Tuesday, 1 November 2016

TUESDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2016

TUESDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2016

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Obituaries

Reginald George Boorman

Mr SPEAKER: I regret to inform the House of the death on 30 October 2016 of Reginald George Boorman, who represented the Wairarapa electorate from 1984 to 1988. I desire, on behalf of this House, to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the late former member. I now ask members to stand with me and observe a period of silence as a mark of respect for his memory.

Honourable members stood as a mark of respect.

Motions

Nuclear Disarmament—United Nations Resolution for Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I seek leave to move a motion without notice or debate, that the House welcome the recent United Nations resolution calling for negotiations on a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: I move, That this House welcome the landmark United Nations First Committee resolution on 27 October calling for negotiations to commence on a legally binding instrument that will prohibit nuclear weapons, leading to their elimination. It calls upon all nuclear-weapon States to participate constructively in the negotiations, which are expected to commence in March 2017.

Motion agreed to.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Police—Collection and Use of Personal Information

1. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Police: Does she believe the public has a right to be concerned about Police conducting roadside breath-screening tests with the intention of collecting personal information for investigations unrelated to road safety; if not, why not?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police): Although there is no ministerial responsibility for the genuinely held views of members of the New Zealand public, and both section 16 of the Policing Act 2008 and the Cabinet Manual preclude my intervention—in particular, with policing operations—I can confirm that the Commissioner of Police has referred this incident to the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) for investigation.

David Seymour: Does the Minister believe it is a good use of Police resources to interrogate law-abiding people attending a peaceful meeting of an advocacy group, given an 18 percent spike in burglary reported by Statistics New Zealand just this week?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I think I have answered that question very clearly. This is not a matter that I can comment on. It is currently with the Independent Police Conduct Authority, and for me to make a statement about it or have any sort of view would, in fact, actually try to influence the IPCA—and this is not a Labour Government; this is a National Government.

David Seymour: Can the Minister comment on whether she is completely satisfied with how Police currently allocates its resources, given increases in assault, sexual assault, abduction, kidnapping, robbery, and extortion, but no reported increases in rogue advocacy groups in Maungaraki?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Clearly, the member is not aware that road policing is actually funded out of the Ministry of Transport, not out of Police. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

David Seymour: Does the Minister agree with the Privacy Commissioner, John Edwards, when he said “there would be pretty troubling aspects” to an operation that used the statutory power and, indeed, funding provided under the Land Transport Act to gather personal information for a different purpose?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I am not sure how many times I need to tell that member that I have no intention of wading into an investigation that the Independent Police Conduct Authority is undertaking. I take my responsibilities very seriously, and I would refer the member to not only section 16 of the Policing Act 2008 but also the Cabinet Manual on this issue. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

David Seymour: Does the Minister have any views about how a police force should operate and how it should allocate its resources?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Yes, I do. One of the ways I believe that police should operate is to not have politicians telling them how to do their job. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!

David Seymour: Will she guarantee that someone will eventually be held accountable for this gross breach of civil liberties?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I think the member is jumping to conclusions. I suggest he leave it to the Independent Police Conduct Authority, which is the right and proper place and people to look into this issue.

David Seymour: Supplementary question.

Mr SPEAKER: No, the member has used his allocation.

Business—Government Initiatives to Support

2. Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the performance of the New Zealand economy?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): on behalf of the Minister of Finance: Last week the World Bank released its annual Doing Business report. The 2017 report shows that for the first time New Zealand has been ranked first in the world for the ease of doing business, up one place from last year and up from third in 2014. The report is made up of 10 different indicators that affect the conduct of a business. New Zealand ranks first in the world in half of these, including starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, getting credit, and protecting minority investors. This is an excellent result, and highlights the good work Government agencies are doing through our comprehensive Business Growth Agenda to reduce the cost of doing business and grow jobs in New Zealand.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What has contributed to New Zealand becoming the easiest country in the world to do business in?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: A range of things. The report notes, for example, our strong procurement model, known as the Government Electronic Tenders Service, which we have improved in recent years to make it easier for small New Zealand companies to tender for Government contracts. It highlights changes we have made to make paying taxes easier for companies and take less time, and it notes that New Zealand is a world leader in the ease of starting a business. Reducing the regulatory burden is all part of creating a competitive and productive economy that provides more and better-paying jobs for New Zealanders and their families.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What else is the Government doing to make it easier to do business in New Zealand?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Government’s comprehensive Business Growth Agenda creates an environment where businesses have the confidence to invest in growth. It contains more than 300 separate initiatives, including building better infrastructure, like roads of national significance and ultra-fast broadband; encouraging domestic and foreign investment in the economy; training more highly skilled New Zealanders to contribute to our growth; encouraging research and development; developing our significant natural resources while protecting our environment; improving access to markets offshore through free-trade agreements; and reducing non-tariff trade barriers. There is always room to improve further, and the Government will continue to work hard to make it easier to do business.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What reports has he received showing support amongst small businesses for the Government’s economic programme?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Small businesses are very important, of course, because they are a big part of our economy. I have received a report titled “Small businesses signal election priorities” from Mind Your Own Business (MYOB). MYOB’s report found that 42 percent of the businesses surveyed—over 1,000—expect revenues to increase in the next year with just 11 percent expecting a fall, reflecting the benefits of a growing economy. MYOB goes on to say: “People do trust John Key and Bill English’s economic management. There is a strong sense in the small business community that the country is on the right track.” The World Bank’s doing business report underlines that small businesses have confidence—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There has been quite a lot of interjection this afternoon, and a reasonable amount I will accept but when it becomes a barrage so that I cannot hear the balance of the answer, then I will deal with it more severely. Does the Minister wish to complete his answer?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No.

Police Resourcing—Numbers and Crime Rates

3. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in the Minister of Police, given crime rose by 5.5 percent in the last year?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Absolutely, because crime rates have fallen significantly over the term of this National-led Government.

Andrew Little: Why have burglaries gone up 17.8 percent and assaults gone up 9 percent in the past year alone?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot give you the exact answer. I do not know all of the reasons, but in some cases it will be because of more widespread use of drugs and some people feeding their drugs habit. That would be one reason. There will be many reasons, though.

Andrew Little: Does he think that burglaries going up 17.8 percent and assaults going up 9 percent has anything to do with the fact that he has failed to increase police numbers in line with a rising population?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. There are a variety of different reasons. One of them is that, for instance, when it comes to domestic violence, that has become a topic that is now more widely debated and exposed, and there is more reporting going on of domestic violence. So, no, I do not think that is the case. This is a Government that has put $300 million more into Police budgets just in 2016 alone. The annual budget has gone from $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion. There are hundreds more extra police under a National-led Government and greater use of technology.

Andrew Little: Why has he broken his 2007 promise, which went like this: “improve the ratio of police to population beyond 1:500 from 2009”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: We have substantially increased the number of police. One of the things that we have been looking at in the time that we have been in Government is to say that, of course, one way of measuring the number of police is to look at it on a ratio basis, but, actually, I think there are also other ways of looking at it more effectively. For instance, when we look at the use of technology—which I think is a far better investment in a lot of ways—we have effectively gained 354 extra police. You can put all of those things in the budget, but it is really a sort of a slightly lazy way of thinking things to just dream up a number on the day of a police conference and claim that it is a policy. It is not really a policy, is it? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Andrew Little: Why, when he promised in 2007 to have a 1:500 police ratio, does he not have a 1:500 police ratio 8 years on?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly, we have been investing considerably more. Secondly, there are different ways of measuring these things. Yes, there were policies that were taken to the 2008 election—which is quite a number of elections ago—but over time the Government not only is investing more but, of course, is looking at ways that we will continue to invest. But just dreaming up a number, as the member did—the reason that he got coverage on page A7 or A9 of the New Zealand Herald about this figure was because no one actually believes he is going to be in a position to do it anyway.

Andrew Little: Why has he spread the police so thin that almost 60 percent of police officers say they cannot deliver on the promises they make to the public?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am sure the police will always argue that they need more resources, but that is equally true of every publicly funded institution—they will always argue that they need more. Under this National-led Government there have been not only 600 more police but 354 additional extra police in the sense that the technology that we have rolled out has allowed them to do that. The Government is funding more for police resources and, over time, will give them more, but I do not actually accept the argument that the police are under-resourced. I accept the argument that over time they can do with more, but they have had significant increases in the time we have been the Government.

Andrew Little: Why has his Government lost control of crime, as it has on housing, health, education, immigration, and traffic congestion; and when will he admit that he is out of touch and out of ideas?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: If one looks at total crime in New Zealand since 2011, it is down 15 percent. I accept that in the last year it is up 1.4 percent. There has also been an international trend: in OECD countries crime has gone down a bit and crime has risen a bit, but overall it is down 15 percent, which is actually pretty similar to Labour’s polling since 2008, now that it is down to about 15 percent.

Marine Environment—Sustainable Management and Marine Protected Areas

4. JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

James Shaw: Does he stand by his statement that “New Zealanders value our coasts and oceans, which are an important part of our culture, economy, and environment, and we are committed to managing them sustainably.”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes.

James Shaw: Does he believe that our oceans are managed sustainably today, given that 28 percent of our marine mammals and 90 percent of our seabirds are threatened with extinction?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think if one looks overall at the management of oceans that are under New Zealand’s control, you would say that they are sustainably managed. I think the quota management system by and large actually has been a highly effective method. Secondly, in terms of marine mammals and the like, the Government has been moving, as the member knows, towards putting more of New Zealand’s marine space into ocean sanctuaries. Last week, in fact, the Government was delighted by the steps that New Zealand had led, with the United States, in relation to the Ross Sea. Obviously, we are looking to make progress on the Kermadecs. New Zealand has also done, in the time that we have been the Government, a number of other ocean sanctuaries in relation to places like Kaikōura. So it is a general yes—I think the Government is progressing that objective—but we acknowledge there are some potentially endangered species, and that is why we are taking the steps that we are.

James Shaw: Given that, would he say that his policies are working, when 28 percent of our marine mammals and 90 percent of our seabirds are threatened with extinction?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: For the most part, yes, I think they are working, but one of the threats to our birdlife, for instance, is from predators, and that is why the Government has been supportive of, and has the initiative of, a predator-free New Zealand by 2050.

James Shaw: Why did New Zealand abstain from supporting a motion at the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress to protect 30 percent of oceans as no-take marine reserves when 89 percent of other nations supported it?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I would need to get absolute advice on that, but, testing my memory, it was partly to do with the fact that we believe that the way that we measure our oceans in relation to the quota management system, with a measure of marine reserves, is a more effective way of doing things. I think the member will probably find that a lot of the countries that voted for that simply do not have the ocean space that New Zealand does. I think New Zealand is pretty well respected internationally for the work it does around marine protection. We would certainly like to make progress on the Kermadecs; we realise that the Green Party is supportive of that, and if it would like to go and talk to the nice people at Te Ohu Kaimoana (TOKM) and get them to see it the Green Party’s way, collectively we will be able to pass that through Parliament very rapidly.

James Shaw: Does he agree with the National Party’s 2014 election policy to include the exclusive economic zone in the marine protected areas Act?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, I agree with the policy, but we then decided to advance the Kermadecs. As I said, if he could just make himself busy this afternoon and go down to see the good people at TOKM and convince them that, actually, conservation for the wider good of all New Zealanders is a worthy and admirable cause, then we will be able to pass that legislation very soon.

James Shaw: Did Cabinet reject the proposal to extend marine protected areas into the exclusive economic zone because Ministers wanted to keep our ocean open for oil exploration and seabed mining?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.

Health Services—Elective Surgery

5. IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister of Health: Can he confirm that 30 percent more hip and knee joint replacement operations were carried out in 2015-16 compared with the 8,439 in 2007-08, an increase of 2,573 operations?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Yes, I can. This 30 percent increase is the result of the hard work of clinical staff and the extra $200 million the Government has invested into elective surgery over this period. It is a very significant increase in access to these important operations, which reduce pain and enable New Zealanders to better get on with their lives. With the growth and ageing of the population, we need to continue to do more, and that is why the Government has put in an extra $96 million over 4 years to ensure that more New Zealanders get the surgery that they need.

Ian McKelvie: Given the forecast ageing and growth of the New Zealand population, what is the Government doing to specifically address this growing need?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Firstly, we are delivering more access to specialist assessments in the area of orthopaedics, where the number of first specialist appointments has gone up from 43,251 per year to 53,627. That is an increase of over 10,000 under this Government. These are some of the 550,000 patients seen by specialists now each year, which is one in 10 New Zealanders every year. We are also focused on intervening at an earlier stage to prevent the need for surgery in the first place, and that is why we have developed mobility action teams made up of GPs, dietitians, and physiotherapists. We are rolling them out across the country to assist New Zealanders with self-management, education, exercise, and pain management. These teams are part of the wider Government response to the increased demand for surgery.

Hon Annette King: Is he dismissing research published in the New Zealand Medical Journal in September that showed that the rate of hip and knee surgeries per 100,000 population was lower in 2013 than in 2007, and is this not a truer measure of what is happening in New Zealand?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: No, it is not a truer measure of the overall picture. As I said, the number of operations has gone up overall, and more New Zealanders are getting more timely access to these procedures all the time.

Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table the New Zealand Medical Journal research, headed “Equity of publicly-funded hip and knee joints”—it is not easy to obtain.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table that particular research document from the medical journal. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is none.

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

Hon Annette King: Can he confirm that the total number of additional elective orthopaedic operations across all district health boards between 2014-15 and 2015-16 was only 284; and does this keep up with population growth, let alone with the level of pain and disability that people face?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: As usual, I would have to go away and check the member’s figures closely. All I do know is that it is nothing like the 2,000 drop in operations that occurred during her period as health Minister.

Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table an Official Information Act (OIA) response from the Ministry of Health dated 8 September, showing elective surgery discharges—as I said—284.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The document has been described. It is an OIA response—

Hon Annette King: And point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I need to put the—and you are seeking leave to table something else as well?

Hon Annette King: Oh, sorry, yes. I will wait to table it.

Mr SPEAKER: I will hear the other one, and I will put leave for them both together. What is the other document?

Hon Annette King: I wish to table the 2008-09 publicly funded hip and knee replacements funded by Labour but counted by National in its operations.

Mr SPEAKER: And what is the source of the second document?

Hon Annette King: It is from the Ministry of Health’s documents—OIA.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table an OIA response and Ministry of Health data information. Is there any objection to either of those two documents being tabled? There is none. They can be tabled.

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

District Health Boards—Southern District Health Board and Funding

6. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: What action, if any, has he taken to ensure that New Zealanders receive services in a timely manner?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): There have been a wide range of actions over the term of this Government to increase timely access to health services, including a $4.2 billion funding increase. The latest example is the national telehealth service, which is providing New Zealanders with timely health advice and support via phone, text, and online channels. Today I visited the service to mark its first anniversary. The service, staffed by registered nurses, mental health and addiction specialists, and poison specialists, provides 24/7 advice, support, assessment of symptoms, triage, and treatment advice. During this first year, one in 10 New Zealanders has accessed the service, and usage grew 16 percent between November 2015 and September 2016. It is an innovative solution that is producing results.

Hon Annette King: Why has he allowed 30 patients to have their eyesight worsened because of significant delays in eye treatment at Southern District Health Board (DHB), with the majority of nearly 5,000 patients waiting twice as long for an appointment than clinically recommended?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, the situation at Southern DHB has not been satisfactory. We have now got a new chief executive there, who has a plan in place to turn the situation around. The reality with ophthalmology is that we are doing 25 percent more appointments and operations than when National came into Government, but the wider picture is that we can now do more because of the enhanced treatment and technology. If you look at something like glaucoma, there has actually been a 100 percent—

Dr David Clark: $1.7 billion in funding cuts is having consequences.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: —listen to this—a 100 percent uplift in those types of injections over the past 5 years.

Hon Annette King: Why was he not on top of the fact that the adverse event report from Southern DHB for 2014-15 published last year was showing a lack of service planning, not enough appointments available, and patients waiting well beyond the Government’s expectation for service?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, as the member is well aware, we had to get in and get involved in Southern. We removed the district health board and we put the commissioner in there. We were left with massive deficits there—$42 million last year, which has now come down to $35 million, with an ongoing plan for increasing access to clinical services. So, actually, services are going ahead in Southern, the situation is on track, and it would be great to have the member’s constructive support, rather than carping from the sidelines. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Annette King: Has he not been informed that even with the new national assessment tool for commitment to treat cataracts, for example, those DHBs that have implemented it continue to have huge disparities as to when a person can get an operation—for example, you need 60 points in Waikato, or you need 40 points in West Coast?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, look, the situation is nowhere near as bleak as the member would like to make out. The fact is, this clinical prioritisation tool has just been finished and is about to be implemented across the country. There have always been financial thresholds, going way back in history to when Mrs King was Minister of Health, which meant that there were changes and differences between each DHB in terms of access to specific services. But the overall picture is that there is an extra $4 billion that has gone into health, we are doing more operations, there are more appointments, there are more doctors and nurses, and people are getting more timely access to services. The member just needs to cheer up. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Point of order, Annette King.

Rt Hon John Key: We’re enjoying it.

Hon Annette King: Yes, so am I. I seek leave to table two letters. The first is from the Waikato District Health Board, which I received under the Official Information Act (OIA), saying that the threshold for cataract surgery is 60 points.

Mr SPEAKER: And the second letter?

Hon Annette King: The second one is from the West Coast District Health Board, which I received under the OIA—both are dated; one is 16 August and the other is 10 August—saying that you need 40 points for a cataract operation.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table those two letters from DHBs, received under the OIA. Is there any objection to their being tabled? There is none. They can be tabled.

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

Education—Better Public Services Targets and Quality of Early Childhood Education

7. MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister of Education: What recent announcements has she made regarding education-related Better Public Services targets?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Yesterday I announced, as part of the Government’s Better Public Services initiative, that the Government is on track in lifting participation and achievement. The update shows that 83.3 percent of 18-year-olds achieved NCEA level 2 in 2015. That is a total of 51,299 young people, and represents an outstanding lift of 9 percent since the target was introduced in 2012. The early childhood education (ECE) participation rate has hit a record high. In the year to March 2016, 96.6 percent of children starting school had participated in ECE. This is great news, because it means more of our earliest learners are getting the best possible start to their education. Since then, some regions, such as Canterbury, Otago, Tasman, and Nelson, have reached over 98 percent. Seeing as these improvements are the results of many people’s efforts—the children and young people themselves, their families and whānau, teachers and tutors—we want to acknowledge and celebrate them all.

Matt Doocey: How does increased achievement and participation for our young people increase economic benefit?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: We are focused on increasing success across all parts of our education system. We know how critical skills and qualifications are for New Zealanders to do well, so that they can go on to contribute to society and to a thriving economy. Although we are seeing promising results in all of our targets, the increase in the proportion of 18-year-olds with NCEA level 2 is a standout. A level 2 qualification gives young people opportunities to further their education and employment, as it is often a minimum requirement for jobs. The beauty of NCEA is that it allows every young person to choose a course of study that works for them. These results mean that more young people are getting the skills that they need to be successful in their chosen pathway. Additionally, the work on vocational pathways, trades academies, and Youth Guarantee partnerships gives more choices to young people about where and what they can learn. Those who have struggled in traditional schooling are now getting engaged in education and achieving NCEA level 2.

Catherine Delahunty: Does the Minister believe any participation in early childhood education, as described in the Better Public Services target, is a substitute for guaranteed quality in early childhood education?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: We do not think the two are mutually exclusive. However, in order to enjoy quality, children need to be attending, so we have been focusing on lifting that. I can say to the member that the 98 percent of ECEs, at any time, that are subject to quality checks by the Ministry of Education and the regular reviews by the Education Review Office tell us that they are delivering quality.

Catherine Delahunty: Will the Minister establish a target for achieving safe child-to-adult ratios and a goal of 100 percent qualified teachers in early childhood education to ensure quality?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: To repeat a large part of my supplementary answer, at any one time 98 percent of services are meeting or exceeding the licensing standards that set the criteria for quality on curriculum, health and safety, the premises and facilities, governance, management, and administration, and, moreover, we have the highest number of qualified early ECE teachers than ever before.

Catherine Delahunty: Will the Minister stop the effective funding freeze in early childhood education, which funds only roll growth and has seen no increase in per-child funding since 2010?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: This Government has more than doubled the spending on early learning, to $1.79 billion, from less than $0.9 billion when we came into Government. This year’s Budget has also provided an extra $396.9 million over the next 4 years, which accounts for 54 million extra hours of ECE for children. ECE is 33.5 percent more affordable than it was in 2007, and, on average, for every dollar that parents pay for early learning, the Government contributes roughly $4.80.

Anti - money-laundering Measures—Legislative Reform

8. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Justice: Does she stand by the Prime Minister’s statement to this House in September on phase two of the anti - money-laundering measures that “there will be a bill in the House by the end of the year”; if not, why not?

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): That was certainly the Government’s intention at that time. However, as the Prime Minister also said, there are far-reaching implications for a large number of New Zealanders from these reforms. The time frame that we have been consistently working towards is to have the bill passed by mid-2017, and this has not changed. However, the introduction of the bill may now occur early next year to ensure that we do what we can to minimise the cost of the reforms to New Zealanders.

Grant Robertson: In what way has the process of implementing phase two of the anti - money-laundering changes, which would include real estate agents, lawyers, and accountants in the regime, been accelerated, as she and the Prime Minister promised in May of this year?

Hon AMY ADAMS: It had not originally been our intention to have the reforms passed by July, the middle of next year. Now we want to make sure that the legislation is passed by that time. Previously it would have been into 2018 before the legislation was intended to be in place.

Grant Robertson: Has she taken papers to Cabinet committees this year that would have seen the legislation introduced this year?

Hon AMY ADAMS: I have certainly taken Cabinet papers addressing the reforms, and that made it very clear that we are working to the time frame of the legislation being passed by the middle of next year.

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question asked whether the Minister had taken papers to the Cabinet committee about introducing the legislation this year. It was a specific question.

Mr SPEAKER: I think that on this occasion, to the dissatisfaction of Grant Robertson, obviously, the question has been addressed. The Minister then said she had taken papers to the Cabinet committee. I think it has been addressed.

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: I have ruled on that matter, Mr Robertson.

Grant Robertson: It was a very specific question about the introduction of legislation, which was not addressed by the Minister.

Mr SPEAKER: The member may not have heard me. I listened carefully to the answer, and I think on this occasion the question was addressed.

Grant Robertson: Has she taken a paper to a Cabinet committee this year that would have proposed the introduction of legislation on phase two of the anti - money-laundering measures? [Interruption] You could have answered the question, but you transferred it.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am very likely to rule a question out of order if the member continues like that.

Hon AMY ADAMS: The Cabinet committee that determines the introduction of legislation is the Cabinet legislation committee. I have not taken a paper to the Cabinet legislation committee. I have taken policy papers on the proposal, and that has us on track to continue with having legislation in place by the middle of next year. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! My patience will run out very quickly, with the interjections coming from both sides of the front bench.

Grant Robertson: Is it her intention that the details of property buyers and sellers will be captured under part 2 of the regime?

Hon AMY ADAMS: We have made it clear that part 2 of the reforms will extend to lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, and high-value goods dealers. Further detail of that will be made apparent when the legislation is made available.

Grant Robertson: How can she possibly argue that she is accelerating the work when she is actually still finalising policy work, which is the same position she has been in since 2014, and is the only reason that acceleration was even mentioned was to take the heat off John Key during the Panama Papers?

Hon AMY ADAMS: The member is simply wrong. The process has been accelerated so that the legislation will be in force sooner than otherwise would have happened. I point out to this House that this is a regime that will have considerable compliance costs on ordinary New Zealanders, and on this side of the House we want to ensure that those costs are no more burdensome on average mums and dads than they need to be. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I gave a fairly severe warning, and it applies to the Minister who is at the moment answering questions.

Grant Robertson: In light of her own statement that she has had no push-back from lawyers on phase two of the reforms, are the further delays and calls for more discussion documents the result of lobbying by the real estate industry or just that Steven Joyce does not want to upset his mates in the Koru lounge?

Hon AMY ADAMS: First of all, I suggest to that member that he should not take his information from the media. What we are doing is making sure the proposals do not impose any more costs on New Zealanders than are necessary. We are still working towards—and are on course—to having the legislation in place by the middle of next year. That has not changed, Mr Robertson.

Building and Construction Industry—Building Activity and National Policy Statement on Urban Development

9. JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to the Minister for Building and Housing: Can he confirm the latest reports on building activity in Auckland show an increase from $5.3 billion to $7.2 billion over the last year, or 36 percent?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): Yes. This growth in building activity of 36 percent in 1 year is the fastest growth rate recorded by Statistics New Zealand in building activity in 30 years, and nor has there been in Auckland 5 straight years of increased building activity. The $7.2 billion of building activity in Auckland per annum is also the highest ever and almost double that of the last peak in 2004. These statistics confirm that Auckland is experiencing the longest and strongest building boom ever.

Jami-Lee Ross: What additional steps is the Government taking to address the long-term causes of insufficient supply of housing and the resulting high prices?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yesterday the Government adopted the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, which puts a new legal requirement on councils to ensure they free up sufficient land to match growth. Its significance in respect of house prices is that all the substantive analysis shows that it is the price of the land that is at the core of housing unaffordability, and that councils’ policies to restrict land supply have severely impacted on housing costs while benefiting existing homeowners and providing massive gains to those owning land inside the artificially prescribed urban boundaries. The national policy statement has been developed in just 9 months, as compared with every other national policy statement, which has taken over 3 years. It comes into legal effect on 1 December.

Jami-Lee Ross: Is the Minister concerned, given the rapid growth in building activity, about the quality of building work and materials; if so, what steps is he taking to ensure New Zealand gets both quantity and quality?

Mr SPEAKER: Either of those two supplementary questions—the Hon Dr Nick Smith.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I think quality is a challenge when we have got a sector that is growing so quickly. The first step the Government took was to require all building work associated with structural integrity or weathertightness to be done by a licensed building practitioner. Last year we introduced a requirement that all building work over $30,000 had to have a written contract. This year I have announced 32 changes to the building code’s acceptable solutions and verification methods. The latest of those come into effect in an announcement today in respect of reinforcing steel mesh.

Solid Energy—Financial Position

10. Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises: What was Solid Energy’s indebtedness (excluding performance bonds) in dollars and as a percentage of assets in December 2008 and December 2012?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Acting Minister for State Owned Enterprises): In December 2008 Solid Energy’s indebtedness excluding performance bonds was $31 million, or 5 percent of asset value; in December 2012 Solid Energy’s indebtedness excluding performance bonds was $375 million, or 41.6 percent of asset value. Solid Energy made investment decisions and incurred debt at a time when international coal prices were at record levels. Coal prices subsequently collapsed, as we know, from US$320 per tonne in 2011 to US$85 per tonne just a couple of years later. The falling international coal price meant there was no prospect of Solid Energy being in a position to repay or finance its bank debt.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not hear the percentage for December 2008.

Mr SPEAKER: It was 5 percent.

Hon David Parker: Five percent—thank you. I seek leave to table the letter from the Minister for State Owned Enterprises to the chair of Solid Energy in May 2009 requesting Solid Energy to increase indebtedness—

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: You tabled it last year.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just need to check, because I think it may well have been tabled by the member earlier. Has he tabled it once before?

Hon David Parker: I have not. It was a long time ago.

