jurisdiction, but there is no clear demarcation of what the jurisdiction is that they actually hold. This bill, as drafted, clarifies that the High Court has jurisdiction to settle disputes relating to the administration and governance of the trust and excludes the Māori Land Court from having that jurisdiction. The argument that Meka Whaitiri has put forward in favour of her amendment is that the Māori Land Court has the appropriate expertise to deal with all of these matters. In one way, she is right—the Māori Land Court has expertise in matters related to Māori freehold land. This is why this bill still gives it jurisdiction over matters related to Māori freehold land. However, there are some other matters related to commerce, administration, and governance where the High Court has the appropriate expertise, particularly as the trust assets—and this is a really important part of it—are not limited to just Māori freehold land.

So I would not expect to see many disputes related to the Wī Pere Trust ending up in the High Court. It is only for very serious matters that cannot be resolved through the disputes process—and this is within the bill itself—that there would ever be the situation where it would end up in the High Court. What is more important is determining where the appropriate expertise lies, and this bill as currently drafted clearly and correctly determines the appropriate jurisdiction for the different types of issues that may require court proceedings under the Act.

I just want to finish by saying that out of all of that, particularly with the demarcation situation—the different roles of the Māori Land Court and also the High Court—it is very clear that this should not be changed; therefore we cannot support the SOP of Meka Whaitiri. Kia ora.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Labour was in support of the Wī Pere Trust bill. The Wī Pere Trust is a fantastic organisation that was set up by an inspired tupuna of theirs back in the 1800s and early 1900s. He did remarkable work. It is a trust that has millions of dollars in assets now and is doing a fantastic job for its beneficiaries.

It is really disappointing, though, to come here and to see that 15 minutes before the bell was rung this afternoon three Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) were dumped on us, and we knew nothing about them whatsoever. It would have been a matter of courtesy to say to the MPs and to the other parties: “Look, this is what’s going to happen, and these are the minor changes and technical amendments.” Chances are we would have understood them and supported them.

Unfortunately, we have been asked to support something we have had a brief look at and do not really fully understand the ins and outs. In fact, the SOP to do with Te Ture Whenua Maori—it is quite ironic, today in the Māori Affairs Committee we were talking about Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill. It is a thick piece of legislation that has been introduced. We are really concerned to get it right. We want to work through it, clause by clause, and make sure that if that bill is going to go through and pass in this House that we get it absolutely right for our people. So it is really disappointing to turn up this afternoon and, 15 minutes before the bell is rung, there is an SOP that is probably more than just a minor amendment to Te Ture Whenua—there are about 3½ pages of changes, and we have not had an opportunity whatsoever as a Labour Māori caucus to have a look at them and go over them. We have not been briefed by any officials, we have not been briefed by the Minister, and what we have been asked to do is just take a leap of faith and agree to amendments to a bill that we are actually debating in the Māori Affairs Committee at the moment in quite a substantial way.

I think it is really unfair, I say to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell, to have done this to us when, really, a simple phone call would have sufficed, even as late as yesterday. I look at the SOP from Meka Whaitiri—that was tabled on 25 August, and here we are in October. On 12 October we are given three SOPs to go through.

Te Rarawa legislation—I believe that this will be similar to what Te Rarawa approached me on last year in terms of just making it a little bit easier for them to manage their fisheries assets, so I have got a bit of background on that SOP, but I do not really have a background on the other two SOPs. It is just really disappointing that we have to stand here and talk about stuff that we are not yet fully au fait with, even though the Minister says that they are minor and technical amendments.

What it has done, though, is it has opened up the opportunity for us to debate more SOPs that Labour will be putting forward to do with Māori policy, and we look forward to the later stages. In Part 4, I believe, there is actually a Māori Housing Act and we are looking forward to getting our teeth into debating a lot of material around Māori housing. But at this stage, the Wī Pere Trust itself—it could have been all over pretty quickly into this evening.

I just want to touch again on Meka Whaitiri’s SOP, and I think it is really good. It is disappointing that the National Government is not going to support it. What the bill is proposing in its current form is that if there is an issue, that whānau have to go to the High Court to sort it out. We are saying that the better pathway for Māori is to go through the Māori Land Court, the reason being that the Māori Land Court is a lot cheaper and it is easier for whānau to have access to that court, whereas the High Court is a lot more expensive. The benefit of going to the High Court is that things get dealt with a lot more quickly, whereas in the Māori Land Court it takes a lot longer.

The Wī Pere Trust would, no doubt, prefer—because they do have money, they would be able to access the High Court, they would be able to get decisions based around their business done a lot more quickly, but it is the whānau and the beneficiaries who would struggle to go into the High Court and pay to have their issue examined by the High Court. They would much prefer that they go to the Māori Land Court, even though it may take longer. Whānau are a lot more au fait with and a lot more comfortable in the Māori Land Court—certainly, I think it is about $50 plus GST to file something in the Māori Land Court. Therefore we in the Labour Party are saying that the Māori Land Court would be the better option to have these issues dealt with, because whānau can actually access and afford to access the Māori Land Court.

So there is going to be a lot of discussion around the Māori Purposes Bill. The door has been opened for us to discuss a number of options. Like I say, I am looking forward to discussing the Māori Housing Act in Part 4, I believe it is, but I will leave it for now. Kia ora.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): To be clear, the Green Party will be voting in support of the Māori Purposes Bill and that is because we always uphold the mana of iwi needing to decide over their own affairs and needing to run their own affairs.

Improving governance: this bill does seek to improve governance and the capability of the Wī Pere Trust as well as remove unnecessary Crown involvement, which we are certainly in favour of—removing unnecessary Crown involvement.

I too absolutely want to raise some concerns about the late-entry Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) from the Minister for Māori Development. I do understand and perhaps can concede that they are minor administrative updates and legislative changes, but I am somewhat concerned about process. As my colleague Kelvin Davis has said, we did not have a lot of notice, and I am particularly wondering—I just want to be clear, actually, I am asking a genuine question—whether these are purely opportunity SOPs. Do they have any actual direct relevance to the actual running of the Wī Pere Trust and to this particular bill? That is what I am genuinely asking about and so I am sure the Minister will stand to talk to that. Those are the sorts of the things I am asking.

Just to have the Greens on record, I understand that the Māori Television Service amendment in SOP 231 is certainly an administrative update, because of the disestablishment of the organisation Te Pūtahi Pāoho—kei te pai tēnā. Supplementary Order Paper 232 on Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 is slightly different and is about upholding a difference in reporting requirements between large and small organisations. I did have to check whether that was standard, just to make sure we are keeping things accountable and above board. I was advised that that is standard, so kei te pai tēnā.

Then, lastly, there is the amendment to the Te Rarawa Claims Settlement Act 2015 in SOP 233. I understand that, simply, the mandated iwi organisation—I think that is what MIO stands for—needs to apply retrospectively from the date that the Te Rarawa Claims Settlement Act commences. So those are logical and mainly understandable, but, boy, I did have to rush a bit to just try to get a little—actually, I do not understand them deeply, but the little bit that I wanted to find out I had to do really quickly on the fly. So thank you, Mr Chair, for reiterating and enforcing that better practice is to give us a little bit more time.

I now want to come down to my colleague Meka Whaitiri’s Supplementary Order Paper. Through the submissions we did hear, absolutely, concerns from whānau—some who were outright opposing this bill; others who just wanted to state concerns—that they did want the jurisdiction over the running of the trust to remain with the Māori Land Court and not the High Court. So the Green Party will absolutely be supporting Meka Whaitiri’s SOP, because one of the quotes, I think, from whānau submissions was that they did not believe that the High Court understands ngā mea Māori as the Māori Land Court has and does, and has that deep institutional knowledge and experience as well. Of course, they had concerns about access and costs, and so I would quite appreciate a response from the Minister just to justify, actually, and clarify that movement, that transfer from the Māori Land Court to the High Court. I think the families, whānau, who raised that concern really deserve a clear answer on that one as well, because I do not see why we here in this House cannot maintain that jurisdiction. Those are the main points that I wanted to raise in Part 1. Thank you.

Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Kia ora tātou katoa. In light of tērā kōrero I thought it was appropriate to get up now and try to allay some of those issues. I probably may not but, nevertheless, I will have a go.

Me pēnei pea te kī, ki te tīmatanga kei te rongo ake i tō kōrero, kei te rongo ake i te kōrero o tēnei o ngā tuāhine, Marama Davidson. He kupu whakapāha anō hoki tāku ki a koutou mō te āhuatanga o tēnei whakatakoto kōrero. I pōhēhē nōku kua ea tērā āhuatanga, ā, ka mutu ēhara i te mea he kaupapa whakararuraru i te āhuatanga o ngā whakahaere ēngari, me pēnā rawa ahau me tuku i taku kupu whakapāha ki a koutou katoa mō te āhuatanga o ngā whakahaere. Nō reira, ka waiho tērā ki reira.

[Let me express it like this: from the outset I hear what you are saying, and what this one of the sisters, Marama Davidson, is also saying. I have an apology, as well, to you collectively about the manner in which this statement has been presented. I mistakenly thought that situation had been met, and, furthermore, it is not as though it is a matter that poses problems in terms of proceedings, but I really must do that, and apologise to you all about procedures. So I leave that there.]

I understand the issues that are raised and I offer my apology for the late tabling of the papers in my belief that it was taken care of. Certainly, the second issue is that they are relatively minor, but I hear the point and I hope to address that in this call, if I can.

The duty I do have, however, as a Minister is to respond to some of the issues that were raised in the second reading and, indeed, in the first reading, and I want to do that first, and in the second part come to the issues that the member for the Green Party Marama Davidson raised, in particular about the ture whenua. The concerns have been raised in the discussion in respect of the purpose of the trust and the vision of the Wī Pere Trust and that the bill will have a negative impact on the trust and the beneficiaries. I tried to outline in my first call that the purpose and philosophy of the trust are unaffected by this bill. The core principles of the trust are reinforced to promote the benefit and the advancement of beneficiaries. The trust board must operate with the purpose of the trust to promote the benefit and advancement of beneficiaries. The trust board can exercise only prescribed functions and these are prescribed in new sections 10 to 16 of the bill—pages 8-11 if members want to follow that up. The bill basically positions the trust to operate more flexibly, as they asked for, into the future, improving its governance and operational capability.

The second concern that was raised was around the structure, which will limit, basically, accountability to beneficiaries. Well, there will be a new trust board structure for the trust and a constitution that emphasises a greater relationship of accountability of the trust board to the beneficiaries. The trust board’s first constitution is set out in new schedule 1—on page 22 of the bill, to help out. To support this new structure and the operational capability of the trust, this bill removes ministerial—namely, myself as Minister or, rather, the ministerial position—involvement with the trust.

In respect of the land status and protections, issues were raised about removing legislation that deems all land held or acquired by the trust to be Māori freehold land. New section 29, inserted by clause 9 of the bill—page 16 of the bill—provides that the land listed in the new schedule 2 is general land. The key change makes provision for general land that was converted to Māori freehold land on acquisition by the trust—and that is about 29 percent of the total land holdings—to revert back to general land status on commencement of the bill. So this change will provide, again, more flexibility for the trust, and positions it to take hold of a wider variety of economic opportunities that might come its way.

The new provisions do not change the requirement of the trust board to act in accordance with the trust’s purpose and to undertake the prescribed function of the trust. That is really important. It is important to note, too, that the majority of the trust property—that is, over two-thirds of it—will not be converted back to general land through the bill. So that is dealing with the issue about general land.

I turn to issues about jurisdiction, and that was raised, I think, by the member Meka Whaitiri’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). Certainly, concerns were raised about the risks of limiting the Māori Land Court jurisdiction and losing its protections. Specific concerns included cost implications for High Court filing and the loss of the Māori Land Court expertise. I can say that new section 5 inserted by clause 9, on page 6 of the bill, provides that the trust board will be accountable to its beneficiaries under its constitution and will continue to be accountable under the Trustee Act 1956 and the amended Māori Purposes Act 1991. But, for clarity, the bill gives the High Court “jurisdiction to determine any dispute relating to the administration and governance of the trust.” So that is new section 5(2), if you like.

Following on from that, I need to say to the member, Meka Whaitiri, it is appropriate for the High Court to have jurisdiction over any dispute relating to administration and governance of the trust because the trust was not established under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act in 1993. That is important, to say that it was set up under that regime.

If I can just say that there were some concerns raised about the consultation—and I can say that from the information I have, consultation started back in 2006 with more consultation in 2008, July 2013, and November 2013, and that a beneficiary-elected working party assisted the trust. So, in a sense, it is my belief that there has been full consultation with the trust.

Finally, the interface with Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill—it was queried as to why the bill and te ture whenua Māori reforms are separate. Collective land holdings in the proposed Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill and the approach to general land in the Māori Purposes Bill were contrasted. It was also stated that the bill should not be advanced prior to te ture whenua reforms. I need to say that the two bills have always been separate and deal with absolutely separate issues. The Māori Purposes Bill relates to a private trust with a particular track record on economic development, and once the Māori Purposes Bill is enacted, Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill will need to address consequential amendments.

I will not go over the Māori Television one, because I think that is just straight out and out. The fact is that there is going to be an entity that is going to stop, and this is about dealing with that.

In respect of Supplementary Order Paper 233 dealing with Te Rarawa, again, that was about dealing with an administrative detail that actually has not been dealt with and, basically, Te Rarawa has been disadvantaged because of that. That was about trying to fix that up.

I want to turn to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and the points raised by Marama Davidson. An amendment to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 is sought in SOP 232 to remove an inequitable financial reporting requirement for Māori incorporations, and I will try to explain. The financial reporting requirements for Māori incorporations prescribed under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 were amended by the Financial Reporting (Amendments to Other Enactments) Act 2013. All Māori incorporations are now required to be audited to comply with generally accepted accounting practice, and I understand the acronym is GAAP. This is a very high financial reporting standard for many incorporations, which creates additional cost. It creates an inequity with companies, as only large companies are required to comply with these standards under the Companies Act 1993. It also creates a significantly higher reporting burden for Māori incorporations compared with other Māori land entities. A legislative amendment is proposed to section 276A of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993—the old Act—that will limit the GAAP of financial reporting requirements to large Māori incorporations. Under this approach—and here is the key—Māori incorporations that have a total revenue valued over $10 million in each of the 2 preceding financial years will continue to be required to meet the GAAP requirements, and, therefore, they come under some financial burden. Māori incorporations that have less than a total revenue of $10 million in each of the 2 preceding financial years will be required to prepare financial statements that provide a full, true, and complete account of the transactions and financial position of the incorporation. So for those entities, it will be up to the shareholders to determine whether an audit is required. The solution is urgently required because Māori incorporations are at risk of non-compliance for the financial years that ended in 2015 and 2016. Accountants and auditors are also at risk of not complying with their professional responsibilities and obligations as members of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.

