Tuesday, 15 November 2016

TUESDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2016

TUESDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2016

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

United States—American Council of Young Political Leaders

Mr SPEAKER: Honourable members, I am sure that members would wish to welcome delegates from the American Council of Young Political Leaders exchange, present in the Speaker’s gallery.

Ministerial Statements

Earthquake—Kaikōura and Hanmer Springs

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I wish to make a ministerial statement under Standing Order 356 in relation to yesterday’s 7.5 magnitude earthquake. But before I do, I seek leave for the leaders of parties not specified in Standing Order 357, or their representatives, to also comment following my statement.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for leaders of the smaller parties to participate. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is none.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Just after midnight on Monday, 14 November 2016 New Zealand was struck by another severe earthquake. The magnitude 7.5 earthquake was one of the largest ever. It was 16 kilometres deep and centred near Hanmer Springs. It was felt throughout much of the country and the subsequent aftershocks continue to keep many New Zealanders on edge. The damage is serious. Two people have lost their lives and their families are grieving. Our thoughts, of course, are with them. Others are living without power and in damaged homes. In Kaikōura, communities have been cut off, there is no running water or sewerage, supplies have been limited, and the phone coverage is unreliable. It is a reminder to always be prepared. My message to those communities is that the rest of New Zealand is standing alongside you to provide whatever support you need in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Yesterday I saw for myself the damage wrought on southern roads and train lines, and I spoke with those on the ground dealing with the aftermath and response. I have also seen the efforts of civil defence staff here in Wellington coordinating the national efforts. Our police have helped keep our affected communities safe and calm, and our Defence Force has been on the ground and in the air since shortly after the quake struck, carrying people and supplies where needed. Along with our firefighters and emergency medical staff and local volunteers, they are doing an extraordinary job. Can I thank all of those who responded so quickly and so comprehensively to the disaster and continue to do so. Can I also thank all of the leaders and Governments from around the world for their messages of support and offers of assistance. Thanks in particular to the United States and Japan, which are helping with the relief effort.

Supplies and expertise are now flowing into affected areas. Vital services are being restored, those who are stuck are being evacuated, and we are gaining a better understanding of the damage. That damage is extensive, but New Zealand is well placed to respond, and we are well practised.

We have been presented with yet another challenge, but, as we have done time and again, we will rise to that challenge and we will rebuild. We will repair our roads, rail, and other infrastructure, and we will help our affected communities. We will get a better understanding of exactly what happened and we will be even better prepared for next time. Although this is an unpleasant thought, it is the reality of living here, and New Zealanders must always bear that in mind. It is an unavoidable fact that New Zealand is prone to earthquakes, but with each quake we have improved our response, and you have seen that again in the last 36 hours.

As Prime Minister, I rarely feel a greater sense of pride or see our national character and resolve as clearly on display than in times of crises. As a country, we are known for our resilience, our generosity, our commitment, and our willingness to pick ourselves up and carry on even in the most trying of times. It is a credit to all Kiwis.

To those New Zealanders and our international visitors in affected areas, you have my absolute assurance that we are doing, and will continue to do, everything we can to support you. The financial cost will be significant, but we will bear that. Our books are in order and our debt levels low, so we have the financial capacity to fix our broken infrastructure and to support our affected businesses and communities. We have been here before and we have overcome those challenges. We are stronger as a result, and I can assure you we will do the same this time.

ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): I rise to support the Government in its resolution and the motion it has put before the House. We gather here, of course, in a spirit of post - civic disaster calm and agreeability, but I want to say that it is the preference, certainly of the Labour Party, to see the Prime Minister, Acting Minister of Civil Defence, and others involved in the recovery and repair responsibilities to get on and be able to do that without undue impediment from the responsibilities of this House.

This was not just a Hanmer Springs or Culverden or Kaikōura earthquake; this was a New Zealand earthquake. It was felt from the bottom of the South Island up to the Waikato, and apart from, perhaps, those living in Auckland and the North, there would not be many New Zealanders who did not feel the tremors and the shakes early on Monday morning.

Everyone has a story to tell, and I know, here in Wellington in my household, we were woken by it. Our house is just inside the Island Bay tsunami zone, so when the warning about tsunamis went up, my household made the decision to vacate and go to higher ground, although I have to confess that my vote on doing so was the last to be recorded. I had to be dragged out of bed because, like many men who suffered the experience of the earthquake, I tended to weigh up the warmth and comfort of my bed being a better prospect than getting through the tsunami, which I guessed might not eventuate. As we always tell ourselves, we were right anyway. But, anyway, we got through that experience.

My son, who had his NCEA science exam later that morning, was not only fully participating in the evacuation but then, when we had got back and got back to bed, he woke up with energy and determination to do his exam yesterday morning, too. We will come back to questions about, perhaps, the way that issue was managed at the time, and it is no reflection on the Ministers, but, I think, for many families with teenagers involved in NCEA, we would like to see some consistency of decision making so that every child is treated the same and fairly.

For an earthquake of lengthy duration and growing intensity, as we all felt, it was amazing that we have not heard of more stories of significant structural and building damage. I am sure there is more to come out as buildings are inspected and as those with apartments and flats are yet to give due consideration to what has happened to their dwellings. But let us not forget, as the Prime Minister has acknowledged, that there were two deaths as a result of the earthquake, and casualties as well.

I know, of course, there will be time to review what has happened—that is the right and proper thing to do. From my observation—and I got the chance to go around the Wellington Emergency Management Office yesterday—the response from the authorities and those handling the emergency response and the follow-up to it was very, very good. What I saw in the Wellington Emergency Management Office yesterday were dedicated professionals, who were able to respond quickly and in a very timely fashion to people’s concerns and to provide the assurances that were sorely needed by many members of the public.

I was grateful to be able to accompany the Prime Minister and the Acting Minister of Civil Defence yesterday as they took a flight to survey the damage in the worst-affected area, on the east coast of the South Island. As the Prime Minister has also said, that damage is huge, and it will take many weeks and months, at least, to clear the roads and get the rail links back open again. The forces that collapsed entire cliff faces, ripped apart roads, and destroyed pastoral land were truly awesome forces.

The township of Kaikōura, where we ended up yesterday, is the hardest hit. It is presently cut off from road and rail links, and the lifting of its harbour as a consequence of the earthquake may limit connection by sea, at least for some time. But talking to Kaikōura locals yesterday, what was encouraging is how their immediate response was to take the situation in their stride. Many I spoke to talked about reaching out to their neighbours, checking on elderly, and checking on those around them to see that they were all right. As I asked many of them “So how are you bearing up?”, they had no thought for themselves; it was about the others in the community. One of their biggest concerns is, of course, the large number of stranded tourists and travellers, who are now wondering how they are going to get out of that beautiful part of New Zealand.

It was a classic situation where Kiwis rise to an occasion and express the best of Kiwi values: reaching out and helping each other, and sticking together. They were doing that in Kaikōura, as they were doing that in many other parts of New Zealand affected by the earthquake yesterday.

There will be long-term issues for Kaikōura. This is a town that is dependent on traveller and tourist traffic and that looks like it is going to be disrupted for months to come. I know the Government is thinking about how to respond to that, and it will have our support for practical, meaningful measures that will help those businesses get through what could be a very lean time, not the least of which will be during its peak season coming up. We look forward to working with the Government to support and sustain the communities most affected by this civic disaster and to see New Zealanders once again rise to this occasion in their typical way.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. The Green Party joins in supporting the sentiments expressed by the Prime Minister and the leader of the Labour Party. No matter how many thousands of earthquakes one has experienced, they are still enormously scary—that rush of adrenalin, the pounding heart when you go through it—and this one was different because so many New Zealanders felt that hideous aftershock and the quake itself in the early hours of Monday morning.

We have seen already a tremendous response by volunteers in North Canterbury, Kaikōura, Marlborough, Wellington, and elsewhere. We have done this before, in Christchurch. The community and professional emergency services have responded. They have reached out to deal with the broken homes and the broken-hearted people, and to provide support and reassurance. We live in the Shaky Isles. We have come through the Christchurch quakes—those thousands of quakes—and we are thinking now of the North Canterbury and Marlborough communities and what support they need.

The Green Party joins with the Government, joins with the Labour Party, and joins with all the parties present in this Parliament to be open to requests for assistance and for changes to legislation. Some of the legislation that we have recently debated in this Parliament—the building and earthquake-strengthening legislation, the civil defence and emergency management legislation—is intended to improve the way in which we respond.

Nature’s forces are awesome to everyone who has seen those photos of the rock slides, the damage, and the land separation that the earthquakes have caused. But we get through this by acting as a community, by opening our hearts and reaching out to others, and by connecting and working together to respond to people’s needs—the urgent ones and the longer-term ones. We will get through this together. We will do whatever we can to support those who are experiencing the distress post-quake. We can rebuild better. Thank you.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): “Shaken but not broken” was the theme of the tragic Christchurch and Canterbury earthquakes, and the people in Culverden, Kaikōura, Hanmer Springs, Parnassus, Seddon, Ward, Wairau, and Cheviot have been shaken terribly. We can only be thankful that further lives were not lost and that greater numbers of people were not seriously injured.

New Zealand First commends the work of our emergency services and Defence Force personnel, who were quickly on the scene and who have done much great work since the earthquake struck shortly after midnight on Sunday evening. We saw in the Christchurch earthquakes how people came together as well. They are supporting each other and they are putting self-interest aside. People are still in shock—many have no power, no water, no flushing toilets—and so it is a time when political parties have to put our differences aside to ensure that all is being done to help people to recover physically and psychologically. Central government and local government must cooperate and do their bit. As I said, we learnt a great deal from Christchurch and Canterbury. These lessons must now be used to help the people of North Canterbury, Kaikōura District, and Marlborough to get their regions back on their feet.

Last night Angus McKay of Emergency Management Southland warned that if the Alpine Fault ruptured, it would, in his words, “change life in New Zealand”. We live in a country prone to earthquakes and events such as this, and we should therefore be as ready and prepared as we best can. Perhaps it is time for a “quake safe our houses” approach as a national campaign.

One or two things—not to introduce a discordant note, but the rail and road links between Christchurch and Picton have got to be restored, even if we are looking at an alternative in the long term. Building an alternative in the long term and neglecting what is there now simply would let those regions down, dramatically. What I want to say is that when the immediate concerns are sorted out—and let us remember that this could take a long time—we need to consider closely the whole road, rail, and shipping strategy for the upper South Island and the lower North Island, as well as the rest of the country. There must not be an emphasis—which we have seen—on the use of just one utility such as road transport.

Could I just say that we have arrived at a time, as a nation, when we must look at having a cohesive, viable, long-term transportation strategy. This was exposed, again, in the events of Sunday evening. We have to plan in full cognisance of the fact that we are a country susceptible to earthquakes and natural disasters. The economic cost to this country is too great to have a half-baked system or an inadequate system, and we must do our utmost to push aside vested interests and do what is in the national interest, and in the regional interest, as well.

One sad note is the observation of looting that took place as a result of this event, as it did in Christchurch. We did not take the opportunity when it happened in Christchurch to do something about it as a Parliament, and we are all responsible. None of us who were here at the time is exempt. But this time we should do something about it. We are not talking—from my party’s perspective—of sending people to prison. No. It is giving them a shovel and a pick, and putting them out there 6 days a week so that they can work to redeem themselves for the evil that they are bringing into saddened people’s lives, exploited by the circumstances of nature. That is what needs to happen, and we should make up our minds to do just that.

MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Just like many others around the country, just after midnight on Sunday evening, our house felt like it was on a Swiss ball, being tossed around. My 6-year-old daughter, who happened to be awake at the time, was quite excited by this. She spent most of the rest of the evening asking questions about that and then went off to bed singing, and I could not believe that of her. I thought that was rather resilient of her, and the words “Keep calm and carry on.” started to come to mind. The song that she sang as she went off to bed was a little ditty that she had learnt over the years, called “Kindness Begins with Me”. It says:

I want to be kind to everyone,

For that is right, you see.

So I say to myself,

“Remember this:

Kindness begins with me.”

Hearing the words of my baby as she went off to bed, at about 2 a.m., I had started to go on Twitter to try to get all sorts of information, because I could not believe that the earthquake was not centred under my house. When I found out that it was centred somewhere in the South Island, I was a bit in shock and thought about how devastating it must be there. But then I saw, even across the Twittersphere, people already, at 2 o’clock in the morning, were reaching out to one another, making sure that they were OK. So I rang in to Parliament to see what was going on, because I knew that the security staff would be up, and already they were checking the buildings. Already you yourself, Mr Speaker, had agreed to allow people to come here as a place of refuge, and I want to acknowledge that.

I want to acknowledge Jim Robb and his team, who went and checked all the buildings. I rang in again at 4 a.m., because I was still awake, just like many other New Zealanders, to find out what we should be letting our staff know about coming in—what was Wellington like; how was that going to happen—and they were up, and they were bringing people in and responding to the need. So I made my way over here on Monday morning, because I had some things that needed to get done and I had to drop things off, and I found that Taputeranga Marae had opened up its doors to accept tourists who had found themselves stranded and that neighbours had come here and picked people up, because they had seen on the news that people were here, and they had offered their homes to them. This is the New Zealand with a heart, which my baby, at 1 o’clock in the morning, sang of—kindness begins with me.

So today, in particular, in addition to all of those people who have stretched out a hand of kindness in such a turbulent time for our country, I want to acknowledge the people of Te Wai Pounamu, the people of Kaikōura, and the people of Ngāti Kuri. I am pleased to hear that Whānau Ora commissioning agencies have already gone out and put their hands of support out into the community. They have brought 20 other organisations together already in this quick response. A thousand people have registered at Takahanga Marae, the welfare centre in Kaikōura, and the Whare Hauora in Ōtautahi has picked up six whānau from around the South Island—a woman with four children, including a set of twins—and many other families, and evacuated them to a safer place in Christchurch.

I want to acknowledge the work of Kai Tahu, who, with their own helicopters and responders, had flown into the area to give aid and to relieve the burden and the hardship that people are experiencing. Marae in Christchurch have opened their doors—Rehua and Tuahiwi Marae. They do this because they know, they do this because they remember, and what was most heartening to see in all of this was those people from Christchurch who, across social media, were giving hints to other families who were experiencing this for the first time.

Our party is based on a principle of manaakitanga, but that is not foreign to New Zealanders. It is just what we do. And so, as a New Zealander, I am proud of our country and the response that has been put out in this time of need. Kia ora.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I would also like to quickly thank the Prime Minister and the House for giving leave for all party leaders to participate in debate on this statement—thank you.

From the point of view of the ACT Party, our thoughts are primarily with the two who were lost to their loved ones and to their friends and family on Sunday night, and then with all of those who face uncertainty, who may have had damage to their homes and livelihoods, and who fear the prospect of further aftershocks, isolation due to absence of or damage to infrastructure, and the lack of basic necessities at this time. But it is also worth paying tribute to the fact that, as unfortunate and frequent as they are, these natural disasters also bring out the best in the Kiwi character, not just from the emergency services and the military—which, I think everyone will agree, have been excellent and have gone above and beyond throughout this event—but from everyday Kiwis reaching out to each other, including those on the marae, whom we have just heard about from Marama Fox, and the community centres right across the affected areas in New Zealand.