Mr SPEAKER: On that basis I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular letter. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Hon David Parker: Does he still think it was prudent for the National Government to encourage higher dividends and to increase Solid Energy’s debt by hundreds of millions of dollars?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do not recall that letter saying, actually, that they should increase their dividends. But in any event, successive Ministers for State Owned Enterprises—including in a Government not too far from here, according to the Opposition—would make requests of State-owned enterprises to manage their balance sheets well and return surplus capital to the Crown. I do not think the then Minister for State Owned Enterprises was any different from any others.

Hon David Parker: Why did the National Government then reject the warning from John Palmer, then chair of Solid Energy, that the higher debt levels the Government asked for were imprudent for companies like Solid Energy that are exposed to coal commodity price cycles?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: This is a path we have travelled down a number of times before. In fact, if you go back to 2013 and look at Hansard, the then Minister reminded the House that Mr Palmer, the then chair, made it clear that the dividend decisions are made by the board. The board takes responsibility for those dividend decisions, and boards are asked to consider their debt and dividend policies, as Mr Mallard, then State-owned enterprises Minister, did in both 2006 and 2008.

Hon David Parker: What are the total losses suffered by shareholders and lenders to Solid Energy, to the nearest $100 million?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do not have that figure to hand, but I can tell the member that, unfortunately, Solid Energy is in the company of many, many, many international coal companies. I have to hand—

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

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —for example, an article that says—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am just helping.

Mr SPEAKER: I know, and I appreciate that, but a point of order has been raised.

Hon David Parker: I know that the Minister is answering on behalf of another Minister, but given that Solid Energy is in liquidation and has now sold its assets, I would expect the Minister to be prepared to answer, within $100 million, what the losses were—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order. The Minister answered straight away that he did not have that information. I was giving him time then to expand on that. I am the sole judge as to the length of the answer, not the person who asked the question, who may be dissatisfied with the answer that he has been given. Does the Minister wish to complete his answer?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Yes. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Iain Lees-Galloway, that is the last warning I will give you.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: As I was pointing out to the member, unfortunately this hit a huge number of coal companies worldwide, including the top four US companies that lost 99.9 percent of their value since the collapse in coal prices.

Hon David Parker: Which has been the greater example of inept mismanagement by his Government: driving Solid Energy into the ground, losing over a billion dollars of value; the fire sale of the power company shares at billions of dollars below current values; bungling the finance company Crown Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme, costing hundreds of millions of dollars extra; or freezing contributions to the Cullen fund, costing $10 billion of losses?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, the member is probably still sad about losing that 2008 election by that list of decisions he claims the Government has made since then. This Government stands by its very strong economic and financial management record, as do the people of New Zealand, apparently. And I might suggest that, if the member is that angry and disappointed, he joins Mr Cunliffe in heading for the exit.

Business Growth Agenda—Support for Small Business

11. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for Small Business: What initiatives has the Government implemented through the Business Growth Agenda that assist small business?

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business): Through the Business Growth Agenda this Government is working to create a competitive and productive economy to support small businesses. Initiatives include the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband and the Rural Broadband Initiative, assisting small businesses by making it easier to pay provisional tax, assisting small businesses in their engagement with the Government through the New Zealand Business Number, and assisting small businesses to employ and keep staff through the 90-day trial. A recent survey from Mind Your Own Business (MYOB) showed that 63 percent of those businesses want to retain the 90-day trial for new employees. It is because of initiatives such as these that 57 percent of all small businesses say they are more likely to succeed under this Government.

Chris Bishop: What other initiatives are contributing towards the ease of doing business?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: Through initiatives such as the 23 small-business roadshows—including the roadshow in Pētone, which that member attended—this Government is informing small businesses about the tools, resources, and support available to them for greater opportunities to assist in their businesses. The business.govt.nz website has numerous free online tools to assist small businesses, such as the Employment Agreement Builder. The site also has valuable information to support 20 milestones that small businesses may face. This means less time working on contracts and Government compliance and more time working on their business.

Chris Bishop: How are these initiatives contributing to increasing confidence from small businesses in the New Zealand economy?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: The initiatives I have outlined contribute to an increase in confidence amongst small businesses across the New Zealand economy. That recent MYOB survey of more than 1,000 small to medium business enterprises reveals that an increasing number of small and medium enterprises are experiencing improved trading conditions. Forty-two percent of business owners expect their revenue to increase in the next year on the back of a strong and growing economy. A strong and growing economy, combined with the policies of this Government, supports small businesses, which is, no doubt, why 57 percent of them believe they will succeed more under this Government. Small businesses do not want higher taxes, they want to keep the 90-day trial, and they do not want new water taxes. This is no doubt contributing to why only 10 percent of small businesses believe they will succeed under Labour.

Prime Minister—Statements

12. RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

Ron Mark: Does he stand by his immigration statement in July, when he said “We’re going to stick with the plan we’ve got.”; if so, how is that plan working, given the weekly fraud reports coming out of New Zealand’s Mumbai immigration office?

Mr SPEAKER: Either of those two supplementary questions—the right honourable Prime Minister.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In answer to the first part of the question, then, yes. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Every—[Interruption] Order! Every member has a right to ask a supplementary question.

Fletcher Tabuteau: They have made my day, Mr Speaker! [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Fletcher Tabuteau: Does he stand by his statement in relation to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that “if we have to give more, then we would expect to get more”; if so, has he forgotten his horrible record of overpromising and not delivering, like the 10 bridges in Northland, the Pūhoi to Warkworth highway, and the ultra-fast broadband in those areas?

Mr SPEAKER: Again, either of those two supplementary questions—the right honourable Prime Minister.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In answer to the first part of the question, yes. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do need some—[Interruption] Order! I need some cooperation, particularly from one member whom I am looking at towards my right.

Denis O’Rourke: Is he as “highly disappointed” with Gerry Brownlee as he was with another person who misbehaved at Christchurch Airport when Mr Brownlee illegally entered a secure area, then gave untruthful reasons, according to the Civil Aviation Authority, of why he did so, and cost taxpayers $43,000 for the investigation?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: They are very, very, very different events. It would just be wholly inappropriate for me to comment on either of them in any great depth. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Denis O’Rourke: If he has a “comprehensive housing strategy”, why are consents in Auckland lagging thousands behind what is needed, and why are code compliance certificates not counted to show just how few houses are actually being built?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member really needs to direct those sorts of detailed questions to the Minister for Building and Housing, but what I can say is we can see from the most recent data that consent numbers are up. As we can see from today’s announcement in relation to house prices in Auckland, they seem to at least be cooling a bit, although let us see what happens over the medium term. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Ria Bond: How can he expect “higher standards of his Ministers” when his Minister of Health’s underfunding has led to 30 patients at the Southern District Health Board suffering sight loss in 2015-16 because of unacceptable delays?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not accept the proposition that that is the case in health funding, at all. You saw the largest amount of money going into health funding in the history of New Zealand in Budget 2016. Can I also say to the member that I thank her and her colleagues for their questions today. I now feel I know the New Zealand First caucus better than Winston Peters does. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that in the situation that we are in there might be some interjection. I just would ask you to reflect on the way in which you are dealing with that versus the way in which you have dealt with some other interjections. I am not saying you were wrong to deal with them on this side, but were we doing that, I wonder what you might have done.

Mr SPEAKER: I think that is a fair point, but we are witnessing a tactic that we do not see every day in the House, and it is certainly causing some commotion. I am dealing with it to the best of my ability. I can assure the member that there are two or three people I have in my sight. If they continue to cause me trouble and I can identify them as causing that trouble, they will get very similar treatment to Mr Iain Lees-Galloway, or worse.

Tracey Martin: Does he stand by his statement that Steven Joyce is “doing an excellent job of improving results in the tertiary sector”, given his failure to act on complaints about fraudulent qualifications at the International Academy of New Zealand in 2014, and given he is currently ignoring similar complaints regarding another high-profile tertiary institution also in Auckland that was lodged with that Minister in May 2016?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do stand by the view that Steven Joyce is doing an outstanding job. The only complaint I hear is one from a car somewhere—goodness knows where—in New Zealand of Winston Peters screaming out: “Why is it taking six of them to have a go and none of them can land a single blow?”. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order, and it will be heard in silence.

Tracey Martin: Sorry, Mr Speaker, just to clarify: the question was whether he stood by his statement around the tertiary education, skills and employment Minister. What relevance did the second part—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No. If the member is arguing that the question was not addressed, it was very clearly addressed. Richard Prosser, do you want to proceed with the supplementary question? [Interruption] Order! Mr Brownlee, I need to ask for your cooperation completely between now and the end of question time.

Richard Prosser: How can the liquidation sale of Solid Energy’s assets be “good news”, given the price of coking coal has doubled this year and taxpayers’ assets worth $3 billion only 7 years ago have had to be sold at receivership prices, partly to overseas interests?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is, of course, relative to what Solid Energy thought it would get for the assets, which was a much lower number. I certainly hope that member has not hogged the question so that Barbara Stewart is not going to get a go. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Ron Mark: I am glad that they recognise an impact off the benches. It is something they lack themselves.

Mr SPEAKER: Can we have the supplementary question, otherwise I will move on.

Ron Mark: Absolutely. You can, Mr Speaker. Supplementary question to the Prime Minister—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: If the member wants to ask—

Ron Mark: I know they do not—they rarely see talent.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The tactic has been tried. The members can judge for themselves how successful it has been. If the member wants to ask his supplementary question, then get to his feet, ask it, and no further interjection.

Ron Mark: How can he say “Law and order is an area that the Government cares a lot about.”, when crime statistics to the year ending September 2016 show an increase in assaults, an increase in abductions, an increase in sexual assault, an increase in robbery, an increase in extortion, increases in burglary offences—

Mr SPEAKER: Bring the question to a conclusion.

Ron Mark: —just as we have long projected there would be, all under his leadership?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I would stand by that statement, because overall crime has reduced since 2011—15 percent, although I acknowledge it is up 1.4 percent in the last 12 months, and thank goodness Steve Hansen’s policy of taking Beauden Barrett off the bench is a lot more successful than New Zealand First’s. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your ruling, and you may wish to take some time about this: what does it take to get a National Party MP put on a final warning?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is quite a serious, direct criticism of the Chair. If the member wishes to criticise the Chair, there is a way to do it. It is not that way.

Urgent Debates Declined

Solid Energy—Sale of Mines

Mr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon David Parker seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the announcement that mines owned by Solid Energy have been sold. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. Last year I considered an application for an urgent debate when Solid Energy was placed into voluntary administration. At that time the longer-term outcome was not known. The outcome is now known. The test for whether a particular case requires the immediate attention of the House is a high one. It requires the matter to be of such importance that it justifies the House spending a substantial part of the sitting in debating it. I am not convinced that the matter has such an element of urgency that it must take precedence over other business of the House. I note that the annual report of Solid Energy was presented to the House today. There will be an opportunity to examine its performance and the current developments during the Commerce Committee’s annual review and the subsequent debate. The application is, therefore, declined.

Third Readings

Third Readings

Debate resumed from 20 October on the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2), the Burial and Cremation Amendment Bill, the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 2), the Holidays Amendment Bill (No 2), the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 3), the Medicines Amendment Bill, the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill, and the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 2).

JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I rise to take a short call on the Health Practitioners (Replacement of Statutory References to Medical Practitioners) Bill—or the bills that it has been split into. The Green Party has supported this bill from the beginning. We had some questions during the Health Committee process, but all of those were resolved satisfactorily.

The main purpose of the bills is changing “medical practitioners” to “health practitioners” in a range of legislation so that it provides greater flexibility and, potentially, allows us to use our health resources more efficiently, because it enables health practitioners other than medical practitioners—that is medical doctors—to be responsible for a variety of things that they are qualified to do. I think it is quite practical. It recognises the skills of people like nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants, as well as other types of practitioners who are able to deliver critical health services and who should be recognised as such.

I believe the bills have unanimous support within the House. This has not been a particularly controversial change, and, as I said, the select committee process was robust and we congratulate the officials who helped us navigate our way through the bills.

I guess there are two concerns that I have—one was raised by my colleague the Hon Annette King earlier in this debate, which is that this change has been mooted as something that will save vast amounts of money because it will enable physicians’ assistants, nurse practitioners, nurses, and other health practitioners who are not medical doctors to undertake a range of actions and responsibilities, and since, generally, they are paid less than medical doctors that, therefore, it will cost the health system less. That may well be true and that may be appropriate in some cases, but any additional responsibilities that health practitioners are undertaking should also be reflected in the pay of those health practitioners. So it is not just that we are going to get things cheaper; we actually need to reflect the skills and responsibilities of those health practitioners who will be undertaking additional responsibilities.

That brings me to my second concern, which is that our health system is increasingly stretched and under financial pressure. We have had 8 years of a National Government that has prioritised tax cuts over investment in the health of our society. The fact that we have had rapid population growth and we have not had a matching increase to health funding is becoming more and more obvious as people working in the health sector, across all areas in the health sector, are increasingly overworked and find themselves stretched for resources.

This is particularly true in the area of mental health, where in some parts of New Zealand the mental health system is stretched to breaking point. We have severe problems with staff morale because of the ways in which they are overworked. People are not able to receive the help that they need in time when they reach out, and that is why we have not made any improvement to the tragic levels of suicide in this country, which have stayed at the same elevated level because there simply has not been the investment in the mental health services that they need. Young people all around the country are having to wait as long as 8 weeks for a follow-up mental health appointment, and that is simply too long when people are experiencing significant issues and pressure.

So, I guess, although the Green Party supports this legislation, and although it is a practical endeavour to use our resources more efficiently, we also simply need to resource the health system better and we need to focus more on prevention and the areas in which Government can get better health outcomes outside of the health portfolio—you know, by reducing inequality; by alleviating child poverty; by investing in smarter transport; having warmer, drier housing; and having more affordable housing. There is a whole range of ways in which the Government can influence the health of a society, and I simply think the National Government is failing to do that. It is failing to invest properly in the health system.

Our own health Minister has admitted to the media, in an article to the Listener, that the health system is stretched, and it will continue to be stretched as long as we continue to experience this high population growth, because this Government has no intention of increasing the amount of funding for medical services and the health system. Instead, it is talking about tax cuts. Well, that is a very short-term approach, and I think it is very indicative overall of the ideology of this National Government, which is a very short-term approach to managing the politics day to day, trying to give tax cuts where it can rather than investing in the long-term health of our society, which I think is what most New Zealanders would like to see.

Most New Zealanders want to live in society where we are looking after our environment and we are looking after our people, where we do not have this tragically high suicide rate, and where we do not have people struggling to receive the health services that they need. Fundamentally, it will require a paradigm shift and a completely different approach—one that puts people and the environment first before the profits of large corporations and before the interests of the highest-income earners and the wealthiest people in this society.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

David Bennett: Barbs, you missed on a question; now you’ve got a speech.

BARBARA STEWART: I am definitely speaking on this. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the third reading of the legislation arising from the Health Practitioners (Replacement of Statutory References to Medical Practitioners) Bill. As others have said, this was a massive bill divided into eight separate bills, and, basically, the purpose is to increase the range of statutory functions that can be performed by health practitioners, who previously have only been referred to as medical practitioners. So, in this legislation, references to medical practitioners will be changed to references to health practitioners.

We are happy to support this legislation in their third and final readings, and we are very pleased to see the legislation reach this point. It has been a long time actually getting to this point in the Parliament. We would like to reassure the public that this legislation is not about short-changing those people who want to visit the doctor by visiting someone who is not qualified to carry out the task. These nurse practitioners are very capable, they are trained, and they have got the skills and expertise to carry out these particular jobs. It is more than just relieving doctors of time-consuming paperwork. We want to ensure that, basically, those practitioners who have got the skills and the expertise can actually use those skills and that expertise for the betterment of the New Zealand public and New Zealand patients.

This legislation is needed—very much needed. We do need to change with the times, and we know that if we are to have a health system that responds to New Zealand’s healthcare needs, it does need to change. Many of the changes just remove bureaucratic barriers to providing care, such as the current situation of a doctor needing to sign off an assessment carried out by health practitioners. As we have heard many members of this House mention on previous occasions, this can be particularly burdensome in rural areas where doctors are scarce.

We are very concerned as to why paramedics are allowed to continue unregulated. We believe that paramedics provide a brilliant service to New Zealanders, carrying out advanced medical care in very trying conditions—often on the side of the road—yet there are no regulations to cover this. Their role in patient care needs to be recognised. So they need to become registered medical practitioners. New Zealand First will continue to advocate for the registration of paramedics as professionals in their own right. We see this as an urgent priority, and we are disappointed that at this point in time they are not included in this legislation, yet we hoped that they would be.

We know on this side of the House that we have got a looming workforce crisis, and we hope that this legislation will actually ease some of the pressure. Forty-four percent of GPs intend to leave the profession in the next 10 years, with the number increasing since the previous year. In 2015 Health Workforce New Zealand reported that there were 52,729 registered nurses and 14,678 doctors. So this legislation is very important to enable nurses to carry out further duties. And, of course, we are all very aware that there is a shortage of doctors in rural areas. As was mentioned by the Green Party and Labour, nurse practitioners do need to be paid more for their skills and so this is an area that we will be following very, very closely.

We know too that our medical workforce is ageing. Health Workforce New Zealand reported that, as of 2015, 40.1 percent of doctors were aged 50 or over—up from 35.3 percent 6 years previously. The situation, unfortunately, is very similar for nurses: 45.2 percent of nurses were aged over 50—up from 40 percent in 2009. So it is very clear to us that we do need to develop a more flexible and adaptable workforce. We have got a workforce in crisis. We all witnessed the junior doctors’ strike recently, and that is just one example of this.

I would like to conclude by saying that although this legislation may ease a certain amount of pressure on our workforce, which is one of its intended goals, it will not solve the issue of an underfunded health system. Also, it will not have an impact on the concerns that we have in regard to the capacity of the workforce—now and in the future—to solve the needs of an increasingly ageing population. And, of course, we have got the chronic conditions that are part of the health scene these days, with obesity and diabetes. We have got high rates of immigration, and we have got a crisis just waiting to happen, unless something is changed.

In New Zealand First we are very pleased to support this legislation, and we look forward to its passing into law. We know that it will be of great benefit to Kiwis. Thank you.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): It is good to get to this final reading of the legislation arising from the Health Practitioners (Replacement of Statutory References to Medical Practitioners) Bill. If I think about the health needs of my large, diverse constituency, it is becoming very apparent that the way we deliver health services in New Zealand needs to rapidly change and is rapidly changing.

If we are not to leave smaller, rural communities behind in terms of healthcare, then we do need to change the way that health is delivered. At the same time, the scope of practice of many medical staff—whether they are doctors, nurses, or other clinicians—is widening and strengthening. So those factors are now coming together in the provisions around this legislation, which is a cognate bill to deal with eight different pieces of law.

We have had a number of readings for this, so I do not propose to go into those eight pieces of legislation, but in amending these eight statutes we do enable a wider range of suitably qualified health practitioners—and I will pause just there to also say that those practitioners will be suitably qualified. This legislation will not pose an increased risk of harm to the public with the scope of practice widening, because those scopes of practice are set with the relevant responsible authority, and the professional accountability of each of those practitioners is to the responsible authority, which is established under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act. So it is good news that the scope of practice is being strengthened and broadened, but we do have that assurance that there will be no increased risk of harm to the public.

I was delivering a lecture to some final-year nursing students in Christchurch a little while ago, and I was excited to see how much they are looking forward to this new environment upon the passage of this legislation, and also the other provisions and the focus on health and primary care that this Government has brought to health in New Zealand. There was excitement from those students to move into employment with those increased responsibilities, but increased opportunities. So it benefits patients in all corners of New Zealand and benefits health practitioners.

With those words, I commend the legislation to the House.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Jan Logie—5-minute call.

JAN LOGIE (Green): It is with pleasure that I take a short call for the Green Party on this legislation, which was previously one bill but has now been divided into eight bills addressing the Health Practitioners (Replacement of Statutory References to Medical Practitioners) Bill.

Firstly, I just want to acknowledge how important issues of health are to New Zealanders. It is kind of a no-brainer, really, that our health impacts on every single part of our lives and is a foundation for our ability to participate and live fully. We also need to recognise the changing circumstances around the health needs across the country. In New Zealand we have an ageing population, which of itself increases demands on our health system. We have, as has already been mentioned, an ageing health workforce, which we need to be very aware of in planning to prevent that impacting negatively on our systems.

We have had significant advances in health technology, which has put a cost pressure on our health system, and we have a growing pressure on our health system from diseases that have been created as a result of poverty, of our sick homes that are putting people into hospital, and of the obesogenic environments that we all live in. These are very, very significant pressures that should be addressed at the point to prevent people needing to be pushed into our healthcare system. But some of these things, obviously, we cannot prevent. We cannot prevent ourselves ageing, as much as I would like to some days. We know that we need to be thinking really creatively and be forward thinking about our health system.

This legislation is actually catching up, I would say, with some of the changes that have already been made within our health system. I will take nurse practitioners as an example. Since the 2000s registered nurses have been able to become nurse practitioners, which means that they need to be registered with the Nursing Council, that they need to have had a minimum of 4 years’ experience in a specific area of practice, and that they need to have completed a clinically focused Master’s degree on top of their degree to become a registered nurse. With all of that training, those nurses have not been able to do some pretty basic functions. So this legislation is helping us catch up to enable them to do what they are trained to do, which really does make sense in our system.

I think it is useful to have a bit of a feminist analysis around this, because it has been a battle for this women-dominated profession to be able to have recognition for their skills and be able to work at their level of competence. The competency of nurses has always been undervalued in our health system, and I think it is really good that we are, in some way, catching up. But, as has also already been mentioned, this cannot be done to say that they can do the work that would otherwise cost the system more when being done by a doctor for less money because they are nurses. That would be unjust, and that would feed into more of an equal pay problem—our pay equity issue, which we already have. So we need to be resolving those issues, and we do hope that the Government is not going to exacerbate them in its actions following the passing of this legislation.

I would also, again, like to particularly note the importance of this in terms of rural health and specialist health areas, where there are practitioners currently operating under the guidance of a GP who will often come in on particular days when they are available to travel around to sign off, and they will spend so much of their time signing things off when, actually, the practitioners had the competence and supervision to be able to make the decisions in the first place. We are wasting their time—their precious time—signing things off when they could be face-to-face with people doing what is specific to their role.

So, in conclusion, the Green Party is very happy to join with all the other parties in this House in supporting this legislation.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I too am delighted to join other members of the House in supporting this legislation, but, before I make my contribution on that, can I say that today there is huge celebration in the suburb of Redcliffs in Christchurch because the Minister of Education has finally made the decision to allow our school to come back to our community. It was a well-deserved victory for the Redcliffs community. Thank you for that indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, and now I will speak directly to the legislation.

We certainly support this legislation from a Labour perspective. It has taken a long time for the Government to get around to it. I cannot imagine why the Minister of Health was not able to put a bit of time and energy into this earlier, but it is here now, we are up to the third readings, and I am keen for it to progress. As my colleague Jan Logie said—there are two points I want to pick up that she mentioned.

The first is that this is about the law catching up with the training and qualifications of nurse practitioners, in particular. They are trained to be able do all sorts of things that the law does not allow them to do, and that is just a nonsense, particularly with the challenges that face us with the number of GPs who have indicated they will be retiring over the next little while, and our increasing population, and an increasing percentage of that population being older and potentially needing more access to health services. So we are just making the law catch up with the reality, the qualifications, and the training.

Jan Logie also mentioned that this legislation does nothing to address the causes of illness. That is something that not just the Minister of Health but all the Ministers in the current Government have neglected, and it is foolish. It is foolish from a social point of view and it is foolish from a financial point of view. It costs our country more because we have sick people whose illnesses could be prevented if the Government put on a smart, longer-term thinking cap instead of the poll-driven, short-term thinking under which it currently operates. So many people could be better off in terms of their well-being, and the country’s finances would be better off if we had a health-promotion, disease-prevention strategy, which we do not have.

This legislation also recognises a societal undervaluing of nurses. I remember when Annette King was Minister of Health, and she got a huge amount of money in the Budget so that she was able to give the nurses the pay jolt that they deserved. That actually largely addressed the pay gap, the pay inequity, between a female-dominated occupation—nurses—and comparable male-dominated occupations. Since the end of 2008 with the change of Government and the leadership—so-called—of the National Government, nurses have just reverted to being undervalued, not by society, but by the Government. So their pay, every year, has slipped behind, as has the pay and working conditions of junior doctors.

So although we support this legislation, and it is a good move forward, it does not go anywhere near addressing the issues in the health sector. We have had two Ministers of Health who have really paid lip service to their job. They have tried to get a lot of photo opportunities cutting ribbons or opening a new integrated family health centre or a new ward somewhere, but have never addressed the primary issues in our health system. I hope, now this bill is going to be passed this afternoon, that the Government turns its attention to dealing with the serious health issues that still face us. We are now $1.7 billion underfunded in the health system—$1.7 billion has been taken out of the health budget in the last 8 years. Mr Simpson, I am on a 5-minute call, so just relax. It is all right. Even though the clock is on a 10-minute call, I am taking the other half of the Green Party’s 10-minute call. That is $1.7 billion that should have been in the health system if the National-led Government had kept up with health inflation pressures and population growth.

In every single part of the country, we can feel that pressure growing. I certainly know in Canterbury, where we have additional health needs because of the mental health concerns and our increased population with people coming from overseas and from around the country to help with the rebuild, we have fallen further behind than even other district health boards. Despite that, I commend the progress of this legislation. It is good legislation. It is not enough, but at least it is something.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I would like to join with others in supporting this legislation in their third readings. I had the privilege and pleasure of sitting on the Health Committee as we considered the original bill, and it is a very good, practical piece of legislation, which clearly has the support of the entire House, as far as I can see.

Much has changed over the years since the original legislation that created a special role for medical practitioners—essentially, GPs—that allowed them to do certain things in our health system that only they could do. As the Hon Ruth Dyson has indicated in her speech, much has changed in the roles of medical practitioners: the way they cope, the way they work, and the way they attend to people who are ill in our communities today. So this piece of legislation does some really good work, in a pragmatic, sensible way, in expanding the range of people who are going to be able to do work that was previously done by general practitioners.

It is electorates like mine and the electorate of my friend and colleague Jacqui Dean—large rural provincial electorates—where the benefits of this legislation will be felt most positively, because these days modern medicine focuses on caring for people in their own homes as much as possible and on not institutionalising them, and that means that our medical people have to go to people’s homes. That is a very good thing. There are many good reasons for that to occur.

So, by passing this piece of legislation, it is going to mean that the current 14,000, or thereabouts, people who have medical practising certificates as GPs and doctors, some of the 50,000 registered nurses, the 200 practice nurses, the 4,500 physiotherapists, the 3,700 pharmacists, and some of the over 2,000 occupational therapists—not all, but some—will be able to take over those duties and roles and help people to get good, reliable, and professionally trained medical support and assistance, often in their own homes. This is a good piece of legislation. It is well-thought-out. It is timely. I commend the Minister of Health, who I think is doing an exceptionally good job, for introducing it to the House and bringing it to the House, and I support it and commend it.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, e Te Mangai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to speak on this, the third readings of the bills divided from the Health Practitioners (Replacement of Statutory References to Medical Practitioners) Bill. I want to, as always, commend the work of the Health Committee. I think it is a committee that works diligently on behalf of New Zealanders, and so I acknowledge its work on this particular piece of legislation.

I just want to reaffirm, for those who are listening, that what these bills do is remove references to medical practitioners in eight pieces of legislation to allow other suitably qualified health professionals or health practitioners, like nurses, to perform tasks that they are skilled in that they are not empowered to do under current legislation. Some of those things, actually, I think, should be highlighted. They are about, for example, the ability to sign death certificates; they are about the ability to take blood specimens from drunk drivers; they are about being able to declare people unfit to drive; they are about signing sick-leave certificates; they are about prescribing controlled drugs; and they are about issuing a certificate to accompany an application for a mental health assessment.