So this proposed Supplementary Order Paper is about dealing with the financial years beginning on and after these provisions come into force. It is about dealing with that. That is the background to it. That is how we got here, and it is because those incorporations are going to be lumbered—and are lumbered right now, unless we fix it up—with a larger financial burden. It is through no fault of their own. It was simply that it was overlooked in the past, and this is an attempt to fix it.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Tiamana, tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātau katoa. Ā, e ngā uri o te rangatira nei, Wī Pere, kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. Kei te mihi i runga i ō mātou tohetohe mō tō koutou pire, Wī Pere bill. Kei te tautoko Te Pāti Reipa i tēnei pire, nō reirā, tēnā tātau katoa.

[Salutations, Mr Chairman, and thank you. I acknowledge us all, members of this House. So to you the relatives of this esteemed person, Wī Pere, I acknowledge, applaud, and commend you collectively. I acknowledge you on top of our differences of views in regards to your Wī Pere bill. The Labour Party supports this bill, so well done to all of us.]

Labour supports the Wī Pere part of this omnibus bill. It is unfortunate, in all honesty, that we have—and I acknowledge the Minister for Māori Development’s acknowledgment—three Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that came to the Table 15 minutes before question time. That then opens a whole other kettle of fish. But I want to focus on Part 1 of the bill, and I want to have the opportunity to talk specifically to my SOP, SOP 205.

The best way I can describe the rationale behind my SOP is that it tables one of the significant contributions to the Māori Affairs Committee hearing. It is only three pages long, but I think it is important that all members hear this particular submitter, a descendant of Wī Pere. It goes like this: “1. This submission is from Robyn Mere Rauna of Te Aitanga A Mahaki, Rongowhakaata & Ngai Tāmanuhiri. 2. He mokopuna ahau a Wi Pere. Wi Pere was Eastern Māori District Member of Parliament from 1884-1887, member of the House of Representatives from 1884-1887 and 1894-1905 and a member of the Legislative Council from 1907-1912. 3. I am a lineal descendant of Wiremu Pere and Arapera o Te Rangi Tautahi through their son Moanaroa Pere and his wife Riria Kaihote Winiata. From Moanaroa Pere and Riria Kaihote Winiata my great grandmother Teria Pere was born. She married Tame Ihimaera, and they had my grandmother Meritaiakupe Smiler. My grandmother married Hape Rauna, and had my father, Tiopira. My father married my mother Drina Maynard and they had me. 4. My Wi Pere Trust Shareholder ID number is 24563. 5. I am self-employed working in various project roles for the Turanga Iwi of Te Aitanga A Mahaki and Rongowhakaata. I also serve on two boards as a Trustee of the Eastern & Central Community Trust, and Board member of Community Law Aotearoa. I have a law degree and a master’s in business administration both from the University of Waikato. … 7. To summarise, I discuss the issues raised by the Maori Purposes Bill … a. Limited jurisdiction of the Maori Land Court & Access to Justice; b. The potential risk posed to corpus lands;”—and I acknowledge the Minister has addressed this, and the select committee, in protecting or removing the corpus land away from general title—“and c. My proposal for the future.”

I raise this because in Robyn’s submission, the point around ensuring that the governance of the Wī Pere Trust remains with the Māori Land Court is one of access to natural justice and the cost of filing with the High Court. I want to acknowledge the chairman of the Māori Affairs Committee, Tutehounuku Korako, who acknowledged that, perhaps, under this bill you will not get many filing claims with the High Court. If that is the case, why have we got it in this bill? Why have we got the High Court in there, if we do not expect them to be lodging any claims with the High Court?

Robyn then goes on to the Māori Land Court, where she says that it “should be for the preferred judiciary to determine any dispute relating to the administration and governance of the trust.”—again, because of the Māori customary expertise of the Māori Land Court, where the High Court does not have that. Of course, she raises the issue around cost. What is also interesting is that she talks about her tipuna Wī Pere. She says that he was “a staunch advocate for nga mea Maori. His vision to establish our [whānau] trust was born out of a need to protect our collective whanau interests and our ancestral lands. 12. The Maori Land Court is naturally best placed to advise and arbitrate on matters Maori especially as they relate to our whanau, our collective interests, our ancestral lands, our Marae, our papakainga and our urupa. 13. Section 26 of the Bill, states that the High Court will determine who is the lineal descendant of Wi Pere.”—and I want to acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee in acknowledging that that is not the role of the High Court and we have made the necessary adjustment back to the Māori Land Court, in so far as lineal descent of Wī Pere is concerned. “14. Section 35 and 36 severely restricts and limits the powers of the Maori Land Court. I do not understand the rationale for only partially accepting its role but not the whole to include inquiry into the administration and governance of the Trust.”

Robyn goes on to say: “15. I can only assume that it is to restrict and control inquiry into the administration and governance of the Trust as well as a demonstration of the lack of confidence in the Maori Land Court. This concerns me.” This is a lineal descendant with a law degree who is very active in the governance role up in the Gisborne area, and she is saying, on examination of this bill, that she has concern about the role of her tipuna’s trust and the role that the Māori Land Court plays going forward.

As she says, she proposes for the future of the Wī Pere Trust that “a. Changes should be made to the Bill, retaining in full the powers and jurisdiction of the Maori Land Court to inquire into all matters of the Trust, with the exception being investment lands (general title land).” Here I say again, this is a descendant who is not short in understanding bills and legislation and whose heart, in terms of her tipuna, also delves into the fact that land in the Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa area of Gisborne has its own chequered history.

This particular submission that I have referenced in my contribution today is the reason why I have put the SOP forward. We have this particular Government that says that the Māori land tenure in this country is broken. It proposes that it is broken and so we have to fix it. We are talking about the Wī Pere legislation, but you can also align this against Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill. What this Government and, in particular, this Minister for Māori Development are espousing is that the Māori land tenure has got the balance wrong—too much protection; not enough development. They also say that one of the principles around the Māori land system that they are trying to fix is that it is about tino rangatiratanga. Here you have a direct descendant who is saying waiho—leave it with the Māori Land Court.

With all due respect, this is the issue I have in presenting my SOP. I hope I can get the support of this House. This submission is from a direct descendant, with a law degree, who is involved in very strong iwi governance roles in the Tūranga area, who has the history of that area, saying “Waiho. Leave it with the Māori Land Court.” That is my background to my SOP and keeping the status quo of the Māori Land Court having the jurisdiction of the Wī Pere Trust, like I said. This side of the House supports modernising the Wī Pere Trust. We have all visited—many of us have been on the farm. We want to acknowledge the great things that are happening there, but in terms of ensuring that all descendants of Wī Pere can be involved in the running of the organisation, and that if they have to go to the court, their rights are not prohibited because of the cost of going to the High Court. Again, Labour supports the Wī Pere legislation and we want to make that very clear. Kia ora tātou.

Progress to be reported presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill without amendment, progress on the Māori Purposes Bill, and no progress on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill.

Report adopted.

Maiden Statements

Maiden Statements

BARRY COATES (Green): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, e ngā mana, e ngā reo, rau rangatira mā, tēnā koutou. Ngā mihi ki ngā mana whenua o te rohe nei, Te Ātiawa, Taranaki whānui, tēnā koutou. Ngā mihi hoki ki Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Te Pepa Whakaū o Aotearoa. Tēnā koutou katoa.

[Mr Deputy Speaker, I acknowledge you and the authorities, voices, and esteemed ones of a hundredfold. Salutations to you collectively. My acknowledgments to the mandated tribes of this region, Te Ātiawa and Taranaki extensively; greetings to you collectively. My acknowledgments also to the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document of New Zealand. Greetings to you all.]

This kōrero is about who I am, what I believe in, and what I would like to achieve in Parliament. I am very excited by this rather unexpected opportunity. I am proud to be a Green MP and am grateful to the 11 percent of New Zealanders who voted Green at the last election—I will represent you to the best of my ability. I will also represent the aspirations of all New Zealanders. We all have a stake in achieving a fairer, more inclusive, and more sustainable future.

I would like to pay tribute to Kevin Hague, whom I am replacing as a list MP. Kevin brought intellect and dignity to this House. I am looking forward to working with my capable Green Party colleagues, and especially our co-leaders Metiria Turei and James Shaw. Yesterday when I was being sworn in and pledged allegiance to Her Majesty, Metiria asked me whether I meant her. Yes, Metiria, I will honour and obey you.

I am grateful to those who have encouraged me in my journey to become an MP: Jeanette Fitzsimons, Russel Norman, and the late Rod Donald. I come from a line of missionaries, lawyers, and social justice advocates, dating back to the early days of European settlement in Aotearoa: Robert Maunsell, known as Te Manihera, first to translate the Old Testament into Te Reo; Henry Jacobs, the first Dean of the Christchurch Cathedral and founder of Christ’s College; and James Coates, private secretary to Governor Hobson and also Clerk of the first House of Parliament. As an MP 162 years later, I share their aspirations for our unique bicultural nation.

I am an Aucklander by birth. My political beliefs were forged in the late 1970s, which was a time of dissent. I supported campaigns against nuclear warships, the All Blacks’ tour to South Africa, and threats to our native forests, and I marched in support of Māori land rights. I was also attracted by the messages of the Values Party, the forerunner of the Green Party. It was, as Tony Brunt put it, a party to break out of the minimalist, materialistic debates of the old left and right parties.

I am an economist—although, with the reputation of economists these days, I am often reluctant to admit it. My studies focused on non-market impacts—or externalities, to use the economics jargon—for example, how polluters often do not pay for the cost of their pollution; instead, the costs fall on the environment and local people. I was also interested in the distribution of economic benefits and issues of inequality, so I joined the Volunteer Service Abroad to work in Samoa, supporting small-scale economic development. Three years in Samoa kindled a love for the Pacific that remains a touchstone. This is despite calls from the touchline, when I got the ball as full back, of “Fasi palagi”, which means: “Kill the white man.” My rugby coach was the author Albert Wendt, and my ideas on the importance of culturally appropriate forms of development were forged in Samoa.

I returned to New Zealand via an extended sailing journey to do kiwifruit orcharding near Tauranga and corporate work in Taranaki. A 2-year Master’s degree in management at Yale University, in the United States, then opened the door to exciting opportunities. I joined a thinktank that had a dual focus: strategy for leading international businesses and economic development plans for government. Initiatives included science and technology for Ontario, regional development for metropolitan New York, and a manufacturing strategy for Australia. I would like to see these smart approaches used to strengthen regional development in New Zealand and to add value to our low-wage, commodity-dependent economy.

I moved to the UK and joined WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature, and was invited on the British delegation to the momentous Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. That summit signed far-reaching agreements on sustainability, climate change, and biodiversity, but, ultimately, it was also a lost opportunity. George Bush Snr said that the American way of life was not up for negotiation, and there was no strong mechanism for implementation of those agreements. Even so, the following years in the UK were a fertile time for new initiatives. I worked with Jonathon Porritt and others to make sustainability a reality for local government, business, and communities, and with the late Robin Cook on an ethical foreign policy for the UK.

In the mid-1990s I was appointed executive director of the World Development Movement, and led research and advocacy that successfully challenged the exploitation of workers, marketing cigarettes to children, water privatisation, and environmental releases of GMOs. Some leading businesses were committed to take action on these problems, and I helped to develop collaborative initiatives such as the Forest Stewardship Council for timber and the Ethical Trading Initiative on labour rights. I also played a leading role in the emerging ethical investment community.

But there were threats from new international treaties. I chaired the UK campaign that contributed to the defeat of the OECD’s Multilateral Agreement on Investment—MAI—in 1998. It would have given new rights to foreign investors and restricted the rights of Governments to regulate in the public interest. These proposals were again defeated in the World Trade Organization. But, as they say, rust never sleeps. They have resurfaced in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement—the “TPPA”. Over the past year I have been coordinator of It’s Our Future, the campaign against the TPPA in Aotearoa, during a time when we organised one of the biggest marches in a generation, down Queen Street on 4 February this year. Polls show that a majority of New Zealanders oppose the TPPA. We need better alternatives to these unbalanced treaties. Small gains through tariff reductions should not be used as a Trojan horse to allow foreign investors to sue our Government. I look forward to working with other MPs, civil society, and academics to develop better trade and investment policies.

In 2003 I became executive director of Oxfam New Zealand. It was wonderful to return home after 20 years abroad and to work in the Pacific after many years. I am proud of my contribution to delivering practical solutions to people’s needs, including clean water, sanitation, education, and decent livelihoods across the Pacific. Oxfam played a leading role in highlighting the human impacts of climate change. I still recall a personal feeling of vulnerability when experiencing a tropical storm on a sandspit in Vanuatu. I co-chaired the Global Campaign for Climate Action, the TckTckTck campaign, and attended climate summits. After years of negotiation, at last we have the Paris Agreement, but it will not protect our Pacific neighbours unless it is followed by real action, not false solutions like carbon trading. As CEO of Oxfam, I joined with Trade Aid and the newly formed Fair Trade Association to mainstream fair trade, resulting in New Zealand’s becoming the fastest-growing market in the world. Our consumer power can transform the lives of impoverished farmers.

We can also act politically. A decade ago, Nelson Mandela launched the campaign to combat global poverty. I chaired the Make Poverty History Aotearoa campaign with the message that poverty is not inevitable. I have seen people in deep poverty claiming their rights and building better lives in the settlements of Soweto, Dalit villages in Bihar state, and Muslim minorities in Gansu province. More people need these opportunities. It is a travesty that around 800 million people live in extreme poverty in the 21st century. I commend the work of New Zealand NGOs and agencies in humanitarian crises. I have seen dedicated, capable people working in near-impossible situations, like providing food, water, and shelter to 460,000 people in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.

In 2014 I stepped down from Oxfam to stand for the Green Party. Our campaign in Mt Roskill significantly increased the Green Party vote, thanks to the people of that diverse and vibrant electorate. After narrowly missing out on a seat in Parliament, I used my business and economics experience to develop a sustainability programme at the University of Auckland business school. The case for sustainable business is compelling, and innovative New Zealand companies large and small are creating exciting new opportunities.