Of course, in stark contrast to that fine Kiwi character are the very few who have actually taken advantage of the natural disaster and have committed crimes, taking advantage of the vulnerability of the New Zealanders who have been forced from their homes. I think, as a Parliament, we should be responsive. I actually agree with the Rt Hon Winston Peters on this, and I hope that the House will support legislation such as the Sentencing (Civil Defence Emergency) Amendment Bill, which would make it an aggravating factor in burglary to take advantage of a victim of a natural disaster. I look forward to all parties’ support on that.

Without further ado, our thoughts in this House should be with those who have lost their lives, with those who are suffering uncertainty, and with the great many New Zealanders who have shown the best of Kiwi character in dealing with this tragic emergency. Thank you.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I want to support the resolution moved by the Prime Minister in the wake of the earthquakes that struck a large part of New Zealand in the early hours of yesterday morning. I do not want to rehearse some of the stories that have been told. We all have, as one of the earlier speakers said, those moments we will remember and never forget. But I do want to observe that as I moved around my electorate yesterday, the one thing that struck me was the quiet resilience of people. Everyone had been through a tremendous ordeal. People were getting on with their lives and were looking out for each other. Although they were numbed and although they were shocked, it was something of a joy to behold the strength of their character and their determination.

But we know that that will not be the case in all circumstances, and I particularly extend my sympathy to the families of those who have lost loved ones in this tragedy. There will be those who are injured or are in some way incapacitated by this tragedy and those who have lost property and other assets and who will be wondering about their economic futures. They are the people who must be in our thoughts at the present time as we contemplate recovery and all that it means.

In the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes, the Fire Service’s urban search and rescue (USAR) unit did an awesome job—so much so that it received the United Nations’ commendation for that work. I want to tell the House today that that urban search and rescue unit has already been deployed. A team of 20 firefighters from Christchurch was deployed yesterday to Kaikōura, and also dogs and two water purification units and communications equipment have been deployed to Kaikōura to help the rescue events there. In addition, the central USAR unit has been deployed to the Wellington region, working alongside the Wellington Regional Council as it coordinates relief efforts in this part of the world.

But I must make this observation: neither of those types of activities is actually legally sanctioned by the current Fire Service legislation. The Fire Service technically exceeds its mandate in carrying out this emergency work—which is, I observe in passing, why we need to pass the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill as soon as possible—because these events are likely to become far more part of our norm.

In a time of emergency we rely on a number of key elements of our society coming together in the public interest, and I want to acknowledge particularly the work of the news media, especially our public media—Radio New Zealand and Television New Zealand—for the way in which they covered the events of the last 24 hours, the information they provided, and the fact that they kept on going. Very few of us who heard it will ever forget Vicki McKay’s announcement of the earthquake during the midnight news bulletin. The calmness and the strength—as I heard one commentator say yesterday, that in itself described the essence of being a New Zealander.

There is one final point I want to make. Today in Wellington we face the unusual phenomenon where, because of flooding and torrential rain, State Highways 1 and 2 are closed, leaving Auckland isolated. But, more seriously—more seriously—that event demonstrates the wisdom in pursuing the Transmission Gully motorway option, which is now under construction and which is proceeding very well, because had it been in place, that situation might not have occurred and Auckland might have been saved.

Seriously though, can I just express again my thanks to all involved in recovery work, my appreciation for the real stoicism of New Zealanders, and my sympathy for those who have suffered emotional, physical, and personal loss as a consequence of that tragedy.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Government Response

1. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: What are the priorities for the Government in assisting communities affected by yesterday’s earthquake?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): The Government has a number of priorities to help those communities over the short, medium, and long term. First, we are ensuring that people in the worst-affected areas, including in and around Kaikōura, receive the immediate support and emergency supplies they need, and we are evacuating people who need to get out. Second, we are working to restore vital transport and communication links. We expect to restore local road access between Kaikōura and Christchurch in a matter of days, but the huge scale of other damage means that it will take some time to restore all rail and road routes. Finally, we have ensured that the Government provides the financial support needed for a successful recovery and rebuild. The overall cost is unclear at this stage, but Treasury’s early assessment is that our strong economic and fiscal position leaves us in a resilient position to provide that support.

Andrew Little: Will he ensure that civil defence, which has done an outstanding job so far, has all the resources it needs to help affected communities in the recovery?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, and I think one of the things to reflect on is that, as time goes on, physical exhaustion is always an issue for those on the ground, as well as the fact that we should not underestimate the impact on people’s mental state because of the ongoing aftershocks and the impact that has on them and their families. I think, as we both witnessed yesterday, it is a small community, it is doing extremely well, but it will need more support physically on the ground.

Andrew Little: How far developed are the Government’s plans for a possible business continuity assistance package for tourist-dependent Kaikōura?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The Minister for business and innovation has asked his ministry to put together a plan and to give that to me, as Prime Minister, and the Minister of Finance to review. I am not entirely sure how long it will take to have that, but, obviously, we would hope to get some information pretty quickly. At some point I would like to get back to Kaikōura, if I can, and speak to the business community there. It will not solely be Kaikōura that will be affected. I think there is certainly likely to be other businesses up and down that coast that will have had some impact as well. So we just need to give some consideration to what would be appropriate, taking into consideration the precedent we set in Christchurch and, also, what would be realistic for future natural disasters. We will work our way through that, but we should have some information relatively quickly.

Andrew Little: Does he anticipate a dedicated recovery agency will be needed after the earthquake?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have not had any discussions with senior Ministers about that. I think that is less likely. I think the component parts of this earthquake are reasonably easy to identify. They are clearly around transport issues, communications, and the like. There will be some issues around economic and business issues but, unlike Christchurch—where you were dealing with the red zone and the issues around that; you were in the CBD of the second-largest city with some very complicated issues around insurance; and just the sheer scale of it—I think it is less likely that we would require that.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Economic Impact and Government Financial Position

2. MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister of Finance: What advice has he received about the economic impact of the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): At this point, the priority is on getting assistance to those who need it, and restoring services to affected areas. There is no funding constraint on that; the job just simply has to be done. Treasury has provided some preliminary advice, which is that the Kaikōura quake is significant, but it is going to be quite difficult to get a clear picture of overall cost.

Matt Doocey: What steps is the Government taking to respond to the earthquake?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The shorter-term steps have been outlined by the Prime Minister, and the Minister in charge of earthquakes—[Earthquake]

Hon David Parker: It’s working.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is working. So we know that repairing roads and other utilities is a costly and long-term solution, which is likely to have an impact on Government expenditure and will have some impact on tax revenue.

Matt Doocey: How well placed is New Zealand to deal with the consequences of the earthquake?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: This time I will be more careful with what I say. Ha, ha! The economy is generally in good shape. Government debt is relatively low. We have Budget surpluses. We are in about as good a shape as we could be to deal with this natural disaster.

Matt Doocey: What financing options does the Government have to respond to the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: There is a range of pretty straightforward options. The Government has capacity to borrow, to the extent that we do not actually have cash surpluses, and we want to make sure that financing is not an impediment to the rapid recovery, particularly for the vital transport links that have been so affected by the quakes.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Transport Infrastructure

3. EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister of Transport: What updates can he give on the transport sector’s response to earthquake damage to State Highway 1 and the rail line between Seddon and Cheviot?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): I thank the member for her question, and can I just also express my condolences to the people affected by Monday’s quakes. It is widely reported that there has been significant damage to transport infrastructure in the Kaikōura region. In addition to buckling and crackling in the road and the rail infrastructure, major landslides have taken out State Highway 1 and the main trunk line at multiple locations across the coast between Seddon and Cheviot. Alternative routes are being established, and this is where the focus of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) and KiwiRail’s efforts are directed right at the moment. Due to the sheer scale of the slips, it is expected that State Highway 1 and the main trunk line between Seddon and Cheviot will remain out of action for months—probably several months—rather than weeks. The transport sector is responding in a very coordinated fashion. This does not just require a land transport response; options are also being explored as to how we can utilise shipping to ensure freight flows are restored as we head into the busy freight period. KiwiRail, the NZTA, and Maritime New Zealand, in particular, are working very closely together.

Eugenie Sage: Are any alternative medium- to longer-term transport options between Picton and Christchurch being investigated in response to the earthquake damage?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Yes, I can confirm they actively are. I think the important thing to note in terms of freight but also people flow is that State Highway 7 is now up and running. It is fit for purpose for both light and heavy vehicles, so that does mean that we have got a connection, and that is very important. I accept, I think, the premise of the member’s question, which is that we also need to make sure that we are looking at alternative options to ensure we have a strong resilience in the system at this time. I can confirm that that includes looking at a number of shipping options. The Ministry of Transport is coordinating this quite concerted effort amongst the transport agencies.

Eugenie Sage: Do the shipping options being examined include an investigation of an additional ferry service and whether that could be established between a North Island port and Lyttelton to transport freight?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: In short, yes, it includes the coastal shipping options. I think the truth there is that a number of coastal shippers are continuing to work. Possibly there is a question of capacity around that, but we are looking at that actively. There are international shipping options; there is, of course, KiwiRail’s fleet; and there is also Bluebridge’s fleet as well. As I say, I think we need to take a coordinated approach that acts in New Zealand’s overall interests, without any worries or concerns about interest and the competition between these players.

Eugenie Sage: Is the Government open to considering additional funding for KiwiRail to help the company investigate the feasibility of additional ferry services?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I think, in short, yes. I mean, we need to look at our options. If there are options that require funding, we will do that. I think, in general terms, if we make a comment across the transport issues that we are seeing as a result of the earthquakes, the question is not one of cash flow or, indeed, funding generally. Through the variety of funds that KiwiRail has and that the Transport Agency has, they are well fit to deal with what they need to in the short and possibly, I think, medium term, as well. It is much more about coordinating practically on the ground and getting people in to do the work and to make things happen.

Eugenie Sage: Is the Minister aware of any road alignments that could be developed as an alternative to the coastal section of State Highway 1 near Kaikōura?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: In the short term I think we are doing the best we can to allow access for communities. So that does mean State Highway 7, effectively up through Murchison to the north, has been opened. That is heavy-vehicle enabled and is taking freight and passenger vehicles at this current time through to Hanmer—it is important to get access there. State Highway 7A is now open, albeit with, effectively, a curfew in the evenings for safety issues. We are working as fast as we can to get people there right at the moment to do work on old State Highway 70, as it is called, from Canterbury up through Culverden and into Kaikōura. The news there to the member, I think, is that it is a matter of days rather than weeks or months to get that vital connectivity for Kaikōura going. More broadly speaking, can I say that State Highway 1, as I say, is badly damaged. The emphasis there will be on fixing that, but also improving it. If that involves some realignments to do that and to make it a more resilient, stronger network, we obviously want to look to do that.

Eugenie Sage: Is he aware of and is any work being done on investigating alternative rail alignments to the coastal section of the South Island main trunk near Kaikōura?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The position there is that if we look between Seddon and Cheviot there is, obviously, very bad damage to several bridges, several slips, and a number of really massive—mother Nature - made, if you like—realignments. Rail is very close there to road, and I think what we will be looking to do is form a very strong collaboration between KiwiRail and the Transport Agency alliance—a bit like we did in Canterbury—to make sure we are providing the best road and rail solutions there together.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Government Financial Position

4. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: What is his initial assessment of the fiscal impact of yesterday morning’s earthquake and what, if any, new or changed Budget allocations is he considering in response to the earthquake?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): In answer to the first question, we do not yet have a detailed assessment. And in answer to the second, I expect that there will probably be categories of funding similar to Christchurch, although this is yet to be considered. The initial recovery costs are welfare costs, business continuity, and infrastructure support to the local council—in this case a very small council—the roading contingencies are clearly not going to be enough. And there will likely have to be some contribution to KiwiRail, which is likely to have significant disruption to its income.

Grant Robertson: Is it his assessment that Crown guarantee, under section 16 of the Earthquake Commission Act, will be needed to meet the cost of claims from yesterday’s quake, in light of the remaining resources in the Natural Disaster Fund being required for the settlement of outstanding claims in Canterbury?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Quite possibly.

Grant Robertson: How does he intend to finance the cost of infrastructure repairs to roads and rail, in particular; will this be different from operational spending?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The process followed in Christchurch was to discuss pretty intensively with the council what share it could feasibly take, given that it has got a relatively small, low-income rating base. With regard to roading, some of that would come from the National Land Transport Fund, but that may need to be supplemented by the Government. So we will just work it through on a case by case basis, but it will probably be similar to Christchurch.

Grant Robertson: Is he giving any consideration to establishing a specific infrastructure fund to meet the large scale of the cost that will arise from rebuilding critical networks?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Most likely the largest need is for road and rail. Certainly, funding for that will be fully transparent, because people need to know whether it is being paid for by the taxpayer or, in this case, by road users. But we are open-minded about a mechanism that gets the funding properly targeted and in a transparent way.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Government Response

5. PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National) to the Minister of Civil Defence: How is the Government supporting people affected by the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Acting Minister of Civil Defence): Shortly after the quake happened, the civil defence system was activated. Scientists began assessing the quake, and the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management began assessing its likely impact and the response that would be needed. At the same time, local civil defence teams on the ground began implementing their local plans, which were built around the specific needs and local circumstances. The civil defence system in New Zealand is based on local authorities carrying out the initial response on the ground, with national coordination where necessary. The National Crisis Management Centre was activated yesterday at 12.34 a.m. after that 7.5 earthquake event. From around that time I witnessed a wide range of personnel from multiple agencies, including Police, Defence, and other Government agencies, working together to help support those in need. I would like to thank everyone who has worked long hours since the event to help those people. This effort will need to continue for some days to come.

Paul Foster-Bell: How are Government agencies working together in the disaster response?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I think they are working together extremely well. Yesterday the Prime Minister and I, accompanied by the Leader of the Opposition, saw first hand the extensive damage to essential connections and basic infrastructure that has isolated Kaikōura from the north and south. The widespread destruction caused by the earthquake and subsequent aftershocks will take considerable time to repair. Government agencies are on the ground in Kaikōura, working to support the local community and stranded visitors. The immediate priority is ensuring delivery of clean water, food, and other essentials to the residents of Kaikōura and the estimated 1,200 tourists in the town. The New Zealand Defence Force is delivering the essential items, and an NH90 helicopter fleet has begun airlifting tourists and locals, who have been prioritised for evacuation. This will continue for a number of days, and so far they expect to evacuate 100 people today. Additional civil defence and emergency staff from outside Kaikōura are also going in to assist, and as the State highway remains closed between Seddon and Cheviot, the New Zealand Transport Agency, as the Minister of Transport said this afternoon, is assessing damage and is working with local authorities to establish alternative roads if possible. I would like to congratulate the Kaikōura community on pulling together and looking after each other and the thousands of visitors in their town at this time.

Civil Defence—Disaster Preparedness

6. RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Minister of Civil Defence: Can the Government assure New Zealanders on our level of preparedness for all natural disasters?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Acting Minister of Civil Defence): Yes, I think the way that civil defence has responded so far indicates that, although they would say that there is always more to learn and that each circumstance gives them that opportunity to improve. In New Zealand our approach is, generally, to act locally, coordinate regionally, and support nationally. I think that, keeping those three things in mind as basic principles, the civil defence organisation in New Zealand is able to respond appropriately in the first instance. The longer-term recovery is something that all of us will need to think about.