Currently all those tasks are only able to be performed, under legislation, by medical practitioners. What this piece of legislation will do is enable nurse practitioners, health professionals, and other health practitioners, who, under their learning and under their scopes of practice, have the competency—they too will now be able to perform those legislative functions.

I want to acknowledge the fact that the first nurse practitioner graduated in New Zealand in 2001. And actually, it was in 2005, under my colleague the Hon Annette King, that we first started to look at expanding the legislative responsibility of nurse practitioners. We did that under a piece of legislation that enabled nurse practitioners to prescribe medication. What this piece of legislation does, essentially, is look at the whole nursing area—and there are over 50,000 nurses in our country—and look at their skills and look at their ability to provide better services to the New Zealand population. At the heart of this piece of legislation, it is about maximising the strengths of the health workforce.

I particularly want to focus on the issue of pay equity, actually, within this whole area. I think it is really important now, with the expansion of the legislative scope that our nurses have, that we look at remuneration. For example, practice nurses in New Zealand earn between $31,000 and $45,000 per annum. If you are a registered nurse, you can expect to earn $65,000. If you are nurse practitioner—who, we have heard, has to undertake a Master’s, essentially, so it is an extra 2 years’ worth of study—you can aim to earn over $90,000.

If you look at medical professionals or medical practitioners, a junior GP—so this is someone who spent 5 years studying at university and at medical school, and then takes another 4 years to qualify—can earn between $75,000 and $90,000 a year. I am sure that other people will be able to talk more specifically about the remuneration, but a senior GP is someone who, after 10 years of both qualifying to be a medical practitioner and then working in the field, can look at earning between $180,000 and $250,000 a year. That is a huge difference between a senior GP and a nurse practitioner, who, you would say, is a senior nurse. So a senior nurse earns $90,000 a year; a senior GP earns between $180,000 and $250,000.

I think some of the implications of this piece of legislation, based on my quick research of how much people are remunerated, are that I think in the future we are going to see that our nurse practitioners are actually hugely underpaid. If they are now performing a whole lot of statutory functions and statutory responsibilities that previously only our medical professionals—our doctors—have been able to do, then, actually, there needs to be a reflection of that in their anticipated salaries.

The reason I am bringing this up as quite a big issue for the House in the future is that, obviously, nursing has tended to be an area or a domain that women have chosen to study in and to practise their skills and contribute to providing the New Zealand public with the health services that they need. I am highlighting it now, because I think it is something that in the future we are going to have to address. This has not been about being pragmatic. This has actually been, I think, about fully utilising the skills of our entire medical workforce. I certainly am—and I know after listening to Barbara Stewart from New Zealand First that it is something that is also now on their agenda.

I only want to highlight the fact that there is overwhelming support for this piece of legislation. There were 28 submissions, and only two opposed. One of those was from the medical practitioners themselves. I think that from their perspective, obviously, preserving their status within the whole medical workforce was something that they were particularly concerned about. That is probably the best way to describe it. I do not think that they were trying to undermine the nurses’ position, but I do not know. For people who have worked in the medical area, doctors always seem to have been at the top of the hill, or at the top of the tree, and the nurses were seen as subordinate.

Under this piece of legislation, actually, I see parity. I see our nurses and our doctors actually complementing one another, and doing their job hand in hand and side by side—not one above the other. I think that in some of the roles that our nurses will play in the future—and particularly in rural communities, they will be leading the provision of health services. I think that this piece of legislation is only really the beginning of another process, and another evolution of how our health services are provided in our country.

From the perspective of all nurses—the Nursing Council of New Zealand, Nurse Practitioners New Zealand, neonatal nurses, mental health nurses—and from the pharmacy sector, physiotherapy, and even the unions who chose to make a submission on this piece of legislation, there was widespread support, and I think that support from the submitters is being reflected in the House.

I will not take up any more time. I commend the bills to the House.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to take this last call on the legislation arising from the Health Practitioners (Replacement of Statutory References to Medical Practitioners) Bill. This legislation recognises the increasing skills and changing range of skills in the health workforce. I think enacting this legislation will do several things. First of all, I do believe that it will improve the efficiency of the health system. It will also advance the career pathways of many, and I believe it will improve job satisfaction as well.

There are several Acts that this legislation changes, and I have looked at what the key change is, in my mind, that is enacted within each of these Acts. The Accident Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) changes the terminology from “medical practitioner” to “health practitioner”, which is the core function of this legislation. In the Burial and Cremation Amendment Bill, a certificate of cause of death may be undertaken by a nurse practitioner who attended the last illness and has this role in their scope of practice. The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 2) will enable suitably qualified health practitioners to undertake and manage medical examinations of children and young persons. The Holidays Amendment Bill (No 2) will enable a health practitioner to complete a sick note, and I think this part of the legislation will probably touch more New Zealanders than, maybe, some of the others. I see this as a real efficiency in my clinical hands, and I think this is a really good piece of legislation. The Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill will require engagement with a primary healthcare provider. The Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 2) clarifies the use of controlled drugs as it relates to import, export, and prescribing.

I think that widening the scope of practice for health practitioners, overall, will not increase the risk of harm to the public. I know this was a concern from the Medical Council of New Zealand and the Medical Association. I think that the concern of risk to the public is addressed by two prime mechanisms. First of all, appropriate scopes of practice are determined by the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003. I think this is very important, to reassure the public and to reassure the profession. Secondly, as I think has already been commented on, there is oversight by regulatory bodies such as the Nursing Council of New Zealand and the Medical Council of New Zealand.

It has taken a long time to get these bills here to their final readings, but it is with great pleasure that I commend them to the House.

Bills read a third time.

Bills

Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police): I move, That the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill amends the Policing Act 2008 to enable cost recovery for certain policing services that fall within the definition of a “demand service”. The New Zealand Police is one of the few police services worldwide that does not have legislation that explicitly allows for some degree of cost recovery.

Cost recovery is common for many public sector agencies in New Zealand, both at local and central government level. For example, the Ministry for Primary Industries has a system in place to recover the costs of providing for food safety, fisheries, and biosecurity services, and the Department of Internal Affairs charges fees for the provision of New Zealand passports. Providing for cost recovery in the Policing Act, through regulations, will enable the Police to substantially meet the costs associated with certain policing services. This will avoid placing additional strain on taxpayer funds or shifting resources towards those services at the expense of other policing services. It will also safeguard the delivery of these services by ensuring that funding is specifically ring-fenced for them.

Under this bill, the Minister of Police can recommend regulations prescribing fees or charges for certain policing services. The service must be a demand service. The fee or charge must be consistent with certain cost-recovery criteria, and everything reasonable must have been done to consult persons and organisations affected. A demand service is a policing service requested by an individual organisation that is of direct benefit to that individual organisation, even though there may also be some indirect benefit to the public. It does not include responding to 111 calls. It does not include conducting criminal investigations, nor the prosecuting of criminal offences.

The bill does not list the specific policing services that costs can be recovered for, other than the provision of vetting services by the Police. This is the only policing service currently being considered for cost recovery. Following the passage of this bill, it is intended to introduce regulations to enable cost recovery for the police-vetting service. The regulations will set a fixed fee of $8.50 per vetting request, to cover the actual and reasonable costs of the police-vetting service. Regulations will also provide for a range of fee waivers, including for agencies making 20 vetting requests or fewer per year and for registered charities. Fees may also be waived for agencies facing extreme hardship and in cases where there are exceptional circumstances.

I would like to acknowledge, at this stage, the support of our support parties—the Māori Party, United Future, and the ACT Party, and particularly note their submissions relating to registered charities.

In conclusion, the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill enables the Police to recover the costs of certain policing services that come within the definition of a demand service as set out in the bill. This will help the Police ensure that resources are not diverted from front-line services. Cost recovery by public sector agencies in New Zealand already occurs, and leads to better allocation of taxpayer resources. I believe there is a strong case for this to include cost recovery for policing services where the service is of direct benefit to individuals or organisations. I commend this bill to the House.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): We have not been supportive of this bill, from the outset, and I want to spend my contribution talking about the problems that we have had with the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill.

Firstly, it is within the name of the bill itself—it is about cost recovery for policing services. It is our firm view that the vetting of people who are going to work with vulnerable populations is probably a core service of the police, and as such the police should be adequately funded to do so. We believe that the police have been underfunded in many areas, and this is one area where, we believe, funding should have been applied. It comes down to the argument about what is a “demand service”. During some of the Law and Order Committee submissions and hearings that I was able to sit in on, there were many discussions about demand service and about what might be termed a private benefit or a direct benefit to an individual or organisation. We discussed this a lot.

One of the arguments that we put forward is that in terms of Government requirements for such organisations as are funded by Government, where they may be working with vulnerable populations such as children or the elderly, it is a requirement of those Government contracts that staff are vetted. Our argument, further, is that we feel that police vetting is like the first line of defence in ensuring that you have a safe and an appropriate workforce in place to work with those vulnerable populations. It is our view that, given we are now required in some of our services to meet the legislative requirements of Acts such as the Vulnerable Children Act, for example—where the protection of children is paramount, but where the provision of services to those children is reliant on a safe workforce—where a workforce must be vetted, it is, in fact, actually in the public interest. It should not be determined as a private benefit under the definition of this particular bill. That has been our strong argument all along. Vetting is the first line of defence to ensure that we have a safe workforce to work with our children.

This legislation also seems a little inconsistent with some of the other legislation that ensures we work safely with our children. I want to refer to the sex offenders register and also back to the Vulnerable Children Act, where we are, on the one hand, saying very clearly that we want to protect our children from terrible harm, but, on the other hand, we are actually making it a cost to an individual for us to be sure that they are safe to work with those children. We think there are some inconsistencies there.

With regard to the regulations that Minister Collins has referred to, there were three Supplementary Order Papers that were presented to the House to exempt the fees for police vetting for registered charities, for early childhood education, and for registered teachers. We notice that this legislation will now, by Order in Council, make regulations to exempt fees or set different kinds of fees. The Hon Peter Dunne has taken some role in staking a claim that he was responsible for ensuring that this went ahead. Well, I have to say that Peter Dunne was not the prime mover and shaker of that; it was actually the dozens and dozens and dozens of organisations that have volunteers and that are registered charities, which were very, very clear in their submissions to the select committee and also very clear to the Minister, as well. They ensured that he clearly got the message that he should support them in this regard and ensure that they could be exempt from charges under this legislation. I am pleased to say that that is going ahead. We are very glad for that, but it was actually a result of some very strong lobbying by the community and voluntary sector that that regulation was brought within the legislation.

This bill will pass. We are sad that our concerns with regard to ensuring that the police are funded appropriately have not been heard. We are also sad that this does actually lead us down the slippery slope of being able to charge for other activities within the police range of activities. We do not think that is appropriate. The police are there primarily to serve and to protect. We know they do a great job, and they need to be resourced to do that as well as they can. We are disappointed that this legislation may lead to other opportunities to recover costs. During the process with the select committee, some of the arguments that were made by my colleagues from Labour and the Greens were about what types of activities those may be, and whether we are setting ourselves up to have a police force that may support those people who can afford to pay for it. That is not a good look in this country.

This bill will pass. We are disappointed that our arguments have not been heard in that regard, but I am very supportive of the fact that charities will now have an opportunity to have those fees waived. We will keep a close eye on this particular piece of legislation to ensure that the costs do not escalate from what the Minister has set, at $8.50 per vet. We will keep a close eye on that because we hope that what does not happen is what has happened in other jurisdictions, where the costs have escalated into the range of $50 a head. We will not be supporting this bill.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to stand to support the final stages of the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill. The purpose of the bill is to amend the Policing Act 2008. At present the Policing Act does not explicitly enable Police to charge users for its services. This bill amends the Policing Act 2008 to provide Police with the ability to recover its costs for providing certain services. Here I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Police for the services it provides us. Because of it we feel safe in our homes and in our community. This is important because the work Police does is to ensure that people are safe, and the vetting service is one of those areas. It ensures the people who are working with the vulnerable or children are vetted before they go into that service.

This bill is the result of a consultation paper that was released in December 2012, which attracted 147 submissions. Detailed consultation was done, and thus this bill was formulated and its provisions were made. During the Law and Order Committee process there were a lot of detailed discussions with members and submitters, and I would like to acknowledge all the members of the Law and Order Committee, as well as the submitters who participated in the process to ensure that this bill is a fine bill and will help the people.

Some of the Police services, such as the vetting service, provide a direct benefit to people, and that is why a nominal fee is being proposed to be charged for providing the vetting service. The select committee also clarified the “demand service”. What are the demand services? That was not very clear, but in the select committee process we did some work and ensured that “demand service” was clarified. I would like to point out a few things. Providing a request for an individual or an organisation or directly benefiting a person or an organisation, although there may be an indirect benefit to the public as a whole—this was not clear when the bill was introduced, but during the select committee process it was clarified that the “demand service” should be clarified further so that there was no confusion.

As the bill was introduced, the Minister had the authority to provide for exemptions and waivers of the refund of the fees, but in the select committee process, as the discussion happened, we felt that that the Minister should not be the person involved in this exemption process. Rather, the Commissioner of Police should be allowed, once the regulations are made, if there is a requirement for the exemption. It is now clarified that the Commissioner of Police, in accordance with the regulations, can provide for exemptions and waivers of the fees.

This bill also provides that, when the cost is to be fixed, the Minister should ensure that the stakeholders are consulted before any changes are brought into this regulation. So the bill is a very close bill, and there are clear indications what Ministers and the commissioner can do and cannot do. I hope this will go a long way. As the Minister mentioned, the minimum charge for the vetting service of $8.50 is a very nominal charge, and we hope that that will help, because there are other regulations that require that vetting should be done for people who work with the vulnerable and children. With these words, I commend the bill to the House.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I do not disagree with the member who has just resumed his seat, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, that it is very important that vetting should be done for people working in our communities who are in positions of responsibility, whether it be over the elderly or the young. The big debate around this piece of legislation—and I think it is accurate to say it has spluttered its way through the legislative process—has been what, at the first instance, this piece of legislation proposed to do, what it was sold to do, and what it is actually going to achieve.

When this piece of legislation was introduced in November 2014, after the Government came into power in that election, it was proposed that for events put on by concert promoters and people holding sports events where there would have to be an extra police presence to control crowds, etc.—and I think on this side of the House we agreed to it somewhat—there would be an element of charging out by police. There was extra expense for providing extra policing at those types of events, and therefore some cost recovery would be necessary. Under that guise the Labour Party supported this piece of legislation to the Law and Order Committee.

Unbeknownst to us, it was not the likes of event promoters and sporting promoters who were going to be targeted. Under the legislation as it stands, it is the likes of community organisations—charities and organisations within our communities, like schools and early childhood education providers—that will now have to bear the brunt of the cost of the police vetting. The argument is that it is a demand service and there is a private benefit to those organisations that the people who work with them are police-vetted. I would argue that there is a general public benefit for making sure that the people who work in those positions within those organisations are good people and safe people, as they work with some of our most vulnerable citizens.

The other point I want to make about this piece of legislation is I think we are working on it with old information that does not necessarily tell the picture as it is. The regulatory impact statement, which, I believe, was authored in October 2013, quotes figures that the Government is still using now as a basis for the overall cost of the vetting service. I will just double-check this and get it right. Yes—back in October 2013 the police said that the vetting service cost to the police was $2.2 million, which, in the big scheme of things, I think that the taxpayer can wear. At that stage, the proposed fee for a police vetting check was, I understand, $5. That is where they came up with the figure of $2.2 million, because, apparently, back in October 2013 there were half a million police vetting checks processed every year.

Also in that document from back in October 2013 it says: “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.” In English, it is saying there is going to be more demand—more than half a million—and therefore the price of the vetting service will have to increase. At the Committee stage of this piece of legislation, I said to the Minister of Police, who was in the chair, that back in 2014 the nominal fee was $5, and that the regulatory impact statement said that things might change. I said that it has been 3 years since this regulatory impact statement was produced, and I asked whether the Government had any new figures on what the cost to the end-user will be. We have been waiting for some time for the potential impact. It makes a big difference when we are talking about half a million, and potentially more, police-vetting checks over a year period. Then we got the new figure, which we have never heard before, of $8.50.

So for at least 12 months we have been wanting to know exactly what the impost would be for the likes of charities and schools in our communities—what they were going to be charged for these police vetting checks. For a long time—2 or 3 years now—they have been working on the assumption of $5, but, after a simple question to the Minister, all of sudden we came up with a figure of $8.50, which, obviously, is going to increase the charge or the cost to the likes of those schools and those charities and those organisations. So we have got the $8.50 charge, which has gone up considerably from $5.

We have also got the figure of half a million vettings, which this has all been based on, and I still do not think we have got an accurate figure from the Government about how many vetting checks are being done. If it was half a million back in October 2013 and the Government’s own regulatory impact statement says that demand is going to increase, what is the number? Has it gone from half a million to three-quarters of a million? It does matter if your price has gone up by $3.50 from the figure that was first mooted.

By my maths, if we are basing it on half a million vetting checks—which is the old figure—and the new figure of $8.50, up from $5, the police cost for the vetting service has gone from $2.2 million per year in October 2013 to $4.25 million in October 2016, which has meant that the cost of police-vetting checks has almost doubled in the time since this piece of legislation was first mooted and the problem was looked at—to now. That, I think, is of major concern for those people out there who are paying for these police-vetting checks. The likes of schools may have to go through quite a few police vetting checks every year, and an increase of $3.50 might not sound like a lot to the Government, but $8.50 over quite a few checks—and we have got that number of half a million—is quite a lot of money to the people out in the community.

Let us not forget what this is really about. It is about community organisations trying to do good in their communities, not the likes of sports promoters or concert promoters, as was first mooted at the very outset of this piece of legislation. I think this has spluttered through Parliament. The information that it is all based on is patchy at best, because we have been operating on $5 for 3 years, and then all of a sudden it is $8.50. We have been operating on half a million, so perhaps someone on the Government benches—in the 5-minute call that they will take on this piece of legislation, which they are obviously very proud of—will tell us exactly what the figures are, how much revenue they are bringing in because of this, and whether that does cover the costs or whether they are making a little bit extra on the side.

I do not know what is going on within the police vetting system if the costs have doubled in the last 3 years. Have the volumes increased that much? Have they really increased from half a million to—what? What has an increase in price meant, from $5 back in 2013 to now, when it has gone to $8.50? It is taking money out of the likes of early childhood centres, it is taking money out of the likes of schools, and it is taking money out of the likes of people who are working with the most vulnerable people in our community. I am not saying this work should not be done. I think police should, in some cases, try to look to recover costs from people, but not necessarily these kinds of organisations in our community.

I would really appreciate it if someone on the other side of the House updated us with the best information that they have got. How many police-vetting checks are happening now? That half a million number that they were spouting about back in 2013 must have gone up, because the Government’s own regulatory impact statement back then said the demand would increase. How long will $8.50 for a police vetting check stay at $8.50?

My colleague Poto Williams has been very concerned about the price rising to the likes of $50, which it has got to in Australia, and I think, with the price increase that we have seen in a short time from $5 to $8.50, that is a valid concern to have. Could someone from the other side of the House tell us exactly what the situation is, how much money they are bringing in, and how many police vetting checks there will be in the next 2 to 3 years so that we can get an idea of what is going on here? I think that charities, organisations, and the likes of schools in our communities would quite like to know what they are up for to make sure that the people in their organisations are safe people to work within them.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill, and I thank the previous member, Kris Faafoi, very much for the questions that he has asked. Can I just bring some clarity to his questions. The figures that we have are that in the 2014-15 year there were 512,048 police-vet checks, and that was an increase of around about 7 percent. He does ask the question about who shall pay for this, and the member mentioned schools and charities.

Cabinet has now agreed to regulations that provide a range of fee waivers, and this was a subject of great discussion in the Law and Order Committee as we looked at this bill. Agencies or schools making up to 20 vetting requests per year will not be required to pay. Registered charities will be exempt from the fee. Fees may also be waived for agencies facing extreme hardship or in cases where there are exceptional circumstances. So can I say to the member’s concerns that all of those concerns have been considered by Cabinet, and it has released regulations around that, which is what we wanted as a committee—to understand that.

Can I also say that when we discussed this in the committee, I cannot actually ever recall a $5 amount being discussed. Maybe I missed that meeting, but it was always around about $7.92—that is the figure that comes to my mind. However, you may correct me on that in terms of your own research. However, $8.50 represents an actual and reasonable cost for a police-vetting fee.

Can I say that this has all come about because of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014, which Labour supported. In fact, this whole House, with the exception of the Greens and the Mana party, at that particular time, supported that bill. It required police vetting, especially for those who were working with vulnerable situations and children.

Jacinda Ardern: Did it say they’d have to pay for it? Did it say they’d have to pay for it? Did it say that?

JONATHAN YOUNG: No, that bill did not say that, but what this House agreed to, with the exception of the Green Party—and I understand that Ms Logie spoke on that bill at that point in time and was unhappy that there was not a greater element addressing family violence in the bill. She must be thrilled with what the Hon Amy Adams is doing with the reforms that she is bringing to this Parliament.

Kris Faafoi: Talk about this bill.

JONATHAN YOUNG: What happened in this bill—it was not just the decision of this Parliament but it was the pressure and the expectations of this nation that we address this issue when it came to child abuse and violence in our communities. This Parliament passed that bill.

What this bill does is it enables the agency that is going to vet those people working with vulnerable people and children to be able to recover its costs, up to around about $3 million—resources that, in spending on this process, not only can be reallocated to building a very complete and sustainable and efficient vetting process but can enable the existing resources of the Police to be better dedicated to the frontline work that it does.

I am very happy to stand and speak in support of this bill. Thank you.

DAVID CLENDON (Green): This is a very unfortunate bill. The Greens, like our Labour colleagues, have opposed it from the beginning and will continue to do so. Fundamentally, this bill threatens—and I used that word advisedly—to change the relationship between New Zealanders and our police force in an adverse way. It is the thin edge of the wedge of commercialising the services that police provide for us.

We are told that, specifically, this vetting charge is in response to what is perceived to be a private benefit; I do not accept that argument for a moment. If our wonderful police officers around Northland continue to do their jobs well, and get on the streets and keep the rascals on their toes, then it is less likely my house will be burgled, and that is a direct private benefit to me.

There is a much greater public good in having a peaceful and a safe community. The private benefit that accrues to me and to all of us individually—we already pay for that; it is called tax. I know some of our friends on the National ranks might think tax is actually a four-letter word, but I think paying for public sector services through tax is a pretty robust model, and I am very happy to see that continue. I think that to isolate a single State agency like Police for a single amount in a little bit of a private sector, market-driven sort of approach is a very unfortunate and backward approach.

The introduction to the bill talks about the need to “alleviate strain on police resources”. There is no question that Police resources are extremely stretched and under pressure. Effectively, it has gone on a flat budget. Its income has been flat for some 7 to 8 years. The calculation given to us was that, between 2010 and about last year, the Police had something like a $90 million cut in real terms. At the last Budget it got a small extra amount to pay a long-overdue, quite modest pay increase, which was welcomed but, again, I stress it was probably overdue in terms of maintaining morale within the Police. At best, you could see this bill as a short-term, stop-gap measure to try to drive a little bit more money into the coffers, to try to enable the police to do their job.

The fact is that the police have found efficiencies through technology and through changing the way they manage their human and other resources, but the fact is there is a limit to how much and how far you can squeeze or stretch a dollar. This bill, as I say, could be seen as a stop-gap measure—just a short-term grab for a little bit more income—but, more cynically, I think that in the longer term it is setting up a situation where charging for police services will become more commonplace.

We have started out with this business of vetting, and I do follow Mr Faafoi’s commentary about the cost. I distinctly remember at the Law and Order Committee that the figure of $7 was the figure we were working to. We were told quite recently at the second reading by the Minister of Police that, actually, it will be $8.50. That is a 20 percent increase before the bill has even escaped from the House. And, following Mr Faafoi’s comments, if it was talked about as $5, that is actually a 70 percent increase since it was first proposed. How much further do we go? Internationally, a figure of $50 is not uncommon.

OK, even if it is $8.50 or it doubles to 15 or 16 bucks, that will not hurt any of us in this House if we choose to undertake a vetting process for whatever reason, but we have got to remember that the people who are going to actually apply to be vetted are often in the community voluntary sector. It is all very well to give an agency a waiver, but one should also consider the level of bureaucracy and cost in administering those waivers.

But do we really want to punish people—members of the community who put their hand up to give back to their community by assisting at a local early childhood facility, or by working in a hospice as a volunteer? Anywhere people are working with vulnerable members of the public—that is where they will be hit. You get a person on a low income or a fixed income—if they choose to work in one or two different agencies, perhaps at an early childhood centre and at a school, or whatever it might be, they will need to get a vet for each of those functions. They will have to go through the process each time they want to offer service. So we are actually putting a financial penalty on people who want to contribute their time to community well-being.

I think that is a very perverse message to give members of the public: “Thank you for your contribution; now here is the bill.” And is that not a roundabout way—it is a money-go-round, effectively. It is taking money out of the pockets of members of the public who are wanting to do the right thing—wanting to contribute their time—and handing that to the police.

We should remind ourselves that, actually, the numbers involved are relatively small in the scheme of things. If you look at the overall Police budget, the few millions of dollars that this might raise are actually very small beer. As I have said, weigh that against the precedent it sets—that we are going to have a commercial relationship with our police force rather than one built on trust and built on a shared commitment to a safe community. It is a very unfortunate and a very slippery slope we are heading down, I believe.

Following the select committee, I made the point in our minority report on the bill that we did anticipate that the cost would go up over time. I think we did not anticipate it would go up quite as quickly and quite so much—as I say, at least 20 percent before the bill has even escaped the House. At the moment, the target of this bill is the vetting of people who want to work with vulnerable people, but I guess the message to other organisations and to other community sectors is: be afraid—for example, with sports. Yes, police do routinely turn up at sporting events, be they large or small. Is the sporting sector the next to be in the crosshairs and to have extra cost imposed on it? Again, it is an area with a lot of public benefit as well as private benefit.

Mr Faafoi does make a fair point that, yes, when there is a significant sporting event at the Cake Tin, or anywhere else, that does impose cost on the police force. And there is an argument that says: “Yes, maybe they should be able to clip the promoter’s ticket.” But then how far do you go with that? If you have a major sporting event, your expectation is that you will also get more traffic on the road on a given afternoon or evening. Do you send for cost recovery for the extra road policing that would be required? Do you add the cost of the likelihood that there will be a few more people partying up in Courtenay Place in the unlikely event that the Hurricanes have a win at the Cake Tin, for example? Where do you draw those boundaries?

Is it not better to simply bring the boundaries right back to where they belong and to say: “We will resource the police properly through Vote Police. That is where its income comes from and it will disperse that operationally in the way that it sees fit.” We do not see any positive future in the idea of a commercial relationship.

The other area I would point to that does, undoubtedly, impose significant financial cost on police is in search and rescue. We live in a beautiful country. It is also a country that takes no prisoners. If people are a little bit careless in the outdoors—in the mountains and out on boats—then the likelihood is that they can come to grief, occasionally through carelessness and, just as often, simply through unexpected or unpredictable weather events, or whatever it might be.

Do we really want to see a situation where New Zealanders, or indeed our tourists—our visitors—are discouraged from engaging with our beautiful outdoor environments for fear that if they get lost or require some assistance they are going to be looking down the barrel of a significant bill from their friendly local boys and girls in blue? I think that would be a very unfortunate outcome, but it is a very predictable one because search and rescue does not come cheaply. It takes a great deal of cost and police time to administer, involving their own officers to organise volunteers in civil defence and the like, and I think that it would be a likely target if we go down this road of charging for police service.