So it is with this experience, from here and abroad, across different issues and sectors, that I come to this House. The golden thread through my career has been a passion for sustainability and social justice. It has led me to the Green Party and now into this House. I have achieved change from outside politics, and now I want to achieve change from within the political system. I feel a strong sense of urgency. We have to step up, urgently, to meet the major challenges facing our people and this planet. The impacts of climate change are occurring at a pace much faster than predicted by climate models. We face the prospect of a humanitarian crisis on a massive scale—extinction of biodiversity and natural disasters that threaten us all. Inequality has risen to unprecedented levels. The rich are getting even richer while a growing precariat struggles with low incomes and high housing costs. People are feeling alienated from politics and from the power structures that they see as unaccountable.

So what about us in New Zealand? Our Government has been tinkering at the edges, doing just enough to paper over the emerging crises, desperately trying to maintain the illusion that everything is fine—all headlines and no substance. The reality is that we are failing to protect our environment. Like most New Zealanders, I am passionate about our rich environmental heritage. It is the envy of the world, with forests rich in biodiversity, soaring mountains, fast-flowing rivers, sandy beaches, and diverse marine life. But we are squandering this inheritance, allowing irreversible damage in the name of economic growth at all costs. Our rivers are a disgrace, we are losing species at a rapid rate, and greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise. As kaitiaki of our natural world, we are failing.

We are also leaving too many people behind. I was brought up to be proud of our egalitarian values and our role in pioneering progressive policies on gender equality, education, and healthcare, but I was shocked when returning to New Zealand after two decades abroad to find a divided society with high levels of inequality and serious deprivation. We are failing a generation of children—to pretend that we cannot measure the extent of their deprivation is no excuse—and we are failing to build an economy that delivers a decent standard of living for all New Zealanders. We have remained in a speculative, resource-exploiting bubble for too long. A fallacy has taken hold that economic growth is all the same, and so our system has lavishly rewarded the financiers, the traders, the unscrupulous, and those who are wealthy—failing our environment, failing our children, and failing to build a stronger economy. We can, and must, do better.

We could be living in towns and cities that have real transport options—frequent trains, light rail, and buses—not just more and more congested roads. As a cyclist, I have seen the huge increase in the number of people on bikes when there are safe cycleways. We could be providing affordable housing, not a patchwork response, as part of a Government commitment to ensure warm, dry, and affordable homes for all. We could be able to swim in our rivers and provide proper protection for our wild places. With the right choices, we can enjoy a better environment, a better quality of life, and a smart economy—win, win, win.

We could be coming together around a goal to end poverty and deprivation. This is a target that New Zealand has already signed up to as part of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We need to make it a reality in New Zealand. An immediate priority is investment in primary healthcare and low-decile schools in order to end the social divide that results in poor health and poor educational outcomes, particularly for Māori and Pasifika children. We need decent work that pays a living wage, and support for community-driven initiatives that empower people and enable them to live productive lives. And we need to build on the successful model of universal benefits for the elderly, to provide proper social protection for all in society. These changes are possible. It is in all of our interests to end poverty, reduce inequality, and give our children a decent start in life—win, win, win.

Underlying these changes must be a smarter, modern economy. Economic sustainability starts with getting the prices right, taxing what we do not want—like pollution, property speculation, and finite resource use—rather than things we want more of, like productive work. It means support for the non-market benefits, like arts and culture, conservation, and caring for others. It means strengthening small businesses, which are the foundation of our economy, and ensuring that their competitors—the multinationals—compete fairly and actually pay taxes. Economic sustainability also means adding value to our commodity production. Food is core business for New Zealand. We can build a high-value food sector on the foundations of GM-free agriculture; regulation of hormones, pesticides, and antibiotics; strong animal welfare; and credible organic standards. Restoring our “clean, green” reputation can give our exporters a vital edge, attract tourists and investors, and make us all proud to be New Zealanders. Sustainable economics—win, win, win.

Achieving these solutions needs a fundamental change in Government policy, but it also needs better politics. I will take every opportunity to support changes to make this House more open, more accountable, and more effective in serving the people of New Zealand. We need to restore people’s trust in this Parliament and in its institutions. So my message to all of you in this House is that I come to work with you—collaboratively, where that is possible—for the good of our country. I am here to contribute to making positive change, not to play politics. I will speak out strongly, but with the aim of developing better solutions. And our focus must be on actions, not just on words. As the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst said: “The world will little note or long remember what we say here, but can never forget what we did here.”

So this is my kōrero. This is who I am, what I have done, the skills I bring, and the values I hold. These values will be my guide as I represent the people of New Zealand in this House.

Thank you to my family members and friends who are here with me today, especially to my wonderful wife, Ros, and my beautiful daughters, May and Frances. I just wish my parents had lived to be here today. To all those watching or reading this speech, please give me feedback as I work to turn these goals into practical policies. Hold me to account as your representative, but also help me on this journey. Change will come when people no longer accept the world as it but see the possibilities for a better future. I am here to help achieve the political changes that will take us forward together as a more sustainable, just, and inclusive nation. Nō reira rā, kia ora koutou ngā mema Pāremata huri noa i tēnei Whare, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[So my thanks to you members of Parliament throughout this House, acknowledgments, salutations, and good tidings to you and to us all.]

[Applause]

Sitting suspended from 6.05 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Bills

Māori Purposes Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed.

Part 1 Amendments to Māori Purposes (Wi Pere Trust) Act 1991 (continued)

Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development): I move, That the Committee report progress and move to consider the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill.

Progress to be reported presently.

Bills

Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill

In Committee

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave that all debates on this bill be taken as one question and voted on separately.

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

Parts 1 and 2, schedules 1 to 3, and clauses 1 to 3

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): It is a pleasure to speak on the Committee stage of this Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. Although the subject matter may sound quite complicated to people—

Hon Member: To some.

RINO TIRIKATENE: —to some—but, actually, when you strip it back this legislation is an essential part of our primary industries.

When folks think of pest eradication, our horticultural industries, definitely our agricultural industries, and all those substances that are used by farmers to increase their production in whatever form that those substances may take, they are very important. It is a massive industry, obviously, because it supports our food production industries, primarily, and our horticultural and forestry industries. So agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines are vital, and it was a pleasure considering this bill.

Essentially, when you break it all down, this bill is about increasing data-protection periods. It is about increasing the data protection for those companies that go through the significant investment in R & D to come up with these solutions for, for instance, our pipfruit industries or our farming industries. Whether it is dairy, sheep, or beef, we want to encourage those industries to do further innovation. As a result of that, the Primary Production Committee unanimously agreed, after considering quite a number of submissions—I think there were nine in total, and then about five submitters came in to see us—that we extend the data-protection period for the different range of applications that are made to the Ministry for Primary Industries by these particular companies for the use of their agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines.

Just by way of example, for innovative trade products the data-protection period has been extended from 5 years to 10 years. In the initial bill it was 8 years, but 10 years was considered a fair period to allow the companies to recoup their investment but also to not unduly penalise the consumer for an extended period beyond 10 years. So that was a fair protected period.

Then we have also got periods for new uses for innovative trade products. That might, for instance, be the case where a particular product is used on, say, pipfruit, and it might then be extended to some other different variety, another use, or another fruit. For going through that application the period of data protection has been extended to 10 years as well. That goes through for not only innovative products but also non-innovative products. For new uses of non-innovative trade products, again, there is an extended period for data protection.

I guess the rationale behind the extended periods is to promote innovation. It is to encourage those companies to look for a solution, whether it might be a drench or an application that is made for goat dairy. For instance, there is no intestinal veterinary compound for dairy goats. So to encourage companies to actually provide that solution, rather than rely on the farmer to play around with trying to create their own home-made remedy—the extra data-protection period encourages those companies to invest and to provide wider application, new uses, for their compounds and their products. We do want to encourage that.

We listened in the select committee. We did hear loud and clear that extending the period of protection will not create monopolies, but it will encourage more innovation and investment from those companies to provide a wider range of solutions and new uses, which is what we want. We want to broaden our base. We want to broaden our productive sectors, our primary industries, and if we can come up with these innovative products that can help increase productivity and the like, then that is good for “New Zealand Inc.”. We do support this bill, and I do commend it at this Committee stage. Thank you.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I am happy to take a short call on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill and follow on from my colleague Rino Tirikatene. Labour supports this bill. As he eloquently outlined—and maybe members of the actual select committee, the Primary Production Committee, can correct us if we are wrong—the aim of the bill is to extend data protection for uses of innovative products and for non-innovative products. I think, in the original Act, it was 3 years; in this bill we are looking at extending it to 5 years and, in some areas, 8 years. This is a bill that very clearly is an enabler to our food system in Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to make sure that products that are brought in do not jeopardise our existing food system in this country, but also we want to ensure that we are staying competitive, particularly with international competitors in the market that we are trying to achieve.

Essentially, the objective of the bill is to encourage businesses that own trade name products to register new trade name products and to register more uses for existing trade name products. I understand that, looking through the report of the select committee, and I want to acknowledge the work of the Primary Production Committee. It is one of the few committees where I think it is really clear that you are either a farmer or you are not, and you pull up your sleeves and you get on with it. This is another acknowledgment of the work that the select committee did. There were nine submitters, and clearly the committee has debated around getting, again, the balance right of ensuring that you have got good protection around any innovative projects that are coming to the market as well as encouraging competition, because you do not want to end up creating a monopoly for any of these producers of these particular products that we are talking about here. So I just wanted to touch briefly on those.

The Government set up a working group back in 2008 to review the data-protection regime. Covec, an independent economic research group, was commissioned to, I guess, inform Parliament members on making sure that we, obviously, get the balance right, and to examine the effects of the current New Zealand data-protection rules for agricultural compounds on the market. Its findings informed us of the problems as well as the regulatory options. I note that Federated Farmers wanted more narrow data-protection and a short protection period to support competition and low cost, but I do believe that the select committee members took that on board and felt that they had the right mix to ensure that the bill allows for competition as well as protecting, obviously, our food biosecurity in this country.

Obviously, there are two parts in this bill. Clauses 4 to 7—I see that the committee has worked very hard, inserting new clauses 4A and 4B, which are around the assessment of the trade name products and provisional registration respectively, and, of course, in clause 6 of Part 1, where we talk about replacing the existing Part 6, which concerns the protection of confidential information about trade name products.

I stand in support of this bill, and it is good to see our colleague Damien O’Connor, our spokesman for primary industries, here. I am sure he will make light of this contribution—other than to say that we support it. It is something that is of value to our food production system in Aotearoa New Zealand. We believe that we have got the right balance, and we commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): As my colleague Meka Whaitiri says, we support the bill, and we do see the value in it proceeding. The Primary Production Committee, under the reasonable chairing of Mr McKelvie over there, did, I think, a very fair job in working through all the issues. It did seem kind of technical, and we could repeat them here for the Committee and for the country, but people would probably go to sleep rather quickly, I think. It basically came down to commercial tensions between those who are developing new ideas for old products and developing new products, and how much protection we should give to them in their innovation, or in their creation, I guess, of new products.

New Zealand is an agricultural nation and we depend upon agricultural compounds to protect our crops and upon veterinary medicines to look after our animals. I read an interesting statistic today, saying that up to 50 percent of the production through the world is destroyed through pest and diseases. So, although we are striving to feed the world, 50 percent of what we grow is wasted, and then, of that which we produce, a third again is wasted. The world can produce enough food if we, in fact, use the proper products to protect crops from diseases, and protect animals from diseases as well, but then we have got to actually do some more work after the production.

I digress a little. Saying that, the balance that we were trying to achieve here was that those companies that invest money in new products needed to have up to 8 years guaranteed protection for the intellectual property, but for those who took innovation—that is, they saw an existing product for a crop, and they thought “We could use that on another crop. We will do the research and development.”—they too are protected through the use of that information in getting that product certified.

Certification of these products is absolutely essential if we are to continue to maintain our reputation of producing the finest quality food in the world, free of residues, safe to eat, and, indeed, being the highest quality. That is done through proper application of these compounds at the right time and at the right rates. As a part-time—or hopeful—boysenberry grower and dabbling a little in horticulture, I understand full well the importance of what we are passing here, to ensure that nothing that someone could put on their crops could put a residue in the crop that might then be identified in a foreign market and lead to us being shut out of it.

To come back to the issue: in my view, the guts of it is adequate protection for the companies of their intellectual property to ensure that in this relatively small market of ours, companies will continue to innovate and do the development.

On the other side was the argument from some farmers—and, traditionally, farmers have always wanted the cheapest possible import costs, because we do not have subsidies, and our survival depends upon our ability as primary producers to get our products to market, and to make enough money along the way to ensure that it is a sustainable production system. To come back to the point, we do not want to, in protecting the intellectual property for the companies—and we do see it in some areas of pharmaceuticals, and in other areas where companies will invest money and then seek to reap, I guess, not just profits but super-profits back for that innovation. We need to keep a balance between a fair return on their investment, keeping the cost for the producer down at a viable level but encouraging, of course, innovation.

I think the select committee, in general, has done a good job. I am not going to go through the technical parts of this—as I say, I think people are probably not that interested—but I know that the industry and farmers and the production system are looking to have this legislation passed, which is why Labour is supporting it, is supporting the Government, and is supporting the select committee and all the good work that we have done to move it forward. I will leave it to other speakers to perhaps focus on different, more technical issues. I do not see the need to do this, and I am happy to leave it to my New Zealand First colleague. Kia ora.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora. I will take a short call on behalf of my colleague Richard Prosser, who is a member of the Primary Production Committee and who spoke on this bill at the first reading and the second reading. It was interesting with the previous speaker, Damien O’Connor—the talk about balance. It certainly has been the topic for the New Zealand First caucus with this particular piece of legislation—around balance. One of the things that has been pointed out is the balance between what the public should be able to know—what is inside what is being sprayed upon their food—and the protection for an innovator for a company to develop a product and have the protection for a certain period of time around the chemical make-up inside the product. The balance of protection of New Zealand’s reputation, to make sure that what is being sprayed upon food products or agricultural products, or being used with regard to veterinary medicines, is not going to negatively impact when, at the end of 8 years, the ingredients inside these innovative products become known—

Todd Barclay: 10 years.

TRACEY MARTIN: —so therein lies the tension. Well, that is interesting: the phrase “10 years”. If I look at the bill, it says “enable the period to be extended to a maximum of 8 years”. I think you might be thinking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which, again, is an interesting conversation about balance, and perhaps that is a conversation that we can have at a later date. With regard to this particular piece of legislation, it has been that conversation of balance: the protection of the rights of an innovator over the rights of people to know what they have got on their food, what is being sprayed, and so on and so forth.

New Zealand First is actually—we do not think this bill is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we will be supporting it because Mr Prosser has assured the caucus that, in his view, the tension has been played out and the balance is there. At this stage the New Zealand First caucus will continue to support the bill, as we have done up to this point. However, I wanted to mark the concerns of some members of the caucus. It was interesting—Mr O’Connor said that possibly there is not enough interest out in the general public around the technicalities of this bill, and some of the science and so on and so forth that has been placed forward with submissions. I think he might find that there is more interest than he might want to believe, with regard to what is going to happen next.