Ron Mark: Does he have any concerns about reports of the 111 phone line and civil defence site crashing; if so, what does he have in mind to address that problem?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I think the Government as a whole has a concern about how that happened. The situation is that it was off for about 30 minutes, largely because, like any other structure, the 111 system is inside a building that was considered to be unsafe, and they were asked to evacuate. Normally, there would be a switchover to another site; in this case, there was, I understand, some mistake and the switchover did not occur, but when it was picked up, it immediately happened. It is concerning, but I can tell you that it is of even greater concern to the staff of the centre, who are dedicated people and who do a great job in normal circumstances. I am sure that they will want to ensure that this does not happen again.

Ron Mark: Has he been advised on the number of buildings in Wellington that are owned or occupied by Government agencies and emergency services that do not meet earthquake-strengthening requirements, and how is that work progressing?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: As the Acting Minister of Civil Defence, I have not been briefed on that at this point, because the assessment post - yesterday morning is still continuing. Some of the buildings have been cleared for occupation, as being safe for the purpose that they are intended; others are still under assessment, and I would hope that by, at the latest, the latter part of next week, we will have a very comprehensive understanding of those situations. But, of course, the safety of people in buildings is not confined just to civil servants; it is to everybody who works in the Wellington area in a commercial establishment. It is going to take a while to get through all of that.

Ron Mark: Does he believe the tsunami threat was adequately and consistently communicated to the public in the affected areas?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: In the event, I think it was. There have been some concerns expressed about the speed with which sirens were turned on in some areas. But, in the end, the decision about that does lie with local authorities. I think that if I were to pinpoint why there might have been a set of different decisions made, it would be because of the lack of clarity of the information that came out in the first place. When you look at the information that came out, for those who were issuing it, it seemed perfectly clear. But given that this was a relatively new experience for New Zealand on this scale, I think we have got to learn from those experiences and ensure that next time it is treated appropriately. Can I say that the response that we got from people was extraordinary. People did the right thing. They were inconvenienced in a number of cases because of traffic jams, etc., but we would not want to get to a point where people become so blasé about a warning that they do not engage in some of the activity that, ultimately, causes them that inconvenience.

Ron Mark: Has the Government had discussions with KiwiRail and Bluebridge about rerouting Cook Strait ferries to Lyttelton until such time as State Highway 1 and the Picton-Christchurch rail link are re-established?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The Minister of Transport has answered a question in the House indicating that a wide range of options are being considered by operators and the Government to ensure that freight continuity.

Ron Mark: What preparations is the Government looking at to use young people who are not in employment or in education, and other unemployed New Zealanders, in the recovery and rebuild phase for this and any future natural disaster?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: There were very successful programmes put in place in Christchurch for young people, and we are now a country that has very high levels of employment. Those people who are unemployed may well find opportunities that come out of a disaster like this. It is a little hard to pinpoint it specifically, because at this point the extent of damage to buildings in Wellington is not known, and other areas where there are smaller communities may well have the capacity to effect those repairs without any particular new labour force being brought in. So there is still some consideration needed in order to find exactly the extent of the problem that is faced, and then decisions can be made after that.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Transport Infrastructure

7. SUE MORONEY (Labour) to the Minister of Transport: What roads and public transport services are currently not operational following damage from the earthquake yesterday and when is it expected access and services will be restored?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): As has been widely reported, there has been significant damage to transport infrastructure in the Kaikōura region. In addition to buckled and cracked road and rail infrastructure, major landslides have closed State Highway 1 and the main trunk line at multiple locations along the coast between Seddon and Cheviot. I think, in terms of the member’s question, that is absolutely the prime and by far the largest, most significant example. Effectively, what we are trying to do, for the member’s benefit, is find alternative routes to establish, and that is the focus of the New Zealand Transport Agency and KiwiRail’s efforts right at the moment. Due to the sheer scale of the slips, it is expected that State Highway 1 and the main trunk line between Seddon and Cheviot will remain out of action for—as I have said in answer to earlier questions—several months. Finally, public transport services in and around Wellington are coming back on, following checks to roads and rail lines, but severe weather events, effectively flooding unrelated to the earthquakes, are also significantly impacting services.

Sue Moroney: What steps has the Government taken to ensure that access to isolated communities is restored as soon as possible?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Comprehensive actions, I think. Effectively, our top priority is access for communities, and what that means is going around and systematically checking and inspecting the roads. I mentioned State Highway 7 earlier today, and 7A into Hanmer, and, really, the prime and most important example at the moment to get that access for freight and for people into Kaikōura is old State Highway 70. I am personally meeting with Transport Agency officials across all of the agencies both in the mornings and the evenings to make sure we have a concerted, comprehensive set of actions to do everything we can for the people of the South Island.

Sue Moroney: What are the capacity issues he referred to in question No. 3 today, in relation to the increased role for coastal shipping to ensure the movement of people and freight in the wake of the recent earthquakes?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Broadly speaking, in relation to capacity, I would simply say that we are coming into peak season, with a significant population in Canterbury wanting goods and services connectivity. So that makes this a significant issue. In relation to coastal shipping, I would not claim to have expertise in this; it is something that KiwiRail is working through. My point was simply that, of the number of coastal ships in New Zealand, we have to go through and check which ones are available and have capacity to do the freight tasks that, clearly, in New Zealand’s interests we need to see.

Sue Moroney: What extra resourcing will be allocated from the National Land Transport Fund to assist affected communities to rebuild their transport links?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Under the conventional National Land Transport Fund there is a broad, in approximate terms, half a billion dollars that can be brought to bear to an emergency such as this—local State highway funding. I think we have also heard, of course, from the Minister of Finance that this is not, effectively, a question of funding. We are in a good place over and above that, should we need to act. I would also say to the member that we have got a number of examples, even in my relatively brief time as Minister of Transport, where outside of the conventional classes, if you like, of the fund, we have come to the party to help, with Whanganui and the floods there last year being but one example.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Transport Infrastructure

8. BRETT HUDSON (National) to the Minister of Transport: What action is the Government taking to repair damaged transport infrastructure following the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): Government agencies and contractors are working very hard to assess the damaged transport infrastructure following the devastating earthquake and its aftershocks in the early hours of two mornings ago. There has been significant damage to the State highway network, particularly State Highway 1 between Picton and Christchurch. Crews are working hard to clear roads where it is possible and safe to do so, but in some cases it may take many months, really, before roads are fully operational—I think that realism is required. We are also working hard to establish alternative routes where there is significant damage, but in some cases it may take some time before roads are fully operational. I want to thank all those who continue working hard to clear and repair the roading and rail networks.

Brett Hudson: What efforts are being made by the Government to reconnect towns and communities that are isolated following the earthquakes?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well, I think, if there is one message that I would like to give, it is that I want to reassure those who are currently cut off that our priority at the moment—our absolute priority—is access for them and their communities. The State highway network in and out of Kaikōura has been badly damaged, but, as I have said, I am pleased to advise the House that the latest information I have received from the New Zealand Transport Agency is that it hopes to have a road link via State Highway 70 restored in the coming days. Effectively, that involves bridge work on two or three bridges there, but, as I say, I can assure those people affected that it is working night and day, making this its absolute priority.

Radio New Zealand—Funding

9. GARETH HUGHES (Green) to the Minister of Broadcasting: Will she join with me to acknowledge the work of all media in New Zealand, which is so important in times of natural disaster and crisis; if so, will she consider increasing our public broadcaster Radio New Zealand’s funding in Budget 2017?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Minister of Broadcasting: Yes, I do agree with the member. The media has done an excellent job of the vital task of keeping the public informed about what they should do at a time of stress. In terms of Radio New Zealand’s (RNZ’s) funding—of course, Radio New Zealand, uniquely among media organisations, has a guarantee of revenue for future years, something that many media organisations would regard with envy. However, any bids will be considered in due course as part of the usual Budget process.

Gareth Hughes: How long does the Minister think our only public broadcaster, Radio New Zealand, can continue to provide the high standard of broadcasting we have seen in the past few days, when its funding has not been increased for 8 years?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, clearly up until now it has done a very good job. I have not seen any noticeable deterioration; in fact, I have seen some improvements in the broadcasting of Radio New Zealand on the guaranteed funding that it has, which, as I said, makes it unique among media organisations, a number of which are fighting simply to stay alive.

Gareth Hughes: Given the Minister’s comments around the ability to lodge a Budget bid, is the Minister concerned Radio New Zealand did not put in a funding bid in the last Budget round, with the chairman describing it as “pointless beating your head against a brick wall of reality.”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, I was not disappointed at all. I know for public organisations it can be a sort of automatic reflex that they bid for more money just because they had some last year and they think can do more good next year. In the case of RNZ though, over a number of years it has changed with the times. I am particularly complimentary of its website development. It sees itself now less as an owner of a broadcasting system and more as a content provider. I am sure that the wider media sees benefit in broadcasting content of the quality of RNZ’s.

Gareth Hughes: Given the excellent work that Radio New Zealand has done in the last few days despite a real-term funding cut of $4 million since this Government came to office, would the Minister encourage Radio New Zealand to put in a Budget bid for the next funding round?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, not on that basis. I mean, we do not give a public organisation more money just because it has demonstrated its ability to use the money it has. If there is a greater need for the long-term sustainability of the organisation then I am sure the board and executive of Radio New Zealand will see merit in putting up a bid. Equally, we also try not to give money to organisations where their services habitually fail, because that would also be rewarding organisations, rather than just applying money to obvious need.

Disaster Preparedness—Legislation

10. CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First) to the Minister of Civil Defence: What progress has been made, if any, on new civil defence legislation which focuses on large and significant events such as the Christchurch and Kaikōura earthquakes?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Acting Minister of Civil Defence): I am pleased to confirm that last Thursday the House passed the third reading, with unanimous support, of a Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill. That new legislation focuses on a smoother transition from the response phase to the recovery stage. However, I have to say, though, that the legislation has a very long enactment date. So from the time that it receives assent it is 180 days before it comes into effect. I think, given the events of the last couple of days, there may be a need to look at bringing that commencement date further forward. It is my intention to have discussions with all parties in the House with a view to perhaps moving in that direction.

Clayton Mitchell: Why did it take 12 months to put through the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill, focusing on part one of the Christchurch earthquake review, when it was fully supported across the House and should have been read under urgency?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: There are not too many parties that would argue for bills of that size and importance to be passed under urgency. I understand, too, that the member’s own party has a particular aversion to urgency—and urgent matters—being taken to pass bills in the House.

Clayton Mitchell: Is the Minister aware that New Zealand First would be supportive of the Government bringing part two of the Christchurch earthquake review, which addresses large-scale emergencies, before the House without any further delay?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: As Acting Minister of Civil Defence, no.

Clayton Mitchell: When can we expect legislation that addresses large-scale emergencies, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, to be brought before the House, and will this legislation be put through under urgency?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I think the important thing to recognise here is a definitional one, around what is a large-scale emergency. Although I agree with Andrew Little that the events of the last couple of days affect the whole of New Zealand—they are very much concentrated in a large chunk of the country, but they do not affect the majority of New Zealanders in the direct way that the legislation is designed to relieve, if you like. So I would argue, and continue to—as we did during the process of the passing of the bill last week—that the new legislation does allow an appropriate level of response. But I would have to say that Parliament should also always reserve its right to pass special legislation if there is an event of such a size that it is needed. That was the case in Christchurch. I think the discussions I would like to have with parties over the next few days, or beyond, around the use of this legislation may be to change some of our consideration about what is a large-scale event.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Health Services

11. ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Health: What updates has he received on the Government’s health response to the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): I am receiving regular updates, and the advice is that health systems are responding well across all affected regions. Our focus continues to be primarily on Kaikōura, and the brand-new health centre facility is coping well with increased demand. I am advised that 12 patients have now been airlifted from Kaikōura to Christchurch as a result of a range of injuries. The Ministry of Health is working well with the Canterbury District Health Board to ensure that local staffing requirements in Kaikōura are met, including the provision from Christchurch of a clinical psychologist, emergency management staff, and a health protection officer, who will assist with assessments of local water, sewerage, and other public health issues. I would like to acknowledge the outstanding response of the health workforce under trying circumstances, and thank them for their work.

Alastair Scott: What other health support and advice is available for anyone affected by yesterday’s earthquake?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The earthquake support line and Healthline are available 24/7 to provide support to distressed and anxious people, as well as to give advice on the appropriate management of any other health issues or injuries. There has been an increase in calls to both these services. As at 10 o’clock this morning, they had answered 2,690 calls, and at the peak yesterday they answered 150 percent more calls than would be normal. We know that this is an anxious time for many, and to help respond to the increased demand, Healthline has rostered on an additional 20 hours of nursing staff today and has staff on call, should they be needed, as well as two additional mental health professionals, who are now on duty.

Hon Annette King: In light of evidence showing an increased demand for mental health services following a disaster, will he consider increasing mental health funding to districts that have been seriously affected?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The focus will be on making sure that people in those affected districts have all the resources they need.

Hon Annette King: Can I take from the Minister’s answer that he has said that if increased resources for mental health services are needed, they will be provided in a timely fashion?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I think I have already said that we are making sure that that happens.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Civil Defence Response

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): My question is to the Minister of self defence—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Start the question again.

12. CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) to the Minister of Civil Defence: What actions have been taken by Civil Defence to ensure those people in the areas worst hit by the earthquake have enough food, clothing, water, and shelter?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Acting Minister of Civil Defence): In earlier answers today I have outlined the work that the various agencies of Government are undertaking to ensure that that happens. The immediate priority is to get water, food, and other necessities into those communities, and to evacuate people who have found themselves stranded there when they have commitments, particularly to overseas flights, etc. All of that is in train. Those flights have been taking place today. There have been, I understand, deliveries of water and food supplies in train. And we of course have the Canterbury on its way down from Auckland. It was to participate in the 75th Navy celebrations as part of the review this week, but it is re-tasked to come down, along with the offshore patrol vessel Wellington. They will both be in Kaikōura in the next couple of days. They will have supplies and they will be doing supply runs, as well as doing evacuation runs. In addition to that, you have heard the Minister of Transport today talking about the huge focus that will go on to improving, as quickly as possible, those lifeline links. I can say that the Minister for Communications has also had discussions with the telecommunications companies about getting the place reconnected, and the Minister of Finance has outlined the Government’s commitment to financing the recovery.

Clare Curran: What additional resources will he allocate to help Civil Defence in its role in the recovery stage, which was identified as a weakness by Civil Defence’s latest internal review?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Yes, I have been able to observe some of that weakness first hand, and of course we will work with Civil Defence, recognising that it is, firstly, a local response that the law requires, and then fill the gaps as they are seen.

Clare Curran: As Acting Minister of Civil Defence, will he be undertaking a review of the Civil Defence response to these events?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Civil Defence always reviews its response, no matter whether it is a small local response or a very large response across the country. So, yes, of course there will be some review of this.

Clare Curran: Will extra personnel be brought into rural and isolated communities, if needed?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: There already have been a number of extra personnel put into Kaikōura District. Other districts are being assessed and, as the need is identified, it will be filled.

Members’ Observations—Members’ Conduct During Question Time

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): Anyone who is a regular observer of question time here in this Parliament may have found today a little quiet and may have found today a little overly constructive. But, as Leader of the House, I just want to acknowledge the various parties that have asked questions in the House today. They have been asked from a very genuine point of view and do express the widest support that this House can give to those who are facing difficult times at the moment.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank the honourable member for his comment.