I will not labour the point, except simply to say that we think this bill is ill-conceived, it is the wrong model, and we continue to oppose it. Thank you.

MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): Policing is, and always has been, the core responsibility of the State. The citizens have the right to feel safe in their homes and in their businesses. Indeed, as a First World, progressive country, we all have the right to demand that our streets are also safe. New Zealanders pay their taxes to enable the State to fulfil that responsibility. As much as it is the responsibility of the State to keep its citizens safe, it is also the responsibility of the citizens to pay their taxes fairly, equitably, and honestly. New Zealanders are reputed to be very honest, by far, in fulfilling their duties towards the State, and therefore they have the right to expect that the State also reciprocates in the same manner.

During its proceedings, the Law and Order Committee heard a large number of submissions from private citizens, from NGOs, and from community organisations. Almost all of them were very, very concerned that this legislation, after being passed, will cause them to incur extra costs as far as their vetting requests are concerned. Let us take the latest figure that has been thrown around for vetting, which is $8.50. Now, we also have been told that about half a million requests are received annually by the police. So, by those calculations, it works out to $4.25 million that the police will generate out of this process, whereas the cost that has been told to us for the vetting process is only $2.2 million at this stage. This actually means that this is not cost recovery—it is shameless profiteering. It is profiteering when the Government spends only $2.2 million for vetting and it is likely to recover $4.25 million. This is not cost recovery; it is profiteering.

New Zealand First believes that keeping our communities safe through policing is the core responsibility of the State, and police vetting is inseparable from basic policing. The police force and the services it provides are funded from tax revenue, and we believe that it should stay that way. New Zealand First believes that taxpayers should not have to pay for a vetting service with a separate fee. We believe that police should carry out vetting as part of their core policing work. We also believe that this bill will provide the impetus for police to start charging for the services they currently provide as core business, such as attending to emergencies, family violence incidents, property crime, or child abuse incidents. We are strongly against this.

The Vulnerable Children Act 2014 requires standard screening and vetting of all central government and Government-funded contractors who are working with children. This will be a voluntary regime for businesses, NGOs, and voluntary organisations, but will be reviewed in 2 years. It is going to set a bad precedent. At the moment, we are saying that only $8.50 will be charged, but there is nothing in this legislation to stop the police from increasing these charges. It has actually come up from $5 to begin with, to $8.50, and this bill has not even been passed yet. So we have a suspicion that this will very quickly rise to a very high figure, such as $50 or even more. That is the concern that all the submitters had, and that is the concern that we have got.

Powers are vested with the Commissioner of Police as to what exemptions he or she can make for the organisations that will not be charged fees for vetting services. That of itself actually makes this legislation very ambiguous, and there are grey areas left there. Equally, the commissioner will later on have the power to increase the cost, because there will not be any parliamentary debate on that. That will be a matter of regulation, and the police commissioner will be able to increase the rates of police-vetting charges. That means that, depending on what he or she likes, the police commissioner will be able to actually charge the organisation what they wish to and will be able to exempt those organisations as they feel fit. That is not a very fair distribution of the revenue that is intended to be collected. Paying for the service will increase compliance costs, which will have a negative impact on the operational budgets of schools, particularly small schools. New Zealand First will not support this bill. Thank you.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): The Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill seems to have attracted a little bit of controversy this afternoon in its third reading, and yet what I see from this bill is that it changes a piece of legislation that previously, under the 2000 legislation, did not explicitly enable police to charge users for any of their services. This bill corrects that. It amends the Policing Act with an intention of providing police with the ability to recover the cost of providing certain policing services, such as police vetting.

I do know that my colleague Jonathan Young answered a Labour member who seemed unaware of what was in the bill—which was a bit disturbing, given that he was sitting on the Law and Order Committee—very well. But the point, I think, is worth resaying, which is that a number of recent national and international developments have put increasing pressure on police-vetting services, and this includes the introduction of mandatory checks for the children’s workforce, which is required by National’s Vulnerable Children Act 2014. Can one argue that that is a worthy advancement in legislation? Police vetting is becoming increasingly common and increasingly necessary, and part of employment.

The point was made, also by the Labour member, that schools and charities would be required to fund police vetting. However, I do see that the select committee has done its job very well, and Cabinet has now agreed that the regulations will provide for a range of fee waivers, including for agencies or schools making 20 vetting requests or fewer per year. They will not be required to pay, nor will registered charities—they will also be exempt from the fee. It is a shame that the Labour member who raised it had perhaps not read what was in the papers, but there you are. The fees may also be waived for agencies facing extreme hardship, and in cases where there are exceptional circumstances.

This is a good bill. I am pleased to see it at its third reading. I am very pleased to make a small contribution, and I do commend it to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Jan Logie.

Jacqui Dean: Be nice.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Under instruction from the National Party member Jacqui Dean to be nice, I will do what I can. I rise to add the Green Party’s opposition to this, the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill at its third reading. I really want to just speak to the context of this bill first up.

I have at least growing concern about the state of our core social infrastructure in New Zealand—a concern that it is not keeping up with population growth or changing social mores or need. We are seeing this very clearly in the health sector, we are seeing it at the breaking point in our social sector, and we are hearing this from the police. I take a word of caution from one editorial in the paper today saying that the Opposition always talks about problems in policing coming up to an election and how the police never have enough resource. That being said, I do think it is important to note that there has been a $90 million cut in real terms to the Police budget at a time when we are expecting more from it in terms of police vetting for vulnerable children, in terms of response to sexual violence, and in terms of response to domestic violence. It has been suffering a real-term funding cut. So it goes to the core of this Government’s approach, which is that it seems to be prioritising reducing Government over ensuring that our society works—ensuring that the vision that it bandies around all over the place is actually able to be delivered by us.

I think this is another example of that, because we have had the Vulnerable Children’s Act bring in this increased need for vetting. We have heard that mentioned again and again from National members across the way, which, to me, shows a gaping flaw in the logic behind this bill. Government members are saying they are bringing in this cost recovery for vetting because it is a private benefit, not a social good. The entire argument of the Vulnerable Children’s Act was that that vetting provides a public good. You cannot have it both ways. It does not make sense. So this bill goes right to the heart of that.

Also, I think this whole area exposes this Government’s lack of planning and how it does not seem to see things in a joined up way. We had the Vulnerable Children’s Act and increased requirements for vetting. There was going to be a consequent pressure on the police to be able to respond to that. I understand that there has been—and we have heard it from the Government—an increased demand for vetting. A no-brainer: it was going to happen. That has meant that the waiting time to get vettings through the police has gone up from an average of 6.3 days in 2013 to 21.7 days in 2015 because of that increased demand created by legislation, because this House said that there was a public good in that.

The Government should have seen that coming; everyone else saw that coming. Yet it did not put in the resources to be able to deliver the intent of the legislation. So are the Government members now, soon after and on the back of that, putting in legislation, and scrambling around to be able to address the damage that has been caused by them not thinking that through in the first place. The Government is putting the cost on to the rest of society while it has been actually collecting our taxes to be able to deliver our social services and our social intent, and yet it is not doing it. So it really does need to be called out on that.

I think it is worth saying that I heard at a Social Services Committee meeting this week from somebody in a tertiary institution who was saying that the vetting has, in the way that it has not been resourced, had a real impact on them. They are having backlogs of over 3 weeks to be able to get staff members vetted, and on top of that our tertiary institutions are now going to be charged costs, when they should be using that money for education.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā tātou katoa. Labour values the thousands of volunteers around this country, who contribute thousands of hours to community organisations up and down this country. Often, those very organisations that these volunteers work for are the only organisations in many of those communities—they are often vulnerable communities, whether they are based rurally or are urban-based—and Labour acknowledges and values their role. Labour also values the hard work our police force does. When we take Government next year, we are going to ensure that our police force is adequately funded.

To this bill here, the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill—I understand that the Government is also committed to ensuring that it will reduce obstacles for volunteers contributing time to community organisations, but this bill puts all that at risk. In fact, when I read the bill, it has a kind of hide-and-seek feel about it. The “seek” is that this bill is intended to recover costs around vetting services, but it hides the fact that it can also, perhaps down the track when we pass this legislation, recover costs for what are called “other services”. I note that in the report to the Justice and Electoral Committee, officials could not provide any exhaustive list to committee members on what those other services are likely to be. My point is, does this potentially open up to abuse the charging for other services that police may feel they have been inadequately resourced by this Government to cover? That is a question that maybe the Government members can get up and respond to.

The other “feel” I have with this bill is that it feels incomplete. It is not only open to inventing new services to charge for in order to recover costs, but it clearly did not, at the initial reading, talk about or give a list of the criteria for those exemptions. I will come back to that because I know that Mr Young did explain Cabinet’s decision, made on Monday.

I just want to acknowledge the submitters who came in front of the Justice and Electoral Committee. Can I just quickly list them: the New Zealand Public Service Association, the Citizens Advice Bureau New Zealand, the Plunket Society, and, of course, the National Council of Women of New Zealand, which also had issues with this bill that it clearly articulated to the select committee around confusion and around unnecessarily disadvantaging certain communities and organisations that it represents.

But it is that statement around cost recovery versus the potential for this bill to enable the police to actually generate income—that is what it can potentially become. The extensions to the statutory powers given to the New Zealand Police do not just limit it to charging for vetting services, which we would support, but actually open the potential to look at generating income through other means. I have a problem with the lack of closing that potential question mark and ensuring that if we are opening the police up to charging for other services, we actually define that. We should not leave it so open.

I want to go quickly now to the comment that Mr Young mentioned, around Cabinet agreeing to the waivers that he mentioned around registered charities and organisations facing severe hardship. I guess my concern, when he shared that with the House, was that that is the role, I thought, of the select committee. That is where we debate fixing up legislation. I want to acknowledge the Opposition members who suggested writing criteria, which Cabinet has obviously taken on board and passed. But then it just begs the question—if we cannot sort out stronger legislation in select committees, and we leave that up to Cabinet decisions, then that questions the value, as I see it from where I sit, of the role of the select committees.

Labour will not be supporting this bill. Kia ora.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): Before I start making a few remarks just clarifying some of the statements that the previous Labour and Green members have made, I just want to make a comment that I think what is actually quite concerning is the lack of understanding by the Opposition of what this piece of legislation actually seeks to achieve. This is about police vetting and recovering costs from a number of services whereby increased demand is taking up a more disproportionate amount of police time. The Opposition members are insinuating, or scaremongering, that police services, core activities of police front-line services, have the potential of being charged under this legislation. That is absolutely incorrect. That is categorically wrong.

The functions performed by the police around police vetting are performed by back-office staff not front-line sworn officers, of which there are almost 9,000 out on the streets. It is simply incorrect to insinuate that the Police is going to be establishing itself as some form of money-hungry organisation. What this seeks to achieve, actually, is to give greater certainty to all those organisations that require police vetting as part of their core activities—there were over 500,000 police-vets undertaken last year—given the increased prevalence and increased need for greater scrutiny of people operating in the presence of vulnerable children and vulnerable New Zealanders, in order to give more people certainty of getting those vettings undertaken in a comprehensive nature and at a speedy pace in order to deliver for those organisations so they can undertake their core business.

Actually, one of the other things that have been left out of these discussions today so far by the Opposition is the fact that our police is one of the only forces in States in the OECD that we compare ourselves with that does not have some form of cost recovery service. If you look at New South Wales police, the Queensland police, or any of the others, their cost recovery services are at a disproportionately higher rate than what we are proposing. Our $8.50 per police-vet fee, which Cabinet agreed to—under the regulations; not the legislation, which is the role of the select committee—is far less than what the States that we compare ourselves with are undertaking. So thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. We obviously support it, and we support the police in their efforts across the country.

JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): The services of our police are crucial in New Zealand. It is a public service paid for by all of us as taxpayers, and police vetting is a public good that should continue to be funded by taxpayers. This bill, the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill, proposes amending the Policing Act 2008 to allow police to be able to recover the costs of certain services they defined as “demand services”.

An example that the bill gives of a demand service is the provision of vetting services. I agree with the previous Labour speaker, Meka Whaitiri, who said that Labour really values our volunteers. We have thousands and thousands of people who volunteer across New Zealand and there are so many services that this current Government no longer funds that our volunteers have stepped up to provide. What will this bill, after it has passed, have as an effect on many of these volunteers? What this bill says is that they will be charged to go and get the police vetting service before they can provide the voluntary services that they do not charge for.

The Opposition parties put through Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs)—three in particular: one from my colleague Poto Williams; another from another colleague of mine from Labour Chris Hipkins; and another from the Green Party, from David Clendon. All of these SOPs were to ensure that various groups do not have to pay for these vetting services. However, this current Government did not agree to those SOPS, and so the Labour Party members do not support this particular bill.

This is a National Government that has—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I apologise for interrupting the member, but there is a degree of rudeness occurring. Members can sit down or go to the lobby, but not continue conversations like that.

JENNY SALESA: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a National Government that has increasingly grown arrogant and out of touch. It is ignoring the really big issues that are facing the majority of New Zealanders: the housing crisis; the rising inequality; cuts to police services, health, and education. This is a Government that has talked about the $1.8 billion surplus, but it does not actually talk about the Government’s rising debt—it has risen 600 percent during the watch of this current Government, since 2008. Instead, the Prime Minister has talked about how he wants to deliver $3 billion in tax cuts. Now is not the time to be talking about tax cuts—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): That’s right!

JENNY SALESA: —ha, ha—not when we are experiencing huge cuts to the police.

National has stretched our police to the point where the Police Association president described it as being at crisis point. Crime is on the rise again, resolution rates are falling, and police are overstretched. That is why Labour will fund 1,000 more police—extra police—to stop crime rates from rising and to take the pressure off our hard-working policemen and women.

This particular bill is a shonky attempt to cover up financial and operational gaps. This current Government, instead of actually just funding a core public service, which is our police, to do their job well, including vetting of our volunteers and vetting of others—it should actually just fund that. What it is doing instead is it is cutting frontline police in real terms, which has meant that the police do not have the numbers of staff that they need to do their jobs safely and well. Instead of addressing this issue, they want to get the cost from the public, from our volunteers, so that the police can be funded in that way, and we do not agree with that.

At the Law and Order Committee there were so many submissions to the select committee that strongly rejected this particular bill. Most of those who made oral submissions to the select committee—who represented a cross-section of charitable and non-profit organisations providing valuable community services and voluntary services in New Zealand—are against this bill. They are against the fact that they should be paying the police for vetting. For the safety of our children—our vulnerable children—we need our police.

You know, earlier on this year, about 2 or 3 months ago, the new Mayor in Auckland, His Worship Phil Goff, and I convened a meeting when he was still the MP for Mt Roskill. We invited the police to come to this meeting in South Auckland. The reason why we convened this meeting was that we have so many dairies, so many service stations, so many of our small businesses in South Auckland that have been experiencing robbery and physical assaults, mainly because a lot of these folks were stealing cigarettes, liquor, and various other items like that. The feedback that we got from the hundreds who attended this meeting, from the small-business owners, was that they themselves do not feel safe. When they actually reach out to the police, the time that it takes our police force to come to assist them is a very long time, and as for the resolution of crime for these small-business owners—many of them do not even hear back from the police.

Robberies have risen tremendously—by over 13 percent. Attacks on individuals—assaults—have gone up 9 percent, and it saddens me to hear that in my electorate in Counties Manukau assaults have gone up 27 percent. We need our police to be funded well enough so that they are able to do well the job that they do, and we need them to continue to be able to do things including vetting of our volunteers.

The growing violence does not affect just small-business owners; we also heard at this public meeting a lot of people telling us—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt the member now. I have been indicating to her that she should speak to the bill. The member can make passing reference to other matters, not passing reference to the bill.

JENNY SALESA: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Vetting, as I said earlier on, is a core service for the benefit of the public. The public have a right to know that their children going off to schools and off to kindies are not surrounded by convicted paedophiles, and those are the sorts of things that the police in terms of their vetting process actually do. We do not agree with this user-pays system, which police will expect our volunteers and our members of the public to use.

Can this current Government guarantee in this particular bill that in future other core crime prevention services would not also suddenly be revealed by re-evaluation as purely a private good and not a public good? We do not think that this particular bill guarantees that. The Government should stop standing by while the Police continue to be underfunded and under-resourced. This Government should allocate the resources that are needed to prevent crime and to stop crime rates rising. Labour has promised 1,000 more police in our first term in Government to crack down on crimes and to make our communities safer, and Labour strongly opposes this bill.

Thank you very much.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): I rise to take a very short call in support of the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill in its third reading. In response to the previous contribution, by Jenny Salesa, I want to say that this bill is focused on police efforts. It is about delivering Better Public Services, because what we are doing is we are increasing the Police budget and putting a focus on front-line measures.

We are expecting police to carry out their investigations and their prosecutions and not have to focus on that backroom administration, those ancillary functions. They are important but—let us put it plainly—it is backroom staff who are undertaking those roles and, therefore, there needs to be cost recovery as part of that to cover those costs, to enable the benefits to be reaped by individuals and organisations as they make sure that the people whom they are employing to undertake work, to be in positions in their organisations, are fit for purpose. So it is only proper that the cost of that vetting is recovered, and that the police use their resources to focus on core services and front-line work.

This is a Government that has supported the Police and is strong on law and order and justice. That has resulted in new thinking and modernisation in the way policing is done—for example, giving them things like iPhones to free up hours to make sure that they can carry on, as this bill does, to focus on front-line duties and not those backroom roles such as vetting. This bill seeks to make sure that the Police can recover the costs of vetting—and they will do so when this bill is passed—and that is appropriate, to make sure that those administration costs are recovered. So, with that, I support this bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 56

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 13; New Zealand First 12.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill

Second Reading

Hon PETER DUNNE (Associate Minister of Health): I move, That the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill be now read a second time. This bill represents a significant and long-overdue change to the way in which we provide compulsory treatment to people with severe substance addiction. It provides for compulsory treatment to be part of a wider treatment pathway while protecting the rights and respecting the wishes of people who are subject to compulsory treatment. The bill has the potential to make a very real difference for a small group of people who are gravely ill.

I want to thank the Health Committee for its hard work and its consideration of the bill. That select committee, under the chairmanship of Simon O’Connor, took the time to listen respectfully to the views of submitters and to consider the issues raised by the bill. I also thank everyone who took the time to make submissions on the bill. The select committee has recommended that the bill proceed with a small number of amendments, which I fully support. Since its introduction in late 2015 I have seen this bill cause a real movement within the addictions treatment sector, not only in terms of the ways in which the sector is thinking about the practicalities of the new legislation but in its thinking about how compulsory treatment fits into a much broader pathway of care for people with severe substance addiction.

This bill repeals and replaces the current Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act 1966. This legislation is outdated, it is rarely used, it is ineffective in protecting the rights of people subject to compulsory treatment, and it needs to be replaced. Although there are inevitably some concerns with the new Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill, known as the SACAT Bill, the legislation is generally accepted as a significant step forward in the management of people who are gravely ill and for whom voluntary treatment has repeatedly failed to be effective. The SACAT Bill fits within a wide range of services available to people who abuse alcohol and drugs, almost all of which are accessed voluntarily.

It is important that the new legislation is seen as part of a continuum of care that recognises the fact that most people with addictions can and will engage in treatment when they are ready to do so, but that for some individuals their addiction has reached a point where a short period of compulsory treatment is the most appropriate means of supporting longer-term engagement in voluntary treatment. Compulsory treatment, when it is used, should be for only a short time in order to enable the person with the addiction to become sufficiently well in order to engage in ongoing voluntary treatment. People who come within this new legislation are likely to be very unwell and experiencing poor health across a range of dimensions, including chronic physical conditions and poor psychological health.

The bill presents opportunities for growth in the addictions treatment sector. People will be subject to compulsory treatment for only a limited period, as I say, and are likely to need ongoing, active support from a range of health services once that compulsory treatment is complete. This means that a range of health services will need to work together, because compulsory treatment is about a lot more than just detox or withdrawal management. It involves a concentrated effort to work with the person to restore social and family and whānau relationships, to enhance daily living and social skills, to manage medical and mental health problems, and to reduce the likelihood of relapse through voluntary engagement with treatment services.

The bill has been the subject of a number of submissions, and has attracted the interest of people with addictions in their families and whānau, health professionals, and those engaged in protecting the rights of people subject to compulsory treatment. Understandably, there have been some concerns about the new legislation, particularly from those who will be responsible for its administration. The addictions treatment sector is for the most part unused to managing people within a legislative framework. This means that this legislation will lead to services needing to get their heads around new ways of working, even with the small population group that is likely to be affected. This will include the development of skills such as the ability to assess the capacity of an individual to consent to treatment for their addiction. I have deliberately required that the SACAT Bill include a 12-month implementation period. This will enable the Ministry of Health to continue its work with addiction treatment services, establishing the systems and the processes that are needed to make this new SACAT Bill work.

I am aware that there was considerable feedback to the select committee about the challenges that services will face in implementing the new legislative structure. That was to be expected. We have a sector that is unfamiliar with compulsory treatment legislation and the concepts that it embodies. But I am very pleased to hear that services are already working towards implementations and that a number of regional workshops have been run to assist this process. It is particularly heartening to see that services are taking strong leadership in this area, and I am confident that we will have a sector that is well prepared for the somewhat daunting task of taking on this new legislation.

But, even more importantly, this bill is promoting a change in the ways in which the addiction treatment sector thinks about the pathway of care for people who have severe substance addictions. It is quite clear that compulsory treatment is not being considered as the only way in which people can access treatment; neither is it being seen as the answer. People in need of compulsory treatment for severe substance addiction are already high users of health services, and I expect treatment providers to actively review the needs of their population to assess how many people are likely to come within the scope of this new legislation. The process of planning for implementation has been well supported by the Ministry of Health, and it will include the publication of information about the new legislation, workforce development, and support for service planning.

Let me now comment on one or two of the other issues raised in submissions on the bill. The threshold for compulsory treatment attracted comment, with some concerned that the criteria will open the floodgates for compulsory treatment, as well as concerns that the legislation will be used simply to facilitate sobering up. I am confident that the criteria that govern access to compulsory treatment are set at an appropriate level to ensure robust assessment and treatment of a profoundly unwell population. The bill makes it clear that compulsory treatment should not be considered as the first line of intervention.

In relation to this, it is important to note that the capacity test is in relation to the participation in treatment for addiction. It is not about the management of a person’s individual affairs nor other decisions that affect their lives. It is only about the treatment of their addiction. I am aware that the testing for capacity, both generally and in a more defined sense, such as that set out in the bill, can be challenging. Addiction treatment professionals will need to learn more about capacity assessment, and the Ministry of Health is looking at how it might best work with those experienced in capacity assessment in order to develop appropriate guidance.

Another aspect of the bill that has attracted some comment is the requirement that before a compulsory treatment order can be issued, treatment must be available for the person. This requirement has been included in recognition of the fact that some people are so unwell as a result of their addiction that ongoing care in a safe environment—and that will in some cases mean palliative care—may be the best option. The bill also recognises that even with compulsory treatment some people will not be able to manage their addiction.

Finally, the bill has attracted comment regarding the appropriateness of compulsory treatment for addiction and the possible impact on the rights of the person subject to that compulsion. I think it is well understood that for the significant majority of people who abuse drugs and alcohol the decision to reduce or stop using those substances is something that people come to in their own time. It can take several efforts to stop using those substances, and the fact that someone returns to using drugs is not a reason on its own for compulsory treatment to be considered.

I reiterate that this bill is designed for a very small group of people—essentially those with a “severe substance addiction”, as defined in the bill—who have severely impaired capacity to consent to treatment for that addiction. Capacity cannot be effectively assessed in someone who is acutely intoxicated; neither can the presence or absence of a severe substance addiction be so assessed. And that will preclude the legislation being used purely for sobering-up purposes, as some have feared. I am well aware, however, of the lack of evidence unequivocally supporting compulsory treatment as a means of treating addiction. But I am also aware that there is no countervailing evidence that suggests that compulsory treatment is ineffective in dealing with addiction.

So I am confident that we have struck the balance right with this bill. I am confident that the ways in which the sector is coming together will lead to the bill working as intended. And I note the select committee’s recommendation that the bill be reviewed after 3 years of operation. I think that is a very important safeguard against inappropriate use, and I fully support its inclusion.

Finally, I also see that the select committee recommends some changes to ensure that a wider range of treatment services can be considered as treatment centres under the bill, subject to certain conditions, and, again, I think that makes sense. It will certainly facilitate care closer to the home and broaden the range of services currently available. I am more than happy to commend this bill to the House.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): As a member of the Health Committee, this was an interesting if somewhat confronting bill to work on in the select committee and we had lots of robust discussions about detaining people and the loss of freedom and the like. I think as a committee we got to a really good place. There were lots of robust conversations, and I think that the legislation that we came out with is in good shape.

Addictions, particularly severe addictions, which we are hoping to address with this piece of legislation, are potentially life ending, and that is where this particular legislation is pitched—at people for whom their addictions are so consuming and so overwhelming that they are unable to get the kind of treatment that they need to actually save their lives on their own, or to actually stop them from being at risk of harming others significantly.

So we are talking about a small but quite significant group of people who—as the Hon Peter Dunne has mentioned—have already been significant users of health services in an attempt to deal with their addictions. And they are often people who have not engaged with their community or with their whānau because they have really used their social capital up with the people who can support them, and they are in a position where they need significant amounts of care and support.

We did have lots of conversation about the fact that we are looking to actually take people to undergoing treatment compulsorily, and you do not do that lightly. So we had to have a look at the mechanisms that are already in place to support people around compulsory treatment—and of course we looked to mental health services that have that mechanism—and what we could use from that environment to support people with severe addictions. There is often a crossover between the groups—between those who have severe addictions and those who have mental health conditions—and there was some correlation between how we could work that out. But it is not an insignificant thing to take someone’s freedom away and then compel them to undergo treatment.

So the whole discussion around compulsory treatment versus voluntary treatment was one that was quite interesting, and I know that in the past many with addictions have relied—we have relied as a sector, really—on people acknowledging that they have a problem and then seeking the support from treatment services. But, in this case, their addictions are so severe that it is in our interest, as a society, to ensure that they are compelled into treatment, and for some it is their last hope. This is not about the provision of wet houses, which is a mechanism that some jurisdictions use, where you actually help somebody manage their addiction while they still use the substance; this is actually about making somebody stop using through the use of medication and treatment, and it actually is the last ditch attempt in getting them to stop using before they actually potentially harm themselves fatally.

We had a lot of discussion—and it was raised by one of the submitters—about the types of facilities that might be used to provide this support, because currently I think we have about three facilities in this country that could, tomorrow, provide this kind of care. But we know that more are needed and that there are a range of organisations and facilities that, if they were resourced appropriately, could conduct the work. One of the submitters to the select committee—in fact, it was the Human Rights Commission—did make the point that it was mindful that often the behaviour of a person who is using substances means that they may actually be held in a police cell or some such thing. The Human Rights Commission was concerned that that does not become a default setting for people with severe substance abuse, and we had quite a robust discussion about that. We were very clear in the select committee about ensuring that the wider range of mental health facilities will also be used and be provided with the resources to conduct this treatment. So, hopefully, we have addressed that concern of the Human Rights Commission.

One of the other things we considered was the ability for the children of patients who go into this type of facility to be notified appropriately that their loved one is in the facility and notified of the type of treatment that they are going to receive. So we are required to provide them with a range of information—details of where they are located, the type of treatment they are going to receive, the length of time—and that provides them with, I guess, some oversight from outside the facility.