But, as I say, at this stage, from the New Zealand First perspective, although the bill is not perfect, we think that on measure the balance has been struck, so we will be supporting the bill at this moment. Kia ora.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): Look, it is a pleasure to take a quick call in this Committee stage on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. Labour supports the bill, and I would like to make a couple of comments from my perspective, having the innovation portfolio.

New Zealand is a primary sector - based economy. About 57 percent of all research and development (R and D) undertaken in New Zealand is linked to the primary sector or takes place within the primary sector. This bill is germane to that process because it extends patent life for non-innovative new products by up to 3 years, which is in addition to the 5 years’ additional data protection for innovative products that they have access to on top of their 20-year patents. So this bill puts us right in the middle of a well-understood continuum between ease of access to intellectual property on the one hand and the ability to generate a long-term, sustainable return from the investment that is made in that property. This is a bipartisan, or largely bipartisan, approach in this House to the bill—[Interruption]—reflecting, as it does, the fact that you should always have your mobile phone turned off when in the House, or at least on silent. Caught! I think that is probably a shout at the next caucus meeting—

Carmel Sepuloni: Morning tea.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —or morning tea, or something like that, and I think all caucuses have their rules. Certainly we do in select committees.

But, anyway, back to the conundrum—the well-known and well-tried conundrum of patent life versus innovation. In most sectors New Zealand’s economic structure is characterised by large numbers of small companies—small and medium sized enterprises. That is relevant because small companies typically do not have lots of capital to invest in R and D. They have shallow pockets. They need quick access to innovation, but they do not have the resources to earn hard intellectual property rights like patents for a long term. So a patent regime that was entirely composed of long-term, long-life, hard-to-get patents probably would not serve New Zealand well because our economy is overwhelmingly driven by small and medium sized enterprises. However, in the primary sector we have more of a mix. Obviously, we have the world’s largest single trader of dairy products, we have a number of large meat companies, we have some very substantial wool enterprises, and in the forestry sector—albeit too few—we have a number of forestry processes and some significant growing and cutting right operations. So we have mixed interests, and that is reflected in the mixed approach that is taken to this bill.

If you take a golfing analogy, for the folks out there, the chip shots on to the green—there is a slope on the green, so it is aimed just uphill of the hole. It is probably about right, and that is why we are supporting it. But we are going to watch, we are going to monitor this space, and we are going to see how the patent performance in New Zealand goes around agricultural compounds and chemicals—how the price to the farmer changes with the patent life. We do not want to see companies gouging, and we do want to see improved patent performance in our primary sector.

There are a number of things that I probably just need to touch on around the consultation that went into this bill. There was a working group established in 2008 to review the data-protection regime. It commissioned Covec Ltd. Covec is a pretty good outfit—copies of the reports here. It has done a lot of work in the ICT sector that, when I was Minister, I had quite a high regard for, and at first glance the report seems to be a pretty sound one. That was picked up by officials—the Covec report published in 2009. The Government showed its usual alacrity. In fact, people outside who might be concerned about things like—I do not know—the housing crisis might say: “Gosh, look how fast the National Government has moved on agricultural compounds. It’s in the process of legislating for this report, which was published only in 2009. Why can’t they do the same with our housing markets?”. Well, that would be a fair comment. In the middle of a rampant housing crisis that is completely beggaring the family budgets of half of New Zealand, here we are taking nearly a decade to pass something about agricultural compounds.

However, let us not get too overburdened by the bigger picture. What counts is that we are doing something here that is right. As I say, it is a chip shot into an uphill green, halfway between long-life patents, which are hard to get and expensive and that companies cannot afford but that do earn a sustainable return, and the green that is small and medium sized enterprises having access enough to the process—

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my absolute pleasure to be given the opportunity by the whips to take a call on this piece of legislation.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): It was me who gave you the call.

Dr MEGAN WOODS: No, no, but to be asked, Mr Chairman—the honour. But, in all seriousness, this is an important piece of legislation, and it does allow me to think back to my former life before I entered this Chamber and became an MP, when questions around the protections within our agricultural sector were absolutely vital. The ability for the New Zealand agricultural and horticultural sector to innovate does require the ability to protect some of the knowledge and some of the science that sits behind the innovations that occur.

Through the course of this legislation my colleagues have talked about the fact that this has been a long time brewing. This was a report that was produced in 2008, so you could say there has been ample time for the considerations that were contained in the report. What it comes down to is whether there was enough time given for companies to have intellectual property protections over what they have created, in order to give the incentives to innovate.

But one of the most interesting aspects of this legislation for me is around the new use reformulations, and an example that has been worked through by some of the media during the passage of this bill is around fodder beet and fodder brassica. To many people, this will sound like a very technical split, but in order to use some of the agrichemicals on fodder beet crops rather than fodder brassica crops, there would have to be a new use reformulation, which would cost the company a huge amount of money. It is important that we have the ability to nimbly experiment with different forms and ways of feeding cattle as we look to combat climate change. As we look beyond pasture as a way of dairying, we look to some of the fodder beets and fodder brassicas in the respect that it could be a way in which we decrease methane within our farming systems. There are also the high-value nutraceutical companies, which in many ways will just go through and do a screening of many different cultivars and the germplasm of particular varietals to have a look at what has the highest nutritional content. It is absolutely critical for New Zealand’s nutraceutical industry to be able to move in this way.

What we often think of when we think about the protection of intellectual property is our patents. The reality in New Zealand, however, where so much of our intellectual property is not protected by patent law, is that it is protected by plant varietal rights or it is protected under measures such as this for agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines, because that is where so much of New Zealand’s innovation rests. We invest so much in that sector and we have so many scientists who do perform at a very high level and who create a huge amount of value for our economy, and it is vital that we put the right incentives in place for that innovation to be able to occur.

But, like with everything, there has to be limits. We have to make sure that the knowledge can get out there and that it does not get locked up for ever, because research is something that is meant to be a collaborative process. It is meant to be about a college of individuals working together for the betterment of knowledge and what we know as a society. So this bill seeks to strike that balance between allowing companies the incentives they need to be able to innovate and also allowing a very strong agricultural science base in this country to flourish.

It has been a great honour to be able to take a call on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill, and I am thankful for my opportunity to contribute to this debate.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): It is not often that we have a sexy bill such as this that comes up that people are dying to speak on! I note that my colleagues are saying that this bill provides a balance between encouraging competition in the innovative compound market and encouraging registration of innovative products. I also note that this will give our primary sector productivity an internationally competitive edge, and that is where I want to ask Minister Goodhew a couple of questions. We have Realm countries that are part of the Pacific: Niue, Tokelau, and the Cook Islands. I want to ask the Minister, does this bill apply to these countries? Does this new legislation apply to these countries? If so, I then want to raise the concerns that I have, because if we are providing an additional 3 years of protection to innovative—

Meka Whaitiri: Trademarks.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: —trademarks for new compound, my question is, is there protection for Pacific intelligence when it comes to the use of certain compounds, certain medicine, or certain plants? Soursop, for example, and the use of papaya has international recognition and that is used freely by the Pacific, so I am asking the Minister whether she is prepared to shine some light on, firstly, whether this bill applies to those Realm countries, and, secondly, what protection do those countries have in terms of their intellectual property? The islands use these plants and fruits for free. Here we are looking at protecting the trademarks of compounds that have been produced for profit. That is why we are extending the protection from 5 to 8 years for new innovative findings. But I want to know, does that then extend to the Pacific?

In the Pacific, papaya is used regularly by the Cook Islands people. I understand that the leaves and the fruit, if boiled, provide a certain relief to people who have cancer. Soursop—and there is material on the international market—is also used by local medicine people. That is offered for free. There is no money made by the people who use this. But here we are looking at protecting the rights of certain companies to come up with new innovative design—whatever. But this is about protecting their profit margins. It is about protecting their rights to be able to sell this on the international market.

Ian McKelvie: It’s not about protecting their profit.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: OK. Well, then, correct me. How does this apply to the Pacific? How does it apply to intellectual property that is owned by the Pacific people, practised by the Pacific people, and is freely available and it has no protection whatsoever? [Interruption] I hope the Minister can do.

I am not on the Primary Production Committee, but I have been officially appointed tonight to speak on this. I did not want to speak on it, but I was asked to speak on it and I am delighted with the opportunity, so I can now ask the Minister. I was dying to get on that select committee. I put my hand up five or six times to the whips to get on the select committee. But now that I have got this opportunity, will the Minister take the opportunity to enlighten this Committee—particularly, me from the Pacific, and there were at least nine others on all sides of the House who would be interested in how this bill would protect the intellectual property that is not recorded anywhere in the Pacific but is freely distributed for the sake of providing well-being and health protection to a range of people in the Pacific. Will that be protected under this legislation? And what happens if nobody comes forth from the Pacific to protect that intellectual property? Will it be recognised?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): In spite of saying in my first speech that I was not going to be going into the area of technical detail, I will. But before I get into that area, can I just say that basically, in summary, and I failed to say it in my first speech, this bill is about protecting us from ourselves, because Kiwis are great at No. 8 fencing wire issues—that is that innovation and using things for a purpose they were never intended for, but finding a way of utilising them in a very smart way.

Kiwis have always done that in taking a spray or a chemical product and using it somewhere else. I know it has happened, unfortunately, and, in fact, it has been identified where sprays for pests on plants have been applied to cattle because farmers have thought: “Well, that’s a very smart way of dealing with the lice.” So, occasionally, the residues have turned up. Kiwis have always done that; we do not want to encourage it. But this bill actually allows for innovation, but then allows for the systems to be in place where companies have done this to identify and track it properly.

Can I get into more technical areas. The Green Party has an amendment that it is going to table in the Committee and Labour will support it. It is one in which the Greens have identified the issue where the core component in any agricultural compound is tested and trialled, the intellectual property comes with the application, and it is assessed. What the Greens have maintained—and there is some truth in this—is that the other agents that might be mixed in the normal application of that should be tested as a combined compound and we should know exactly what the impacts might be. For example, a wetting agent that I use when applying sprays is, in fact, in some ways more toxic than the spray itself. I do not know how that operates on the plant. Obviously, it assists with the core component of the spray being taken in by the plant, but whether that results in a residue or some other unintended consequence is not always fully tested. That is, I guess, the proposition being put forward by the Green Party.

I think Labour considers it a reasonable question—that if there is a new compound, all the components of that are properly tested. We cannot guarantee that at the moment because the active product—the one that actually carries out the work of the compound in getting rid of the plant or pest or disease or whatever—is the only thing that we test because it seems to be the toxic one or the effective one. There are many other compounds put into that that assist with the uptake or the transfer within the plants of that toxic material, and, indeed, if it does need to be tested and identified then Labour supports the Greens in saying: “Well, why not actually ask the question?”. I do not think it is going to undermine in any way what we are trying to do here, which is to protect intellectual property and protect the wisdom gained in innovative use, or off-label use, as it is called here.

So I hope Minister Goodhew—and I know she is giving consideration to this. It is something that was discussed briefly. The Greens have raised it in the Primary Production Committee. We did not get into too much detail on it because the select committee members, I guess, like Parliament and like the rest of New Zealand—their eyes probably start to glaze over when you get into these highly technical areas of chemistry and biology. We did that at school and a few of us at university for a while, some unsuccessfully, but nonetheless they are highly technical areas. But most New Zealanders who buy food at the supermarket and most people who buy New Zealand products offshore trust us to have a robust system in place.

I think that what we are passing tonight will ensure a robust system, and a fine balance between commercial tension and keeping the price of products down, but ensure a fair return on the investment for the people who are creating or utilising safe products that, as I say, worldwide are trying to address the 50 percent of total world production that is lost because of plants, diseases, and unwanted organisms that get in and infiltrate some of the crops that we grow around the world. It is not an insignificant issue that we are trying to address, but we are just putting in the boundaries of this intellectual property protection for New Zealand, and other countries will have different regimes.

STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): As I rise to speak to the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill, I recall the questions I asked the Minister for the Environment this afternoon in question time around some of the issues with some of the ingredients in some of the pesticides. Among these ingredients, one has got the name polyethoxylated tallow amine—it is much easier to say POEA. POEA, the Minister’s office tells me, is in 69 of 91 glyphosate-based herbicides in this country, but our community does not know which ones. This bill, unfortunately, wraps that up, potentially, even more.

Instead of having 5 years when formulations and the data around them have some data-protection and civil society cannot have access to that, relying on the regulators only, this bill extends that out to 10 years—10 years when civil society, including those people in our environmental organisations, in our food safety-type organisations, and individuals themselves who have the aptitude and interest to get in to look at these things, cannot get that. The bill says: “Hey, we rely on our EPA, we rely on the Ministry for Primary Industries, to give us that good decision around the safety of these things.” Well, as you heard today, the Minister says he has got full faith in the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), full faith in the agencies to be getting these decisions right, and he does not intend to have POEA pulled from use in New Zealand. In fact, he was saying that we need to have more pesticides.

POEA is even more toxic than glyphosate, the principal ingredient, in glyphosate-based herbicides, and it is in 69 of them. It is in more than 75 percent of glyphosate-based herbicides in this country, and this bill is gearing up to make it even harder for the community to know which ones. I am hoping for the Minister to tell me how the community is to find out which ones have POEA in them when this Government does not appear to want to remove that from the streets and parks and the food systems of this country, even though the European Commission has recommended that all EU States remove it—several have already, and others are in train to. Why can we not have that in New Zealand? Why can members of our community not even make the decision to say: “I’m not going to use that product because this stuff is in it and we know that it is exceptionally toxic.”?

If we want to rely on the regulators—well, I think we need to reconsider that. That is all the more reason why the community must have access to full data. I will use as an example the EPA coming to councils to ask them what the issue is with these glyphosate-based herbicides that they are hearing about, which the Greens and other community groups are campaigning on to get them out their food systems, out of their streets, out of their children’s playgrounds, and out of the parks. So what does it do? The EPA commissioned someone to review the finding of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that glyphosate was probably carcinogenic—“Review that.” So this one individual goes out to review it—[Bell rung] Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): I will certainly give the next call to the speaker. I want him to connect more closely the content of his speech to the current bill that is before the Committee and under discussion around innovation. Thank you.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Getting dangerously like clever, Mr Chairman.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): I will take that cautionary note on the chin.