Bills

Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I move, That the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The enactment of this bill will implement a modern licensing regime for patent attorneys. Patent attorneys are a key component of New Zealand’s innovation framework. They are a small group of regulated practitioners who assist innovative businesses to maximise returns from inventions through the use of intellectual property (IP) rights.

In our increasingly knowledge-driven economy, intellectual property is of growing importance to New Zealand businesses. Every year around 30,000 trademark, patent design, and plant variety rights applications are made by individuals and business to our intellectual property offices. There can be high costs for breaching another’s intellectual property right and for not adequately protecting the investment made in developing new products and services. Having a licensing regime for patent attorneys is the most effective means to mitigate the financial harm to businesses that can be caused by advice given by unskilled persons.

Patent attorneys are currently regulated under a licensing regime that was designed and implemented to meet the needs of businesses in the early 1950s. As such, it lacks many of the common features found in the modern licensing regime for a regulated occupation—those that allow businesses to have confidence in the quality and standard of service provided by patent attorneys. For example, the current registration regime neither requires patent attorneys to adhere to a code of conduct nor provides an accessible disciplinary regime to address unsatisfactory conduct by patent attorneys.

Australia has a modern licensing regime for patent attorneys. The majority of New Zealand patent attorneys have taken advantage of the trans-Tasman mutual recognition arrangement to register and practise in Australia, and vice versa. It is, therefore, sensible to look to Australia’s regime as a basis for implementing a modern licensing regime in New Zealand. However, this bill goes one step further than merely replicating Australia’s licensing regime. It implements a single trans-Tasman licensing regime for Australia and New Zealand patent attorneys, based upon Australia’s modern regime.

Implementing the trans-Tasman licensing regime is the most cost-effective means for modernising the regulation of patent attorneys in New Zealand. It allows economies of scale to be achieved in the institutional arrangements for regulating patent attorneys but it will also substantially reduce the cost for patent attorneys to practise in both Australia and New Zealand.

It is worth recounting the history of the bill. In August 2009 Prime Ministers Key and Rudd issued a joint statement of intent in which outcomes for the single economic market agenda between Australia and New Zealand were agreed. The goal of the agenda is to improve the productivity and innovation of Australian and New Zealand businesses by deepening the level of economic integration between the two countries and providing a trans-Tasman market. The implementation of the trans-Tasman licensing regime for patent attorneys is one of the key outcomes of the 2009 single economic market agenda.

The trans-Tasman licensing regime has been designed with the objective of encouraging and facilitating effective competition in the trans-Tasman market for patent attorneys’ services. Specifically, it will make it easier for New Zealand patent attorneys to offer their services in the larger, more lucrative Australian market. It is a small but significant step to further economic integration between Australia and New Zealand in the area of professional services.

This will be the first occupational group to be integrated under a single trans-Tasman licensing regime. The licensing regime comprises one register for all patent attorneys; a qualification regime covering both Australia and New Zealand intellectual property law and practice; a single code of conduct for New Zealand and Australian patent attorneys; a Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board, comprising Australian and New Zealand members, to administer the regulatory and disciplinary regime for patent attorneys; and a Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Disciplinary Tribunal to determine complaints about the conduct of patent attorneys and, where appropriate, to sanction misconduct.

The bill implements the trans-Tasman licensing regime in the manner set out in the arrangement between the Government of Australia and the Government of New Zealand relating to trans-Tasman regulation of patent attorneys. Under the arrangement, the Australian legislation is required to set out the key features of the regime. This bill before the House implements New Zealand’s requirements to do the same.

Before finishing, I would like to correct a misunderstanding in some speeches in earlier readings, relating to the single patent application process (SAP) and the single patent examination process (SEP). The bill was brought to the House including the implementation of the single patent application process and single examination process between IP Australia and the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand. When the single patent application and single examination process was first considered back in 2009, they were seen as having potential to deliver benefits to innovative businesses by protecting their inventions through having the filing of patent applications in Australia and New Zealand combined.

As a result of the passage of time and the development of new international initiatives, it became clear that the implementation of the SAP and SEP, as they are sometimes referred to, is unlikely to be used by New Zealand businesses, and, even if they were, they would not deliver a net benefit. In particular, in May this year, changes to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s ePCT system for filing patent applications and the expansion of work-sharing arrangements between patent offices were confirmed as proceeding. These will deliver similar benefits to the SAP and SEP arrangements at a much reduced cost. With this in mind, I approve of the Commerce Committee’s recommendation to remove clause 5 from the bill. It was a sensible response to changed circumstances. The substance of the bill, the introduction of a trans-Tasman licensing regime, remains in place.

I do want to finish by thanking the Australian Government for its cooperation in developing and implementing the trans-Tasman licensing regime. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): If I may, just before I begin on this piece of legislation, could I, as others in this House have done, pass on, firstly, my condolences to those people who have lost loved ones in the recent quakes. As a Canterbury MP, and a number of people on both sides of this House hail from that province—and clearly your good self, Mr Speaker—we can say with some authority that we know exactly what these folks are going through. Could I also commend those people in the various agencies, who are responding as diligently and professionally as they can.

On to a lighter note, in respect of this bill, I have to say that I congratulate Minister Paul Goldsmith on the best attempt at an alibi. He is a very loyal guy, this Minister, in terms of protecting his officials and sticking by them like araldite, and that speech was one of the best alibis I have heard for a botch-up.

I have said in past speeches that Labour will support this piece of legislation. We support any protection of intellectual property and other protections in respect of the innovative communities to protect those ideas and products and services that are developed by our innovative community. But can I say—and I am also on record, quite rarely, saying this—that I do feel sorry for this Minister, given the level of advice that was tendered to him and to the Commerce Committee by officials. I have also said that I do not often criticise public servants, but as one who sat through weeks of this bill, I have to say—and the Minister alluded to many of the changes that have occurred internationally—that many excuses were put forward to reverse the Government’s original proposal, which was to have an amalgamated process, if you will, to implement a single patent application process in respect of New Zealand and Australia.

Labour originally saw that proposal put forward by the Government and we liked it. We thought it would work, we thought it was in line with other industries—the legal profession and banking—where there has been amalgamation. Our view was that, presumably, the Government had put this forward in order to provide benefits to the innovative communities; not simply the patent attorneys. I note the Minister referenced the patent attorneys many, many times in his speech, but tended not to reference those who I actually think are more important than the patent attorneys, who take a fee for their service. They are those whom patent attorneys serve—that is, innovative clients and innovators and those who are coming up with these ideas and new products and services.

So we looked at this originally and we thought: “Well, this is a pretty good piece of legislation. The Government’s obviously thought this out. We support the original proposition.” I have to say, though, we were quite astounded as a committee—and I will not speak for the chair, Melissa Lee, who I think, as I have said in past speeches, did an admirable job in allowing the committee as a whole to tease out the detail around this piece of legislation. We were quite astounded when it was reported to us by officials that they had recommended a complete reversal. However, in good faith we looked at this and we asked about things like pre-consultation: who had officials consulted with, and had they consulted with the innovators? There was a lot of, as I say, talk about the patent attorneys—great souls that they are—and very little, if any, consultation had actually occurred with the innovative community, apart from one or two submitters. One was Fisher & Paykel, and there was another large company, but very little, if any, consultation, around either the first proposition or its reversal and replacement, had occurred with the innovative communities as a whole.

At this point members of our committee actually went out and did some of that consultation. We simply asked those officials to justify the change. In the report you will see—and the Minister has alluded to it—that they talked about the lack of benefits to either business or patent attorneys. They talked about the increased administrative cost to businesses. They talk about other significant costs. But none of that was ever quantified and none of that information was provided to the committee. In fact, I have got to say it was one of the worst presentations by officials I have witnessed in my 17 years in this Parliament. When officials come before you and you ask them to quantify the cost benefit, and they give a figure and you ask how they got to it and they talk about “their best guess” or “on the back of an envelope”—I remember remarking to one of the officials: “Well, I do feel sorry for the Minister if that is the sort of gobbledegook that was served up to him.”—is it any wonder that the Government, as well as the committee, had some difficulty in working out what was actually the best way to go?

We have a pretty good Public Service. I think we have a world-class Public Service, but we were told by certain officials, basically, “Trust us, we’re the experts, and trust the patent attorneys”, and that was it. Our concern, of course, was to test whether the replacement proposition would actually work for the constituency for whom it is put forward in this House to serve. I have got to say, after weeks and weeks of actually being given contradictory information from time to time by officials, it was a welcome fact that the Minister’s own adviser came to a private hearing of the committee—which we on our side welcomed—to see first-hand the lack of evidence and analysis that was being served up to us to report back to the person’s Minister so that we could get this right.

There is no politics in this piece of legislation—none. If there was, I would be attacking the Minister for incompetence, not the officials. I am actually very disappointed with the advice that the officials got. I hope the Minister has taken the chief executive of that particular department to task around this, because to bring a piece of legislation to a committee without basic analysis being done—presumably, officials thought: “Er—this committee is uninterested. Just rubber-stamp it and bang it through.” Well, actually, we were concerned because we wanted—I think genuinely on both sides of the House—to get it right.

The lack of consultation, or the consultation that was limited to simply one group—that is, the patent attorneys, and they are very important in the scheme of things. They make this work. But the lack of actually going out and talking to the innovative communities en masse, rather than just one or two, who came up and say “We don’t like it, therefore, we should reverse it.”, I think was pretty appalling, and the committee was not well served by the advice it had. In fact, I have to say that all members of the committee took quite a bit of time to work through the bill—not on a political basis. I think we basically buried the hatchet, put it aside, and said “Hey, we’ve got to get this right.”, to ensure that we could convince ourselves that this was the most appropriate course of action.

The Labour Party has put in a minority view, and I am quite happy to make the point—well, I am not happy to make the point, but I do note that even those members on my side of the fence are rather reticent about whether we made the correct decision in respect of this bill. We hope we did, and we will support the bill, but I say this. It was extremely difficult, I think, for committee members—and, I suspect, the Minister, loyal soul that he is to his officials—to say with any great gusto or confidence that this bill will do exactly what the Government’s intent is and that we support the intent of it.

So we will support it. We seek simply to ensure that the provisions within it will serve as best they can the innovative communities, entrepreneurs, and inventors who seek to protect their products and services from nefarious others, but I would make a plea to the Minister. I think, if he has not already, he needs to go and have a rather stern chat with his department so that this sort of stuff does not happen again. If there had been decent pre-consultation, some of these proposals would not have seen the light of day. They would not have got to a Minister’s desk, they would not have got past the Minister’s adviser or his private secretary’s secondment—they would not have got anywhere near a ministerial desk. Instead, that department would have served up quality provisions that the Minister would have confidence in and that a select committee would have processed, I think, very efficiently upon good advice from officials.

So I think there is a learning that can take place from this. But I say, for the record—as I have said before—I think we have a world-class Public Service, but we were not well served on a very, very important piece of legislation like this.

I am sure there are people who are listening at home—you know, it will not turn the lights on at home but this sort of legislation is vitally important if we are trying to promote innovation within our commercial sector in our country. It is very expensive and very difficult for smaller entrepreneurs and innovators to get patent protection for their services. Our position, as it always has been, is that if we can provide support legislation that makes it cheaper and more efficient for those innovators, that is something we should all support across the House.

I have to say that a very simple proposition with unanimity was made extremely difficult because of lack of foresight, and because of lack of basic analysis and work done that should have been done—particularly pre-consultation and post-consultation, when the legislative provisions were changed by that Government department. That being said, we support the bill.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly on the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, the main purpose of which is to implement a single trans-Tasman registration regime for Australian and New Zealand patent attorneys. It is great that today we are able to have the third reading and support the passage of the bill through this House for the final time. In that regard, I would like to thank the member who just took his seat, Clayton Cosgrove, for the constructive way that he and the Opposition members have worked within the Commerce Committee to produce good work, I think, through some difficult conversations that we have had to have at times.

It is important to remember that patent attorneys are a small but important specialist profession with about 1,000 practitioners who advise businesses on the protection and exploitation of intellectual property rights and who, as a result, need effective legislation to cater for their industry’s needs. Through our discussions in the Commerce Committee and in this House, we agreed that there was a need to replace the 60-year-old, outdated regulatory regime currently in place for patent attorneys, and to help increase competition and innovation between Australian and New Zealand businesses. It is also important to remember that 95 percent of the patent applications filed in New Zealand will have a corresponding application across the Tasman. This is unnecessary bureaucracy that can be avoided through this law change.

The bill helps the market be more competitive, with reduced costs to help business, inventors and innovators having more time and recourse towards their products and services, as well as trimming the red tape that can stifle progress. The bill does this with two main amendments to the Patents Act of 2013. It introduces a joint registration regime with Australia for patent attorneys to help spread opportunities to engage in their practice between our two nations and to enhance the conduct and services across the industry. Considering the fact that Australia has a much bigger economy than New Zealand, I can see only benefits for New Zealand patent attorneys. The second amendment is to explicitly remove opposition on the grounds of lack of unity of invention as a means to contest a patent during the pre-grant process. As previously discussed in this House, this possible option was unintentionally introduced in the 2013 legislation and needs to be removed to clarify the law for the patent attorneys across the Tasman and for consumers at large.

Also, under the provisions as we have debated them, a new licensing regime will comprise a register for all patent attorneys and a qualifications regime across Australian intellectual property law and practices, as well as a code of conduct and disciplinary regime to ensure that all those relying on the trans-Tasman system can hold misconduct to account.

I would like to also thank all of those people who have participated during the process in which this bill has gone through the select committee, and the debates in the House as well—the organisations, the businesses, and the individuals who have actually submitted their views on the bill. To hear people’s views and thoughts is always appreciated. Those views do, in fact, matter and actually often direct and guide the select committees, as well. I think they were very helpful. Those submissions and the excellent work of the Commerce Committee secretariat and other parties have contributed to the bill, which will work well for our innovative patents and inventions industry. As I said earlier, I would like to thank all of the members of the Commerce Committee, who have worked very hard to get this bill to the third reading and complete the process. Thank you. I commend the bill to the House.

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): This bill is an object lesson in the importance of good policy development. We as a select committee—and Melissa Lee was the Commerce Committee chair—had the unenviable task with this legislation of shaping it into something that vaguely did something sensible for New Zealand.

It was, as my colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove has pointed out, a very unusual situation for us to be in. The essence of the legislation was that it sought, in its original form, to completely unify the qualifications of the patent attorneys across the Tasman—the qualifications, the registration regime, and so on. During the course of the select committee business it became apparent that the patent attorneys were not at all on board with this and that they had not been fully or effectively consulted. In fact, if they had been consulted, it was certainly in no systematic way, and their ire was apparent very quickly to members of the committee, who I think were probably all individually contacted by the patent attorneys and their representatives.

What we learnt, of course, as we unpacked the process of the bill—how it had come to be what it was—was the fact that this bill really was trying to give effect to a press announcement made between John Key and Kevin Rudd after they had met some time ago. They had nothing significant to announce and decided—I think, from memory, while they were travelling along in their kayaks—that they should announce something by way of joint progress on unification of regulation in the trans-Tasman relationship, and announced that they would unify the patent attorney regime. That promise, unfortunately, it seems was made in the heat of a warm friendship moment. It had not been tested for its clarity of thought and ease of implementation.