The other thing that we considered was the role of the district inspectors. The district inspector is a role that is well-known within the mental health sector as being the key oversight to ensure that the rights of the patient are upheld. So in the select committee we did spend some time ensuring that that role was well-defined and that access to the district inspector for the patient occurred within a 14-day period so that they could be clear that they could have their rights ensured.

There are clauses within the legislation that allow patients to consult with approved specialists, and they are able to get second opinions. There were some submitters who commented on the resource to be able to deliver this particular service, and there are some key components that we do need to address before this service is actually able to be delivered competently. That is about ensuring that we have enough professionals with the right types of skills and the right type of ability, that we have them in sufficient numbers, and that the facilities to provide the work are available. The select committee had a discussion on how long an appropriate treatment period is, and we did talk about having treatment that was long enough to ensure that you provided the right kind of care but not so long that it became a matter of detention. So that was a very robust discussion.

I just want to quote from some of the submitters who submitted to the select committee. The Canterbury AOD Consumer Leadership Group made the comment that it was concerned that the threshold for an individual to meet the criteria for compulsory treatment would be set too low. It felt that it needed the criteria of a diagnosis to be set high enough for compulsory treatment, and I think we considered that fully. The Drug and Alcohol Practitioners Association of Aotearoa - New Zealand made the comment that it was hoping for some work in terms of ensuring stronger concepts of recovery, that there were provisions for the consideration of cultural needs within the treatment of people with severe substance addictions, and asked that the inclusion of family and whānau and other support people in decision-making processes be included.

Just to finish, I want to go back to the Human Rights Commission and quote from one of its submissions: “The way that the legislation is implemented in practice will [be the most] important”—I think that we all agree with that—and “this will depend to a large degree on the [availability] of suitable funding, treatment centres, and experienced staff.” We all agree that inadequate resourcing could derail this, but I think that in terms of legislation we have got to a good place, and we are happy to support this bill.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am very pleased to take a call on this Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill. Can I begin by thanking everyone who actually came to our Health Committee to speak. We have just heard, in the contribution from the member who has just sat down, Poto Williams, just a small hint of some of the feedback that we got, which I think we found incredibly constructive in two ways. First and foremost, to help us with the bill itself, but also just to, I suppose, tease out some of the wider issues in the whole substance abuse space. My thanks go out to all of those officials who have helped us to get through, and, of course, to the Associate Minister of Health himself for actually introducing the bill into the House.

It has been noted in the Associate Minister’s speech that this is an update from a bill in 1966, so it is a timely review. I want to acknowledge, too, the work of the committee members, who have suggested that in 3 years’ time we review what we are doing here. I thank the Associate Minister as well for his support of that. I think that it will make a difference to allow this to evolve. I think this is a difficult space for obvious reasons, but the Associate Minister, as well, in the area of evidence around the efficacy of compulsory treatment highlighted that there is still a lot of debate, and so I think that it is important that we evolve with that. I will add my voice to those of a lot of the submitters, and it is somewhat articulated in the select committee report, around that question of ensuring that the resourcing is aligned. I know by the work that the Associate Minister and others are doing that they can see the importance of that.

Look, first and foremost, I think it is really important to stress, as I did in the first reading, that this is not a bill targeting those people with, effectively, a low level of what most people would anecdotally think of as substance addiction. This is for people who are at the absolute top end of addictive behaviour, where their behaviours are such that they are causing injury to themselves—and potentially to others, but fundamentally to themselves—and where they have no conceptual ability to actually engage with treatment. For those who have expressed some concern that this is “the heavy arm of the State”, I would certainly encourage them to get into the early pages of the bill, where we did not actually make any changes, because I think that the criteria laid down about who this applies to is actually really, really clear.

Clause 7, at the moment, talks about the criteria for compulsory treatment. As you might expect, the person has to have a severe substance addiction. Really important are subclauses (c) and (d), and I think it is fundamental, actually, to a rather compassionate approach of the Associate Minister and the Government, that the compulsory treatment is deemed necessary, but, fundamentally, that appropriate treatment is actually available. There is no point in compulsorily pulling someone into treatment that does not exist. That is a challenge for all of us in this House—for the Government, and certainly in the health sector—to make sure that those services are available.

The other important element, too—and this comes up in clause 8, again, unchanged—is I really want to stress to people that this is not about low-level substance addiction. We are talking here about people who are featuring at least two of the following: one is what they call neuro-adaptation. The long and the short of it is that a person’s use of drugs is such that their bodies become totally dependent on it, and are able to function at times, what appears, quite normally. Secondly, they have to have a craving for the substance, and efforts in the past to control have been unsuccessful, and, as I noted a bit earlier, they are causing harm to themselves. It was even mentioned in an earlier speech that you may end up with someone who is actually in their palliative space, and now you are talking about something absolutely serious.

That said, like any select committee process, we have teased things out of it. We wanted to be really clear around a couple of things. The first was what an approved provider is. We thought it was best to align that with existing Acts; we did not feel that we had to double things up. We have removed references to age. The initial draft of the bill that came through had a lot of mentions of 17-year-olds. Again, we thought, let us just line that up with existing legislation. A previous speaker mentioned the use of facilities. We wanted to be very clear about where it was appropriate for these people to be held and treated. We did not want any ambiguity, particularly if those people, for example, are being pulled into police cells and stuff because they have done some harm to themselves. We wanted to be clear that these are not appropriate facilities. There are a whole lot of other suggestions and changes, too, around the oversight of the Ministry of Health, and so on. But I am going to leave it there. I know other members of the committee on all sides of the House will elaborate further. This is a very good bill, and I recommend it to the House in its second reading.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to speak on this, the second reading of the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill. I am not a member of the Health Committee, but I want to acknowledge the work of the Health Committee, because I think the substance of this piece of legislation is incredibly important, and I think a number of the issues that the select committee has had to deal with have been really well addressed in the select committee report, so I wanted to acknowledge that.

In preparing for my contribution this afternoon, I found a document produced by the Ministry of Health. It is called the New Zealand Drug Harm Index 2016. What that particular report does is look at the social cost of drug-related harm and intervention cost in the 2014-15 period. It is estimated that the cost to New Zealand is $1.8 billion, and that is in terms of personal harm, community harm, and the cost of interventions. I know that they have talked about the limited number of people who have been impacted by this serious addiction issue, but for those who are addicted, the social cost per year, per dependent user, was estimated at $33,800. The cost to families and friends through the pain and suffering that they also have to endure was estimated at $438 million. The other telling information that was communicated in this New Zealand Drug Harm Index 2016 was that the acquisition crime—so this is what users do to support their habits—was estimated at $140 million.

The context of this piece of legislation is incredibly important, and so I want to acknowledge that. I also want to acknowledge that there is a group in Aotearoa New Zealand called Matua Raki, and it is the national centre for addiction and workforce development in New Zealand. When I looked at what it had to say about this piece of legislation, it said it has been crying out for reform for over 30 years. In fact, there have been three official reviews and a Law Commission report, which have led to the creation of this piece of legislation. From its perspective, you know, there are a number of deaths that have been preventable.

Obviously, in terms of the harm to family and community that has been preventable, Matua Raki sees this as a way forward. It sees that the people who are most affected by this piece of legislation will be able to be protected from the personal harm that they endure, that the legislation will provide for a better facilitation of an assessment of their conditions, that we will be able to stabilise the health and well-being of people, that we will be able to protect and enhance their mana and dignity, and that we will be able to facilitate an opportunity to also engage in voluntary treatment. So Matua Raki sees this as a stepping stone, and it sees that people who are severely affected by addictions will, by being supported through a compulsory system, eventually be able to make decisions themselves about what is in their best interests.

So the full criteria that it outlined were: that people have to have a severe substance addiction, that their capacity to make informed decisions about treatment for addiction is severely impaired, and that compulsory treatment really is the only course of action to provide some resolution. Also, there is a big emphasis on providing appropriate treatment for the person who has a severe addiction. It also talked about the definition of severe addiction—what people actually have or the kind of psychological place they are in. So, the compulsive use of a substance is characterised by a neuro-adaptation to the substance; a constant craving for a particular substance; unsuccessful efforts to control the use of that substance; and continued use despite harmful consequences, not only for the person who has the addiction but also for their families. These really are people who are not in a position to make decisions in their best interests.

I was really interested in the number of submissions received by the select committee. There were 39 written submissions, and 15 gave oral submissions. One of the issues that was highlighted—it is on page 2 of the select committee report—was the clarification of an appropriate facility. I note two particular submissions. The first was by Judge Recordon—I hope I am pronouncing his or her name right—that noted there have been instances where 14- and 15-year-olds were detained in police cells for four to five nights. Also, the Human Rights Commission highlighted that under the proposed legislation it was possible for somebody to stay in a police cell for up to 27 days if they did not have a facility for this person to be held in. What has been very good, in terms of the select committee process, is that the select committee has been very clear that that type of situation or scenario will not occur under this new legislation. There will be approved providers who will be able to provide for the person in the interim if they are not able to be housed in a treatment facility. On reading through the select committee report, I think, as Associate Minister Dunne has outlined, that has been a very good recommendation by the select committee that this House will support.

I note that this piece of legislation, with the amendments, has the unanimous support of the House. This is another one of those constructive processes that I have seen this House go through, and again, demonstrated by the Health Committee. I am also heartened, I guess, to see that there is also the right for a person to get a second opinion. Even though they may fit the criteria for compulsory assessment and treatment, the legislation allows for the person to get a second opinion, and also for the patient to get advice from a lawyer.

So, from my perspective, there are a whole lot of safeguards within this legislation that not only support the person through a particular addictive episode but ensure that there are safeguards and that there are people who have their best interests at heart throughout the process—they are not the clinicians, but they are people providing oversight. I am reassured, and I think the House should be reassured, that nobody is going to be captured by this legislation who does not need the support of the State and does not need treatment options. It is really the only way we are going to address the addiction issues that they have displayed. I want to congratulate the Health Committee again, and I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to take a call on the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill in its second reading today. I want to acknowledge the Hon Peter Dunne, who is the sponsor of the bill, and also the person who was forward thinking in terms of putting together the Drug Harm Index that we heard about before. I went to that presentation. The previous speaker, Louisa Wall, talked about the social costs of drug harm being huge. We all know—we hear a lot of anecdotal stuff, out in society, and it is really great that we are starting to measure it.

The bill will enable people with severe substance addiction and severely impaired capacity to decide on treatment, and it is really important to note that it is for the most serious cases. There was a lot of conversation driven through the Health Committee, and we really appreciate the submitters who came in—particularly the oral submitters, because a lot of them were people who work in this space. They live it, inside out, every day when dealing with these people. This bill must also be, as it passes, a relief for the families, the parents, the partners, the children, and the people who live with this every day—for those members of their family who have severe addiction issues, who feel helpless, and who are wondering where on earth they are going to go.

This bill is going to replace the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act, and we have heard that it was put in place in 1966. We have heard from the Associate Minister how ineffective it was, and we got a sense of that as we were listening to the submissions. It is very clear that most people who abuse alcohol or drugs do not need compulsory treatment. They can do well, and they can choose to engage in treatment programmes. However, some people really are so unwell that they are just not able to make those decisions for themselves, and this is where this bill cuts in.

I think it is really important too—we have heard about safeguards today. It is not as though we want to go around detaining people all over the place. There are special safeguards to make sure we restrict people as little as possible and that the interference with the rights of those patients is kept to a minimum. The bill allows any person who is older than 18 and who believes that another person has severe substance addiction to apply to the area director to have that person assessed. I believe there is a lot of work that has gone into this bill as it has sat before the Health Committee. That was another good select committee submission process, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I rise to speak on the second reading of the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill. I did not follow this bill through the select committee process. It was my former colleague Kevin Hague who was on the committee to hear the submissions. I do know that Mr Hague did think this was a very good piece of legislation, and, having looked at it myself, the Green Party will be continuing to support the bill. My understanding is that they did have a very constructive process during the submissions process. As my former colleague said in his first reading speech, it has been for at least the last 30 years that the alcohol and other drug treatment sectors have been calling for an update to the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act, which was, of course, enacted in 1966, which is 50 years ago. So this change is well overdue.

Of course I would very much like to tautoko what the Associate Minister was saying, in terms of taking a more wraparound approach to treating the problems of addiction. I think that fundamentally this bill takes at its heart a framework that represents a paradigm shift in how we deal with addiction. The previous Act, which is being superseded by this bill—or will be, hopefully—very much treated it almost in a punitive way. I think that throughout New Zealand in the 20th century—and not just in New Zealand, but in other countries—we did have a tendency to treat drug issues with a criminal approach, as a criminal problem, rather than treating them as a health problem. What this bill recognises, and what I think we would all do well to recognise, is that addiction is a health issue, and we must treat it as such if we want to get better outcomes.

This bill not only updates the guidelines on compulsory drug and addiction treatment but also provides for reducing the time of detention. It has specific provisions around young people, acknowledging the role that family and support people play. It provides for long-term community care for people who have a brain injury from addiction. I think that all of that is just as important. It is not just about the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff and what we do when people are in the very worst state and might actually be at risk of dying from their addiction—in which case this bill sets up the guidelines by which they might be compulsorily put in care to help deal with that addiction. It also recognises that it is not just a personal, individual problem, that addiction takes place in a social environment, and that if we do not address some of the surrounding factors around addiction then we will not be able to treat it.

This reflects a wider paradigm shift about addiction, which is quite interesting: that it is very much a social and environmental problem, as much as something that individuals are susceptible to from particular substances. There are a whole lot of very interesting studies coming out that suggest that people in poor conditions—if they do not have good living conditions, if they are under severe stress financially, if they do not have solid social relationships—are far more susceptible to becoming addicted to a substance that may not actually result in addiction if people are living in a good context and have the basics. We see this in dealing with homelessness. It used to be the case that people would not provide homeless people with homes. They would say you had to deal with all of their addictions and problems first, if the homeless people were indeed suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. But, in fact, the housing-first approach has demonstrated that we cannot even begin to deal with some of the other health problems that people are facing, like addiction, unless they have a warm, dry, secure place to call home. When we understand that addiction is something that happens in a social context, it happens that we come up with far more effective ways of dealing with it.

The Green Party is very supportive of, and has long been an advocate for, treating drug issues as a health issue in order to get far more effective results, rather than treating it as a criminal issue. So we are pleased with this bill and the provisions that it has made, particularly the reference to the support of family and community. There is a very tiny number of people who will qualify for compulsory committal. There is an incredibly high threshold, and this bill actually introduces greater safeguards than what was in the previous Act. The Green Party can support the bill at the second reading. Thank you.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call on the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill. New Zealand First supports this bill. The purpose of the bill is to provide provisions for the compulsory assessment and treatment of individuals with severe substance addiction who are totally unable to make decisions about their own treatment. It is definitely needed in today’s world. This bill is repealing the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act 1966, legislation that is now 50 years old and well past its use-by date. Much has changed in the field of addictions since 1966. The types of addiction and, of course, the way that we treat people with addictions have changed. As we have heard from submitters when they came to the Health Committee, the current legislation presents some real challenges for health practitioners when they come to use it.

We are under no illusions whatsoever as to the scale of the illicit drug problem in New Zealand. We know that we have got some of the highest drug-use rates in the developed world, and The New Zealand Drug Harm Index 2016, released earlier this year, found that “The estimated social cost of drug-related harms and intervention costs in 2014/15 were $1.8 billion.” That in itself is a truly staggering figure. So it is an area that demands attention, and I am pleased that we are giving it just that this evening.

We know that mental health and addiction problems affect more than just the individual. They affect the community, they affect the family, and yet we remain concerned that there is no mention in this bill of substance addiction causing serious harm to others, only to the individual. We are also concerned that there could be a lack of family involvement in a patient’s care under the current provisions of this bill. The bill does provide for provisions for a friend or a family member who is “most evidently and directly concerned with the oversight of the patient’s care and welfare” to be informed. However, we are concerned that a whānau group may wish to be involved in decisions about the treatment and the care of their loved one, and we believe that a treatment plan should in the main be fully discussed with the family and the whānau, and decisions made in consultation with them if at all possible.

In my office in Hamilton, I have heard from distressed family members who have been left out of such decision making, and this causes a lot of stress and worry for them. They want the very best for their family member and for their loved one, and all of us in this House would too. We do agree that the criteria for compulsory addiction treatment, in clause 7, appear to be robust. They include having a severe substance addiction, having impaired informed decision-making, and compulsory treatment being required.

There is also, in clause 7, a requirement that “appropriate treatment for the person is available.” It is the sector capacity that we are concerned about, and it is an issue that I raised in my first reading speech back in March. It is vitally important that a patient’s condition is continually monitored and reviewed, so that if the responsible clinician believes that the criteria for compulsory treatment are no longer met or that no purpose would be served by compulsory treatment, the patient can be released. An aftercare plan as recommended in the bill is absolutely essential if there is to be a successful outcome for the patient. It is absolutely critical that the patient receives vital wraparound support, and that they receive help not only with their addiction but where other areas in their life are concerned—for example, the cause of the addiction.

We are told that most of those people with addictions will have other areas in their life that are creating challenges. It could be housing, and it could be mental health, because that is a growing area. So it is going to be absolutely critical for Government departments to work together to break down silos and try to get the person back on track. It is not an easy road to get back on track, so the more wraparound services there are, the better it is.

What do we see currently? Too many Kiwis are actually slipping through the cracks of our social services, and every day in our communities we are seeing the results of a lack of investment in this area. The ability to review decisions is vital to protecting the rights of those affected by this bill. We agree totally that a patient or family member should be allowed to apply to the court for an urgent review if they believe that the criteria for compulsory treatment are not being met, or that the compulsory treatment order should never have been made.

The Health Committee received 39 submissions, and we heard from 15 submitters. We must take this time to thank all of those who took the time to submit. It is not an easy area to submit on, and it added greatly to our knowledge of the people who work in this area and are involved in this field every day. Of course, we have to thank the officials, who ensured that we had a really good understanding of the whole issue. The majority of the submitters were in total agreement, as we all are here in this House, that the legislation needed to be updated—that it was past its use-by date. They were supportive of the general aims of the bill, and were generally of the opinion that addiction is a health issue rather than a criminal one.

A major concern raised was that of service capability and capacity. Concerns were raised about the lack of medical professionals with expertise in addiction and a general lack of staffing and funding, and submitters emphasised the need for continued support and treatment once the compulsory period ends. We heard that there is very little evidence that compulsory treatment is effective for those with severe addictions, so there are a few concerns there.

New Zealand First believes that further targeted support for addiction services needs to be implemented by the Government. We need to put more resources into preventing people from getting into the dire situation that this bill is actually intended for. We need to direct resources to our GPs and assist them in supporting those facing addiction in our communities and in helping patients back on the road to recovery.

I think we need to realise that there are barriers for people trying to seek help for their addictions, and these need to be removed. Such barriers include the expensive doctors visits, the perceived stigma, and, of course, lengthy waiting lists. We have previously expressed our concerns that, currently, we have got no idea how many Kiwis are living with severe substance addiction, because mental health and substance addiction services are lumped in together. We regard this as a failing that does need to be corrected.

Many Kiwis are struggling to receive mental health and addiction support. We see it in our communities, and we hear the repeated calls for an independent review of our mental health services. In fact, I know that there is going to be a petition presented at Parliament tomorrow that is adding to the growing sense of unease about mental health services that there is out in the public. We are concerned that longer wait times will result in tragic outcomes, particularly when our suicide rates are as appalling as they are.

We are pleased to support this bill. We look forward to it going through the House. We have some concerns, but we believe that this is a step in the right direction, and we will await the outcome of the Committee stage of this bill. Thank you.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): This bill is based on a large body of work undertaken by the Law Commission that was finished in 2010, and it will, when it is enacted, be quite a significant step forward in the management of people with severe and serious addiction to alcohol or other drugs. It replaces the 1966 Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act, and, essentially—although there are a number of clauses, and given that we still have a number of stages to go through the Parliament, including the Committee stage, there will be a number of opportunities for members to rehearse the various provisions in the bill. I will go through a few in this second reading of the bill.

I think the first task for the Health Committee was to truly understand what a severe substance addiction amounts to in terms of this bill. It was—and this has been mentioned before by previous members—enlightening for the Health Committee to learn the extent of addiction of some members in our society, which causes them to come under the provision of this bill in terms of compulsory treatment.

The bill enables people with a severe substance addiction and, therefore, with a severely impaired capacity to decide on what is best for their lives and what is best for them in terms of treatment for that addiction to receive compulsory assessment and treatment, and that is to protect them. It is to protect them from harm, to protect them from further harm, and to enable some stabilisation of their health. That was a point in the submission period of our consideration: the compulsory nature of this bill allows for people’s conditions to be stabilised, and that is not only addressing their mental health and their addiction issue, but also addresses and improves their physical well-being, which then becomes a platform for, perhaps, better decision-making in the future. It is also about protecting their dignity—and I think that is an important aspect already mentioned this evening—to help restore their capacity to make more informed decisions about further treatment for themselves, and to address the issues around their substance use.

The bill, helpfully and rightfully, sets out the meaning of “severe substance addiction”. Of course, the condition manifests itself in the compulsive use of a substance, and what that means is set out: neuro-adaptation to the substance, craving for the substance, unsuccessful efforts to control use of the substance, and use of the substance despite harmful consequences. There are a number of protections built into this compulsion aspect of this bill—the compulsory assessment and treatment—and, no doubt, those will be canvassed by other members. With this short intervention, I commend the bill to the House.

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

DAVID CLENDON (Green): This is just a brief call to reiterate our support for this bill. The point has been made that currently we have 50-year-old legislation that is no longer fit for purpose and is enabling a probably excessive intervention, to the term of a 2-year detention period, that has too few safeguards to protect the well-being of the people whose rights to make decisions on their own behalf are being taken away from them. It seems that the focus of this new legislation is much more about how quickly we can return people to a condition where they can make their own decisions about their own treatment.

The threshold within this bill for compulsory treatment is set very high, and that is as it should be. Many of these people will be in a situation where, in fact, their lives are at stake directly as a result of ingesting substances or of the behaviours associated with that. So although the threshold is high, we do think that this legislation strikes a much better balance between obliging people to undertake treatment that is necessary to their well-being, and protecting their human rights and ensuring that there is not an overly draconian intervention, if you like, from the State.

I thought one of the most useful submissions was from the Addiction Practitioners’ Association Aotearoa New Zealand. It scoped out the breadth and the depth of the situation out there, in terms of treating people with these very, very severe addictions. It both highlighted the shortcomings in the existing legislation and also pointed out some of the key principles and what will emerge as practice under the new legislation. It also rang a few bells. One that the association particularly referenced—and it has come up before—is that we can have good legislation, but it will only succeed if it is properly resourced. Currently, we see 70 to 80 people a year being treated under the existing rules. We could expect that to increase to about 200 people a year. There needs to be an investment into ensuring that this much-improved legislative tool will get better outcomes, and the only way to ensure that is to make sure that it is properly resourced. The association expressed some concern that it was not evident to it, at least, exactly where the funding would be channelled, and I think that is a fair challenge. In the spirit of goodwill, I do think that, given that this bill seems to have Parliament-wide support, there will be a serious and determined effort to make sure that the funding does get to the place where it can do the most good and where we can see much better outcomes than we have.

I have a great admiration for people who work in the field of addiction. They are dealing with people who are at their very worst, and those must be incredibly difficult people to deal with. Frankly, I do not believe I would be someone who could work in that environment, working with those people. Through the level of patience, the level of compassion, and the level of commitment to getting a much better outcome for those people, they must be very special people working in this environment, and I do hope we continue to resource them, to enable them to get their work done and to get it done well.

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

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to follow on from my colleague David Clendon from the Green Party. When we left for the dinner break he was highlighting a number of issues that I really would concur with around the need for the modernisation of this legislation.

We are talking about legislation around compulsory treatment that was initially drafted, from memory, in 1966, and, as is the case with many bills and legislation in this area, revision is necessary. Evidence and research tell us actually how we should be crafting, in this day and age, effective legislation. When we talk about compulsory assessment and treatment for substance addiction, of course, we are talking about a very small group of people who will ever make it to that particular threshold. It does sound like the extreme—to compulsorily force someone into treatment. That does sound like, in 2016, quite an extreme act, but I do want to highlight that when you read the preliminary provisions, the purpose clause of this bill, it is very clear that the focus is on the patient, as it were, who has that need.

So I want to highlight the purpose clause: “The purpose of this Act is to enable persons to receive compulsory treatment if they have a severe substance addiction”—that has been estimated to be roughly 200 New Zealanders a year—“and their capacity to make decisions about treatment for that addiction is severely impaired, so that the compulsory treatment may—(a) protect them from harm; and (b) facilitate a comprehensive assessment of their addiction; and (c) stabilise their health through the application of medical treatment (including medically managed withdrawal); and (d) protect and enhance their mana and dignity and restore their capacity to make informed decisions about further treatment and substance use; and (e) facilitate planning for their treatment and care to be continued on a voluntary basis; and (f) give them an opportunity to engage in voluntary treatment.”

On first reading, when you see it is 8 weeks that someone may be under an order under this bill, in terms of long-term treatment programmes, that might seem quite short in terms of being effective, but the aim of this bill, as set out in the previous clauses, is ultimately to restore them to a place where they can make voluntary decisions for themselves. Equally, what I want to point out is that of course this is a health-based approach to substance addiction. Ultimately, that is what we should be doing—if we are setting out the proviso here where we are saying that this is not about a criminal justice response; it is about a health-based response. That is a mantra we should be expanding across our legislation. It is what the Law Commission recommended we do. There is a small nudge to it here, and that purpose clause captures it brilliantly for me, but we need to be doing that more and more across our drug laws in New Zealand, as the Law Commission has highlighted we should. It is something that Labour has tried to encourage this House to have a debate on and still absolutely believes.

But, equally, canvassing this bill has highlighted another gap in our legislation and that is the lack of service provision. In the submissions, that issue was raised really concisely, which has been canvassed in this House. There has been an estimate that the 200 New Zealanders who might receive compulsory treatment is going to cost roughly $700,000—I would say probably at a minimum. Whenever we have seen times when the Government has said that the priority now is to either treat, for instance, those compulsory treatment clients, or, for instance, when it highlighted that it wanted a particular number of meth beds, all that has done in the past is suck resources out of other parts of an already stretched system. So resourcing these beds is incredibly important.

Having sat in the back of the alcohol and other drug treatment court in recent times—and I cannot state enough how phenomenal that programme is—it was obvious the need for placement. You had people before the court who had voluntarily put their hand up to be part of the drug and alcohol treatment programme, who were in prison waiting to be part of the programme, but who could not start because they could not find beds for them in rehabilitation programmes. Those are people who have cost a huge amount to taxpayers through our system because of their addiction, who are voluntarily saying: “I am ready to be a part of this.” We need to resource this properly. So we support this bill, but it must be properly resourced—as do all our addiction services need to be—and we will, ultimately, save taxpayers a huge amount of money and harm by doing that very thing.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): An earlier speaker in this debate indicated that this was challenging and confronting legislation, and they were absolutely right. This is challenging and confronting legislation because here we have a modernisation and an updating of a 50-year-old piece of principal legislation to try to take account of circumstances that exist today for people who are really ill—people who have lost their own capacity to make good judgments about their health and their well-being and whether or not they receive voluntary treatment for their addictions.

This is a challenging area because it puts us as parliamentarians into the realm of making decisions in a legislative manner that is contrary to an individual’s wishes. What is more challenging for us as parliamentarians is that we are putting these people into an institution, essentially taking away their liberty, for periods of up to 8 weeks.