STEFFAN BROWNING: Thank you, Mr Chair. This is relevant to the bill in that there is an amendment coming, and I will speak to that more individually, but what we are talking about here is how this bill applies and why it should not be 10 years of data protection. I am saying it should not be 10 years of data protection because, for one, our regulators are not checking out the safety enough for our community to be safe.

I am using that story, that example, which is current—it is very recent—to show why our regulators are failing us and why we must go back down to having no more than 5 years of data protection. That is because that single reviewer whom the EPA decided was going to be able to find against 17 focused toxicologists from IARC for the World Health Organization (WHO). And what did it do? It went looking at the European Food Safety Authority’s outputs, it looked at another group called the Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR), the joint pesticides group of the WHO, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and it used the data—or the decisions—that they had used to break down what those 17 toxicologists had found.

This information—I need to go on with it—does reflect on the data protection. So it referred to the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, which actually says the testing of formulations should not be used for toxicological evaluation of active substances because co-formulants may extensively alter the outcome. So it is saying: “Don’t look at the full formulation; just look at a principal ingredient.” These guys are not looking after the safety of their communities, and nor is our reviewer when they go using that as an example.

The other review that the reviewer was told to do by the EPA was to look at the European Food Safety Authority. The European Food Safety Authority concluded that the genotoxic potential of such complete formulations should be further assessed. It actually acknowledged that there might be risk around carcinogenicity through the genotoxicity in there. But what did our EPA reviewer say in the end? That it probably was not carcinogenic.

I could go on at length on that, and I will not because I do not want to concern you on that, Mr Chair, but what I am saying is we cannot rely on our EPA or on the Ministry for Primary Industries, and yet our Minister of Health relies on both of them to get it right. What we are saying here, or what this bill is saying, is that we are going to wrap up the information about this for 10 years—10 years. That stuff is causing significant harm to communities internationally. The European Commission knows that. It says: “Ban it.” We say: “Give them 10 years’ more data-protection and don’t remove it. Don’t remove it—we can trust our EPA.” We cannot trust our EPA—we cannot trust our EPA.

I have got a list here of those herbicides. I get a lot of flak every time I mention glyphosate. The same reviewer who reviewed for the EPA, he did that on DDT—the same reviewer. Where is DDT now? He did it on endosulfan—where is endosulfan now? He did the same damn thing. He has done it on glyphosate, using industry science—four out of five of the papers that he refers to were supplied by Monsanto-paid researchers. You may laugh your bits off, Todd Barclay, but the community is not laughing. The community wants this out of here. Thank you.

Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Primary Industries): Mr Chair, I thank you for the opportunity to bring us back to the bill. I just want to traverse a little bit of the history. I want to acknowledge the work that the Primary Production Committee has done, and what we have heard here this evening is that the select committee is largely in agreement about the way forward and the problem that this bill seeks to solve—and I acknowledge that previous speakers have talked about it taking a jolly long time to get us as far as we have got. In terms of the agricultural compounds sector and the veterinary medicines sector, they are very, very keen to get this bill passed, but it has evolved over the time when there has been consultation with the sector, prior to bringing this bill to the House.

Data protection is really, really important. It provides time for the businesses to recoup what it costs them to bring that data protection into the field of play in order to get registration and be able to have their product in New Zealand. So New Zealand misses out. Why? Well, we miss out because we are a small country with quite a small market, and therefore it is quite late in the patent-protected period that a company will try to give New Zealand the benefit of a product that will help our agricultural sector. New Zealand has been very, very keen to have access to the sorts of medicines and compounds that are available to other agricultural nations that are much bigger than ourselves, and this bill seeks to bring that about.

I have to say very clearly to the Committee that despite the rhetoric of the previous speaker, Steffan Browning, this is not a Trojan Horse for dangerous compounds to get into the country. This is simply about evening out the business playing field for our primary production industry.

I want to just use a couple of examples, and, you know, generating supporting data is really expensive. Estimates range from $10,000 to $500,000 for research studies, so the company bringing a new product to the market is certainly going to want to recoup that. It is also very important that I refer back to the fact that we are not talking about patents; we are talking about data protection on a compound that is likely quite late in its patent life.

I want to answer some of the questions that have been asked by previous speakers. Does this legislation apply to Pacific countries? I think it is important that we assert to the member who raised this that we are talking about agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines, not health products or medicines like that. This legislation extends the period during which the Ministry for Primary Industries cannot use data provided in one application for registration to assess another application. That is the crux of what we have got here.

I also want to address the amendment put forward by the Green Party member. Just to be clear for the Committee, section 20 of the principal Act lists the matters that the director-general must take into account when deciding on an application for registration. It already requires the director-general to take into account all relevant scientific and technical information and any submissions received, including from consumer groups. This amendment is simply unnecessary.

So I thank the Committee very much for the considered way this has been discussed here tonight, and I hope that we can move this forward, because the sector has certainly waited a very long time for it.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I just wanted to add another contribution at this Committee stage, because we have heard a lot about this bill being about data protection—and it is indeed—but what has not been covered within the legislation is actually how that data will be protected. We do not know. In fact, under the legislation we are permitting the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries to be able to freely disseminate and share this protected data among Ministry for Primary Industry (MPI) officials.

There has been an amendment made to new section 74 in clause 6 in that regard, but there are further provisions in new section 74G, where it outlines situations where the director-general may disclose and use confidential information. In particular, if we look at subsection (4), it states that “The Director-General may disclose the confidential information to 1 or more of the following persons …”—and I will just go through them—“(a) a government department or statutory body for the purposes of that government department or statutory body:”—that is pretty broad—“(b) an adviser for the purposes of obtaining advice about the agricultural compound to which the information relates: (c) the World Health Organization: (d) the Office International des Epizooties: (e) the Food and Agriculture Organization:”.

What I am saying, though, is that this is about protecting data. That data is held and is to be kept confidential, and it is the responsibility of the director-general, but the legislation provides that the director-general may disclose and share that confidential information to quite a number of bodies. So I would like to ask the Associate Minister for Primary Industries exactly how the director-general intends to—or how he does, indeed—keep that information confidential so we can give the agrichemical companies and all of the other applicants the assurance that the commercially sensitive data that they are placing with the ministry is, indeed, protected.

Please, I do not want this to be seen as me questioning the integrity of the people within MPI, but I think that the public of New Zealand have a right to know exactly how the director-general protects this information. Who within MPI has access to that information?

We have heard about a lot of hacks recently—a lot of hacks—and, goodness knows, surveillance and everything that is going on within the Government—

Hon Member: Your imagination’s running wild, Rino.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Ha, ha! But this is a very serious point that I raise. Companies—yes, it is great that they are getting an extended period of data protection, but how indeed is their data being protected when this legislation permits the director-general to freely use his own internal officials, external organisations, and any other Government department that it might impinge on? How will that data remain confidential? How does it remain confidential so it actually lives up to what the purpose of this legislation is?

It is good that we can actually say we apply it in law, but we do not want companies to feel that their data may not be protected. I believe it is a fair question to ask the Minister: how will the director-general ensure that the data is protected so it can give confidence to the applicants and companies that will, hopefully, be adding to the richness of the agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines across our primary sectors? How indeed is that data being kept confidential and safe so that it cannot get into other competitors’ hands, or other industry rivals who have ulterior motives?

Ultimately, they all want to make money. They want to devise good things, but they want to make money out of it, and they need confidence that our director-general is going to keep it safe. Thank you.

Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Primary Industries): I thought I would just answer the member’s queries straight away. It says very clearly in the bill under what circumstances the director-general will be required to share that information.

The most important protection here is a commercial protection, and it is a commercial protection that encourages these particular compounds and medicines to come to New Zealand while the data is protected. The director-general would be taking due note of whether there was a health—so let us say that one of the Government departments that he might be required to share information with was the Ministry of Health. New Zealanders would understand that, but, equally, they would not expect the Ministry of Health to go and take an advertisement out so that the data protection was broken and paraded in front of other commercial companies.

The director-general, I can speak with absolute knowledge, takes his responsibilities very, very seriously, and should there be a female director-general in the future, so too will she. It is written quite clearly in the bill. I wonder whether we are simply going over the same territory, perhaps unnecessarily, or maybe that is unnecessary for me to say. But this is in the bill, the data will be protected, and it is commercially sensitive. Government departments take that very seriously and I want to give you my assurance that it looks pretty good to me.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): I want to thank the Minister in the chair, Jo Goodhew, for responding to my colleague Rino Tirikatene’s question. I also had a similar question but I will not ask the Minister exactly the same one. It was more around new section 74A in clause 6, where I read that under certain circumstances or conditions the bill extends the period of protection as laid out in the bill starting at new section 74. Of course, it says in new section 74A(1) that “The Director-General must, during the protected period that applies to confidential information,—(a) take reasonable steps …”. I have heard the Minister’s assurances that it is in the bill, but we all know about human nature and systems.

Because we are talking about being competitive, and about enabling a very progressive and future-focused food system in this country, I too want to hear from the Minister around the assurances that that particular confidential information is protected not only when we say in new section 74(1)(a) “take reasonable steps to ensure that the confidential information is kept confidential …” but later in the bill, and I particularly note those conditions—I will not repeat them—in new section 74G, where the director-general is required to share that information.

I appreciate the Minister’s saying that we are talking about a commercial protection here. She gave the response around health. I guess I want to ensure that the guidance given in the bill around protection of confidential information and the availing of it if, for example, we had a particular outbreak—will the director-general have enough guidance in times of extremes? And it is always the extremes, I understand that, and let us hope it never happens in this country. But I think people need some assurances that if that ever happened—if we did have an outbreak in our agricultural sector that could be traced back to a particular product—the director-general would have enough guidance in this legislation to release the information for health issues, for example. But I will leave that.

My other point that I particularly wanted to make is around new sections 74B and 74C, particularly in new section 74B, where we are talking about an innovative trade name product application for full registration—I get that—and we talk about the commencement date as being 10 years. Then we start seeing the protected period for information, set out in new section 74C, where we are talking about provisional registration, and, I guess, the protected period of 5 years. Then you turn over the page and you look at new section 74D. Then we go into new sections 74E and 74F, which are talking about non-innovative applications both for full registration and provisional registration.

I guess my point is that there are quite a lot of conditions. There are various periods of protection and we wonder, in considering this, whether we feel that the director-general is going to be ably supported—I guess is the question—to ensure that we are not getting the innovative full registration mixed up with the innovative provisional registration, and vice versa. When I read this part of the bill and looked through some of the reports from the Primary Production Committee, I did not get a sense at all that the particular issue that I raise is adequately addressed. Perhaps the Minister can shed some light on that, getting clarity between innovation, non-innovation, and the protected periods, and also the full registration as opposed to the partial registration. Kia ora.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Steffan Browning be agreed to:

after clause 4, insert:

4AA Section 20 amended (Evaluation of risks and benefits)

Replace section 20(c) with:

(c) any submissions received under section 17; and

(d) all applications for new or altered compounds be assessed in full formulation as intended to be used;

(e) consult with a consumer and environmental reference group as nominated by the Minister consisting of 3 consumer representatives and 3 environmental organisation representatives.

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

Ayes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 63

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The Labour Party’s vote was corrected after originally being cast as 32.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Parts 1 and 2, schedules 1 to 3, and clauses 1 to 3 be agreed to.

Ayes 104

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 31; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 16

Green Party 14; Māori Party 2.

Parts 1 and 2, schedules 1 to 3, and clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.

The Labour Party’s vote was corrected after originally being cast as 32.

Progress to be reported presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported progress on the Māori Purposes Bill, and reported the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill without amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Land Transfer Bill

Second Reading

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Minister for Land Information: I move, That the Land Transfer Bill be now read a second time. This is an exciting piece of legislation that shows the Government’s commitment to Kiwi property owners, protecting them against injustice and providing for a simpler and a more modern way of undertaking land transactions. Parliament recently passed the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Act, and the purpose of that legislation was to provide certainty about the exact location of legal property boundaries in areas where the Canterbury earthquakes had triggered significant ground shifts. This legislation gives those transacting in land anywhere in New Zealand greater confidence and certainty by modernising what are, really, quite outdated provisions in land transfer legislation, by making it more accessible and workable, and by introducing new measures to improve the security of property rights.

Can I commend the good work of the Government Administration Committee for its efforts in considering this bill, and I also want to thank those organisations and people who actually made submissions. The committee heard submissions from seven submitters. It had, in fact, received 13 written submissions. All of the submitters were generally supportive of the provisions in the bill but did have concerns with certain detailed aspects, and I will cover some of those matters now.

There was strong opposition to the requirements for mortgagees to verify the identity of mortgagors. Some submitters considered the new measures unnecessary because of the low incidence in this country of mortgage fraud and the existing requirements on lawyers and conveyancers to verify identity as part of conveyancing processes. Those submitters also opposed the related penalties, where failure to comply results in fraudulent execution of a mortgage. Having been advised of the potential for significant compliance costs for banks, the committee recommended removing these requirements and the related penalties from the bill.

I still think it is fair and reasonable to expect mortgagees to bear more of the responsibility if, through identity fraud, one of their customers is able to assume the identity of a registered property owner and unlawfully execute a mortgage over that person’s property. Currently, the Crown is liable for compensation for the value of the property in that situation, even though banks and other financial institutions are in the best position to determine whether a customer taking out a mortgage really is who they say they are. However, on balance, I agree with the committee that the current low-risk profile for identity-based mortgage fraud does not warrant interventions that would impose significant compliance costs on banks or, inevitably, their customers through this legislation.

If the risk of mortgage fraud in fact does increase, we need to be able to respond effectively, so I welcome the committee’s recommendation for mortgage fraud occurrence to be monitored on an ongoing basis to ensure that the absence of these requirements and penalties do not lead to unintended consequences. When the bill is enacted, the Minister is going to be asking officials from Land Information New Zealand to undertake this monitoring work.

Another area of concern for submitters was the new judicial discretion enabling the High Court, in limited circumstances, to order the alteration of the land titles register, where necessary, to avoid manifest injustice. There was support for this exception to the principle of indefeasibility in situations where a strict application of the principle would result in unfair outcomes—so, for example, where Māori freehold land is sold outside the whānau or hapū without having followed the requirements under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 to first offer the land to the preferred classes of alienees.

Some submitters thought the bill lacked certainty about when the exception to indefeasibility would apply and were concerned that the discretion might be used more frequently than was intended. The committee’s changes have addressed this concern by making it very clear that the threshold for manifest justice is very high and court orders can be made under these provisions only in exceptional circumstances when compensation cannot properly address the injustice. So I think these amendments appropriately balance the need for the certainty of property rights with the need to protect against unfair outcomes.