Unfortunately—and I think that this does rest with the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. I am a little more critical of the Minister than my colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove was. I do think that the Minister, in giving effect to the Prime Minister’s promises, still has a responsibility to ensure that they can be implemented in an effective way and that the promise makes sense. I think that, as politicians, we do have a role in policy development. It is important that we test that with all of those who are affected by the regime, and who knows? Actually—and I have not said this in previous parts of the debate—this may have been a very sensible suggestion by the Prime Minister. We will never know because it was not properly tested. The calculations were not done as to whether it would have brought benefits, what effect it would have had on the patent attorneys regime, whether the incentives that were being set up would have led to the patent attorneys all shifting offshore and moving away from the innovative businesses in New Zealand, or whether, in fact, the New Zealand patent attorneys would have stood to benefit from this regime, because we tend to provide services in an innovative and low-cost way.

Where we came to was that, in fact, the officials did not know whether it would benefit the regime here. They had been told, subsequent to the announcement, that the patent attorneys certainly were not happy about it and that the patent attorneys were not clear that this would be of benefit to New Zealand. So an enormous move backwards was initiated. The legislation was gutted and the patent attorneys were assured that the existing arrangements would stay in place. So here we find ourselves today, progressing a bill that has, basically, been gutted. We find ourselves putting legislation through the House that fails to achieve what it originally set out to achieve. It fails to do that primarily because the officials had not done the calculations that could give assurance to the committee that was a sensible thing to do.

Mr Cosgrove was very critical of the officials involved. I think they probably cannot completely escape blame, but I also think the Minister must take responsibility for the development of the policy. It is the Minister’s job after all. That is why he is here, and that is why he collects the salary. He is here to balance up the public interest elements of the legislation with the sensible policy elements, as the advisers put them to him. He needs to be responsible for testing what the officials put to him. He needs to be sure that the legislation that he is putting forward in public is robust—not only that it kowtows to the Prime Minister’s wishes but that it really is a sensible thing to do. We will never know, because it was shot dead in the water.

As I have just said—and have not previously really said it in this way—the Prime Minister might have been right. The Prime Minister might have been right, but the Prime Minister’s idea has gone down in flames because the Minister Paul Goldsmith did not instruct his officials and did not test whether his officials had sufficiently tested the proposition to get it through to the select committee in a robust fashion. So when the bill arrived in the select committee and we examined it and found it wanting, when we had the concerns of the patent attorney lobby brought to us and when we sought further assurances and could not get them, all of us on the select committee became very nervous about this legislation as we tried to balance up those different aspects. We also became aware, of course—as our officials spoke to them—that the Australians were finding the same ground rocky.

It is a disappointing thing to be in this House supporting a bill that does very little and that probably is a missed opportunity more than anything else. We could have, you know, been here passing something through that was really worthwhile. It could be that if this proposal had been robustly examined, it would have been found to be the right thing to do. We do not know, and we probably will not know, until a future Government re-examines the situation, looks at the interests of innovators to see whether they are advanced by changes that unify the regimes, looks at the way patent attorneys are educated and the way in which their qualifications are tested and recognised, and decides what the steps forward should be.

There is no doubt, overall, that we do want to harmonise, where possible, the relationships between the countries but also make sure that New Zealand’s interests are protected as we harmonise between Australia and New Zealand. If we can lower regulatory barriers and if we can make it easier to do business without red tape, then I think, certainly, members across the House would welcome that. Inadequate policy processes do not facilitate that kind of change, and, unfortunately, we find ourselves here today passing a bill that will do very little for the interests of innovators in New Zealand.

That speaks to the broader problem. This Government has the aim of increasing exports, as a percentage of GDP, to 40 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. That, in itself, is laudable. The Minister, notably, has been very reluctant to put any intermediate targets in place—and maybe politically that is wise, but I think that from a public policy perspective it is very unfortunate. We see now that this Government is further behind than it was when it took office. Exports as a percentage of GDP are now below 30 percent—they are below 30 percent. New Zealand must pay its way in the world. Having an aim of 40 percent of GDP being exports is laudable, but when we are now below 30 percent, and dropping, it is a shame for this country, and does not speak well to the security of our economic future.

We need a broad-based economy. We need a Government that is proactive in making sure regulatory barriers are lowered and in making sure that we have a good environment for business, and, unfortunately, we have Ministers like Minister Goldsmith proceeding with things that have not been thought through fully. I give credit to the chair of the Commerce Committee, Melissa Lee, for her proactivity in ensuring that we had a good discussion around these issues and ensuring that we did test them, and for having the courage to support a challenge to the proposal that had come forward. I give credit to the other members of the select committee, who participated vigorously in trying to rectify a situation presented to us by Minister Goldsmith, and it was doing the Prime Minister’s wishes no justice.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Firstly, I would like to join with other members of the House in offering condolences to those people who have lost friends and family members in those dreadful quakes in the early hours of yesterday morning, and also to commend not only the resilience but also the good nature of those people who opened their homes and their hearts to neighbours and to visitors to New Zealand in need. It is a great disaster, but it also does bring out the very, very best in people.

I do rise in support of the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in this, its third reading. The bill has always had one fundamental objective, and that is about creating a trans-Tasman patent attorney registration system, along with some associated code of conduct and disciplinary matters. It also had—and retains—an element of wanting to remove an error from the earlier Patents Act that was about opposition on the grounds of lack of unity. It also has a couple of other matters that, in the scheme of the bill as a whole, are minor.

The single application process and the single examination process were introduced as ideas that might help to speed the application for and examination of patents across Australia and New Zealand. The reality is that, given the time from when the idea was first put forward to now, when this may be enacted, much has changed. Much has changed in the area of technology and other systems available to the rest of the world, as well as to New Zealand and Australia, which yields those processes no longer as beneficial as they may have looked a number of years ago. Through the select committee process, it was determined that it was appropriate that they be removed. That does not change the heart of the bill. The heart of the bill was always around the joint registration process, which would see a single definition of services for patent attorneys across Australia and New Zealand, a trans-Tasman governance body, a single disciplinary regime and code of conduct, and a single disciplinary tribunal.

That was the heart of the bill when it was introduced, and it remains the heart of the bill as we now debate it in its third reading and, hopefully—hearing of the support from across the House—through to its enactment. In that respect, nothing has changed. We will achieve the regulation of the professional body that was sought. There will be a new set of regulations, which I think will offer benefits to patent attorneys across both New Zealand and Australia. It will certainly help, I believe, our patent attorneys to be more competitive, not only in our own market but also certainly in the Australian market. I am very pleased that, along with that, we are removing opposition on the grounds of lack of unity of invention. I think it was an oversight in the previous bill, and it is good to see it removed now. I have nothing further to add but to commend this bill to the House.

BARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I would also like to echo the condolences and support for those affected by the earthquake. At such times, communities come together and we see the amazing resilience and strength at a community level that really makes this country special. So our thoughts are with those who are having to put their lives back together again after the earthquake.

I would like to make some comments on this bill, the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I echo many of the previous speakers, who have been highly critical of what the passage of this bill has represented. The genesis of this bill came from a high-level political announcement from Prime Minister John Key and the then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in August 2009. Unfortunately, political announcements, and particularly those driven by a particular ideological position, do not necessarily make for good legislation.

I think that what we have found in this case is that there has been a major political problem. What started out as being an attempt to deepen the level of economic integration between Australia and New Zealand has ended up as legislation that has been poorly translated through the political process into a bill, and I would note that it was agreed to by Cabinet in November 2011.

We see the process as having been deeply flawed, particularly the single patent application process and the single patent examination process, which were subsequently withdrawn from this bill. We see the remaining elements as being, firstly, a retrospective amendment to section 92 of the Patents Act, and we do not regard retrospective amendments as being good legal practice and good parliamentary practice. We reluctantly agreed to this basic correction of an error in the previous legislation. The final element that is remaining is the trans-Tasman joint registration regime. We have considerable misgivings about this part of the bill, but we have rather reluctantly decided to accept the suggestion of the Commerce Committee and support the legislation.

We echo the concern of previous speakers about the poor process used in this legislation. Submitters uniformly complained about not having been consulted. We regard that as being more than an oversight. It indicates a failing to undertake properly the work that is required on this bill. We see that submitters uniformly opposed the proposals put forward. I think there is a wider implication here that other professions in New Zealand should be looking anxiously at this politically motivated process. I think that as parliamentarians we need to remember that part of our role is to defend New Zealand’s interests when there are costs that fall on New Zealand professions from harmonisation proposals.

We consider that the remaining legislation would generate some potential benefits in terms of joint licensing, depending on how the legislation is implemented. We support the submitters who emphasised that there could be flanking measures that help—so, for example, locally responsive governance, so that New Zealand patent attorneys are not disadvantaged by additional travel costs, which was a point raised by many submitters, and not disadvantaged by rules that are not appropriate for the New Zealand market.

We also think there are other measures to support this legislation that should be put in place, such as a New Zealand trademark attorney regime in parallel with the Australian trademark attorney regime. New Zealand does not have one at present, and it would go a long way to making sure that this legislation is not disadvantageous to New Zealand patent attorneys. Secondly, a New Zealand qualification scheme—there needs to be a New Zealand - accredited course of study, because there are differences between the New Zealand and Australian legislation and the market.

So the Green Party supports a sound system for patenting and innovation that is New Zealand - relevant, and not just borrowed, as we have seen in the relentless drive to import patent regimes from other countries. We have seen it most evident in trade agreements, such as the recently demised Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA), where the patent provisions come primarily from the interests of the major patent-holding companies in the United States and, in other cases, from the European Union. I think we need to be very careful that our innovations system is not being loaded down by excessively strong patents and copyright. We note that in the TPPA negotiations there was a reference from officials to overly burdensome regulation that would be introduced by the patents proposals under the TPPA.

In summary, we support this legislation. We call for the flanking measures—as I have outlined—to ensure that New Zealand patent attorneys, and the sector more generally, are not disadvantaged vis-à-vis Australia. We, rather reluctantly, support this bill but would exercise a strong note of caution with regard to harmonisation proposals that affect other professions. Thank you.

RIA BOND (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the third reading of the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I want to point out to members in the House this afternoon that New Zealand First, in the first reading of this bill, did support this bill to ensure that the bill went through the select committee process.

At the time, this bill seemed quite like it was a straightforward bill, that it had all the answers to fix all the outdated problems to do with the patents sector, and that it was going to help alleviate the issues that the 2013 Patents Act had actually come up with. We also noted that the bill did have poor drafting, and that kind of alerted us to the fact that, yes, there was a comprehensive relook and redrafting of the Patents Act 2013, and that took effect on 13 September 2014. We knew that that had been a mammoth task and that it seemed that the Act had been spun on its head with the sweeping and massive changes. Our concern was that we were here again, not 2 years but 18 months later, looking at the unintended consequences that those changes, at the time, to that Act actually made to the sectors and industries.

So that is why we did support the bill to the select committee, and I have to say—as other members in the House have said today, in the Committee stage, and the second and first readings—we are pleased that this process did, in fact, occur. What this bill sought was to amend the Patents Act 2013, and a large part of those originally proposed amendments was an amalgamation process of a single patent application process, known as SAP, and a single patent examination process, known as SEP, so that there was finally a trans-Tasman regulatory regime for patent attorneys.

But throughout the select committee process, this bill, sadly, fell apart. It actually haemorrhaged. One of the reasons was that a policy decision was taken to produce a parallel system to that being undertaken globally, without the due diligence required. The biggest problem the Commerce Committee became faced with was getting solid evidence out of our advisers and our officials who had been assigned to us. We pressed our advisers to provide members with a cost-benefit analysis that could demonstrate the actual value of the pilot programme—supported by Minister Goldsmith in this bill—that we knew as the SEP and the SAP.

We asked the Minister, not once, not twice, but actually six times, to reconsider this bill and to pull this bill and actually go back over and make this bill fit for purpose so that good legislation was being passed in this House—not legislation that was wasting members’ time—but that fell on deaf ears. It was quite sad that that fell on deaf ears, because the other major problem was that there was no pre-consultation with either New Zealand innovation businesses or the patent attorneys on the need for the SEP and SAP system before the legislation was, in fact, drafted.

We did hear from 20 submitters, which included two supplementary submissions, and we heard six oral submitters. From this the committee had absolute and overwhelming opposition from the patent attorneys and submitters to the SEP and the SAP system. We also had major criticisms of the implementing of a single trans-Tasman registration regime for Australia and New Zealand patent attorneys. Despite this high-level criticism and this absolute concern and the feeling that there was ignorance and arrogance involved when this bill was being drafted, this area was still saved in the bill, and we are debating that in the third reading today.

Again, this did highlight the fact that the Minister’s advisers had not taken a pre-consultation or, in fact, any type of thorough consultation at all with the patent attorneys or innovators, and the industry itself got consulted with only through the select committee process, when it could be heard. I want to point out that not only was that bad behaviour from the advisers but it was also really poor practice that we would actually have to witness this. I questioned at the time the issue—it was glaringly obvious that an adviser had a personal interest in this bill. The advisers actually were of high concern and—I am sure other members will say this—when pressed and pressed, we just got no solid evidence at all back from them. We did, as a committee, look at some secret papers that we are not allowed to talk to, and I will not do that, but it is hard because those papers alluded to the fact that this bill was not fit for the House.

So the situation still remains the same—that New Zealand First believes that this is a poor bill. Although it has the amendments brought to the House in there, it still has issues with the industry itself coming back and telling us that this is actually going to diminish the very industry that this bill seeks to protect.

We have also heard from previous debates in the House that the origins of the joint regulations are pretty murky and that the SAP and the SEP were a pilot programme that was part of the single economic market, an initiative announced after a prime ministerial meeting between John Key and Kevin Rudd in August 2009. This joint registration is almost like: “Good luck to the last man standing.”, and to date the committee and members are still faced with the mystery of how the Government actually got to that single signal of how this would transpose and be good, and it does remain a mystery today.

The merits of a joint regulation and stand-alone New Zealand regime is still faced with the multi-faceted innovation market and patent attorneys that service it, and, if you would permit, Mr Assistant Speaker, I would like to quote from an article that was written by Doug Calhoun. What he says is that “The regulatory impact statement cost-benefit analysis table compares existing regulatory fees with the fees under joint regulation, making the unlikely assumption that joint regulation fees remain the same as the current Australian fees. The listed cost regulatory fees are taken out of context. Regulatory fees make up only a minute percentage of the costs of patent attorney services to businesses. The list of costs also does not include the extra costs that will be imposed on New Zealand patent attorneys, who would need to take Australia’s qualifying examination in order to become registered. They do not include the administrative and travel costs of expanding the Australian regime into a trans-Tasman regime. Too much has been left out.”

Finally, what was pretty much a straightforward—in this bill is the proposal to correct an unintended consequence, which is to amend the grounds on which a person can oppose a granting of a patent under the Patents Act 2013. This is a correction of a drafting error in the Act and, in order for that Act to meet its original policy, this anomaly needs to be corrected. However, I want to say that the New Zealand Law Society printed an article that said that the proposal to retrospectively bring in regulations for old patent applications “would be unfair for all businesses that made patent applications under the previous law.”, and would disadvantage affected businesses.

This also highlights the concern about imposing time limits on divisional applications, and the time limits set by the new legislation will be highly controversial. Although the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) recommended them to be filed within 5 years of the original patent applications filing date, IPONZ has now recommended implementing a 5-year time limit to applications filed under the previous law, the Patents Act 1953. So it is apparent that this is a legislative clean-up job, and what New Zealand First does encourage is that businesses that find the divisional deadline a gridlock should challenge IPONZ on the basis of how IPONZ says it will apply the time limit.