We heard evidence from professionals in this area who advised us at the select committee that sometimes 8 weeks was needed in order to ensure that people were completely removed from the addictive substances that had produced the situation that meant that they were no longer capable of making good judgment decisions themselves about their own health and well-being.

So this is a piece of legislation that, I think, as nicely and as carefully as we can, balances that judgment call between protecting people’s rights to make their own decisions about how they live their lives but also at a point where the State actually has to intervene on their behalf to protect their best interests. I think we have got the balance about right.

It was a good select committee process. I am looking forward to the debate that we will have in the Committee of the whole House and to the third reading debate. I commend the bill to the House at its second reading.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I enjoyed that contribution from Scott Simpson, albeit brief. He did make a very important point when he began his contribution on this bill in that it was a challenging and confronting piece of legislation, because we know that any legislation that compulsorily requires treatment cannot be entered into lightly and cannot be done without due consideration.

That is exactly what the Health Committee did. We did give this legislation due consideration. We raised a lot of issues at the select committee. We asked a lot of questions. We looked at how we could give as many safeguards as possible in a piece of legislation that is going to replace outdated legislation, which goes back to, as Jacinda Ardern said, 1966—the outdated Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act. We are putting in place a more modern approach to compulsory treatment.

I am sure the purpose of this bill has been canvassed, but I think it is worthwhile repeating for people why we need to have this new piece of legislation. First of all, the old legislation is outdated and overdue to be updated. But most of all, this new legislation has got some key things that it sets about to do. The first is to protect people from harm. When we are talking about compulsory treatment, we are talking about people for whom there is a very, very high threshold for treatment. It is a situation where the person is considered to have severe substance addiction and does not have the capacity to consent to treatment. So that is a very high threshold—that they have reached a point in their life where they do not have the capacity to consent to treatment.

The first purpose of this bill is to protect them from harm. In the Health Committee we did hear from family members who told us of the harm to their loved one who was addicted, but also about the family members themselves, and of the many efforts that they made over and over again to try to help that loved one, only to have failed. The second purpose is to facilitate a comprehensive assessment of their addiction. That means that you have got to really look into what has caused it and what has happened—a proper assessment. They are no longer a once-over-lightly. They need a proper assessment of what their addiction is.

Then there is, of course, the stabilisation of their health throughout the application of medical treatment, including medically managed withdrawal. We were not just talking about medically managed withdrawal; we were also talking about the fact that many people who are severely addicted have other health issues. So it is not just one issue that they are dealing with. They often have many other health issues that they have collected along the way, perhaps related to their substance abuse, but maybe not always. They could have many co-morbidities. So there is stabilising their health—whether they have got diabetes or whether they have got a heart condition, whatever those issues are. Many of those issues have been neglected over the years as well. They rarely have been to their regular check-ups with their GP, so you need to stabilise their health as well.

It is also about protecting and enhancing their mana and dignity, and restoring their capacity to make informed decisions about future treatment. So it is to get them into a position where, actually, they can take back their lives and start to make some decisions about themselves. Part of the purpose is also to facilitate planning for their treatment and care, to be continued on a voluntary basis. You do not wish to have someone in a mandatory state for the rest of their lives; you would want to bring them to a point where they can then be part of what happens to them, and it is done on a willing and voluntary basis. It also gives them the opportunity to engage in voluntary treatment. So that is the purpose, and they are very laudable goals.

I do want to raise some of the issues that did worry us—it was not just the Opposition; the Government worried about these as well. We have to ensure that if you bring in a new process, that you actually are able to fund it to provide it. I think it was important that we did hear from some of our experts in the field who told us that this will not work if we do not have the funding to go alongside it.

One who comes to mind was the clinical head of addiction at Capital and Coast District Health Board, Tom Flewett, who said the Government already substantially underfunds addiction services—this is in just this region, but you will hear it in other submissions. He said that when the new compulsory treatment law comes into force, existing resources may well have to be redeployed, and that would compromise patient care in other areas. He said: “I know from experience that if you put a new Act in place and there is no new resource, then we have to reconfigure existing resource. That is a given for working in this country.” He does support the bill, but this issue of making sure that we resource it was raised by many of the submitters.

We could not get from the Ministry of Health, at that point, what additional resource would be put in. We are told that it will be phased in, so that they will presumably putting resourcing along with the phasing, but we are unsure as to exactly what that requires. We are told that there could be up to 200 New Zealanders a year who will receive compulsory treatment, and that could cost up to $750,000 annually. That is the assessment; we are not sure whether there are going to be 200 or more.

I think one of the most telling submissions that we received at the select committee was actually from the Salvation Army. Think of the Salvation Army as being probably the foremost provider of residential services for addiction in this country. For many, many years it has been sterling in its efforts to try to help people who have addictions. It made, I thought, probably one of the best submissions to our select committee. The Salvation Army supports the bill in principle. It said: “It is a milestone for the addiction sector following 30 years’ of advocating for change …”. It said it “agrees with the Law Commission that in the case of a small group of people who are severely dependent on alcohol or drugs there is an important public interest that is served by intervening …” on their behalf. However, it said the current Act “administers this intervention in a way that is at times unworkable, does not enhance the dignity and rights of the person [concerned] …”, so it supports that and the change in that.

It does have “reservations and questions relating to specific resourcing, the need for more support of the whanau of those under the proposed regime, and multiple comments on specific clauses …”, which it sets out a little further on. It believes there needs to be more support for this bill. It said that it also agrees that the number could be between 200 a year—this is an increase from the 70 to 80 that we currently have now. It also has concerns that the legislation will place more challenges on people who are providing these services.

I just want, in the short time I have got left, to mention an area that was raised, and that is around what those who are going to be “approved providers”. The issue was raised of whether we will have enough approved providers at the time that this legislation is implemented, and assurances were wanted that we would not only have the funding but we would have the people who would become approved providers under the Act trained and ready and available throughout New Zealand to be able to provide this service to those who need compulsory treatment.

So, overall, it is a good bill, but we will be watching it. In fact, the select committee has said that it wishes to watch and monitor it to ensure that the guarantees that were given by the Ministry of Health that there will be appropriate funding and we will have the approved providers—we will be looking to make sure that happens, because the worst thing that could happen would be if this legislation was to fail after all the work that has gone into it and if we do not make progress at all.

So we will be voting in support of this bill.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to speak to this, the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill, which, as has been noted, replaces the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act 1966 (ADA). Fundamentally, what this bill deals with is the compulsory treatment of people suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. As has been noted, the current Act is 50 years old and it no longer reflects modern views of human rights and modern treatment.

We had 39 submissions to the Health Committee, including from the Addiction Practitioners’ Association Aotearoa New Zealand, the Human Rights Commission, and the New Zealand Law Society, and from clinical groups, the New Zealand Medical Association, the National Nursing Organisation, and the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners.

There were four key themes from submitters. The first was that the majority supported a need for review and repeal of the ADA. The second concern was that maybe the compulsory treatment criteria were too broad. Those criteria hinge around clause 7, which states: “(a) the person has a severe substance addiction; and (b) the person’s capacity to make informed decisions about treatment for that addiction is severely impaired;”.

A response to that—there are several things. First of all, the definition of “severe substance addiction” is only one factor in determining eligibility for treatment under the legislation. The definition of a disorder for the purpose of legislation is not the same as that required for diagnosis, and can be qualified with other features or criteria, such as harm to self or impairment of capacity. So we can bring down that concern around broad scope by our definition around diagnosis. I think, secondly, the definition that sits in clause 7(a) and (b) and in clauses 8 and 9 is also consistent with other health and disability legislation. The third concern was around rights and protections. The concern was that the bill be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and that it should also respect human dignity and fundamental rights, and this has been brought in with the drafting.

The fourth concern, as the honourable member was just talking about, was about implementation, and particularly capacity and workforce. There are currently 80 people a year who receive compulsory treatment orders and the expectation is that will go up to 200. You would have to ask why. Are we going to find another 120 a year? Well, it turns out the advice we have had is that the current Act is either unclear to practitioners or it is not considered fit for purpose, so people are making other alternatives. This bill is likely to be more suitable, so the numbers will go up to 200.

How will we cope with those 200 people? I think some of the concerns that have been raised are addressed by the advice that we have. Firstly, the treatment workload will be spread throughout the country rather than to a few institutions. Under the current Act the vast majority of patients are sent to the 47 beds at Nova Trust in Christchurch. So only a few organisations may take the greater part of this load. Secondly, the length of the committal period will shorten significantly. Under the current Act, up to 2 years can serve as a committal period. This is being looked at, at 8 weeks, with maybe an 8-week extension, so it comes down substantially.

I think the third factor that is useful is that we had a lot of people support this bill and say to us that, yes, it is really going to advance the cause of those people who suffer from severe addiction and severe addiction disorders. As always, this bill is improved by submitters, whom we thank, and I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I move, That the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This Government has committed to major State-care reforms and a complete overhaul of our care, protection, and youth justice systems to improve the long-term outcomes of our most vulnerable children and young people. We know that the current system does not place children at its centre and is not meeting the needs of vulnerable young people as they move into adulthood. This bill represents the first step in major and far-reaching legislative reforms to enable a foundation for a child-centred system. I expect to introduce a further set of legislative reforms to the House later in the year.

This bill includes a set of amendments to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 and will make some consequential amendments to other legislation. The bill extends the statutory age of care and protection to include all young people under 18. This enables vulnerable young people aged 17 to remain in State care for an additional year and, if necessary, to have access to interventions under the Act to protect them from maltreatment.

Ensuring that the voices of children and young people are heard is critical if we want a system that is truly child-centred. This bill introduces a number of changes to make this happen. First, it will support the establishment of independent advocacy services with a particular focus on children and young people in care, through a new duty on the chief executive. Second, it strengthens obligations to support children and young people to participate in decisions made about them under the Act and to have their views considered. Third, a new duty will be placed on the chief executive to ensure that policies and services of the department have regard to the views of children and young people.

The new Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki will take a more multi-disciplinary approach to child protection work and decision making. I want to acknowledge that social workers will still be the main professionals responsible for carrying out many of the functions specified under the Act; however, drawing on a wider range of professionals is expected to be necessary in the new ministry. This is a significant shift from the status quo. The bill enables this change by vesting functions and powers that currently sit with social workers in the chief executive. The chief executive will then be able to delegate these functions and powers to social workers and to other appropriately qualified individuals. I have to say that as I have been talking with social workers around the country, they have been overwhelmingly supportive of the fact that the new operating model acknowledges that they cannot do everything. They do need the support of their colleagues from Health and Education, in particular, to address the increasingly complex needs of children.

I would like to commend the Social Services Committee for its consideration of the bill. I would also like to acknowledge the members of the public who committed their time to consider and submit on the bill. The committee received 22 written submissions from organisations and individuals; 11 of these submitters made oral submissions. It was encouraging to see how many submitters supported the intent of the bill and to see how strongly people supported giving children and young people a greater voice in the system. I note the overwhelming support for raising the upper age of care and protection to include 17-year-olds. The need to make a positive difference in the lives of our most vulnerable children and young people came through strongly.

The committee has recommended a number of amendments that will provide greater clarity in order to give effect to the intent of the bill. The committee recommended two minor changes to the provisions covering the participation of children and young persons in the decisions that affect them. The committee has recommended that the bill clarify that participation of children and young people at family group conferences includes not only the conferences themselves but also the preparation for them. This will explicitly recognise that there are a number of decision points during the preparation for a family group conference where children and young people should be able to express their views.

The bill requires that support must be provided to children or young people who face barriers to expressing their views or being understood. Such barriers could include, for example, age, language, or disability. The committee has recommended an amendment to allow a person supporting a child or young person to express views or to be understood to be present at the proceedings or processes under the Act in order to continue to provide that support, except where this is impracticable or inappropriate.

The bill enables the chief executive to delegate powers and functions to a wider range of professionals. To ensure that delegated functions and powers are exercised competently and transparently, the bill requires that the chief executive must be satisfied that the potential delegate who is not a social worker is appropriately qualified to perform the function or power. For ease of operation, the committee has recommended that this “appropriately qualified” requirement not apply where the chief executive is delegating a functional power to a person in a management position who would not be performing the task themselves but would then sub-delegate to other persons under their management.

For consistency and to ensure alignment with the policy intent, the bill has been amended to require that all persons who are sub-delegating functions and powers to persons other than a social worker must be satisfied that a potential sub-delegate is appropriately qualified to perform the task. The bill requires that information relating to delegations be made available online. For greater transparency, the committee has recommended that this extend to sub-delegations as well. To improve the accessibility of this information, the committee has also recommended that the publication of delegations must be available for inspection free of charge at the head office of the department.

The committee has recommended a consequential amendment to the Search and Surveillance Act 2012. This Act sets out who may exercise powers under different legislation. A minor change is required to reflect that certain sections in the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act relating to search powers will shift from social workers to the chief executive.

In relation to provisions to enable a wider range of professionals to perform functions under the Act, the committee recommended a number of minor technical drafting changes to better reflect the policy intent.

The final change recommended by the committee is that the commencement date be amended from 31 March 2017 to 1 April 2017. This will ensure that the commencement of this bill aligns with the date that the new ministry will be in place.

To conclude, this Government is determined to make a positive difference in the lives of the vulnerable children and young people who come into contact with New Zealand’s State care, protection, and youth justice systems. These legislative changes form just one part of the wider programme of transformational work to completely reform these systems. This bill marks a fundamental shift toward creating a legislative framework that is child-centred, and sets a strong foundation for the further legislative reforms I expect to introduce later in the year. I commend the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill to the House.

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I want to begin by reflecting on some of the provisions we chose to highlight as a party in the first reading of this bill. As I put on the record then, and as my colleagues did as well, this bill brings to fruition something that Labour has campaigned hard for—not just as an Opposition party but actually as something we had on the agenda as the Government. So we are talking about a time, over 8 years ago now, when Labour drew a line in the sand and said absolutely that the age of care and protection in this country needs to be lifted—and not just the age of care and protection. We did not view young people as people we should treat differently if they are in care and protection rather than in in our youth justice system.

Our view was that if you are 18 or under, you are a child—and that is not just our view; it is an international view. That is the international standard. It is the standard we have signed up to in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. If we take the view that you are a child when you are in the care of the State, then you are a child if you ever come before a court in this land. We took that view over 8 years ago, and we have pushed for it ever since. We have run petitions, we have had amendments in this House, we have campaigned hard alongside organisations like the Dingwall Trust—and I acknowledge the huge work, not just by the people who work within Dingwall but by the young people in its care who have been at the forefront of this debate. I acknowledge that they have put their stories out in the public to see this come to fruition.

So our support of that provision, even though it is just for care and protection, has been unwavering—unwavering. That was the basis, fundamentally, on which we gave our support to this bill at its first reading. That strength of feeling should highlight equally, on the flip side, our strength of feeling now and why we are putting our support under a condition. This bill includes not just an increase in the age of care and protection, which is fundamental; it also includes what the Minister has broadly brushed over as some cursory delegation of powers away from social workers. These are not just cursory delegations, and I want to spend a little bit of time talking today about what clause 7 of this bill does, because it was really only when we fully canvassed this bill at the select committee that we saw the gravity of what this bill was proposing.

Social workers in this country hold a number of statutory powers, which are, literally, shared only between them and police officers. There is a good reason for that: they are some of the most powerful, potentially damaging—if used incorrectly—powers that the State has. The ability to remove a child from a family is an overwhelming power and one that should be treated with accountability, transparency, and a huge level of regard for the professionals who are asked to execute that power.

At the moment, we have partitioned off in our laws that we believe that those warrants should be exercised involving only the courts, police officers, and social workers. What this bill does is allow those powers to be transferred to the chief executive, who can then delegate those powers to any professional whom the chief executive deems it necessary to delegate those powers to.

Let me just reference exactly the way that it is articulated. New section 7D, inserted by clause 7, states—basically this is the process that has to be gone through—“(1) The delegations referred to [in this bill] and a subdelegation … must be publicly notified, and information about all delegations and subdelegations must be made available on an Internet site maintained by the department and be available for inspection at the head office of the department, free of charge, until, in any case, the delegation or subdelegation is revoked.” The only other requirements on the chief executive in making this delegation to a person who is not a social worker, as set out in new section 7C(2), in clause 7, is that the chief executive must be satisfied that the person is appropriately qualified to perform the function, and if the person is outside the States services, and therefore not a professional employed by the State, the person must have a contract; some contractual obligations.

There is nothing in here that stipulates what an appropriately qualified person must be—nothing. It is simply for the chief executive to decide. If they are not, for instance, someone working with the State—not, for instance, a medical professional employed by a district health board—they simply have to be bound by a contract. Well, we have a number of organisations bound by contracts in this country. A number of them have had contracts removed from them simply because they have not exercised them properly. Serco is one that comes to mind. Some might think that in referencing Serco I am simply being inflammatory, but I want to talk about what the delegations that we are talking about at the moment, which are just numbers in a bill, actually allow these unknown professionals to do.

The bill sets out in new section 7BA(1), in clause 7, that “The chief executive may delegate his or her functions and powers under all or any of sections 39, 40, 122, 157, 181, 205, 386 …” of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act—they are just numbers. It feels meaningless, perhaps. What harm could be done by a few clauses? Let me tell you. Section 39 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act is the place of safety warrants. Those are the provisions that say that any District Court judge can issue a warrant to an officer, under the Search and Surveillance Act, if they are satisfied on reasonable grounds for suspecting that a child or young person is suffering, or is likely to suffer ill-treatment, neglect, or deprivation. They can issue a warrant to a constable or a social worker that then allows them to enter and search by force any dwelling, any building, any vehicle, any premises. If that person—a constable or a social worker—believes on reasonable grounds that the child or young person has suffered or is likely to suffer ill-treatment or serious harm, they can remove or detain, by force if necessary, the child or young person from the place where they are and place them in the custody of the chief executive.

Removing a child by force, because they have used their professional discretion that a child is at risk of harm is something that we must enforce vigorously and ensure that no one other than a qualified professional is able to make that decision. Who is it that the Minister is proposing will have the “professional” or contractual arrangement to adequately do that job? If you cannot tell me now in this House, with a good rationale and justification, who that person is, then we will not sign our name to it. Tell us who it is, because otherwise we will lob claims across the other side of this House that it is potentially a Serco or an Armourguard, or any number of contractors that this Government has deemed fit to enact similar provisions for in our Corrections laws. If you cannot tell me who it is, what faith can we have that that person is qualified to exercise that power? That is just one of them. That is just section 39.

Let us read out section 40, “Warrant to remove child or young person”. It states: “(1) Where an application or declaration under section 67 has been made in respect of a child or young person, any District Court Judge … [or] any issuing officer … may … where there are reasonable grounds for believing that a young people or child is—(a) suffering, or is likely to suffer, ill-treatment, serious neglect, abuse, serious deprivation, or serious or harm; … issue a warrant authorising any constable or a social worker, … to search for the child or young person.” So then we have got search powers, and I go on. That is just sections 39 and 40.

Section 122 is about the power of enforcement of access rights to take possession of a child and enforce an access order to say that some other caregiver should have access to that child—to uplift a child and take them to the person who has that access order. Section 157 is about ensuring that a child is physically at a hearing. Section 181 relates to psychiatric care. Section 386 relates to search warrants and recovering a child who has absconded. The examples I keep hearing from the Government around the kinds of professionals it wants engaged in these delegations of powers are people like paediatricians. You are not telling me that a paediatrician is going to search out a child who has absconded—of course they will not. So who are these powers for?

Today I am informing this House that unless we have significant reform of these powers, the removal of the delegation—or at least the removal of any delegation that allows a child to be removed by any professional other than a constable or social worker—then we are going to have to remove our support of this bill. It is with a heavy heart that I say that, given how important lifting the age of care and protection is to the Labour Party. But that is the choice National has given us.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is a pleasure to rise in support, at the second reading, of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. I think, as deputy chair of the Social Services Committee, that this is a good bill that is coming back from the select committee stage. We are bringing in a range of amendments, basically, to bring this bill in, to support the framework for the Government’s new Ministry for Vulnerable Children.

I think it was very clearly laid out by the Minister what the reasons were behind this bill. The issues preceding this bill, the recommendations made by the expert panel, and the history behind it have been well traversed, so I will not be covering much of that—just to say that we talk about modernising Child, Youth and Family, but this is very much a major root-and-branch review and a root-and-branch reform, ultimately supporting some of the most vulnerable young people we have in New Zealand.

When I thought about the expert panel’s recommendations, one phrase sprung out at me. There was a comment made that we did not know whether we were causing more harm by removing the young person from their family and putting them in care; we did not know whether we were causing them less harm. I think that is something that resonated quite strongly with me.

When you look at these vulnerable children and young people, the statistics are that seven out of 10 young people in care will leave school with no qualifications. Eight in 10 leave without NCEA level 2 or equivalent, and that is two times higher than for the general population. Ninety percent of these young people in care will go on to be on the benefit by age 21—that is 2½ times higher than for the general population. Four in 10 young women will be on a benefit with a child by the age of 21—that is four times higher than for the general female population. For young men, six in 10 young men will have a corrections sentence by the age of 21—5½ times higher than for the general male population. With young people, young men in care, a staggering 21 percent will have received a custodial sentence—that is 11½ times higher than for the general male population.

I just want to acknowledge the work of our very efficient and effective select committee chair, Alfred Ngaro, who, I think, has steered this bill through the submissions process. But I do want to acknowledge all the select committee members, across parties, from around the House. I think that the time in the select committee, hearing the submissions, was very collaborative, it was very productive, and it ultimately brings this bill back into the House—with a few amendments—in good shape.

We received 22 submissions—not a lot of submissions. I think that demonstrates the overall support for this bill from the people of New Zealand. Sixteen of the submissions were from organisations, six of them were from individuals, and 11 submissions were heard orally. Every submission was in favour of the intent of this bill. There was not one submission that was not in favour of the intent. So that is a good place to be, and it is a good place to bring this bill back, with some minor amendment.

I want to touch on three amendments in this second reading. The first one was to change the date of commencement from 31 March next year to 1 April 2017. That is just to align this bill with the new operating model in place for the Government’s new Ministry for Vulnerable Children. The second amendment is going to allow greater participation for young people and provide better clarity. We talk of young people being involved in some of their care meetings and family group conferences. The replaced section 11, inserted by clause 8, will allow and provide for children and young people to be involved in the preparation and planning meetings as well, so they can voice their concerns, their interest, and their intent at the planning and preparation meetings for their family group conference.

The replaced section 11 will give greater clarity for support workers to be involved in those preparation meetings. They will be for young people for whom, because of their age, there might be a barrier to understanding the process. It might be around the translation services, with languages involved, or a disability.

Finally, we are going to amend section 7 around sub-delegation, as the previous speaker, Jacinda Ardern, spoke about. Part of this bill is talking about the delegation of the chief executive to an appropriate professional. That might end up being a manager who will not be undertaking that activity, so the bill will now allow a sub-delegation to an appropriate qualified professional. That will need to be publicised publicly, as well as be freely available in the chief executive’s office. So, overall, this is a great bill that lands in a good place with the amendments and sets up for the Government’s new vulnerable children’s ministry. Thank you.

CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I am just going to start out by saying that this bill does contain a change that we have pushed extremely hard for, and that is a raise in the age of care and protection. It is something we believe passionately in, and it was the basis for our support of this bill at every stage—until this point. This is also the reason we will support the bill at second reading.

But I want to go to what Mr Doocey said. He was saying that every submitter supported the provisions of this bill and was supportive of this bill. I think he has overlooked one thing, and that is that many of the submitters were not supportive of the delegation of powers that this bill enables. In fact, I think maybe he was not there for submissions and he missed that part. That is the part that we have issues with. The massive, regressive, and dangerous set of provisions that will allow the chief executive to delegate powers that can currently be performed only by Child, Youth and Family (CYF) social workers is concerning to us. There is no ability for Parliament to have oversight of these powers and almost no checks and balances on the way they will be delegated. We cannot support this provision when it could allow any professionals, at the whim of the chief executive, to hold powers like the removal of children.

My colleague Jacinda Ardern made it very clear in her speech that our support for this bill will be based on the changes that we seek at the Committee stage in respect of this provision. We can support it for now, but we will be pushing for changes at the Committee stage in respect of that. Some of the concerns that were raised around this were just the risk of privatisation and what this could mean in terms of delegating very important responsibilities. In fact, some people have been referring to this section of the bill as the “Serco section” or the “Serco provision”. I think that is where the concern lies, and so we need to be very straight up in respect of what our intention is with the bill and what our concerns are.

It is important to note that before we left Government, we had a bill on the Order Paper that would have seen the age of care increased, in the Children, Young Persons and their Families Amendment Bill (No 6), and it really is unfortunate that that bill, 8 years ago, was dumped by that National Government. We have then tried to use bills before Parliament to raise the age—these, too, have been defeated. Last year we instigated a petition alongside the likes of Lifewise and Dingwall Trust to raise the age, and we are pleased that the Government has finally acted on these calls. It would have been very difficult not to, particularly given the submissions by the young people who have been affected by the current law, who, at 17 years old, were, basically, dumped by the State—very emotional submissions that all of us on the select committee had the privilege of hearing. If that was not going to inform change, then I cannot imagine what would have. So it is good that finally the National Government has caught up, 8 years later, but it has caught up.

Currently the law sets out that a young person remains under the care of the chief executive only until they turn 17. This creates a significant gap in support services. Young people at this age are ineligible for a Housing New Zealand house, for instance, and accessing a benefit at this age is incredibly difficult. What we saw were young people who were in State care trying to undertake things like exams—really still not even near the completion of their schooling, with at least another year to go—and then all of a sudden finding themselves homeless and without anyone to care for them.

We are, however, disappointed that the bill raises the age only for care and protection purposes, which will now mean we a have a different age for care and protection than we will for youth justice. Youth justice provisions are set out in the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, and it makes sense to keep those ages linked, especially given the likelihood that offending at a young age—as the previous speaker, Matt Doocey, has pointed out—is often an indication of wider care and protection issues. Of the 1,982 offenders in the Youth Court last year, Child, Youth and Family had prior involvement in about 67 percent of cases. The UN has repeatedly raised our failure to meet our United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child obligations because we try 17-year-olds in our adult justice system. This was an opportunity to remedy that.

The Youth Court is not a light touch. It has the ability to apply tough parameters around a young person or to escalate a case to the adult system, if need be. It is often a much more confrontational environment for a young person, who is placed at the centre of the process and directly held to account, rather than being a bystander, as is often the case in the adult justice system. As the Children’s Commissioner and past Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft pointed out, “the change half-step, and not full step, to include youth justice seems to us to be burdensome, and it will add administrative complexity”, and that came up time and time again with the submissions when this particular mismatch was being discussed. So we do, obviously, support the raising of age care, we do also support the establishment of an independent youth advocacy service, we do of course want to see the views of children and young people taken into account as part of the decision making at an individual level, and in the development of services and policy, but it is this issue with respect to the delegation of powers that I just want to spend a little bit more time talking to.

We are strongly opposed to those new sections under clause 7 of the bill, which vests powers currently held by social workers with the chief executive. This will, essentially, allow the chief executive to delegate these powers to other professionals, with very few checks and balances and without the oversight of Parliament, and we believe that is wrong. The bill sets out that the chief executive can, essentially, make the decision, and the delegation can extend beyond those outside of State services, and they will simply need to ensure that there are contractual arrangements in place and that each delegation is notified on an internet site.