Improvements have also been made to the bill’s regulation-making provisions. In addition to the tax statement exemption regulations, a requirement has been added for the Minister for Land Information to review the regulations after 5 years. That review must include considering whether the exemptions should be shifted to the primary legislation. This reflects the principle that regulated exemptions should be subject to review.

In relation to the court’s discretion to adjust compensation for loss of an estate or interest in land, the power to regulate a formula to calculate market value increases has been removed and replaced with a discretion to have a second market valuation done at the date of judgment. This will make compensation provisions more workable. A transitional regulation-making power has also been added to the bill to assist the transition to the new land transfer system. This power will expire 3 years after the commencement of the provision. The bill as introduced would reduce the time frame in which a guaranteed title search must be obtained from 2 months to 10 days. In response to concerns from submitters, the 10-day period has been increased to 20 days.

Several minor technical amendments have been made to the bill to correct minor drafting omissions, support alignment of the bill with policy intent and practice, and improve clarity and certainty. These include the addition of an explicit reference to the Torrens system principle of maintaining integrity of title to estates and interests in land; amending the definition of land to clarify the policy intent that it should remain consistent with the definition in the Land Transfer Act 1952; adding a definition of paper instrument; amending the definition of electronic instrument to ensure that it covers all instruments in electronic form; and making changes to clarify that a cross-lease should be able to be varied only with the consent of all mortgagees, as a variation to one lease may, in fact, affect others.

Finally, I share the committee’s view that the policy issue of giving appropriately qualified and experienced legal executives the same instrument certification rights as lawyers and conveyancers is outside the scope of the bill. That is really an occupational regulation issue.

Hon Ruth Dyson: But do you agree with it?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Probably. Currently, land transfer instrument certification relies heavily on the regulatory oversight of practitioners, which is provided by the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act. Extending those certification rights to legal executives should not be considered in isolation from the consideration of the occupational regulation of lawyers and conveyancers.

I am confident the amendments recommended by the committee will improve the workability of the bill and clarify its scope and intent. I certainly think this is an important step in progressing the long-overdue update of the land transfer legislation. Before I commend the bill to the House, I am sure Mr Cunliffe will agree with me that this is an area that sounds like a geek’s paradise, but, really, it is fundamental to the way in which so many people act when purchasing houses or dealing with leases and instruments of that kind. So it is a very important piece of legislation—I see Mr Cunliffe nodding wisely and sagely—and that is why it is important that the legislation be updated on a regular basis, and that is why, with some joy and excitement, I have to say, I commend the bill to the House.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): From one geek to another, it is really quite endearing to see Minister Finlayson taking such pleasure in his role and being both joyous and excited about the Land Transfer Bill. A word of advice to the Attorney-General—you really need to get out more. Labour supports this bill, and I know that if this were a Committee stage debate, Mr Assistant Speaker, you would be holding us to every comma in every clause, but it is an opportunity, at the second reading, to just note the why and the how, before we get into the detail of the what.

Labour supports this bill because it is a long overdue update of the land transfer mechanism and a restatement of some of the core principles that govern indefeasibility of title and our Torrens system of land registration. It is the second bill that I have had the pleasure of supporting in the House this evening, but it is also the second bill that has had its genesis in a review that has been conducted by either officials or an independent agency—in this case in 2010, and in the previous case in 2009. I would observe that the wheels on the Treasury benches are not turning quickly—either that or the Government is resting so firmly on its laurels that it has got down to that pile of long-awaited legislative reform that has hitherto been buried in the bowels of the Law Commission or some other worthy institution.

This bill did have its genesis in a Law Commission review in 2010. It was a good piece of work. It has been, I think it is fair to say, heavily engaged with by the legal and conveyancing communities, particularly with the conveyancing section of the New Zealand Law Society. I think it is a fair point to say that the committee that reviewed the bill, the Government Administration Committee, chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson, took a great deal of notice of the submissions of the Law Society. And no doubt Crown Law itself was heavily engaged. So this might be—the Minister said a geek’s paradise; certainly a lawyer’s paradise.

Although it may not be perhaps the most contentious piece of law in the country, it certainly is very important because all of us—well, perhaps not myself because I do not currently own a property, but people who do own properties want to have certainty of title. That has been the fundamental principle that has guided the law—that people can rely entirely upon their land title because that supports the mortgage and that is terribly important to the banking industry. It is one of the fundamentals: we get up in the morning, we have our breakfast and we clean our teeth, and we go to work, and we just take it for granted. But it is important.

The law needed updating because it had three different Acts governing it, the earliest of which was written in 1952, which was not only before the internet but before the computer, and, certainly, now that we have the Landonline system at Land Information New Zealand, and we have the electronic passage of title, the law was several generations old. Labour is supporting this bill because in general terms we realise that this is a necessary update.

However, here is the real political context of the bill. Not only is it a worthy piece of detail heft that has been hauled from the basement, from 2010, but it is also a little bit of a dance of the veils. Everybody knows that the real issues around land transfer are the massive swathes of land that are being bought up by overseas interests, and that is not necessarily bad—

Brett Hudson: Oh rubbish. Come back to planet Earth.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Before members opposite have apoplexy, let me finish the sentence. It is not necessarily bad to have foreign investment. We need foreign investment, but we want an on-to-it Land Information New Zealand and an on-to-it Overseas Investment Office. I challenge any member opposite to rise to their feet and give a 10-minute defence of the Overseas Investment Office, because every member of the Government benches knows what we know—that it is currently a wasteland that is barely functioning, that it is a wet bus ticket that cannot even do an internet search, and that in order to catch somebody out you have basically got to be wanted by Interpol. That is how bad that part of the land transfer system is.

But notwithstanding that piece of political context, the substance of this bill—rather aged, like a good wine, and certainly worthy of the Attorney-General’s detailed perspicacity—heads in the right direction. The bill updates the law and it allows for a reconsideration of issues like compensation, indefeasibility of title, identity verification, covenants in gross, withholding information on people’s safety, liability of estate administrators for certain costs, and issues around the adverse possession process. But I am going to concentrate, in the balance of my remarks, on the two or three major issues that the Government Administration Committee, so ably chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson, considered in its extensive deliberations.

The first was the issue of mortgage fraud. The draft as introduced had the, perhaps, laudable aim of requiring mortgagees—in this case, the banks—to have taken reasonable efforts to satisfy themselves that the identity of the mortgagor, the borrower, was in fact real. That is particularly important in respect of overseas transactions. It is also important for the integrity of the law domestically. However, unsurprisingly the select committee room was full of the well-coiffed representatives of the banking industry who were at pains to point out that the transaction costs and the compliance costs of those obligations might, in some cases, be extensive. The committee took some note of those submissions and looked at the differences between Australia, which has introduced similar requirements, and New Zealand, which has an electronic Landonline system, and it decided on balance, universally around the committee table, that the costs of the measures were not yet demonstrated to be worthwhile relative to the benefits. The committee has adopted a wait-and-see approach, agreeing with submissioners that those clauses should be struck but urging the Government to take an active review to ensure that we do not get increasing levels of mortgage fraud.

Denis O’Rourke: Not good enough.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: The cynics amongst us—the member may choose to count himself amongst that throng—would say that a Government that cannot even maintain a register of foreign buyers or look through shell companies might not be the kind of Government that you want to keep tabs on the family silver.

Denis O’Rourke: That is a good point.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: The member might not be wrong. But, in an unbelievable show of generosity, the Labour Opposition is willing to give the Government a chance to prove itself, once again, in the eyes of the public to be the kind of Government that could do something like this in less than the 10 years it has taken to get this bill to the House. That was our view on mortgage fraud.

Manifest injustice: that is when somebody swindles somebody else and there is a tension in the law, if I can put it really simply, between the need to protect indefeasibility of title—when you have got it, you know you have got it—versus having some protections for people who are just out and out swindled. The committee wrestled with some very learned submissions from the Law Society and from our departmental advisers, none of whom is still in the Chamber to witness this exposition of the argument. On balance, the committee felt that there should be a high bar around not just fraud but a very high grade of fraud for it to be sufficient to overturn the historic principle of indefeasibility of title.

By consensus the committee worked its way to some amendments, which I am sure, with the Chair’s help, we will consider on a sentence by sentence, comma by comma, basis in the Committee stage of the debate. Compensation issues arise in that context. Time will not permit me to go into them, but when we get into the Committee stage we will go through the interface between manifest injustice, indefeasibility of title, and the compensation regime.

To sum up, this is a good little bill. It helpfully updates the law, some of which is even older than members opposite. But it has taken rather a slow track—a 2010 Law Commission review. It is a bit like the last bill on agricultural chemicals, with its 2009 review. Either the Government has not got anything better to do or it should learn to do these reviews a bit quicker. Thank you.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, mauri ora. In following on from the learned member David Cunliffe, who has resumed his seat, I want to thank him for outlining the Labour Opposition’s support for this bill. It is not, however, as the member described, a “small” piece of legislation—running to 220 pages—that we have in front of us. The Government Administration Committee gave this bill full consideration, and, as my learned and distinguished colleague the Attorney-General pointed out, the original Act that we are amending dates back to 1952. But, actually, the history of the system of landholding and tenure that we have in New Zealand goes back a little bit further than that and is quite interesting.

The Torrens system, to which New Zealand subscribes, is widely used throughout the Commonwealth. It is a system that allows title by registry rather than the registry of title. So in this bill, we have kept that at the very core of our system of land registry.

Denis O’Rourke: He’s got the wrong speech.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: And this is an important point to note, Mr O’Rourke, because when there is an administrative error in the land registry, particularly one committed by the State, it is very important that landholders have surety that they will be compensated for that mistake, and this bill does provide for that.

The Torrens system originated in our part of the world. It was actually developed by Sir Robert Torrens, who was the third Premier of the state of South Australia, when he introduced the Real Property Act 1858 there. And it has been developed to the point that, in New Zealand, we have a very high degree of surety around landholding, because we have a digital record now—we have abandoned the system of deeds and bound folios, and we have a very high-tech registry—that gives us great assurance that mortgages and landholdings are genuine.

So in listening to submissions that we heard from the Bankers’ Association, but also the Law Society, the select committee has suggested some alterations to the original text of the bill that are designed both to guarantee the surety of landholding and ensure that people who are transacting land transfers—people buying their first home, for instance, or people selling a property—do not face additional checks and identity checks that have already been completed by the banks because of the anti - money-laundering legislation that this Government has already passed; that unnecessary doubling up of having lawyers checking the work of other lawyers. That is what we in the select committee heard might happen with this bill as originally drafted. The amendments that are proposed are sensible. It is a very good bill, and I commend it to the House.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Mr Assistant Speaker, I hope you were not going to put the question so early in the debate.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I was—I was.

Hon RUTH DYSON: I agree with the member who has just resumed his seat, Paul Foster-Bell: this bill is, although largely technical, quite substantial, and it has certainly engendered a lot of debate and consideration by the select committee. I want to commend all the members of the Government Administration Committee for the serious way that they considered the points that have been raised by submitters. They were not easy, because they were directly in conflict with the advice that we were getting from the officials on one particular point—that of mortgage fraud and the response that we should give to that. But on the rest they were less contentious but certainly really helpful submissions.

I want to just go back to the genesis of this bill, which was developed in consultation between the Law Commission, Crown Law, and the New Zealand Law Society, which produced a report in 2010 that included a draft bill, which is often the practice of the Law Commission. The Ministers at the time were the Hon Simon Power and the Hon Maurice Williamson, so it is a bit of shame that neither of them is able to take a call in the House tonight on this debate, because they did the work, basically, and are not here to take the credit. I know that the Hon Simon Power now works for Westpac in a very senior position, but I am not sure what the Hon Maurice Williamson is doing now.

Hon David Cunliffe: I thought he was still here.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Is he still here? Still in Parliament? OK, well, there you are—there you are. He may, if that is true, be able to take a call in the House. I certainly have not heard him asking questions in the House lately, but perhaps tonight is the opportunity to remedy that, or maybe in the Committee stage.

As I said, this is a largely technical bill. The Attorney-General, when he made his excellent contribution—I have very rarely heard anyone speak with such passion and detailed knowledge about a bill that is as dry as the Land Transfer Bill, but he certainly started this debate off with style and flair. But the point that he made was that even though it is largely technical—and I agree with that—it is fundamentally important to some of the principles that we have held for many years in New Zealand, around, particularly, the security of information, of purchase, and of title in regard to land transfer. So the principles remain the same; what we were doing was making the bill a bit more modern, a bit more responsive to the way that we do transactions now, certainly more accessible, but looking at potential for illegal activity that may not have been available for people to exercise when the original legislation was developed.

The most substantive amendment is around the indefeasibility of title, and it provides limited grounds for compensation and redress in case of fraud. We certainly had a lot of debate at the select committee about that. Paul Foster-Bell, in his contribution, mentioned the very strong submissions from the banking industry. We had the Bankers’ Association as well as individual banks that completely disagreed with the proposals that were in the original legislation. They explained how much additional compliance cost would be incurred, which caused us a little bit of concern, I must say, but then when they explained that the entire increased compliance costs would then be loaded back on to the individual customer of the bank, we decided that we wanted to make really sure that the additional costs that we would be imposing by the legislation were in fact justified.

The comparison between the New Zealand and the Australian systems is not apples with apples; it is apples with pears. They have an entirely different system there, and we, in the end, decided that we would delete those two provisions—I think it was 54 and 57 in the original bill—because they were unnecessary. So we agreed with the representation from the banking industry, but we did also note that mortgage fraud is something that we need to keep an eye on. We had had a strong alert from the officials. It was in the legislation as proposed by the Law Commission, Crown Law, and the New Zealand Law Society. These are not people you can dismiss lightly. They have given these issues a lot of considered thought. So we want to just keep an eye on that, to make sure that if, on balance, we were wrong, we are able to address it quite smartly in future legislation.

Denis O’Rourke: Were wrong—were wrong, too.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Were wrong? Oh, well I am looking forward to the contribution from Mr O’Rourke. Unfortunately, New Zealand First does not have a representative on the Government Administration Committee, but it would be my view that the select committee would welcome the contribution of a New Zealand First member on any of these bills, or on other bills that you are interested in, because we want to get it right, actually. And if you think we made an error, we would be interested in hearing that, and we might have a chance to address it in the Committee stage.

Denis O’Rourke: Yes, indeed.

Hon RUTH DYSON: You may receive a visit from the Bankers’ Association tomorrow morning, I would suggest. They made pretty strong submissions to the select committee.