In closing, New Zealand First is absolutely not in favour of supporting bad legislation, and this bill is no different. Amendments have been proposed to the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. However, this does still not justify the fact that the Government has been forced to do a full turn-around on the bill’s original purpose and does not protect the profession itself. Thank you.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am pleased to take a call on this Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in its third reading. I too, in taking a call today, just want to quickly acknowledge what has happened in the country recently with the earthquakes, and add my thoughts and prayers to those families who have lost loved ones, courage to those who remain, and encouragement—certainly, to my own constituents—to dig deep in their support of the community. As many have noted, it is in times like these that the community of New Zealand comes together strongly, and, certainly, my community in Tāmaki stands to join strongly in that.

This is a good piece of legislation, and I do want to acknowledge Minister Paul Goldsmith for having brought it to the House. There have been niggles in the process, I think that is very fair to say, but that is the whole dynamic of the select committees, to work that through. So I am, obviously, acknowledging Melissa Lee and her work there.

At the heart of this bill is, effectively, the continuing development and relationship between New Zealand and Australia, where we try to cooperate more closely and not to duplicate unnecessarily. So, fundamentally, this bill is about seeking, first and foremost, a single register for patent attorneys across Australia and New Zealand. Importantly—as a side note—not all patent attorneys are actually attorneys in the strictly legal sense, but that is the title that they use. We are going to be moving towards a single qualification scheme between Australia and New Zealand and a single code of conduct to facilitate that engagement.

As some others have touched on too, there is going to be a new board, a new area of oversight, again, with New Zealand and Australian representatives. There is a lot of minutiae in the bill. I know a number of colleagues on both sides of the House will be touching on that, and I have in previous discussions, so I do not intend to repeat myself. Fundamentally, this is about drawing New Zealand and Australia closer together—in this case, through the work of the patent attorneys, important as that is. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Can I begin my contribution by pointing out that the conduct of this bill shows the importance of our select committee processes, because the bill, as it went to the Commerce Committee, was a poor piece of legislation. I think it reflects well on the chair of the committee, Melissa Lee, and Minister Goldsmith, who was responsive to the concerns that had been raised by the select committee, that the bill has largely been sorted out and is in a form that Labour can now support at this third reading.

I would contrast that with some other bills that I have been involved with, notably the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill, which is an absolutely atrocious piece of legislation. It is obvious to everyone on the Local Government and Environment Committee that it needs significant modification, and yet for 5 months the select committee has made no progress on that legislation while things have gone on in the background. The select committee’s skills have not been brought to bear and, unlike the process that has been used in this patents bill, the dire state of the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill does not benefit from the same input from the members of the select committee. Therefore, we are left more in the hands of the Minister and the officials, notwithstanding that it is obvious from submissions that there are fundamental problems with that bill.

So, for those reasons, I actually want to compliment Melissa Lee and the Hon Paul Goldsmith on the way in which they have actually been willing to listen to the issues that came up through the select committee, and have placed trust in the members of select committee to actually bring forward the suggestions that were needed to cure the fundamental problems in the bill. I do think that when you get a bill that is as fundamentally wrong as this one was, both in terms of the cost-benefit analysis that accompanied it to the House and the substantive provisions in the bill, it is actually incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to say to the officials who were behind this: “Really, not good enough.”

It was a pretty poor effort, and it was going to increase the complexity and the cost for New Zealand patent attorneys in a way that was not going to be reciprocated by their Australian comparatives and was not going to save costs through the single patent application process and the single patent examination processes that were proposed. That was not going to work, because the underlying law for patents in each country was still going to be different and, therefore, there would have to be examinations for many patents as to whether those differences in the underlying law in Australia and the underlying law in New Zealand meant that something should either be approved or not approved in Australia or approved or not approved in New Zealand. So the idea that you could have some single patent examination process that was somehow going to save significant cost was wrong. That said, the bill as amended does have the support of Labour, and we thank the Government for its willingness to be accommodating of the concerns that were noted by Labour as well as by submitters on this occasion.

Patent law is very important. It is important that as a society we encourage innovation. Those who are innovating and investing in innovation cannot afford to do so if their innovation can be stolen and replicated by someone else after they have spent that money and investment on that new knowledge or that new invention. That is the philosophical basis for patents. As a society we are better off if we encourage innovation because we benefit from the new discoveries that are made and the new inventions that flow from that innovation.

The return for the patent holder is that for a period following their discovery, they have a monopoly right to the commercial benefits that arise from their discovery. That should not go on for ever. Monopolies do as monopolies are reputed to do, and a monopoly faces much less constraint on its ability to charge or overcharge than if it faces competition, and it is for that reason that there are rules surrounding patents that are quite strict, both as to the length of the patent and as to what is patentable. There has to be a degree of novelty about the invention that is not obvious and that adds to the sum of knowledge that would not have occurred but for the discovery that is published through the patent.

If it was not for patent protection, there would be an incentive for people to keep things secret for ever as a way to protect their invention, but that would mean that invention would not, during the period it is secret, be as widely utilised. Therefore, the benefit to humanity of that invention would be less.

The quid pro quo is that if you make public and then have controlled use of that patented venture—once the patent pops out of its black period during the application phase—the patent itself, which describes the invention, is public so the world learns of it. If it is a great thing, people can beat a path and knock on the door of the inventor to try to get rights to the commercial use of it, and, through that mechanism, can bring that innovation to the world and the inventor gets a monetary reward for that during the period of their monopoly control. At the end of the period it drops off patent and the world is free to use that innovation, subject to there not being other patents that are still current and that could prevent its utilisation of the patented invention.

That is the balance that we try to get right. We want to encourage innovation and we want to give a reward to the innovator, but we do not want to extend their monopoly rights for too long, because that goes the other way and suppresses the use of that invention, to the detriment of humanity. So those are the principles that underlie patent law. There are some differences between New Zealand and Australian patent law that mean that the idea that we could have had a single examination process was not practical. I hope that the Minister is having a look at what went wrong in the background, both in respect of the cost-benefit analysis and the substantive provisions as they were in the original bill.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): I stand in support of the third reading of the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. First of all, I would like to acknowledge the chair of the Commerce Committee, Melissa Lee, for her leadership. There were some issues that were discussed in the select committee, and I think she showed her leadership by acknowledging those issues, which were resolved, and the bill was reported back to the House.

The main purpose of the bill is to update the 60-year-old regulatory regime for patent attorneys, and modernise it in line with the latest regime. Kiwis are known for their innovation, and businesses need to have protection. Most of the business we do is between New Zealand and Australia, and if we have got a single regime where we can have patent attorneys who can work together and have a single application process, it can help businesses to focus more on the innovation part rather than on the paperwork.

This bill is part of the Government’s commitment to helping businesses to grow, not only within New Zealand but also internationally, and our ambition is that a New Zealand company can conduct its business as easily in Australia as it can at home. It is for both sides. The Australians will also have similar provisions, so that they can easily file one application for the patents.

With these words, I commend this bill to the House.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Every time there is a disaster in our country, the community involved pulls together and is, of course, supported by the rest of us. But those of us who are not affected or who are less affected can offer only support and aroha and, in some cases, practical support, and it can be quite difficult to stand on the sidelines and watch the pain of people in those communities. Sunday night affected almost all of us, but, as we know, the people of Kaikōura, North Canterbury, and Wellington were most affected, and the recovery will be tough for those people and businesses. Our thoughts are all with you today.

We know that most people in New Zealand probably will not be watching the debate on the third reading of this particular bill. Having sat through many long hours on the Commerce Committee and been quite astonished—and appalled, really—by the process that unfolded there, I think it is very important to have recorded in the Hansard of this House the impact of poor process and poor governance on a piece of law that goes through our House. It should not go unremarked. It really annoys me that a member can get up in the House and—to be honest—disingenuously try to minimise what was actually a catastrophe of a bill that came before a select committee and ended up coming back to the House gutted by a large percentage. The fact that members who also sat on that select committee can diminish the importance of that—it is no wonder that people are disillusioned with politics and politicians when that honesty cannot actually be there. I think it is important that we do dissect it, and I know that colleagues on this side of the House, particularly those who sat on the select committee, have done that today.

It was unusual and it was disappointing—and it was time-wasting and money-wasting—to have a piece of legislation that had been so poorly prepared and poorly thought through before it came to the House. I think I said in the Committee stage that the Labour Party did the Government a favour by agreeing to, and voting for, the amendments to this bill at select committee. This is because if we had not, and if we had been joined in that by the other Opposition parties, the bill coming back to this House would have been the bill that we had discovered was actually being recommended against by the officials who had put it in there in the first place.

This, of course, related to the significant part of the bill, on the inclusion of a single patent application process and a single patent examination process for a new way of creating patents that was not only out of date, because there was already a new international process being developed through the World Intellectual Property Organization, but would also have been much more costly. When we forensically required the officials to go back and tell us what the cost-benefit analysis was, whether one had been done, and on what basis it had been done, we discovered that those costings, described as guesstimates and back-of-the-envelope costings, were going to be in the order of around $500,000 for an application process. When we considered that, it seemed to be somewhat exorbitant and inefficient, and it went against the original intent of the bill, which was to streamline a process.

I suppose the point to make is that this is not a major piece of law, so what we are arguing about and what we are pointing out is not the biggest booboo that the Government has made, but it is enough of a booboo—and I guess it is an indication of a trend in legislation that comes before select committee that has not been properly looked at and thought through and tested before it actually gets to select committee—for us to be severely concerned. I agree with my colleague David Clark, who said it really does reflect back on the ministerial leadership. Yes, you can blame some of the officials and hold them to account—I think we have done that, and I think we have done that enough—but, ultimately, the buck stops with the Minister. If he had not read it properly and did not understand the implications of it, if he had not asked the proper questions about the basis on which this new patent process was being put into the bill, then perhaps it should not have come before the committee in the state that it did. I mean, it never even went through a proper pre-legislation process. From the process it went through, the clear indication was that it was not going to work, but it still got pushed through and it ended up getting dumped.

Luckily for the Government, the Opposition actually agreed to amending it—to taking out that large piece of the legislation at the select committee—which means that it has come back to the House like this. This piece of legislation almost does nothing, which is why I say it is not a major piece of legislation. It really is a bit of a non-piece of legislation now. It does streamline the way that patent attorneys are trained and the way that they operate in a trans-Tasman context—we have done that with other industries; we have done that with accounting—but this really is not groundbreaking or earth-shattering. It could have been an innovative piece of legislation if the Government had actually done the work properly.

There was a piece of legislation in 2013 that reformed the Patents Act 1953. The Patents Act 2013 did go through a very lengthy, robust, controversial process over a number of years. That was a major reform of a piece of legislation from the 1950s about whether our whole patent law needed to be reformed—and yes, it did. It needed to be reformed and modernised and updated. The most controversial part of that was what it ended up not doing, which we thought was in the best interests of our innovators, and that was to make software patentable. There was, in effect, an exclusion given for software, which still had copyright protection, and it still has protections for intellectual property. If we had made software developments patentable, that would have resulted in the major tech companies that are based offshore coming in with big patent suits, locking up innovation for our small innovators, and also unleashing the force of the patent trolls, which is a hideous industry that feeds off the ideas of others and holds up innovation. We did a good thing with that, and that ended up being a unified approach across the House that had the innovation industry very engaged. I think that was one of the best decisions made in this kind of legislation for a long time.

This piece of legislation is really a joke. It is embarrassing. It was described as “sloppy” and “unedifying” in Labour’s minority view. Minister Paul Goldsmith really should learn a lesson. We hope that he will learn a lesson, and that next time a piece of legislation from him comes before the select committee, he will have done the homework required before it gets to the House for first reading and comes before the scrutiny of the select committee.

I do acknowledge the work done by the chair of the Commerce Committee, Melissa Lee, and other members of the committee. The heavy lifting, to be honest, was done by the Opposition side, but I do acknowledge the chairmanship of Melissa Lee in this bill. I am looking forward to the next piece of legislation from Paul Goldsmith, because I do not think the bar could be much lower.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to take a short call on this, the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I first want to echo the views from around the House and offer my condolences also. I also want to thank my medical colleagues in the region, who are, and will be, providing the care and support that I know they will to this community.

This bill received 16 submissions and two supplementary submissions, including submissions from the New Zealand Institute of Patent Attorneys and the New Zealand Law Society. The main purpose, as has been discussed here, is to implement a single, trans-Tasman registration regime for Australian and New Zealand patent attorneys.

There were many points of discussion. As we have heard, the key point of discussion came around the single application process and the single examination process. On advice from officials and with the will of the Commerce Committee it was decided that there were not any significant benefits in that remaining, so it has been removed.

The other main recommendation from the select committee is for clause 4 to amend section 92 so that potential opposition to applications for more than one invention—what is being called the lack of unity of invention—cannot occur. With that, it is my pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 103

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 11; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 14

New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 10 November.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Last time I spoke on this bill, it was only the day after the election in the United States, but before I get into this speech I would like to also acknowledge something that had not happened when I first started that speech, and that is to say that we are all thinking of the people of North Canterbury and Marlborough, and of what they are going through, and to offer my condolences in this opportunity to speak.

I have heard the words “resilience” and “stoicism” being thrown around the House and around in the media over the last couple of days. Although I think these are important attributes for any community to get through a disaster, such as the one that the people of Kaikōura and the surrounding districts are going through, I think it is also important for us to remember that there is a fragility as well for the population. These are difficult times and difficult things for them to get through. I would like to congratulate all the ordinary people of that area who are helping each other and who will need to continue to do so over the coming days and weeks and months ahead.

But what we have also seen since I started this speech was confirmation of what we all knew was coming over the weekend, and that is, that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) legislation is not going to get through the United States political system in the lame-duck period. The last grasp, the last hope that people were holding on to that this may get through—this is not going to get through. And this is what makes us being here in this House, passing this legislation, even more inexplicable—the fact that we are here, that we are debating a piece of legislation that is not going to happen. Why is that? Why are we here doing this? It is because the full and proper analysis that was required has fallen victim to the Government’s unseemly haste to get unpopular legislation through ahead of election year.

This was always a time line that did not make sense. It was a time line that did not fit into what was happening around the world. Here we are, we are using parliamentary time to do this, and the question “What for?” has yet to be answered by any of the Government speakers who have taken a call in this third reading of this legislation. What are we here for? I am not asking some kind of existential question when I ask that; I am actually asking: what are we doing here? What is the purpose of this legislation? But even more fundamentally, what is the plan now?

For the months and months leading up to us being here, we have been continually told by Government members that the sky was going to fall in if this legislation and this agreement did not go ahead. Well, what is the economic plan now? We have always pointed to the fact that, actually, what was negotiated was not that great a deal for New Zealand. What we have also continually reiterated on this side of the House is that Labour is a party that supports free trade. We always have, throughout our history, supported good agreements that are good for New Zealand, but we do not see this as one of them. We see this as far more than a trade agreement, and we see that this legislation, which is enabling that agreement, simply does not make sense.