Social workers are trained professionals. Like the police, they carry out certain weighty functions set out in legislation and, as such, are able to be held to account—functions like the removal of children. These roles and responsibilities cannot and should not be taken lightly. We fully acknowledge that the differential response model already allows CYFS to delegate caseloads to social workers operating outside CYFS, but the idea that powers contained in legislation could simply be handed over at the discretion of the chief executive is a line that we do not believe should be crossed. As I said, a number of submitters shared this view, and even those who may potentially be recipients of these powers spoke out against this amendment. Many argued that the collaboration across professions that work with children is already possible without such a huge legislative change. Others argued that the ability to work effectively with families could, in fact, be undermined by delegating these statutory powers. Overall, we believe that these changes could well lead to poor outcomes for children and their whānau, so we cannot support them.

There were other issues that have come up throughout the duration of considering this bill, particularly in respect of cost pressures with CYFS, and I want to raise those, because those have been raised by submitters, raised by the media, raised by the general public. So we have concerns regarding the overall ability of CYFS to currently operate, even before these changes will be implemented. In 2016-17, CYFS is forecasting a deficit of up to $38 million due to demand-driven costs. The new funding of $35 million allocated for CYFS next year, which included the discontinuation of funding from the previous year, barely covers its deficit alone. The Minister has also not been funding CYFS to increase the number of social workers, as required to by the Government. And, actually, while we are on the social workers issue, the Government had set a target for this year, to make sure that every single social worker working for CYFS would be a registered, qualified social worker, and even that target has not been met.

So we do have to wonder at times how seriously the Government is taking some of these really, really important targets. CYFS had a deficit of $7.7 million in 2014-15, underwritten by the Ministry of Social Development, and it has an unexpected deficit for the current year of $11.2 million. So, essentially, just looking at those figures, we can see really clearly that the CYFS department is incredibly under-resourced, and so it is really difficult at times to reconcile the rhetoric that we hear from the Minister in respect of wanting to put children at the centre of all policy decisions and wanting to ensure the best for them and ensure that there is a focus when, actually, the funding is not following.

We do support the intention of this bill, but, as my colleague and now I have pointed out, there will need to be a major change at the Committee stage in respect of the section on the delegation of powers for us to be able to support this bill. Thank you very much.

JONO NAYLOR (National): It is a pleasure to rise in support of this bill. It is an important and a significant bill in that it is bringing in some very important and timely changes to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act.

When the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act was brought into being in 1989, it was a groundbreaking and world-renowned piece of legislation. People from all around the world looked at what we were doing in New Zealand and thought there were some initiatives taken at that time that were really significant. Of course, we cannot just sort of sit back and look at what was done then and say “That’s enough.”, and so, over the course of time, there have been 14 different reviews of the Child, Youth and Family service and the various names it has been called over those years. But up until now there have not been, as a result of any of the Governments that have been in place since 1989, any actual steps finally taken to increase the level of age, and so that is what we are doing here, primarily, this evening.

When we were on the Social Services Committee, we had some presentations from some young people from the Dingwall Trust, and that has been mentioned already by a number of speakers this evening. But I particularly, again, just want to acknowledge those young people who were brave enough to talk to us, to share their stories. I think in particular of one young woman who talked about turning 17 part-way through her NCEA level 2 exams at the end of year 12, and the fact that she was going to be leaving Child, Youth and Family’s care, and it was then beholden on her to have to try to negotiate with her caregivers what the ongoing living arrangements, care relationship, and boarding relationship would be going forward. I think, as we all sat and watched that, we all thought that, actually, that was not an acceptable thing to be expecting of a 17-year-old—to be facing exams and having to negotiate their own living arrangements with the family they have been living with.

So it is timely and it is appropriate that we actually move forward and we lift the age. I also welcome announcements from the Minister that this is, in fact, only the first step and that potentially, going forward, we are going to have other legislation that will see the possibility for the level of care being extended beyond the age of 18 as well. But this is a very important first step. There are other factors in this bill that have been discussed already, and I take great pleasure in endorsing it to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): It is with a real sense of frustration that I rise on behalf of the Green Party to oppose this piece of legislation aimed at improving our child protection and youth justice service. The Greens and I are passionate about the care of our children and about creating a society that strengthens all of our families so that the children in our care can grow and thrive, and it is gutting, actually, to be given a piece of legislation that is supposed to achieve that end but takes us further away from that goal.

That said, I want to be clear that this piece of legislation is not a black and white issue for us. We support, albeit with qualifications, three provisions in this bill, and would vote for legislation with just these changes. However, we deeply, deeply oppose the changes to enable wholesale delegation of core Child, Youth and Family powers, and we also oppose the token involvement of Māori in the development of this legislation when it is so central to their well-being and future. So we find ourselves unable to support it.

To be clear, in our opposition, we are in no way arguing for the status quo, and our opposition must not be interpreted in that way. We are arguing for a strong, functioning society that cares for our children, and for a care and protection system and a youth justice system that protect our children and the aspirations of Māori and of all our communities.

We support the raising of the age of care and protection to 18. I think it is a brilliant idea—it has been asked for for a long time—though we do agree with submitters that it does not actually make sense to raise the care and protection age and not the youth justice age. Most of these young people in the youth justice system are in care and protection—they are the same young people. So to say that you are a child until you are 18 in terms of care and protection but that you are an adult at this age if it is youth justice, when it is the same kid—how are they half adult, half child? It does not make sense. As the Office of the Children’s Commissioner said, it will create an administratively burdensome and inefficient system, not to mention that it will continue to breach our commitments to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is, frankly, embarrassing that New Zealand is one of the last countries in the world still treating children as adults in our justice system.

The Green Party, though, also supports the establishment of the new youth advocacy service in this legislation. That will support young people to express their views on matters that are important to them and will allow the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development to listen to their views on the operation and effectiveness of services provided under the Act—great. However, again, it could go further. We agreed with the submitters that international best practice would also have the role of that organisation being to connect children in care, to advocate for individual children in care—which is a core function that is missing from our system at the moment, and it is a check on the functioning of the system—and to empower children in care, supporting them to speak up and investing in training and development to grow their leadership. So it is a shame to us that this legislation is missing the opportunity to do that.

We also support embedding the views of children and young people in the new operating model, with the slight concern that we should not see children in isolation from families and that, actually, it needs to be supporting those families as well. But we do support new section 11(2)(c), which requires suitable supports to be provided for children who may have difficulties with expressing their view. That has been a glaring omission in our child protection and youth justice systems up to this point, and we are very pleased with that provision. However, we again support the view of, and the concern raised by, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner that it is not specific enough. Within the existing legislation, we have actually got a provision that says that the child’s views are supposed to be taken into account, but because there is not any detail in the legislation, it is not happening. So we supported those submitters who were asking for more detail so that, actually, the intent of the legislation would have more chance of being realised. Those are our areas of support, and they are significant things that we do support.

However, driving our opposition are those two major things, which cannot be avoided and which, for us, ruin this entire piece of legislation. To speak first to the monocultural design of this process, leading to the development of this legislation, initially, the expert panel that started all of this process off did not have one Māori member on it. It was only later, further on in the process when there was a stink about that, that the Minister for Social Development appointed one Māori member to that panel. The panel, in terms of its wide consultation, did not consult with Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK) or any iwi social service provider.

When you recognise that 60 percent of children in care at the moment are Māori and, historically, child protection and uplifting of children has been an absolute tool of colonisation—and this Government did not consider it necessary to consult with TPK or iwi social service providers. Of all the people it consulted, only 7 percent of them were Māori. They are 60 percent of the kids in care, and 7 percent of the people it talked to. It is a perpetuation of that monocultural design, and we are not going to get it right until we go back to the people who are affected—the people who know what works. On that basis alone, we cannot support this legislation.

Then, on top of that, this bill introduces wholesale delegation of powers. I think that Jacinda Ardern articulated really clearly in her speech why we are concerned about that, because this is the power to uplift children from their homes. That power is being taken away from social workers and police officers, who are specifically trained—and we have concerns about some of the limitations of that training at times—and given to, who knows who? We do not know who. As was said by the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services in its submission, it felt it could not even comment on this provision in the bill because, actually, nobody knows who these powers are going to be given to. You cannot even sensibly respond, because it is so broad that it could be any power given to almost anyone. That is not responsible lawmaking.

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner was quite tactful in its criticism, noting that the legislative process seemed to have outstripped the policy process—i.e., we are passing legislation without knowing what we are doing. Social Service Providers Aotearoa also pointed out—quite significantly, I believe—that the guidance provided by the State Services Commission clearly says that a delegation outside the Public Service should clearly specify which services or functions are to be delegated. This bill does not do that.

The Green Party would protect the independent relationship of NGOs with families and explicitly restrict coercive powers to the statutory sector. This bill does not do that. It risks fragmenting an already deeply fragmented system, which will put our children further at risk. We will not support legislation that could lead to the role of uplifting children being delegated to people outside the Public Service. We will not support legislation that could lead to profit-making organisations such as Serco playing an increased role in youth justice or in care and protection. We know that Serco is doing this currently in the United Kingdom. It has experience, but not the kind of experience we want. We have seen what has happened by giving Serco control of our prisons. Do we really—really—want to pass legislation that would enable if not this Minister then another Minister in the future to give it a role with our most vulnerable children? The Green Party does not.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. At this stage, we will be supporting this bill.

We agree with the majority of the bill. However, we do have some reservations, a few questions, and a few issues that we would like to address. Some of them are highlighted in the departmental report. Some of the evidence and the submissions were given during the Social Services Committee process, and a couple have actually already been mentioned and spoken about by a couple of the other parties earlier on tonight.

Of the five aims of this bill that we have heard about today, we agree with four of them in their entirety and we have some concerns with one of them. The first aim that we, obviously, agree with is the fact that this legislation extends the State’s responsibility for care and protection to a person’s 18th birthday. We agree with that. It also encourages the participation of children and young people in decisions that could significantly affect them. It ensures that, whenever possible, policies and services have regard to the views of children and young people, and we agree with that. It supports the set-up of independent advocacy services, with a particular focus on children and young people in care. We also agree with that.

The fifth one, which has been mentioned by the Opposition already today, is the fact that one of the aims is to allow a broader range of professionals to perform a wider set of tasks to help identify and meet the needs of vulnerable children and young people. Unfortunately, the detail that the Government has there, in that aim—in that one sentence—is probably the extent of the detail and the clarity in that legislation. One of the problems New Zealand First has is that it is so ambiguous and so wide ranging and so wide sweeping. The Minister for Social Development can stand up and talk about the help to the social workers, which they will get from professionals, such as from the education sector or the health sector, but the problem is that it is a double-edged sword, because what the Opposition is trying to highlight is the fact that it could be anybody. It could be the entire slippery slope or the first step down the privatisation pathway, and that is exactly what New Zealand First and the Opposition are disagreeing with.

I would just like to read a sentence that is in the introduction of the commentary on the bill. It says: “The bill seeks to achieve this last point”—which is the point I was just mentioning, about allowing a broader range of professionals—“by making the chief executive responsible for many tasks that social workers are currently responsible for.” What the Minister was actually trying to imply was that the chief executive would be supplementing the social workers’ tasks and not replacing them. But the fact is that in that sentence it says that the chief executive would be responsible for many tasks that social workers are currently responsible for. That is a direct replacement of what the social workers’ tasks are, not a supplement.

In fact, that comes in total contradiction to the mandatory registration rhetoric that the Government and the Minister are wanting. The Government, on the one hand, says that we need mandatory registration of social workers because it maintains standards, safety, qualifications, security, and robust regulations. But then within this legislation it actually disregards that entirely. What it does is it obviously highlights the once again overarching social investment approach that this legislation will be encouraged by.

I was not going to speak for too long on it, but it has been mentioned by Labour and the Green Party—the issues that they have with the age of the youth justice system not matching the lifting of the age of care and protection. It is quite frustrating to hear a lot of ideology and rhetoric, but not a lot of facts and data and research to back it up. Unfortunately, in the Labour Party’s minority report it states that it disagrees with the bill’s move to separate care and protection from the age of the youth justice system. The question that I put to the Labour Party is: now you have got youth advocacy groups, like JustSpeak, that want to increase the age of care and protection to 21, is the Labour Party saying that it would want to back the youth justice system age to 21? Because that is exactly what the first sentence says in the minority report.

Labour also says—and the Greens say it as well—that we are breaching UN conventions. That is absolutely not true. When we signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, we signed it with reservations. We signed it with reservations. I can quote it. It says that “The Government of New Zealand reserves the right not to apply article 37 (c) …”, which I have mentioned in this House previously. That article 37 (c) has got to do with the youth justice age and the mixing of children with adults. It states it right there. It is not hard to do the research.

The second point, and the major point, that the Labour Party and the Green Party are wanting to make about the youth justice age is that it is going to—what did they say—present practical difficulties and administrative complexity. Well, where is the evidence that that is going to happen. Where is the evidence that that is going to happen? The fact of the matter is that I specifically asked the officials in the select committee whether this would create the bureaucratic burden or the bureaucratic nightmare that the Labour Party and the Green Party have been espousing, and they said no. They said that a difference between the ages of the youth justice system and the age of State care and protection would not create any administrative issues. It would not create any administrative issues.

One of the other things—just lastly on this point before I move on—is the fact that the Greens said that it did not hear any arguments to justify continuing the lower age for youth justice. How about the fact that the youth justice system is failing quite demonstrably, and the fact that the Government has had to fork out a billion dollars to extend the number of prison beds? The fact is that half of all the current adult prison population has gone through the youth justice system. If the youth justice system was actually working, then we would not have the need to extend it and spend a billion dollars on extra prison beds. It is that simple. I could go on, on that point, for the rest of my time and longer, but I just want to quickly mention a couple of the issues that we have with the delegated powers.

Actually, the Public Service Association was the one that stated it the best, with regard to the stance that New Zealand First has with this. It said that “the core and unique role of social workers will be gradually eroded over time, with social workers gradually being replaced by a range of professionals untrained in statutory child protection work. This will lead to a tremendous loss of knowledge, skill and experience.” If we have a look at the legislation itself—like I stated right at the start—the way that the legislation is written is very vague, it is very ambiguous, and it is a double-edged sword.

I would just like to highlight new section 7C, in clause 7, which states the requirements for delegation to persons who are not social workers. This is when the delegation is given to people who are not qualified social workers. Before making a delegation to a person who is not a social worker, the chief executive must be satisfied that the person is appropriately qualified to perform the function or exercise the power, taking into account the person’s training, experience, and interpersonal skills. Then, however, it goes on to say that the chief executive may make a delegation to a person who does not meet the requirement in new section (2)(a), which I have just read out, if the delegation is made for the sole purpose of that delegate sub-delegating the function or power to a person who works under the management or supervision of the delegate.

What the provision, which is new section 7C(2), states right at the start, about the need for a person to be suitable even though they are not qualified for that role—it goes on to say that if that delegation is sub-delegated, then it is totally irrelevant. So we have got a few questions about the way in which the legislation is written. We have got a few concerns with the fact that this could be the slippery slope down the pathway of privatisation. We have heard Serco mentioned. We have got serious concerns and issues with that.

We have also got our strong views on the youth justice system and the age remaining the same. New Zealand First has the view, with regard to the youth justice system age, that we will not be entertaining any sort of conversation that wants to extend that when the system itself is failing in the first place. We will continue to support this bill at this stage, but we would like to have our questions and concerns answered throughout the rest of the process. Thank you.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): It is with pleasure that I stand to support the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill in its second reading here tonight.

This bill is a first step in the reform of services for responding to the needs of vulnerable children, young people, and their families. This is a new system, and it will deliver a more child-centred system through a range of new initiatives, including extending the State’s responsibility for the care and protection of vulnerable young people until they turn 18. Vulnerable children and young people will have their voices heard when decisions are being made about issues that affect them. There will be an independent advocacy service established, and there will be a broader range of professionals enabled to deliver core functions and powers.

This bill is a significant shift from the status quo, and it is necessary because we know that children and young people who have been in care are far more likely to die at a young age, to leave school with fewer qualifications, to receive a benefit, to be convicted for criminal offending, and possibly to have children themselves who need care and protection support.

This is an important first step. We are going to do better. I commend this bill to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Peeni Henare—5 minutes. Tēnā koe.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. I think the views of the Labour Party and the Green Party have been articulated quite well on this particular bill, the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill.

One of the pressing issues that come into my office in Tāmaki-makau-rau is around supporting families with issues they have with Child, Youth and Family—children who have been lost to State custody, grandparents who are seeking a role in the lives of their mokopuna—and I want to pick up and commend the point made by the member Jan Logie about Māori engagement in this particular process. The statistics are overwhelmingly clear. This Government prides itself on data and research; well, the numbers and the statistics are there. They say that 61 percent of children in State care are of Māori descent. My research tells me that an overwhelming number of them actually are from Tāmaki-makau-rau, live in Tāmaki-makau-rau, or find themselves placed in Tāmaki-makau-rau. So it is important that the services for our rangatahi, for our tamariki, are best advised and informed by the very people who are affected by them.

I want to commend Jan Logie’s comments about Māori participation, because we do support, in this particular bill, the youth voice being heard. We support that. I think that is a great commitment by this Government to allow the youth voice to be heard in deliberations on policy matters regarding children, young persons, and their families. I think that is an important part. I also think it is important to have an advocacy service to work alongside the likes of our out-of-Parliament offices to help and assist families in advocacy for children’s rights and services. I think that is a good thing.

But I want to touch on the point raised by my colleague Carmel Sepuloni about the funding, about the kinds of resources that this service will receive, and about whether or not that support and that funding is in line with the actual demand that is out there. The evidence is overwhelming, as far as I am concerned, about the number of tamariki—the number of children—who are involved with State services. Many of those families come into our offices, and the evidence is there. Just like most other bills—around policing, around advocacy—that are passed through this House, we are really concerned that the funding and support will not be there to make sure that the bills are actually meaningful, that the services fulfil the duties placed upon them or expected of them through bills like this. That is of serious concern to us.

My colleague Jacinda Ardern articulated very well the reason why we believe this bill is failing. That reason has already been canvassed well by this side of the House: the chief executive’s powers of delegation, where the powers of delegation go to, and who these people are that they will be giving such significant powers to in order to remove tamariki from family. That is of serious concern to us—serious concern—because what is being missed in a lot of the conversation from this particular Government is that, actually, quite often the State is the issue in these matters. The State is the actual issue in these matters, and, sadly, what is not being considered when we give such powers to the chief executive is the continued role of the State in that particular child’s life. Those are serious concerns. There is ambiguity around it—where are those powers going to go? Whom are those powers going to be given to? Those are serious questions that we—the Labour Party and the Green Party—have on this side of the House, and they are of real concern to us.

One of the other points that I thought was a bit strange from New Zealand First was about age settings. We like that the age of State care and protection will be shifted up to 18. We think that is a good thing. It does bring it in line with a few other things out there. In a conversation with my 20-year-old son as he was navigating the treacherous waters of teenage years—what is a rite of passage? How do you know the law is going to affect you? You get a licence at a different age to when you can join the army. Once upon a time that was out of step with when you could have a drink. It was out of step with State care and protection. We think that that is a sensible step, moving forward—to move it up to 18, to bring it in line with a lot of the other eligibility criteria for State services that young people are entitled to. We think that that is a step in the right direction.

But in spite of all of the support and all of the good things we see in this, like that particular part around the age of 18, like advocacy powers, and like youth involvement in the policy decision-making process, or certainly, in the informing of the policy decision-making process—we think those are all good things—the hurdle that is just too hard to get above is the delegate powers given to the chief executive. We want to know that, at the end of the day, the responsibility for such important decisions is a collective decision made by this House, something that we all agree on—not necessarily something that is just given to one individual, omnipotent.

I am also rather concerned that in this particular part of the bill we have not heard from the Māori Party. We have not heard from the Māori Party. We have spoken about the Māori involvement in this—a Māori watchful eye over this particular bill—and we are concerned that the voice of the Māori Party, the voice that claims to represent Māori interests at the Government table, is not being heard on this very important matter. That is of concern to us here in the Labour Party and on this side of the House. It is such an important issue—such an important issue.

I note an interesting comment from Mr Doocey regarding the 22 submitters, who, according to that member, had sort of a general agreement with the intention of the bill. As pointed out by my colleague Carmel Sepuloni, sure, there was agreement from many of the submitters on parts of the bill, but the devil is in the detail, and it was overwhelming from those submitters that the issue and the barrier that stands in front of the Labour Party’s and the Green Party’s support for this particular bill are insurmountable. Submitters’ issues relating to that particular part around the chief executive’s powers of delegation are still very evident. Their voices need to be heard, and we can guarantee this House that the Labour Party will certainly be challenging this all the way through the entire process, to make sure that there is not a lopsided approach in working with our families, in working with whānau, and in working with tamariki who, sadly, may have to come into State care.

Children and tamariki welfare is a very complex issue. We do not pretend to know everything, which is why it is important to listen to submitters—why it is important to take on advice and experiences from those who have been through the system and from those who work with the system. They are the people who are working with our whānau and our tamariki, and it is important to listen to them. I would hate for their voices to be silenced on such an important issue around the powers of delegation by the chief executive. We have canvassed quite well on this side, in the Labour Party, our particular areas of support, and those we will not be supporting. That is enough from me. Kia ora tātou.

BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill in this, its second reading.

The bill will extend the State’s responsibility for the care and protection of young people. It follows on from and is, in fact, the Government’s response to the Modernising Child, Youth and Family Expert Panel’s final report, released on 7 April. It is important to note that this represents the first steps in the actions the Government will take to reform a system and set of services that are in much need of reform—a system that currently does not place the child and the child’s needs at the centre of what it does and how it goes about doing the things it is set to do.

What the bill will do is it will extend State responsibility for the care and protection of vulnerable young people until they reach their 18th birthday. Importantly, it will ensure that those vulnerable young people are able to express their views and to have those views considered as part of decision making not only in their individual cases but also in the development of departmental services and of policy. It will establish a youth advocacy service, and it will permit a broader range of professionals to carry out functions under the Act.

The reason this, as a set of first steps, comes about is that the review and the report have shown that the system we have had for some years fails in that it has, we believe, the wrong focus. It does not have those vulnerable children at the heart of the perspectives it takes, the decisions it makes, and the actions that flow from that. It simply does not meet the needs of vulnerable children as they move into adulthood. It is fragmented, it lacks clear accountability, and it is not organised around that common purpose of the child at the centre. This represents a set of first steps to change that. I commend this bill to the House.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure, actually, to speak on this, the second reading of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill, and I would like to acknowledge all members of the Social Services Committee, who have had to hear submissions. I know that in this space a lot of trauma would have been spoken about, so I want to acknowledge the work that the committee has done, and I specifically want to acknowledge my colleague Carmel Sepuloni, who is our leader on that select committee, and also Jacinda Ardern, who is our spokesperson for children.

I am going to read something that has been produced, in terms of our support: “This bill contains the change we have pushed extremely hard for, and that is a raise in the age of care and protection. It is something we believe passionately in, and was the basis of our support for this bill in every stage—till this point. This is also the reason we will support this bill at second reading.” I also want to note that we disagree with the bill’s move to separate care and protection from the age of the youth justice system; this should be 18 years of age too.

I want to highlight the main issue that we in the Opposition have to this piece of legislation. This bill also contains: “The massive, regressive, and dangerous set of provisions, that will allow the chief executive to delegate powers that can currently only be performed by Child, Youth and Family social workers … There is no ability for Parliament to have oversight of these powers and almost no checks and balances in the way they will be delegated. We cannot support this provision when it could allow any professionals, at the whim of the chief executive, to hold powers like the removal of children. For our support of this bill to continue, we will be seeking significant changes to these provisions at committee stages.” I read that because I want that noted for the record.

I want to highlight, from the commentary that the select committee produced in respect of this bill, that the aims are to achieve a child-centred system, so I thought it was really important that we define what “child-centred” is. “Child-centred” is actually an application within the field of child development, and what it does is it allows the child to make their own choices and to establish their own ideas towards promoting competent communication and learning. It is also a concept that allows more freedom to the child, giving them the ability to use their own individual approaches, to explore their interests, and to ask their own questions. If we are going to say that this legislation is all about a child-centred system, I think that we should understand what that means. It is about promoting a child’s personal qualities, a child’s needs and best interests, their care, support, and well-being, how they attach to caring adults, and what impacts on their ability to grow and develop into caring adults.

When I was looking at definitions of “child-centred approach”, I found a definition on the Child, Youth and Family (CYF) Practice centre website, under a heading “Child-centred perspective”. It says: “Requires that we become familiar with adoption outcome research that helps us to understand children and their needs so that we can work in their best interests.” Under “Child-centred perspective” on the CYF website, it promotes adoption outcomes. So what does that naturally assume? We assume that removing children from their families is the best approach. I find that really bizarre. I then looked at adoption—where it came from and when we started using it. It was actually formerly used in the early 1900s, generally when children were born out of wedlock and families could not take care of their children. The origins of adoption were to protect the child from growing up with the stigma due to the circumstances of their birth, and we also realised that it was about protecting the mother and the birth family from this stigma. So that is where the history of adoption comes from.

What we know about adoption research is that it creates emotional and psychological problems for the child. We know that children experience a sense of abandonment and cope either by clinging on to people in relationships in an unconscious attempt to prevent others from abandoning them or by pushing people away because it is better not to care, because they are anticipating, all the time, that people are going to leave them and that when they leave them, they will be hurt by them. I find it incredible that that is what we are promoting. I guess my questions of this child-centred system are: will children get to choose whether they live with their biological parent or not—is that what this piece of legislation is promoting; will they live with and be raised by their biological parents; will they know who their family is; will they receive their medical history; and what will they be able to decide?

I am presuming, given we are creating this child-centred system, that we are going to actually ask children. We are going to say “Do you want to be removed from your parents or do you want to stay with your parents?” and then we are going to listen to them. So if the children say “We want to stay with our parents.”, then, actually, the system is going to allow the children to do that. Then, what the system should be doing, obviously, is supporting those families who, through a number of circumstances—we have already talked tonight about families or individuals who have addictions, and what we as a society are going to do to help people who have addictions. We are going to support them and provide them with all the support that they need to be able to, I guess, have treatment and rehabilitation so that they are not addicted to drugs and alcohol—right? We are going to do that. Are we going to do that for the families of these children? If we have a child-centred system, then, actually, that is exactly what we should be doing. So I kind of find it incredibly interesting, when we talk about child-centred systems, that we have not defined what they mean or been explicit in confirming that whatever children say they want, we are going to actually be able to meet their needs.

One of the other issues that this piece of legislation has highlighted is that we will encourage children and young people in decisions that significantly affect them, we will ensure that the policies and services have regard to the views of young people, we will support the setting up of all these independent advocacy services with a particular focus on children and young people, and we will allow a broader range of professionals to perform a wider set of tasks to help identify and meet the needs of vulnerable children and young people. Well, I think therein lies some of the issues that we have about this piece of legislation, because it says a whole lot about the needs, aspirations, and voices of young people, but I think we know that this bill has no intention of doing that at all. I think the Government has signalled that kinship care is a problem. Rather than supporting families to build resilience so that they are in the best possible position to meet the needs and aspirations of their children, the solution that the Government is proposing is just to rip those children out of their families and give them to somebody else so that they do not have to worry about the needs of the families that these children come from.