It is a real pleasure to say that the consideration that we gave this bill at the Government Administration Committee has, in my view, improved it both in some technical areas and in some quite big policy areas. It is, largely, a technical bill. I would have liked some inclusion in the bill of the obvious deficiencies that my colleague the Hon David Cunliffe referred to in the Overseas Investment Office. It has a very poor track record of vetting investment approvals. Our party, through Official Information Act requests, has uncovered not just one but many examples of incompetence, which has left New Zealand looking quite poor, actually, in terms of the robustness of our procedures. I wish that the bill had had more attention to the Overseas Investment Office, because I think that with the same level of consideration that we gave to the Land Transfer Bill with that inclusion, then some of the matters that are clearly in the too-hard basket for the Government could have been addressed.

The Official Information Act has actually become a bit of a laughing stock. It needs some serious attention. I know that the current Minister is not up to that job. I would invite the Attorney-General to apply the same amount of passion as he demonstrated tonight for the Land Transfer Bill to amendments that clearly need to be made, particularly in the vetting and the competence and the integrity of the Official Information Act. I think he is just the man to do it. On that note, I look forward to the other contributions that are going to be made to this bill and to its progress through the House.

BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise in support of this, the Land Transfer Bill, in its second reading. I think there is no disagreement at all across the House that the Government holds an incredibly important role in dealing with land transfers—

Denis O’Rourke: How does he know?

BRETT HUDSON: —and ensuring New Zealanders can have confidence in their property rights. Mr O’Rourke might have something to say in a few minutes’ time, and it will be well informed given that neither he nor any of his colleagues actually sat on the Government Administration Committee! But New Zealand First opinions are like belly buttons; everyone has got one.

I do not think there is any debate at all that this current land title registration system is somewhat outdated. The principal Act dates back some 60 years. The principles behind it, as sound as they might be, and the legislation that it fed from dates back, perhaps, 100 years or more earlier than that. Much of the language is archaic, complex, and, quite frankly, difficult to understand, which some people might ascribe to many speeches that are actually delivered in this Chamber from time to time. However, now is the right time to do something about it.

We look at what was placed in front of the committee to consider. One of the most simple yet, perhaps, not quite so easy things to execute was how we deal with a system that is based on processes that date back at least 60 if not 100 years, and how we make them relevant to the way that business is transacted in so many spheres today. The key to that was: how do we deal with electronic documents and electronic transfers? It is a pleasure to be able to report back to you and to the House that the bill as it was written up and as the committee has assessed it will now support the ability to conduct business if not quite in the latest part of the 21st century, then at least in something akin to it.

Along the way, of course, the committee heard submissions from a number of parties. There was not 100 percent agreement on all facets of that, and it has been noted that the Bankers’ Association had a few things to say. It is with great pleasure I stand alongside my colleagues and note that we did agree to remove clauses 54 and 55, a unanimous decision. There is no need to layer more compliance effort and costs on New Zealanders as they transact property changes.

There is not much more to say other than that this is a bill that is long overdue. It is one that I hope will sail through the House, through the next couple of stages, and will make it through to enactment in a very short period of time. I commend this bill to the House.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you. Well, it is a very long time since I did land law at university, and it was quite an interesting exercise being part of the Government Administration Committee and taking another look at those fundamental principles of our land registration system. I do congratulate Hon Ruth Dyson, who is chair of that committee, on the very collegial way in which it was chaired, and I think that is why we are seeing a fair degree of unanimity on the bill, though New Zealand First may differ.

I think the bill, as others have said, is a modernisation, a simplification, and a bringing of the paper-based registration system into the digital age, in recognition that our land transfer system, our registration system, is now done electronically, unlike places like Australia where, I understand, there is still a fair degree of paper-based transfers. It is a big bill, it is a substantial bill, but those principles of the Torrens system stay intact. They are that the register of lands that describes and records the ownership of estates and interests in lands is found in the one place; is accurate, so that people do not have to go elsewhere to find out the key facts relating to title; and provides security of ownership. That indefeasibility is a fundamental part of that, so once a transaction has been registered it cannot be set aside except in the case of fraud. Of course, it is this certainty that allows people to have transactions involving land with the degree of certainty as to what they are doing—they are buying land that they understand they can buy; those transactions are properly registered; the State guarantees the accuracy of those transfers, of those rights; and there will be compensation if there has been an error in the way that the system operates.

As others have said, there were quite substantial submissions from bankers on clause 54, I think it was, pointing out that those changes in relation to mortgage fraud, where someone was pretending to be the mortgagor or to have the authority of the mortgagor, and the requirements around verification of identity, were going to create major compliance costs for the bank, and that the changes were, in fact, going further than the identity verification rules in other legislation. Bankers said that in the system of e-dealings there are already quite robust identity standards on conveyancers, that currently banks rely on solicitors and rely on the conveyancers, and that these new requirements, which were originally proposed, would have significant compliance costs because the banks would be needing to double-check what the conveyancers had done.

Those submissions were quite convincing. I would like to acknowledge the Minister here, who actually let the select committee get on with its work, consider the submissions, and make a decision here rather than taking that authority, as we see with a number of other bills, which are being done by a Minister rather than allowing a select committee to make a choice.

One of the other areas where there were a lot of submissions was around the issue of legal executives and the New Zealand Institute of Legal Executives calling for fellows of the institute to be allowed the authority to certify instruments for registration where they were undertaking that work under the supervision of a lawyer. I think there will be a number of disappointed legal executives, because it was the committee’s decision, even though there were a lot of submissions supporting the legal executives from a number of law firms, that what was required here was actually a change to the legislation around lawyers and conveyancers—employment legislation or professional legislation—rather than to this bill. So it was seen as an issue that was outside the scope of the bill and that the lawyers and conveyancers legislation should be amended instead.

One of the other issues was around manifest injustice, and the concerns of the Law Society and others was that while recognising the importance of providing compensation where there had been an error in the operation of the registration system, we must ensure that this was very clearly defined so that you did not get an undermining of indefeasibility by giving the court a wide power to undo registered ownership. Here the advice of officials was that the case law showed that there was a very high threshold to allowing situations of manifest injustice and allowing compensation, and that the select committee actually tighten the provisions here. It does have a very high threshold so that concept of indefeasibility is protected.

So it has been a very technical bill, and, like others, I would also like to encourage the Government to deal with the major issue in this area of land transfer, which is the sale of land to overseas investors. The Government has really been sitting on its hands here. It has been pretending that business as usual is continuing when that is not the case. We have had the major collapse in dairy payouts and the effects of this on a debt-ridden industry. With the high level of debt in the dairy sector, with dairy pay-outs going so low, with the Reserve Bank predicting that in an industry that has a debt liability of around $48 billion, 44 percent of those loans being non-performing, what will happen? People will want to quit their properties. So New Zealand is facing the prospect of a double disaster—not only the dairying slump flowing through to the rest of the economy but also the Government’s very lax rules on the sale of land to overseas interests, meaning that we are at risk of large tracts of very productive land being sold off overseas.

National’s dairy strategy has not only been a personal disaster for a lot of families, as well as for the environment, and is not only putting families at breaking point but is going to be a long-term disaster for our country if we lose a lot of land to overseas interest. The Government has got to take responsibility for this, because although Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) leads in terms of our land transfer system—the registration system, Landonline; and the electronic transfers—here, the other part of LINZ, the Overseas Investment Office, is totally hopeless. We need a major law change to rule out the sale of productive land overseas. They have done that in China, in Switzerland, in Canada, in Argentina, in Thailand, in Japan, in Ireland, and in India, but we do not do it in New Zealand. The Government needs to change the law so that we can get overseas investment through long-term leases rather than the sale of productive land. That is the major change to our land transfer system that we need to have following on the heels of this one, but under this Government we are not going to get that.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): In my first reading speech on this bill I expressed pleasure to see such an important and comprehensive piece of legislation begin the enactment process, because it would, as many others have said, update a very old land transfer system. I said then that I was very happy with the three main elements of the bill: the avoidance of fraud, the cancellation of registrations where that was necessary for some good reason, and for better provision for compensation—again, where that was necessary. I now still have the same level of approval for the bill as it was then.

I am concerned by some of the changes that have been recommended by the Government Administration Committee. I would say, at the beginning, that I do approve of all of the recommendations that it has made, but there are two very important exceptions to it. The first objection I have—and people will not be surprised to hear this—is the recommendation for the deletion of clause 54. That is the clause that would impose new requirements for mortgagees to take reasonable steps—and I emphasise the word “reasonable”—to verify the identity of the mortgagor and the authority of the person executing on behalf of the mortgagor. Those are very sensible and basic requirements, which would go a long way to assist with avoiding both fraud and mistake. People often forget about mistakes. It would avoid both of those things. Where a person does not have the authority to encumber a property on behalf of a mortgagor, or where a person is not actually the mortgagor at all, it is very important that there be robust provisions to prevent that sort of mistake or fraud from happening.

The most common situations in which you see this is where a trustee or an agent acts without authority, or where one of more than one interested proprietor purports to sign on behalf of them all. Many of us have seen cases where those sorts of things happen, and they need to be avoided. Where is the best place to avoid them? It is at the beginning, when the registration takes place in the first place. That is why clause 54—as it was originally in the bill; as originally introduced—is actually so important. Clause 54(1) would have only required ordinary best practice by requiring verification of a mortgagor’s identity and their authority to sign. Clause 54(2) would have allowed the registrar to set the standards for that—they need not be oppressive, difficult, or burdensome standards. Clause 54(4) would have required documentary evidence of the steps taken to comply to be kept—again, nothing terribly burdensome about that. As I say, these are very sensible and basic requirements that banks should be required to do—and, in the ordinary course of business, would be doing—anyway.

The reasons given for deletion, in my opinion, are utterly inadequate and unconvincing, and they are these: “sufficient protections already exist”, but nobody has said in the supporting documentation to this bill what those already existing sufficient protections are, because there are not any. There is little or nothing in the way of existing protections in this respect. Secondly, it said that mortgage fraud is unlikely, given the Landonline system now used. Well, that is not the issue. Yes, we do have a low level of fraud in this country, but those occasions where fraud does occur are still important, and where we can avoid them we should be doing so. Thirdly, it is said that the costs of compliance would be too high and disproportionate to the benefit. What a load of nonsense that is. The requirements in clause 54 need not be burdensome, need not be costly, and could be done in the ordinary course of business with little or no difficulty whatsoever.

I say that, in fact, no other protections actually really exist that could replace these provisions. I say that these provisions are appropriate and desirable, and that they are actually beyond reasonable objection. I say that the low incidence of fraud is not a reason to delete this clause; indeed, it simply reinforces the need to reinforce best practice by making these appropriate steps mandatory instead of voluntary. That is all it is about.

I take with a huge grain of salt any criticism by banks and other institutional lenders that these requirements either would be excessive or might increase costs, when all they would do is require the continuation of normal, good, professional standards—nothing more. Frankly, it is a little bit like the pot calling the kettle black for banks to object to these provisions when, from them, you see sheets of small print and other bureaucratic procedures that would rival the worst bureaucracies in the world. It is the banks themselves that do all that—they create all of that stuff, and that is the stuff that causes costs for people who sign mortgages. That is the stuff that causes the delays and causes the difficulties. It is not the sort of sensible provision that you see in this bill. So the banks can take a running jump, as far as I am concerned, with their objections about this, because, in fact, those objections are vacuous and they can do this without any difficulty whatsoever.

I agree that the penalties in clause 54(5), as they were, were unnecessary and should be deleted, given that clause 54(6) would be sufficient in terms of enforcement by empowering the registrar to require a mortgagee to show how the requirements of clause 54(4) would be met. In my view, that would be sufficient, and a penalty clause would be unnecessary. So New Zealand First says that clause 54 should be reinstated, and during the Committee of the whole House stage I will be submitting a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) for that purpose.

The other objection is to the amended clause 57 by the insertion of clause 57(3). As we know, clause 57(1) provides for cancellation of a registration where it would be “manifestly unjust” to maintain it. I disagree with Eugenie Sage when she says that that is a wide provision. It is not; it is a narrow one. “Manifestly unjust” is a high bar. It is quite narrow in its application and it would be a difficult one to meet, but it is appropriate. However, new clause 57(3) is wrong, because it prevents an order for cancellation unless the court finds in the negative—that compensation could not “properly address the injustice”.

If the standard of the term in clause 57(1) for manifest injustice is met—that high standard is met—then the applicant should be able to get cancellation, unless the court finds that it would be unjust to do so for some very good reason. So that would mean that a defendant would have the burden of proof to show that resort to cancellation would be unjust. It should not be necessary for an applicant for such an order to show that compensation would not “properly address the injustice”. That should be not necessary, and I do not even really know—and nobody else would either—what the words “properly address the injustice” could possibly mean. That introduces uncertainty and is totally unnecessary. The burden of proof is completely wrong, and it should be the other way round. In fact, clause 59 already exists to provide for compensation where that is applied for.

So New Zealand First will, during the Committee of the whole House stage, seek by way of SOP to delete clause 57(3) because it is actually quite wrong and operates against the true thrust of clause 57. It should be possible for a person to get cancellation and not just compensation where they have shown that there is manifest injustice. It is as simple as that. I do not know why the provision has been put the way it is. The burden of proof is completely wrong; it should be the other way round, as I have said. This is a relatively easy fix. I hope people on both sides of the House will see that it needs to be fixed and will support New Zealand First when that SOP is put forward the next time the opportunity arises.

MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): I will take a very brief call on this, the second reading of the Land Transfer Bill. It is definitely time that the legislation was updated. The Land Transfer Act itself, of course, is over 60 years old, and it contains some provisions that are actually over 100 years old, so it was definitely time to update it.

I just want to address one important point in the bill that took a fair bit of the Government Administration Committee’s time. There was a lot of debate. We sought significant advice on it, and in the end the committee came to a unanimous decision that it was going to be better to remove clauses 54 and 55—delete both those clauses. Of course, clause 54 requires mortgagees to verify the identity of mortgagors, and clause 55 makes related changes to the title obtained by a transferee of a mortgage. Ultimately, we felt that, really, it was a solution looking for a problem, and we were very concerned that all it was going to generate was more compliance costs. Of course, when people are looking to get into, especially, their first home or property, the last thing that we should be doing is adding something into a bill that was going to create additional cost and compliance costs for them. So on the committee we felt unanimously that it was a very good decision for us to delete clauses 54 and 55. I am very happy to have taken a call. Thank you.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I will take a brief call on the Land Transfer Bill. We are very lucky in New Zealand to have the Torrens system of land registration, which was brought to Australasia, actually, by Mr Torrens—first to Adelaide and then to New Zealand. It gave us a rational way for the registration of interests in land, and it ensures that we have got a very, very simple and reliable way of recording interests in land. Anyone who has ever worked in the United Kingdom will know that even now, so many years after we have had the Torrens system of land registration in New Zealand—it is probably more than a century now—they have still got unregistered interests in land in the United Kingdom, which means that buying and selling property in the United Kingdom is very complex and far more expensive than it is in New Zealand. And even after you have gone through that more complex and more expensive system, it is more risky because there can be unregistered interests in land that prevail against a purchaser who buys a property.