What we also see is that we have not had the proper analysis that could have gone through. We had a process that we consider to have been rushed. We consider that people were not given the full opportunity—it was a huge document that the public were very engaged with and they really wanted their opportunity to be heard, and it is something that we could have done a much better job on if we had had the chance. There are questions that people wanted to come to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to ask. They wanted to come and look at the magnitude of the 0.9 percent GDP change forecast by the Government as a result of the TPP implementation by 2030. Contrast that sharply with the expected business-as-usual GDP of 47 percent over the same time period. We all want to see our exporters doing well—we all want to see that happen—but it was never fully explained how it was that entering into this agreement was going to deliver the kinds of benefits that the Government was talking about.

Then we had the Tufts University analysis. So there was some analysis that was done that actually raised some alarming points that needed to be listened to, and they certainly were points that we listened to, on this side of the House. There could indeed be job losses arising from this agreement, and unemployment. The analysis foreshadowed that there could be as many as 6,000 jobs lost in New Zealand by 2025 as a direct consequence of the agreement. The prospect of 6,000 jobs going, under an agreement where we are looking at a 0.9 percent increase in GDP by 2030, is not something that we saw as a stellar deal for New Zealand. We did not see it as New Zealand getting a huge benefit from this.

The Tufts University study also forecast that the labour share of output—that is, wages and salaries—would see a fall of 1.5 percent over that period. Presiding over falling wages is not what we are here to do on this side of the House. We do not want to put in place agreements that are going to see wages drop. What we need to do is have a clear vision for our country, and that does include trade. It does include trading with the outside world, and we have never contested that. What we have contested is that this agreement was going to be the answer.

I am still waiting, and I would like to hear—the Government has one final chance in this debate to tell us—what it is that we are doing here now. Why is it that we are putting through this legislation when this is a dead deal? This is not a deal that is going to go ahead. We did not hear, in the preceding months as this was going through, any cogent argument about how this was going to be a good deal for New Zealand. We had the Minister who presided over it, Tim Groser, saying he would walk away from the deal if there was not a good deal for dairy. There was not a good deal for dairy, but he certainly did not walk away. There has just been silence from Government members on this piece of legislation. In this final call in this debate, I would actually like to hear what it is we are doing here. Why are we here passing legislation for a deal that is not going to happen? Thank you.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to take the final call on this bill, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Bill. I want to weave in some of the themes that some of the colleagues before me have spoken about. I want to talk about three things. I want to talk around a general theme of protections. I want to talk about Māori engagement and protections, general protections, and pharmaceutical protections. You heard our colleague Nuk Korako speak about the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to the Māori economy. I want to talk to some of the protections that are there for Māori.

First of all, Māori had multiple opportunities to engage in this process, going all the way back to 2008. If we look at some of those contributors they are significant players in the Māori economy: Sealord, Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd, Te Ohu Kaimoana, Tainui, and Ngāi Tahu have all been engaged for many years over this process. I think protections for Māori are also very clear under the Treaty of Waitangi carve-out, which, I believe, does provide protections, and I support what Nuk Korako was saying in this area as well.

I want to then talk to general domestic protections. What is the effect of this on the general New Zealand domestic market? Well, we know that there are particular protections for them as well. They are protected by amendments that we are making to the Tariff Act through two prime mechanisms. First of all, there are transitional safeguard measures. These are measures for domestic industries that might feel they are harmed by aspects of the TPP, and their remedy in response to that, following appropriate process and discussion, is that any further relief or reduction in tariffs can be halted immediately, and customs duty can be imposed on those imports thought to be harming our domestic market. Textiles and clothing have something extra. They can use emergency measures, which, effectively, do the same: they put a halt to any further tariff reductions, but they can also raise tariff duties on the offending product, and that can last for many years. These protection measures can last for several years.

Finally, I want to talk about pharmaceutical protections, and I want to talk first of all about the patent term extension. This is the period from application to marketing approval, and it covers delayed marketing approval. I want to talk to several points. First of all, New Zealand does not have a patent term extension beyond the general patent term of 20 years. Most OECD countries do. Up until 1994, we actually did have patent term extensions. You could extend them up to 10 years, and, on average, the extension was about 7.5 years. This was revoked in 1994, and what we did instead was increase the general patent protection from 16 years to 20 years. We have heard about the impact for New Zealand of this patent term extension, which is proposed as 5 years—that it is to be small. It is likely to be small because—if we imagine, again, that the reason for this is delays in marketing approval—we are very efficient at that. Medsafe, the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand—they are very efficient at getting market approval, and so the advice to us is that the impact of this aspect of pharmaceutical protections will be small.

The final protection I want to then talk about is biologic protection, which goes on from the marketing approval period onward. It is also known as data protection or data exclusivity. The principle here is that innovation of very expensive medicines, especially biologics, needs to be encouraged. They need some protection from generics. We need to imagine that 40 percent of new pharmaceuticals are, in fact, biologics. Many are especially used for inflammatory conditions, such as psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. New Zealand already has a 5-year biologic exclusivity period, and we join Australia in that sort of time frame—and Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Canada and Japan have 8 years, and, of course, the US has 12 years. There was clearly a desire and an intention to try to drag our 5 years more towards the 12 years. Where we settled was mostly still around the 5 years, as a 5-year plus other framework.

These are three sets of protections that I think provide a lot of surety to our domestic market and to the whole trade environment here. There are definitely benefits and protections for Māori, general domestic protections, and pharmaceutical protections as well. With that, it is my absolute pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 61

New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 12; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2.

Bill read a third time.

Business of the House

Business of the House

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I seek leave for each of the five bills at the Committee stage on the Order Paper to be taken as one question for the purpose of debate, with the questions put separately at the end of each debate.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Bills

Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill

In Committee

Parts 1 and 2, schedule, and clauses 1 and 2

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I want to begin, obviously, by expressing the Labour Party’s view that it will be supporting this bill, the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill. It was a somewhat curious birth of this bill, because this legislation was actually passed in 2006 but it has never been put into operation or passed through since that time. It needed some amendments, and we are finally getting to the point where those amendments are in front of us now, with this amendment bill. The 2006 legislation will be amended and finally put through this Parliament.

The reason for the activity around this bill now is that we are in the process of negotiating a free-trade agreement with the EU, possibly over the next few months or perhaps as close as a year away from today. This bill is important for those negotiations, because what this bill does is it ensures that New Zealand wines can be attributed to their geographic area. Much like champagne is attributed to Champagne—it can be called champagne only if it is grown in the Champagne area—so too Otago pinot noir can be grown only in Otago, and Marlborough sauvignon blanc can be grown only in Marlborough. Therefore, the legislation protects those areas and that brand, and it ensures that the quality of our wines coming from those areas is also protected.

It is important when we look at the wine industry, which is growing at an extraordinary rate—$1.6 billion today; by 2020 it could be worth $2 billion in terms of exports. That is an extraordinary growth and success story. I was lucky enough to be at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards on the weekend, where I was able to see just how vibrant and passionate people within New Zealand are about their wine and how important it is to us in New Zealand in terms of our exports. It is also worth noting, in terms of its importance, that New Zealand wine per litre that we sell overseas sells for about $9 a litre. Australia sells at about $7 a litre and France sells at only $5 a litre, so we are getting premium value for our wine. It is along protecting that, which this bill seeks to achieve—to maintain that quality.

The bill, as I said, was first brought in a number of years ago. One of the parts of the Act, section 21—again, to guarantee the quality—provides that “A person may use a New Zealand registered geographical indication”—which is the area—“or indications in trade in New Zealand in relation to a wine only if—(a) at least 85% of the wine is obtained from grapes harvested in the geographical origin …” to which that geographical indicator has been registered. The second thing is the amendment to section 21 in the bill provides that the remainder of the wine, if there is any—and usually in New Zealand there is not; it is normally 100 percent—must be obtained from grapes harvested in New Zealand. We cannot simply import some of that cheap French stuff and mix it in with our own. So that is section 21.

What that means in terms of this bill in front of us is that we also have a number of clarifying propositions in the bill that will smooth the running of the bill, and a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 244 that was hastily put together by Paul Goldsmith, the Minister in the chair at the moment, because it was left out—another sloppy bit of work by the Government. But, nevertheless, the SOP we will support as well because otherwise we will have a half-baked, half-finished bill. And we do support it, because we support New Zealand’s wine industry and we believe it is important. These clauses make a lot of sense, and the Labour Party has great pleasure in supporting the Government’s bill.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): New Zealand First has supported this bill through its stages so far, and during the second reading I gave notice that that continuing support might be dependent on the presence or removal, as it were, of one particular clause—

Todd Barclay: Come on, Prosser.

RICHARD PROSSER: —yes, Mr Barclay, I will get to that—with which we had particular issue, and for good reasons.

As Mr Shearer touched on, it is pertinent that we are examining this bill at this time, because it is important not only for the industry here in New Zealand, and for our relationships with trading partners for our imports and exports of wine, that geographical indicators be recognised in overseas jurisdictions, that we have protection for those, but also so that our trade partners have the assurance of knowing that their registered geographical indicators will be recognised here. So it is all part of that same framework. In that light, looking at Supplementary Order Paper 244 from the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, as he says in his explanatory note, it corrects an oversight. It is technical in nature and it brings the bill back to what it was originally intended to be, and we do not have an issue with that. Neither do we have an issue with the bill itself apart from, as I say, the particular clause, which is new section 39A in clause 21B. We really have hit a brick wall with this, unless, of course, the Government can see fit to removing it from the bill or altering it dramatically so that it does not cause the issues for us that we have identified.

In the commentary on the bill from the Primary Production Committee—of which I am a member, I am very happy to say—the committee said: “The bill, as introduced, provides that the Registrar must not register a geographical indication if its use or registration is deemed offensive to a significant section of the community, including Māori.”, and, really that should be as far as it needs to go. In some ways it could be argued that it is further than it needs to go, but it singles out Māori once again. It does not single out any other ethnic group. It does not single out any other people or division of society for any reason or in any way, shape, or form, but that seems to be the politically correct way that National is evolving, and that is the clause with which we have a problem.

I have put forward two Supplementary Order Papers to overcome this impasse. The first is No. 246, and it is quite simple. It simply calls for the deletion of clause 21B altogether, and that would do away with that problem because the further reference then to the function of the Māori advisory committee established under the Trade Marks Act 2002 to advise the registrar whether the proposed use or registration of a geographical indication is likely to be offensive to Māori simply goes away.

I am guessing that the Government has probably done some sort of a deal with the Māori Party and that its continued support for other legislation is dependent on having this continued divisive, separatist clause included in the bill, but if the Government must insist on having that, then we have suggested a compromise. It is on Supplementary Order Paper 245, again in my name, which suggests replacing the Māori advisory committee established under the Trade Marks Act with the Geographic Board, because, as I made mention in the second reading, these are geographical indications that we are talking about. They are place names, they are names of features, and they are names that are currently in use, and if it must be presumed that the name of a place or a feature is acceptable for general use, then it must, by definition, be acceptable for use in association with a wine or a spirit that is produced in that region, or has a close association with it. If there is going to be some sort of a deviation from that, then the Geographic Board, we feel, is the correct body to examine it.

As we have seen with some of its recent press statements, the Geographic Board is currently examining a number of place names that, although they have history in New Zealand, are no longer acceptable in current usage. I refer to a hill in North Canterbury, and the official name for it is Nigger Hill. That is, obviously, plainly unacceptable nowadays and the Geographic Board is removing it, and it would be a logical continuation that if somebody attempted to register a wine or a spirit with that name, it would be offensive to a great many people, and not simply Māori. The Geographic Board could use that as an opportunity to remove that name from the Gazette, as well as to deny its use on a wine label.

So I certainly hope that the Government will look seriously at at least the second of these two Supplementary Order Papers. If it does, then obviously our support for the bill will continue. If not, it probably will not. Thank you.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): As my colleague David Shearer said, Labour will be supporting this piece of legislation. It is somewhat ad hoc, I have to say. The original Act was actually passed in 2006 but was not able to be put into place, and so what we are doing now is making amendments to that piece of legislation in an ad hoc way that deals with the particular issues—and that is progress, I guess. But, as we have seen in the House today, we have another Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) from the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to tidy up a few things. So we hope that there have not been too many omissions.

The Primary Production Committee did do its very best to cover all these things and to make sure that the intent of the original 2006 Act is being carried through, in a somewhat more modern environment and one in which we have seen the rapid growth and progress of the wine industry. So we endorse the implementation of the original Act and intention, but I raised at the select committee on a number of occasions the issue of missed opportunity. We are seeing, actually, with honey at the moment—mānuka honey, which is something that I guess we have considered unique to New Zealand and something incredibly valuable and growing both in terms of its total export value and, actually, in the properties that are available across the whole health and medical area. So we should have had some reference to protect that very, very valuable product. It is being developed in New Zealand and sold offshore without any protection at the moment, and it is the same thing with much of the food that we are producing in this country at the moment.

So the geographical indicators proposition and legislation, as we will pass it through, identifies the areas from which food and beverages are produced—no, it does not. It actually just deals with wine, but why not food? I asked that question until most of my colleagues in the select committee got tired of me asking it—you know, why we should not. And it was because, quite frankly, we have got a Government that has sat on its hands over this, will sit on its hands over mānuka honey, and will sit on its hands over food production, so that we will miss opportunity. The only reason, as my colleague said, that the Government has actually moved on this is that there is an EU trade deal. But we will not have an EU trade deal until we have addressed the issue of food geographical indicators and we respect their geographical indicators, and we should have in place those of our own. So this bill is a missed opportunity for New Zealand, once again, by a Government that lacks the vision to see where we will be going as an export nation in the primary sector into the future 20, 30, 50 years out. We will be back in this House, particularly if there is a Labour Government, addressing these issues in food and in mānuka honey and in all of those other areas where we need protection for our producers and exporters, but this Government refuses to step in.

The bill, as I say, makes amendments around registration times—around protection of those. We have always assumed that Marlborough sauvignon blanc is something that we are proud of and that we have developed. But, actually, without this legislation it has no security in the international market place and indeed people are already asking questions because of the large amount of bulk wine supplied offshore, which is bottled offshore with a Marlborough sauvignon blanc label on it, but actually without the protections that I think we need to uphold that brand. Although this piece of legislation will not guarantee protection for the wine industry, it is certainly moving ahead in terms of the production of the wine from an area and ensuring that we can put the label on it with some truth and with some integrity.

As I say, we will support the Minister’s SOP. We cannot support the ones by New Zealand First, as much as we like to work with them on many issues and share their criticism of the Government on most issues. On this particular one, I think the select committee has worked through it. It is a tricky area using Māori terms, and we believe that it should not just be the Geographic Board. I think these will be more important issues as we move forward, as I say, into the area of food—mānuka honey and others, as we move forward. I think it is fair enough for us to establish, I guess, the precedent of having an advisory board where I think Māori terms will be a bigger part of our overseas exports. It is something that is truly unique to New Zealand. I think we are starting to appreciate that—Māori culture and all the history and the stories and, in fact, the wisdom that we are just starting to learn about. As we move forward we have got to ensure that we do not abuse or overuse it and that we have appropriate use of Māori terms, geographical places, or whatever.