I would like to quote from Associate Professor Mike O’Brien, who is the Child Poverty Action Group social security spokesperson. He said, within the context of this bill, “The Bill will only be effective if it is well-resourced and if there is a commitment to providing the best possible opportunities for all children. We need well-resourced social services with high quality social workers as a vital part of a comprehensive approach to children. The test for the Bill lies in whether Government provides the budget to ensure that all children are properly provided for and well-protected.” Because, at the end of the day, if we are not going to do that, if we are not going to provide the resources that not only the children need to thrive but the families from which those children come need to thrive—because they do not have a random relationship with those families; they have a concrete relationship with those families—and if the solution is to take children out of their families so they have no ongoing relationship with the child, as adoption research has proven, it is not actually in the best interests of children. Kia ora.

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Before I begin, could I just acknowledge the announcement today from the Hon David Cunliffe that he will be retiring at the election and acknowledge that he has been a long-serving member of this House. He has filled a number of important roles, and I wish him all the very best for the future.

At the heart of this Government’s philosophy has been its real determination to lift standards, to lift aspirations, and to lift the means of support for those who are most vulnerable in our society. In many respects, it is encapsulated in the social investment approach. It is something that I am incredibly proud of, because we all know that if we can help those who are most at risk in our society, then we have a real opportunity not only to change their lives for all time but also to improve the quality of our society overall.

Whether it has been tackling our alcohol laws, our drug laws, raising achievement and putting more resources into schools, particularly for those in low-decile areas—and I commend the incredible work of the Hon Hekia Parata in that respect—or the outstanding work that the Hon Anne Tolley is doing at the moment to ensure that our vulnerable children are protected, that we raise the age of State care not just to 18, as the previous speaker was mentioning, but where necessary to 21, maybe even to 25, these are all great things, as is the outstanding work that the Minister of Justice is doing with the number of initiatives that the Hon Amy Adams is putting forward. All of these in totality add up to a really significant package of reforms. I believe that they will make an enormous difference.

I am fully in support of this bill. I thank all members who have contributed to a thoughtful debate, and I really look forward to seeing these initiatives in action.

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Social Services Committee by majority be agreed to.

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

Ayes 106

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 31; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 14

Green Party 14.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Charities Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): I move, That the Charities Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The Charities Amendment Bill makes a small number of technical amendments to the Charities Act 2005. It was divided from the current Statutes Amendment Bill to give the public a further opportunity to make submissions. I would like to thank the members of the Government Administration Committee for their work on this bill. The committee received 32 written submissions and heard six oral submissions. The committee recommended one amendment not proceed and the insertion of one additional amendment. Although the bill only makes a small number of changes to the Charities Act, they are important for reinforcing the public’s trust and confidence in the system.

I would like to take a little bit of time to outline the changes in the bill. Clause 11 adds tax evasion and similar offences under section 143B of the Tax Administration Act 1994 to the list of offences that disqualify someone from being an officer of a registered charity. These offences are similar to other financial-related disqualifying offences already provided for in the Act. This amendment will provide additional assurance that unsuitable persons are not able to obtain control over a charity’s finances. It goes without saying that financial prudence is an important aspect of public trust and confidence in charities.

Clause 12 introduces a 20-working-day time frame for an entity to respond to a notice to provide more information in relation to its registration application. If an adequate response is not received within this time, the application will simply be treated as withdrawn. Twenty working days is a standard time frame for responding to administrative requests; it appears in 175 separate Acts of Parliament. The clause also provides for extensions of time, which can be granted by the chief executive. Currently, the Department of Internal Affairs must go through the process of formally declining an incomplete application where the entity has simply failed to respond to a request for further information, and that happened 180 times in the 2015-16 financial year. Quite apart from the time and cost this adds to the application process, a formal notice that an application has been declined carries substantial reputational risk for the entity concerned. The amendment will not change the process for handling registration applications, which includes an obligation to observe the rules of natural justice. Departmental officials advised the committee that the application process is and will remain an iterative process. I am happy to repeat that assurance here in the House tonight. I would also note that this does apply only to the application process; it is not a licence for the department to request, at any point in time, information from an entity within 20 days.

New clause 12A has been inserted, at the committee’s recommendation, to correct a 2012 drafting error. It replaces the words “chief executive” in section 60(3) of the principal Act with “Board”. Section 60 sets out the High Court’s ability to make interim orders against the statutory decision maker pending determination of an appeal. For section 60(3), which cross-references section 55, the statutory decision maker is the Charities Registration Board. The chief executive of the Department of Internal Affairs provides administrative and secretariat support to the board but does not have any statutory decision-making authority. This amendment does not have any impact on the charities’ ability to seek justice; it is merely providing clarity to the High Court when making those interim orders.

As I have outlined, this bill makes three small but important technical changes that will improve the coherence of the Charities Act 2005. It will provide greater clarity around the registration application process and contribute to public trust and confidence in charities by strengthening protections against the risk of financial mismanagement.

In conclusion, again I would like to thank the committee for its careful consideration of the bill. I look forward to hearing the contributions of other members, and I commend the bill to the House.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Firstly, can I commend the Government Administration Committee and the work that it has done in ensuring that Part 3 of the Statutes Amendment Bill was able to be examined on its own, after some significant issues were raised by the community sector. In that regard, I also must commend Hui E! Community Aotearoa for its ability to read through those particular provisions in the Statutes Amendment Bill and flag with the committee that there were some issues that the wider community would be really concerned about. It actually sought to have the ability to submit on that process. I just want to defer to my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson in that, as I go through my contribution on this piece of legislation, there are some technical parts to this that I might not get exactly right. I hope that she will take the opportunity to ensure that I do actually have this correct.

The Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Jo Goodhew, was right in her comments about ensuring that the community and the charitable sector actually has some trust and confidence in the Charities Registration Board. I think that sits at the heart of why we are here today and why we are discussing this particular piece of legislation, because it was a Court of Appeal decision that kind of started the conversation about the ability of certain charities to have the right to appeal decisions. That further provided the opportunity to have some examination of the particular relevant clauses in this bill. I am going to use the departmental report as my reference in my contribution today.

I do want to start with the case on appeal, which was regarding whether the Foundation for Anti-Aging Research and the Foundation for Reversal of Solid State Hypothermia were eligible to register as charities. Why I start there is that this kind of sits at the heart of a lot of the discussion: the ability to register as a charity and, therefore, the ability to be deregistered by the Charities Registration Board once you have registration. This, along with other examples, was cited as one of those cases where the Charities Registration Board would take a particular view about what constituted a charity.

In the discussion on this particular bill at the select committee, even though it was slightly out of scope of the bill, it actually formed an important part of the discussion, because sitting at the heart of appeals by charities to the High Court is their ability to remain registered. Those are the reasons that charities actually seek support from the High Court: because they have been deregistered by the Charities Registration Board. The Court of Appeal decision involving a particular submitter to the committee cited an interpretation of sections 59 and 61 of the Act, and the consequences of amending section 59 to include appeals against the decision of the chief executive—charities’ ability to complain to the Office of the Ombudsmen.

Further to that, in the departmental report the Department of Internal Affairs notes that the court’s observation reinforces its advice about the proposed amendment to section 61 to remove the words “or the chief executive”, which was going to correct that drafting error, but it does not remove charities’ right of appeal, as one of the submitters stated that it did. But at the heart of this is the level of trust within the sector that that was actually going to be the case.

There is an amount of discussion in the sector about charities’ ability to appeal any decision that the Charities Registration Board makes and about the high threshold that is required by having to take a case to the High Court. We have heard the examples that were given, such as by the National Council of Women of New Zealand, where the test in those cases was whether providing services specifically for women and around gender equality, for example, was actually charitable purpose. If we had had the ability to have a review of charitable purpose, as was promised when the legislation—the original legislation—was first enacted, then perhaps that level of trust in the community and charitable sector would be such that we would not necessarily be at this point where we are having to take Part 3 out of the Statutes Amendment Bill to examine it separately to provide some opportunity for the sector comment and to have that faith restored, which is exactly what we are doing.

Further to that, there was a real sense that the charitable sector would actually be impacted by not only decisions made by the board but decisions made by the chief executive. During our discussion the department was very clear in its response to say that there are no statutory decisions that are made by the chief executive. However, members of the charitable sector—specifically the submitters to the committee—were concerned enough about that that they wanted to ensure that the words “or the chief executive” were removed from section 61.

What actually happened, in the end, was that the decision was made by Labour and the Greens to say that section 61 in its entirety should be removed, and that would provide certainty to the sector that those decisions around the chief executive decisions would not go on to impact them. That was, in fact, done. So, for Labour, the discussion was around restoring some faith and some trust back into the process for charities. There has been some damage done in that relationship between the charitable sector and the Charities Registration Board, and this is seen as an opportunity to actually have that conversation to start restoring that relationship.

Just in conclusion, I want to say that if we had had the review that we were promised when the Charities Commission was devolved, when charity services came on board and the Charities Registration Board took over the process of registering and also deregistering charities, we probably would not be needing to discuss this. I am very grateful that Hui E! Community Aotearoa was vigilant enough with the Statutes Amendment Bill to signal that there was a problem and that it wanted to have the opportunity to provide comment on the legislation, and, therefore, actually provided an opportunity for other charities to make that comment. We are supportive of the work of the committee and hopeful that at the Committee stage we will be able to examine these clauses further. Thank you.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou katoa, e ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata. In addressing this Charities Amendment Bill, I will use slightly fewer words and somewhat less time in this House than the member, Poto Williams, who just resumed her seat, because it is a very simple and brief piece of legislation.

The bill does three simple things: it provides that a person cannot be an officer of a charitable entity if they have been convicted of tax evasion or a similar offence. I think this is a very sensible measure to prevent corruption in the charity sector. It also provides that an application for registration as a charitable entity will be treated as withdrawn if the applicant does not respond to requests for information within 18 months—again, a very pragmatic, sensible measure that is designed to stop the cluttering up of the registration process. But, unfortunately, the bill does not address a 2012 drafting error, as was originally intended, which removes the words “chief executive” from section 61(1)(a) of the Charities Act 2005. This is unfortunate.

This bill started life as part of the Statutes Amendment Bill introduced by my colleague the Hon Simon Bridges in his role as Associate Minister of Justice, and because it is the child bill of a Statutes Amendment Bill it does require unanimity, not simply majority support.

We certainly listened very carefully and very intently to what the submitters said. There were seven submitters we heard from in person, out of the 33 who offered submissions, including submissions from Hui E! Community Aotearoa and others and from a notable lawyer in the charity sector. I listened—and I know the National Party members on the committee listened—very, very closely to what they were submitting. We had a difference of opinion. We did not agree with everything they were saying.

The advice that we—certainly, that I—accept from the department was that section 61 of the Charities Act 2005 does not convey any right of appeal in any case. We accepted that advice on our side of the select committee, but unfortunately that piece of the legislation will not proceed because it has not achieved unanimity. I think that is unfortunate, because in my view it was a drafting error and we were just correcting that small error.

I would also like to commend the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, the Hon Jo Goodhew, who is working hard to tidy up some of the flaws that exist in the current legislation. The bill, despite losing the section around the chief executive and appeal rights reform, with that tweak there, still has some useful sections dealing with tax evasion and also with the withdrawal of an application if it has not been progressed within 18 months. So it is still a sensible bill. It is just a shame it did not go that little bit further.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I am delighted to speak at this stage of the Charities Amendment Bill, and can I say to the member who has just resumed his seat, Paul Foster-Bell, that I cannot imagine a bill or a Labour speaker less likely to deserve such a nasty little quip from that member. Sometimes you need to rise above that sort of behaviour. Poto Williams does not know how to be offensive to people. She never is. This bill was the subject of, I think, a robust consideration by all members of the Government Administration Committee. For it to come back to this House and get a nasty little jibe like that is, I think, unwarranted. I think the member might want to reprioritise his unpleasant quips for something that is more deserved.

There was only one part in this bill that caused contention and that was amending section 61 of the Charities Act 2005, and, as both members who have just resumed their seats mentioned, this bill was originally part of a statutes amendment bill and was taken out at the select committee because of the objections of the Labour members and the Green members to it being included.

Statutes amendment bills are meant to have just a small number of alterations to any Act. Those alterations are meant to be non-controversial. There should not be anybody getting upset about them. There should be no controversy at all about them. They should not make any policy changes. That way they are entitled to be in a statutes amendment bill. But if one single member of this House disagrees with the inclusion of a provision in a statutes amendment bill, then it does not proceed and that was the situation with this.

However, we agreed that—and I think it was a mark of goodwill towards Minister Goodhew, actually, who had signed this off to go in a statutes amendment bill—instead of just throwing it out, we would progress it as a separate piece of legislation and enable it to proceed. What we did not suspect though was that the Minister would use that as an opportunity to reinsert section 61 back into this bill. It is the very section that caused the controversy, which caused the submitters to come to our committee and say that it was not the policy intention originally and it will take away their right to appeal a decision that they believed they had. So that is why we decided we would remove it from the bill—because that was not meant to be the intention of it.

I think, from Paul Foster-Bell’s contribution just now, that the intention of Minister Jo Goodhew is to put section 61 back into this bill during the Committee stage. I think that would be a really serious breach of the faith that we had in the process and the goodwill that we showed towards the Minister by not just chucking out all this stuff in the first place, which we could have done, given, as I outlined before, the provisions of a statutes amendment bill. We decided not to use our ability to trip the Minister up—tempting though it may be—because that is not the way that parliamentarians should behave.

To go back to the intent of the rest of the bill—because, as I say, that was one section only that caused the controversy—the rest was completely in order and we support it. So a person cannot be an officer of a charitable entity if they have been convicted of tax evasion or a similar offence under the Tax Administration Act 1994. To apply for an application for registration as a charitable entity—that can be treated as withdrawn if the applicant refuses or does not respond to a request for information or another notice from the chief executive. The third point was to correct a 2012 drafting error. So those four clauses of the Charities Amendment Bill originally formed Part 3 of the Statutes Amendment Bill.

Can I just comment on the tone of the submitters we had—all of who were focused around section 61 and in opposition to it. Instead of having the organisations led by Huia E! Community Aotearoa and its lawyer, Sue Barker, coming along to the committee participating in constructive engagement, which is what you normally get with a select committee, it was very clear that those organisations were feeling quite abused and quite battered by their disengagement from the Government. They were not feeling at all as if they had the ear of the Minister or support from the backbenches or any engagement at all—

Hon Jo Goodhew: It was not what they told me yesterday. It was a different story when they talked to me yesterday.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Oh, the Minister has woken up at last. Well, I know what the select committee was told, Minister. You can ask your colleagues and we will see whether they want to be upfront—

Hon Jo Goodhew: I’m just talking about what they told me yesterday.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Well, they might be scared that they will lose yet another contract.

Hon Jo Goodhew: I’m very scary, aren’t I?

Hon RUTH DYSON: Well, let us not go down that path. Let us not go down that path; that would be very tempting. Your colleagues are all tempted to make a contribution here. I think that if they are looking for that spot in Cabinet that is coming available early next year, they would be wise not to comment and not to respond to that question from Minister Jo Goodhew.

The submitters all said that they felt disengaged, that they were not given any respect from the Government, and that they were treated as if they were a contractual arrangement if they were providing services rather than a genuine partner in trying to progress the issues they care about. The other charities, in addition to Huia E! Community Aotearoa and Sue Barker who made presentations, were really appalled that they had been given no notification at all by either the department or the Minister about the proposed change. It was only through the eagle eye of Huia E! Community Aotearoa during the Statutes Amendment Bill that this was drawn to its attention. It felt cheated. It felt as if further costs were being imposed on it—that its rights, as it interprets the law, were being taken away from it, and it was pretty scathing of the whole process, actually.

I think that all of the members of the committee felt pretty disappointed that those in the charitable and voluntary sector who made those submissions were in that state. We have always regarded ourselves—as New Zealanders—as respecting of volunteers, as respecting of charitable organisations, and as those who ensure that, as you look across the spectrum of people who do stuff in our community, you recognise the paid workers and you recognise the unpaid workers, and the organisations they are part of with the same level of respect. That is certainly no longer the case under this Government.

The other thing that is obvious is that the National members are becoming more and more sensitive to criticism and more and more likely to push back against organisations that raise questions or challenges. I do not think that is a healthy way for a genuine partnership to be maintained. There is a lot of power in a ministerial role, and if that power is not used responsibly, then we will have organisations that are scared to speak up, scared to criticise, and scared to raise concerns because they know that their contracts will be vulnerable. They know that they will be targeted in future through a quiet word from the Minister to the department, and, suddenly, they will be out of work. Suddenly, they will lose their contract.

This should not be the situation. In our country we should not have any organisation that is scared of a Minister and scared to speak up and raise concerns. What sort of democracy is that when we have a situation where people are cowered because of anxiety about ramifications of raising issues? It felt a bit like a war. It felt a bit like the sector was saying these increased costs—the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill was one such issue that was raised with us—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not part of the bill.

Hon RUTH DYSON: —as part of the sector feeling overburdened by the current regime.

With this bill, even though the sector supported the other parts, the resentment towards having what they saw as their legal right—and we agreed with them—taken away without any discussion with them, and without any notification caused offence. I will be very disappointed if the National Government does decide to reinsert section 61.

The department told us that there was a serious disagreement about the interpretation. That does not justify a change going into the Statutes Amendment Bill, and the Minister has been around this place long enough to know that. This is not an opportunity to put things on a train that is passing by just because it is convenient. We should be very protective of the ability we have to change things in a statutes amendment bill, as long as it complies with the law.

We support the rest of this bill. I hope we are still able to support it through the next stages of the House—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry. The member’s time has expired.

MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): It is a pleasure to take a call on this, the Charities Amendment Bill, and can I just acknowledge the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector for bringing what is a very good piece of legislation to the House. Can I acknowledge the previous speaker, Ruth Dyson, as the chair of the Government Administration Committee.

I think using the term “war” when we are referring to the Charities Amendment Bill might be taking it just a little bit too far, but I do want to just support the comments that the Minister made about the fact that the bill makes three small but important technical changes that will improve the coherence of the Charities Act 2005, which is actually very important, as we heard through the select committee process.

The bill seeks to improve the public’s trust and confidence in charities by further clarifying the legislation, and it seeks to make compliance easier and faster for both charities and the regulator by removing unnecessary processes, whilst maintaining the principles of natural justice. This is very important. It is in line with some commitments that this National-led Government made around reducing red tape and compliance costs.

These are small but important changes that provide greater clarity and also processes that will be familiar to all charities. It will provide greater clarity around the registration application process, and contribute to public trust and confidence in charities by strengthening protections against the risk of financial mismanagement. Like I said, it is a very good bill. Can I commend the Minister and commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I have got to say that this has been a unique process in my experience in Parliament in terms of dealing with a bill that was just provisions in the statutes amendment process, initially. Hearing submissions in the select committee process actually threw up the fact that there was significant concern and disagreement around these provisions, which we on this side of the House have managed to, I guess, hold off to be able to get the best parts of what was in there into this bill, and save the debate for another day, where the community can participate in it, on the contentious issues.

I do want to just frame this. This is the Charities Amendment Bill that we are talking about, and we are told that this is, you know, small and minor and technical. What is in this bill we agree on and we can support. They are things like ensuring that somebody who has been convicted of tax evasion cannot become an officer of a registered charity, and that does seem pretty sensible. It provides that an application for registration as a charity can be treated as withdrawn if that organisation has not responded to correspondence in 18 months. Again, it seems good to clarify that. But initially the Government intended to put another provision in there that we were told was correcting a drafting error.

I have got to say that this is something that I have heard a few times on different pieces of legislation going through this House on what were often quite contentious points and where no evidence was provided by them to back up that analysis of the original intent. In this situation we had the department and the Minister saying: “This is inconsequential; it is really just tidying—don’t worry.” Then we had the community and voluntary sector peak organisation Hui E! Community Aotearoa and its lawyer, Sue Barker, who is generally acknowledged as the person in the country with the most expertise in this area of law, both saying that this change or “correction of a drafting error” would take away rights to appeal a decision—very, very different views. We considered that that was not appropriate to pass through as if those different views did not exist. So we are pleased that that did not happen and that we have this legislation, without that point in it, that we can support. But I would back up the Hon Ruth Dyson’s point that we certainly would not be supporting this if it was put back in at the Committee stage.

Getting beyond the detail of what that provision is and whether or not it is taking away appeal rights, it is really, really important to us in the Greens about negotiating roles in our society. I spent most of my working life working in the charity sector, and we used to talk about the charity sector as the third sector. There was Government; there was business, which also included unions; and there was tangata whenua, the community, and the voluntary sector—roughly, the charity sector. That was not a hierarchy; it was almost like a Venn diagram, but with not much overlapping, around working together to make this society work, with different pieces of knowledge and understanding of what was going on.

There used to be a respect for our experience in the community, and the Government used to listen to us. Obviously, we always wanted it to listen more and do more things, but there used to be a time when we could speak out and say what we thought. Sometimes the Government would agree; sometimes it would not, but there was respect. Well, through this, and what was shown in the select committee process—and what I am hearing pretty much every day out in the community—is that that culture does not exist under this Government. There is not respect for our community sector, our charity sector, shown by this Government. We do have agencies that are not able to speak up, because when they do speak up advocating for the people they are working for, then a few days later, or maybe a few hours later, they might get a phone call from their funders at the ministry saying: “You do know you are not indispensable.”

Hon Jo Goodhew: Just rubbish.

JAN LOGIE: That is not rubbish, Minister. You need to get out more. You need to listen more, Minister. You need to read the reports that tell how many agencies are on the point of collapse because of a lack of funding, because of the short-term funding contracts that you keep on imposing on them so that they are too scared to challenge you. There would be not one person on this side of the House who has not had that conversation on a regular basis with people working to protect the most vulnerable people in our society, who are too scared to contribute to the public debate because of the actions of this Government.

This bill is part of that disrespect, where the Government Ministers go “Oh, we can sneak this through.”, and then do not even tell the agencies that they are looking at making these changes. Not even the peak agencies that they used to have regular meetings with and a relationship of respect—they do not even tell them. So when it comes through in this process and there is absolutely, fundamentally different views on what this provision would mean, it takes the Opposition parties, the Labour Party and the Green Party, to say: “Well, actually, if there is this level of agreement, this should not go through.”

The Government members of the select committee—backed up, I can only assume, by the Minister who brought it to the House—would have let it go through, thinking they were right, because that—

Brett Hudson: We were.

JAN LOGIE: And there we hear it again—they were right. That sums up the arrogance and the bullying power of this Government. It will ram things over, so certain in its own knowledge and so certain in its own rightness, regardless of any other feedback that it might be getting. So we are proud that this bill now no longer includes that provision.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I will start with a bit of good news: we will be supporting this bill.

Hon Members: Hooray!

CLAYTON MITCHELL: I thought you would all be absolutely over the moon, including Mr Macindoe, who is sitting there smiling away like a Cheshire cat. I have actually enjoyed the debate this evening. It has been quite robust for something that everybody agrees to, to be fair, but it does make sense to support it—

Tim Macindoe: It’s always a pleasure to listen to you, Clayton.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Oh, I am only just freshening the night up. I have got only about 6 minutes to go before the night is over, so I thought I might try to fill it all up. I have got some very good information. You will really want to hear this, so you should just tune in for a little bit.

The first point of this bill, which makes absolute sense to everybody, is the fact that New Zealand is a very charitable country. We have got so many charities around the country and so many people willing to put their hard-earned money and, more importantly much of the time, their hard-earned time into supporting those charities, because, of course, for all intents and purposes it goes to a good cause, generally for those people in need—generally those people who actually need some help and some support.

The first thing that this bill does is make it an offence for a person who has been charged with tax evasion to be on a charitable trust or to hold a position within a charitable organisation. Of course that makes sense. If you are a tax evader, we certainly do not want you to be operating inside our charitable organisations, although it is quite ironic, then, when we listen to the Minister of Finance when he talks about the clear difference between tax evasion, which, of course, is illegal, and the art of tax avoidance, which is clearly not illegal. It is just completely immoral and it should be made illegal. So it does not address that. It just makes a step forward where if someone has been caught out fudging the system, taking their opportunity to not pay taxes, they are not allowed to be in a charitable organisation. But we are not addressing the bigger picture here. We do absolutely believe that a review is required, and desperately needed, with regard to making sure that these charitable organisations are in fact charitable organisations.

When you look around the world, internationally, I think there is an organisation over in the United States called—oh, something hairy, I have got it written down here—Kids Wish Network, that is right. It has worked out that only 3 cents in the dollar actually go to the charities themselves, and the rest of those 97 cents is taken up in the administration and the exorbitant fees that the organisers and the offices of those organisations are taking in salaries and remunerative—flying first-class. Of course, we all remember earlier on this year when we heard of a very prominent charity that was going out and buying brand-spanking-new $153,000 Mercedes and flying first-class around the world. That goes against the grain of what charities are organised and designed to do, and this is what we need to be spending some time on tidying up.

If we talk about the tax avoidance versus the tax evasion, why do we not spend some time looking at the big multinational companies that turn over tens of billions of dollars? In fact, the top 20 multinational companies operating in New Zealand or out of New Zealand turn over $10 billion, and collectively pay less than $1.8 million in tax—$1.8 million of tax. That is a seriously big problem. This bill is not designed to be contentious, of course—it has got to get full support, as it is a bit of a tidy-up of the Statutes Amendment Bill, but the reality is that we have got some big problems in this country and they need to be addressed very, very promptly.

I am just looking at my time and making sure I do not run out—I would not want to miss anything out. Point No. 2 is giving the ability for these charitable organisations to be struck off within an 18-month period if they do not come with the information that has been requested of them by the Inland Revenue Department and such other entities, and, of course, a very, very small, minor change with regard to a correction of some drafting, which is taking out the words “or the chief executive.” To be honest, it is so small that it does not really require too much time.

I do not want to take up too much of the House’s time this evening—I have got a couple of minutes left, and I would like to, sort of, waffle on, but I will not put people through that hardship. I think the point has been made that tax avoidance and tax evasion is something that needs to be looked at in respect of charities in this country. The people of New Zealand want to see something done. We need a review of this specifically, and I think it would get full support of the House if we did come out, certainly if this Government here took the lead role in that and made that happen. Thank you.

BRETT HUDSON (National): I rise in support of the Charities Amendment Bill in its second reading. It is unfortunate, though, that here we are in the second reading and already we are seeing attempts to revise history, in the description of what happened or did not happen in the select committee process. Our chair, Ruth Dyson—who, I will acknowledge, is normally a very solid, very collegial, and very consensus-driven chair—has made claims about what she saw removed from the Statutes Amendment Bill for further consideration as a separate item by the Government Administration Committee.

I am a permanent member on that committee, and I acknowledge these things: there was a statutes amendment bill in front of the committee; there was not unanimous agreement that all the provisions of that bill should be in a statutes amendment bill; and the provisions that were thought not to warrant that were around the Charities Act 2005. It was agreed that all of the provisions related to the Charities Act 2005 would be pulled out and made into a separate child bill, that all of those provisions would be open to greater public submission—particularly from the submitters who had commented on those areas in the parent bill—and that we would do it as a separate process and work through it.

So the question of whether or not there was a drafting error in respect of the words “or the chief executive” was always a part of the consideration of the child bill. It absolutely was looked at by the select committee, and any inference that it was not is completely not as I recall those proceedings. I commend the bill to the House.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is a pleasure to speak to the second reading of this Charities Amendment Bill in the dying moments of the evening. There was just an interesting telling of history about the formation of this bill, and it has been mentioned by two colleagues of mine, the Hon Ruth Dyson and Poto Williams. The fact is that this is a piece of legislation that came about from the Statutes Amendment Bill.

There has been quite a bit of debate during this sitting session around the Statutes Amendment Bill—and I will get on to luggage at some point. That piece of legislation, the Statutes Amendment Bill, is designed for non-controversial, non - policy-changing pieces of tidying-up, which are put into a statutes amendment bill and—

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

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.