In New Zealand you can rely upon the title, in the absence of fraud, as being proof that what you think you are buying is what you are buying in terms of its title restrictions. If there is any restriction on your title—any mortgage or any easement over the land that you are buying—then it should be on the title, and if it is not there, it will not bind you. And if it is not there because someone makes a mistake somewhere in the Land Transfer Office and you buy a property not knowing of that mistake, it is not your problem. You still get clear title, and it is the Government, through the fees that it collects when we each register a transfer of title—when we buy a property or take out a mortgage, or something like that, there is a fund that is created that compensates people for their loss. But the person who has purchased without knowledge of that defect does not suffer, and it is a fantastic system.

This bill actually does not do much to change that system. It is really housekeeping legislation, which is necessary periodically, and it says in the explanatory note that this is to change terminology to update it towards electronic forms of transactions rather than paper-based records, but in reality we have already been using electronic records very effectively in New Zealand for more than a decade—for a long time. So I do not think this legislation is all that contentious.

Can I say to Denis O’Rourke, whose opinion I respect, that I disagree with him in respect of the deletion of clause 54 of the bill, which the select committee agreed unanimously should be deleted. I have been a solicitor in a law firm, witnessing mortgages. You know, they are a dime a dozen—it is meat and potatoes for lawyers—and you do not have to ask people for their driver’s licence or their passport or, on behalf of the bank, get some other complicated form of identification in order to witness someone’s signature on a mortgage document. It has not been problematic. Why would we—if it has not been problematic—impose more duties upon banks that would be passed on to their lawyers, which would further complicate conveyancing and increase the transaction costs of people who were buying and selling properties and taking out a mortgage if there is no need for it? If we had a problem with widespread identity fraud, we would have to revisit that as a country, because in respect of the costs upon the system that we all bear through the land transfer system that I have referred to where there is an error on the register—for example, if someone forges a mortgage—those costs would become too large and we would have to revisit that as a Parliament. But we would do that then rather than imposing costs now. So I actually agree with the Government Administration Committee that it got that right in excluding that.

In terms of the judicial discretion that is introduced to allow an exception to the principle of indefeasibility of title—I will just explain what that is; I have talked about that briefly already. If you get title and you have not done anything fraudulent, then you can rely upon that title as being what it shows on its face, and if someone else has got some interest that is legitimate that is adversely affected by that, they still cannot knock you off the title. You have got an indefeasible title. This bill introduces an exception to that rule against indefeasibility of title, a new one. There has always been an exception for instances of fraud. If someone acts fraudulently in order to gain an interest on the register of titles to the detriment of someone else, of course they should not be able to benefit from their fraud and rely upon the title they got fraudulently. That has always been an exception to the rule against indefeasibility of title and should always be so.

But we are introducing in this legislation another exception to the rule for indefeasibility of title, and that is where it is manifestly unjust to stick to the principle of indefeasibility of title, and where compensation is not sufficient. There are a couple of points to be made on that. Firstly, actually, on this point I think Denis O’Rourke may be right in respect of his complaint in respect of clause 57(3). I do not think it is an especially large point, but I will concede that he might be right that there should not be that second layer of test. If it is found to be manifestly unjust to stick with the rule of indefeasibility of title, then maybe there should not be an additional test as to whether compensation would suffice. But I think that is a secondary point.

My concern when I listened to the Minister in respect of his contribution, the Hon Chris Finlayson, the Attorney-General—he made reference to cases where it could be unjust to accept indefeasibility of title where the Māori Land Court has incorrectly determined that someone should succeed to property or purchase property where someone else, according to the Māori Land Act, had a higher or perhaps a right to inherit that should have prevailed over the person who got title. I think we have got to be really careful there that we do not introduce a different standard of conduct in respect of Māori land compared with other land. I would have thought that it would be in the interests of Māoridom to actually have pretty firm rules about indefeasibility of title for transactions relating to Māori land as well. So I will, at the Committee stage, be seeking some assurance from the Minister that we have not opened the gate too broadly in respect of another exception to indefeasibility of title in respect of Māori land.

My final point is that one of the, I think, good changes here is to give more flexibility to the courts when assessing the compensation that is payable to someone who has, effectively, lost their interests to a later purchaser without fraud because the later purchaser gets an indefeasible title, but is entitled to compensation for their losses. We are introducing flexibility as to when the dates for calculation of the loss should be based, not necessarily the dates when the loss was caused, but perhaps a later date with they are seeking compensation. If you have a look at the ridiculous price inflation that we have had in land in Auckland recently, if your compensation was out by a couple of years and you had lost a title to a property and you were compensated at a value that was 2 years earlier, you could get that compensation and not be able to purchase a comparable house in Auckland, and that would be unfair. So I think it is good that we are allowing some flexibility for the date of calculation of loss.

MELISSA LEE (National): It is a pleasure to rise to take a short call on this Land Transfer Bill. As members have previously mentioned, this bill is the Government’s response to the recommendations from the Law Commission’s 2010 report A New Land Transfer Act. The recommendations were aimed at modernising, simplifying, and consolidating the land transfer legislation for enhanced clarity and accessibility.

As I was listening to Mr David Parker I appreciated his explanation in regard to the indefeasibility of title. I found it really, really interesting because it triggered a memory from childhood, an old story that my elders used to tell about the fraud that happens with land transfer. The story, basically, to cut a long story short, is about a shyster who sells the Han River during winter, pretending that it was land, and when the frozen river actually thawed there was no land to own. So I remember my elders telling me to always check the title, always make sure there is actually land under that ice before you purchase.

Land is the principal source of wealth and wealth generation in New Zealand, and the land transfer system is critical to the ongoing functioning of the economy. It is really important for New Zealanders to have security. I commend this bill.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I move, That the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill amends the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Act 2006, which provides for a registration system for geographical indicators, but the Act is not yet in force. Before the Act can come into force, some amendments are necessary to clarify some provisions of the Act and to ensure that the registration process runs smoothly and sustainably. This bill achieves that. It is useful because it helps to strengthen and protect the story that lies behind the success of the New Zealand wine industry.

The New Zealand wine industry, as we know and enjoy, commands one of the highest premiums internationally, and that comes back to the story behind it. This industry has achieved phenomenal growth over the last couple of decades. I remember around 1998, I think, when the country achieved about $100 million worth of exports for New Zealand wines. This year it is about $1.6 billion worth of exports. So the wine industry has been very successful in contributing to export growth for the New Zealand economy and in providing many jobs and many livelihoods, as well as great enjoyment and pleasure for the customers.

I would like to thank the Primary Production Committee for its consideration of the bill. I want to note, particularly, the work of its chair, Ian McKelvie, and the many members of our committee who have a keen interest in wine. I am looking forward immensely to the speech by my colleague Stuart Smith, that leader in the wine industry, who will be talking later. The committee’s report did contain a number of sensible recommendations for the amendment of the bill. I want to acknowledge the submissions from the public and, in particular, from the New Zealand wine industry.

Most of the amendments recommended by the committee were of a relatively minor nature, but two significant amendments recommended by the committee involved procedures for opposing registration and for the renewal periods for registered geographical indications. The Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Act 2006 leaves opposition procedures almost entirely to regulations. Other similar legislation relating to registered intellectual property rights, such as the Patents Act 2013 and the Trade Marks Amendment Act 2012, makes explicit provision for opposition procedures. The amendment recommended by the committee inserts a new clause 21A into the bill, which inserts new provisions into the principal Act to require the registrar of geographical indications to advertise the intention to accept an application to register a geographical indication. This allows interested persons to oppose registration if they considered that the indication should not be registered.

The other significant amendment relates to the renewable period provisions in the bill. The bill as introduced provided that geographical indications must be renewed by paying a renewal fee every 10 years. The renewal fees will contribute to the ongoing maintenance of the register of geographical indications and help keep the initial application fees down. However, as most of the applications to register geographical indications will be made in the first few years after the principal Act enters into force, there is a risk that the revenue raised from application fees could be insufficient to cover the cost of establishing and administering the register of geographical indications. This could be a particular problem if application numbers are lower than estimated. So, in response to this, the committee has recommended that the bill be amended to provide that the first renewal fee is payable 5 years from the date of registration of a geographical indication and at 10-year intervals thereafter. Those recommendations, I think, are sensible. I agree with the select committee’s report, and I commend this bill to the House.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): Labour will be supporting this bill as well, and I think pretty much everything that Minister Goldsmith has just spoken on we would very much agree with—wholeheartedly, in fact. We are about to commence more formal discussions with the EU about a free-trade agreement. It has been, obviously, complicated by Britain exiting from the EU. Britain has been, traditionally, one of the main ways in which we have entered the EU and now it is, as we all know, going by itself, so we have got to work out new ways of being able to get those talks off the ground again and get them moving.

As the Minister said, legislation has been sitting there since 2006, but we never actually pushed start to get it under way, because talks with the EU had stalled. One of the driving forces behind getting this bill into force is the fact that we are now in a different situation, and the Government felt it necessary to push this bill along, get it through the House, and get it enacted to ensure that we get the protections and privileges and ability to get that trade deal, ultimately, across the line. The EU, by the way—just to give the dimensions—is the largest trading bloc in the world, and the biggest market in the world with more than 500 million affluent consumers. Currently it is our third-largest market. It is about $19 billion in two-way trade. About $9 billion of that is exports and about $11 billion is imports, so it is a significant and important partner with us, and it is a partner with which we do not have, at the moment, a trade agreement.

One of the issues of this bill is, essentially, to designate areas of New Zealand with regard to wine and define them as areas that cannot be replicated in other places. Obviously, we have the example of Champagne in France—that is the only place that can produce champagne. Outside of Champagne, you produce sparkling wine. Scotch whisky is another example. Just recently, the Greek Government won a case that only Greece can make feta cheese; everybody else has to make white cheese. So if you are buying feta cheese, you are getting it from Greece. If you are buying white cheese, it is from somewhere else, unless somebody is claiming falsely that it is feta cheese.

What it means for us is that Marlborough sauvignon blanc can be produced only in New Zealand and labelled Marlborough sauvignon blanc, and nobody else can do that. Likewise with Otago pinot noir—it can be done only in New Zealand. That has considerable benefits for New Zealand because, as the Minister said, our wine attracts a very high premium. In fact, the premium that it attracts is higher, pretty much, than any other wine anywhere in the world. In fact, when they looked at this at the end of 2014, the New Zealand bottled grape wine was the highest of any import in the United Kingdom. New Zealand wine was about $9.15 a litre, and that compared with second-placed France at $7.36, and the Australian wine was a miserable $5.28. We are getting very good prices for our wines, so it is very important as well that we are able to protect the value of those by ensuring that nobody else can use the same descriptions that we use. Likewise, we are obligated to make sure that 85 percent of the content of that wine will be wine that was produced in those particular places, and only 15 percent is allowed to be blended. That also safeguards our product and makes sure that our product is a good one.

The Minister mentioned the wine industry. It is now worth $1.6 billion. It has grown 110 percent since 2008. This is an extraordinary success story for New Zealand. It is now, I think, the sixth-largest export that we have. It is on the way up, and by 2020 it is estimated that it will be worth $2 billion to the New Zealand economy. So the sorts of protections that are here are well worth getting into force soon so that no other producer can come in before us and start claiming that their sauvignon blanc is Marlborough sauvignon blanc when, in fact, the only place that that can be grown and produced is New Zealand.

As the Minister also mentioned, there was a lot of support for the bill. There were 133 different submissions. There were 130 of them in support from winemakers and people in the wine industry, in particular. The three dissenting, if you like, voices in that 133 actually wanted to go further and make sure that 100 percent of the wine that was produced in that area was from that area and not blended by 15 percent. So there was unanimous support for getting this bill into operation and, as the Minister said, it is relatively straightforward.

The Primary Production Committee did a good job in making a few minor alterations in order that, effectively, the list or the inventory of the wines that are going to be listed down is slightly easier to comprehend, understand, and use. Other than that, it pretty much, with those minor amendments on the 2006 bill, effectively puts the 2006 bill into operation and, as a result, as I say, it is a bit of a no-brainer. This is a good piece of legislation that will protect our industry. It will enable us to get into Europe, sell our wines in Europe at a high premium, and continue to protect our wine industry going into the future. The Labour Party members, for those reasons, support it wholeheartedly.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): The Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill is a really important bill and takes a great step forward for the wine industry, and I welcome it into the second reading. I would like to start by acknowledging the Primary Production Committee chair, Ian McKelvie, who has graciously allowed me to bat a little bit further up the order—so I thank him very much for that.

I would like to set the scene a little because the wine industry has really blossomed in New Zealand, as the Minister and the previous speaker pointed out, with sales growing to $1.6 billion. It started at a very low level, and I think the real step forward for the wine industry was when Ernie Hunter entered his sauvignon blanc in the Sunday Times wine show in London, which had two sections: one that was judged by professional judges and one that was judged by popular choice. Ernie was never backward at coming forward when it came to marketing, so he organised it so that when the public were going through the wine show they could taste his wine and taste Bluff oysters that had been flown especially to London on the Concorde. Those people who paid a bit of attention will know that the Concorde has never been to New Zealand and the oysters were not Bluff oysters, in fact. But it did not matter. Not only did he win the popular vote but he also won the actual professional judges’ vote—and that is really what launched Marlborough sauvignon blanc on the world stage.

Its unique flavours really speak to the terroir, which is what was mentioned by the previous speaker, and that is what people are really looking for when they go along the shelf in their supermarket or in their wine store looking for a wine. They are looking for an assurance of a taste and a quality that they like and identify with, and that really comes down to the geographical indicator. We know that wine and the flavours that wine produces are closely related to where they are grown. I am not exactly sure what that is about. Is it the soil? Is the climate? It is probably an amalgam of all of those things, as well as the people who are involved with it, and that is actually what the literal translation of “terroir” is.

It is a really important part for the wine industry to step forward. The industry is really anticipating this and has already put a lot of work into where the boundaries of those geographical indicators are. In New Zealand that is pretty easy in a lot of cases because they are bound by geography. In the case of Marlborough, it is bound by the sea, by hills on either side, and by frost if you go far enough inland. So it is quite a confined area, really, for that geographical indicator. The wine style is absolutely consigned to that, and I think the select committee really enjoyed seeing all of those people come before it to speak and give their evidence. You are going to stop me now.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I apologise for interrupting the member.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.