So I think that we are making good progress. We do not want to delay the passage of this bill. I think the select committee has done a good job. I would like to acknowledge the members of Government on that committee. They are, as always, under riding instructions from the Minister, so they are a little bit restrained, I have to say, and it would probably be a smarter committee if they were allowed to do a bit more and work with the Opposition. But this is a good piece of legislation. I acknowledge that the Minister has finally got around to doing something. It has been sitting around since 2006. Labour welcomes the passage of this bill to protect the wine industry and all the amazing development that we have had there. But what the Government has missed is an opportunity to protect the food that we produce and things like mānuka honey, which are at risk from people putting in place, selling, and exporting things around the world with a New Zealand label on them, but they are of course not true to brand and they risk undermining our reputation. Some progress—but a missed opportunity.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): It is a real pleasure for me to be able to stand in this Committee stage and acknowledge the support across the Chamber for this legislation. I am very sad to hear that New Zealand First is having trouble with this bill, and, sadly, we are not able to support its Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). It is not really appropriate for the Geographic Board to be making recommendations. The trademarks advisory board has the equivalent expertise, it is in place under the trademark legislation, and there has not been a great deal of difficulty or complication involving it, so it makes sense to use it in relation to this legislation. So we will not be supporting New Zealand First’s SOPs, but it is great to have the support of the Labour Party and others, I hope, for this bill.

Ultimately, this is a piece of legislation that is designed to help what is one of the most innovative and successful industries we have in this country—the wine industry. It was only in the late 1990s when the country broke the $100 million mark for exports for the wine industry. We are now, this year, at $1.6 billion and on track to increase that further to $2 billion and more over the next few years, so it is a phenomenally successful industry. It is one in which the New Zealand winegrowers are able to command one of the highest—if not the highest—premiums on wine in the world, and that all comes back to, essentially, the story. Well, that is not entirely true—it comes back to the quality of the wine, obviously, which is a very important part of the process, but it is reinforced by the story and the branding that is developed, based on quality but also on the terroir, the landscape in which the wine is produced. So the ability to protect the intellectual property and the integrity of the wine that is developed in specific regions in New Zealand is an important part of securing that value proposition for New Zealand longer term. That is why this legislation is important. It has had a long gestation, and I am very pleased to be part of a Government that is actually getting on with it and getting it in place so that we can carry on.

I do want to acknowledge the hard work of the Primary Production Committee members and note their recommendations to change clause 9 of the bill, particularly the payment of renewal fees so that the sustainability of the funding is better. They were suggesting having the first renewal after 5 years; that all makes sense. My SOP 244 is there to fix up a little problem in that we wanted to have only interested persons able to oppose the registration of a geographical indication and/or its removal or alteration. Removal and alteration have been left off, so that SOP deals with that.

I do also want to pay tribute to the work across the House in terms of putting this legislation together. My hope is that this will be an industry that continues to thrive and grow and expand over the years to come. This legislation is only a small thing, but a small but important thing so that the industry can have confidence in the integrity of the branding that has been developed and can go with confidence into markets over the next little while. So thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing some of the other comments made by other members. Thank you.

BARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. The Green Party supports this bill, the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill. We think that this issue is vital for New Zealand’s wine industry. The wine industry is a great example of an industry that has not only benefited from savvy marketing—so to speak; excuse the term—

Richard Prosser: Ha, ha! Very good.

BARRY COATES: Good, thank you—but also from a drive for sustainability, which we regard as leading practice amongst agricultural sectors.

We share a concern that this bill is coming late to the House and that the Government did not act on this earlier. We think that this has exposed New Zealand wine producers to the potential for knock-off New Zealand wines from other parts of the world and we are very pleased that, belatedly, this bill has come to the House. We note it is also an implementation of article 23 of the Doha declaration, so it has been the subject of multilateral trade negotiations, and we think that the protection of wonderful place names for New Zealand wines, such as Marlborough, Central Otago, Wairarapa, Kūmeu, Te Kauwhata, is going to be enormously important for the New Zealand wine industry in the future.

We recognise that the issues of geographical indicators are strongly associated with international trade agreements. The United States system tends to favour trademarks rather than geographical indicators, and perhaps this bill is timely, with the recent demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and the forthcoming proposed rise of a New Zealand - European Union free-trade agreement. But I share my colleagues’ concern that we have not moved faster in order to have a more articulated and broader coverage of indicators. For example, the European system has a Protected Designation of Origin that deals with the know-how of production, as well as the Protected Geographical Indication, and a third category called Traditional Specialities Guaranteed that relates to traditional knowledge and character and production. So, in that way, we might have stronger protection for the value added from our primary production sector, and encourage specialisation in our production that will then command higher prices and defensible prices internationally.

We think that geographical indicators should be extended to food products such as Bluff oysters, Morrinsville cheese, Pukekohe potatoes, Ōhākune carrots, Waiheke olives—there are many such food products that could benefit from geographical indicators. We are disappointed that the Government has been moving so slowly in order to extend geographical indicators beyond the wine sector, and we are disappointed at the delay that it has taken to cover the wine sector through this legislation. The Green Party supports a broader approach to food labelling, including country-of-origin labelling, and we note that New Zealand has not introduced country-of-origin labelling despite that designation being labelled in Australia and being the only area where we have not got joint rules with Australia on labelling.

On the bill itself, as I said, the Green Party supports this bill, we support the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 244 put up by the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, and we support the recommendation from the Primary Production Committee for the establishment of a Māori advisory committee under new section 39A, inserted by clause 21B. Therefore, I am afraid, we cannot support the two SOPs, 245 and 246, suggested by New Zealand First. We do strongly support many of its recommendations, but not in this case. So, with that, I commend support of this bill.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Before I begin, because we all know how important our wine industry is here in New Zealand, I would just like to send my sympathies out to those within that industry who have been affected by the earthquakes over the last 36 hours. I am hearing on the radio that there have been some winemakers whose production has been affected by the earthquakes, and, I think—along with all people who have been affected—our sympathies go out to them. We hope that they can return to production as soon as possible, especially around the Marlborough area, which I understand has been affected quite a lot. I think that would go for the whole Committee.

I do want to take a short call to praise some of the work done by the Primary Production Committee around the issue of having a new section put into this piece of legislation around the appointment of an advisory committee. It is very similar to what is in the Trade Marks Act, and that is to set up an advisory committee for when there is some dispute or some offence caused to someone when an application is made for a wine or a spirit and it is likely to be offensive to Māori. I do understand that New Zealand First has two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs), 245 and 246, opposing this move. I would just like to think that this Parliament and this country has come a long way from the point of saying that in this particular instance it is a special case for Māori.

This piece of legislation is all about Brand New Zealand, and one of many unique identifiers that we have for New Zealand is our tangata whenua, our people of Māori origin, and a lot of the place names that go around that may be seen as a unique identifier—a brand—for a particular type of wine. I can foresee some instances where there may be some dispute and offence may be taken, whether a place name has been used inappropriately or whether there is some dispute over a place name, and this has to be looked at.

Richard Prosser: Name a couple.

KRIS FAAFOI: I am sure there will be; that is why an advisory board has been set up. New Zealand First supported this piece of legislation at its first reading. It then went off to the select committee, and I believe the select committee made a good improvement. It inserted this advisory committee, which is already established under the Trade Marks Act. It is just ensuring that there is a body to make sure that any dispute can be looked at. My issue with this is that if New Zealand First members did not see it as an issue at the first reading, they should not have supported it at the first reading. My understanding is that they did, and I think they saw it late and are now trying to make a point of it. I actually think it is a very good thing to make sure that there is a check within this piece of legislation so that if there is a dispute or opposition to a unique Māori identifier there is a body that can look over that, that can make sure all the relevant issues are looked at.

I think that the SOPs, both 245 and 246, will not get support, and I think that is the right thing to do because I think 245 is what New Zealand First did because it realised that this was in here and wanted to scrap it. Then 246 is trying to put, I think, if I have got my sequencing right—I think I have them around the wrong way. SOP 246 was what New Zealand First wanted to do to scrap the clause altogether, and 245 is: “Oh, hold on, we can’t do this. It’s a bad look because we haven’t done it in the right sequence, so how about the Geographic Board do the work instead?”.

I believe it is a good sign of race relations in this country that we can actually do this, rather than say it is a backwards step. So my message to the Primary Production Committee is: good on you for seeing that there was an issue. It was originally in the legislation but there was not a mechanism to be able to look at and cover these disputes, and now there is. I gather from the debate that has been had at this Committee stage that the SOPs in the name of New Zealand First will not get through, and I for one think that is a good thing.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): The question I would like to ask is: how much is a brand worth? In 2005 the then Ministry of Economic Development tried to value Brand New Zealand—you know, the clean, green, “100% Pure New Zealand” brand—and came up with a figure of about $20 billion a year. In 2008 PricewaterhouseCoopers came out with a report that said about 80 percent of New Zealand companies that are exporting leverage off Brand New Zealand. So, clearly, anything to do with Brand New Zealand is worth a lot of money, and it is good to see these protections are going to be in place—there is no doubt about that.

I look at the province where I come from, Hawke’s Bay, which is building an enviable reputation around fine wine and great food. I mean, some would argue—and I doubt any in this Chamber at the moment would doubt it—that, in fact, Hawke’s Bay produces the best wine in the country.

Meka Whaitiri: That’s right.

STUART NASH: Yes, thank you very much. And I know that what we do is we target the super-premium end of the market, which is where we should be as a country, and if we are not there as a country then we need to take a good hard look at what we are doing.

There are a couple of questions I have with regard to this bill, and I am unsure whether the Minister in the chair, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, is able to answer those or not, but they are worth bringing up. The first thing is the ability to register a brand is, I think, very important for what a lot of companies in certain regions are trying to do. It is slightly at odds with what Dr Nick Smith is trying to do, though, for example, around GE-free Hawke’s Bay. We want to have this as part of our overall brand offering, and Nick Smith is saying “No, it can’t be done.”, which concerns me. There are also things around fracking. We want to be able to say, as a region, no to fracking because we think it is at odds with the brand that we are trying to create, and yet Nick Smith, again, is saying no, he does not think that this sort of decision should be made at regional level.

First of all, I want to talk about the duration of registration, and I have slight concerns about this. It may be that Mr McKelvie, as chair of the Primary Production Committee, will be able to help me out on this. For some reason, the bill started talking about a period of duration of 10 years, but then they cut it down to 5 years, and I am unsure why. When an organisation, or a group of organisations, or an industry is trying to build a brand, they invest a whole lot of capital in getting that brand to a level where they believe it is actually paying its way. I would argue that 5 years is not long enough, and that you absolutely need at least 10 years. To cut down registration from 10 years to 5 years—I just cannot see the logic in that, unless it is purely financial and they believe that what they are going to do is increase the registration. I hope that that is not the point.

Reducing the time of registration from 10 years to 5 years seems to be at odds with continuous use. When I look at clause 16, which amends section 29, “Continuous use”—I think this is very important, and let me backtrack a second. We have a winery in Hawke’s Bay called the Bridge Pa Vineyard, for example. The Bridge Pa Triangle Wine District is a specific area. I would hate for another winery to be able to come in and say: “Well, we’re located in Bridge Pa; therefore we can use this.”

The bill defines continuous use as 32 years, and then 22 years. I would argue that that is far too long a time to define continuous use. I would argue that even 10 years is a very good pre-emptor of continuous use, because 10 years of a specific brand, certainly in a global market, is enough to create the level of brand attribute that will repay the investment that is put into that brand itself. I do not know why this bill allows only 5 years for registration when it was 10 years, but the continuous use provisions in clause 16 are a lot harder.

The thing I would also like to talk about is “offensive”. I am not too sure where Mr Prosser is coming from, because the way I read this, it says “be likely to offend a significant section of the community, including Māori.”; it is not specific to Māori. The thing that I would like to also know is: what is going to define “offensive”? Is it going to be quite a prescriptive list of what offensive is? If one person is offended, is that enough to say: “No, we’re not going to allow this.”? What actually is the definition of “offensive”? How is this going to be policed in a way that is actually legitimately fair?

The other thing that we must understand, I think—because, you know, the purpose of this bill is actually to protect those who have been using a brand. I believe that those in the wine industry are inherently honest, anyway. If they were not honest, and they were using a brand in a way that was dishonest, what it would, in effect, do is cause harm to that brand anyway. For example, if we in Hawke’s Bay said “This is Marlborough sauvignon blanc.”, then that would be inherently dishonest, and the risk to the brand’s integrity would be significant. The thing I do like about this bill is that what it actually does is it codifies in legislation that which I think the industry does already at this point in time—so that is good to see.

There is just one last point I would like to make, and that is—you know what? I have forgotten what it was. It was incredibly important and it was going to be about Hawke’s Bay. The thing I suppose I would like to say is that it is good to see this, and it is good, I say as a person who comes from Hawke’s Bay, because I think this will only benefit what we do in the bay. Thank you very much.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 244 in the name of the Hon Paul Goldsmith be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 245 in the name of Richard Prosser be agreed to.

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

Ayes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Noes 106

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 246 in the name of Richard Prosser be agreed to.

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

Ayes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Noes 106

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

Amendment not agreed to.

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

Ayes 106

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

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

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

Ayes 106

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

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Part 2 agreed to.

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

Ayes 106

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

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Schedule agreed to.

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

Ayes 106

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

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Clause 1 agreed to.

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

Ayes 106

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

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 to 3

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair, otirā, ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Chair, but acknowledgments to all you members of this House, at the same time.]

I would like to take a call on the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill. Labour supports this. The bill attempts to amend the Wildlife Act of 1953. The bill aims to reduce offending against particular wildlife by increasing the powers available to rangers. The new powers aim to help rangers effectively detect and investigate offences and apprehend offenders.

Can I just acknowledge the Local Government and Environment Committee for the work it has done. I am a member of this select committee, but I vacated it for a more knowledgable member of Labour, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, our conservation spokesperson. But I do note in the report back that seven submissions were provided to the select committee and, of course, four made submissions orally. I thought it might be useful for the House—because, obviously, our Department of Conservation (DOC) estate is very, very important to New Zealand. Just like the previous speakers said of the previous bill, the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill, this bill not only attempts to protect our wildlife but is very critical to the “New Zealand Inc.” brand, and so, like I said, Labour will be supporting it.

I would like to share with the House that the select committee actually asked the Department of Conservation about the extent of smuggling that currently happens in New Zealand. It did ask the Department of Conservation to provide the committee with statistics on the extent of wildlife smuggling: how many incidents occur, how many people are involved, and the amount of harm that is occurring. I thought it might be useful to share the response the committee received from DOC. I found it quite interesting reading the report, in terms of the extent of the problem.

What I have gleaned from the report provided by the Department of Conservation is that native geckos are the main target for wildlife poaching and illegal export. New Zealand geckos are sought after by international dealers and collectors as they are colourful and attractive and very long-living compared with other geckos. Again, a recent pair fetched up to $13,500 on trade sites. Commercial values drive a demand for the illegal taking of species that are rarer and, hence, more valuable. Lizard poaching—again, I found this quite interesting. The height of lizard poaching in this country occurs from now until April and May, when lizards are most active. Also, the point that officials shared with the select committee is that commercial poaching activities are getting more and more sophisticated with different people acting as purchasers, researchers, hunters, and couriers.

The other piece of information that I found interesting was that since 2009, the Department of Conservation has brought four successful prosecutions against seven foreign nationals for capturing and attempting to smuggle 68 absolutely protected native lizards out of New Zealand. That is four prosecutions against seven international individuals with a combined total of 68 native lizards. By my own calculations, that is roughly 10 native lizards per international smuggler, and we had a prosecution rate of four out of seven. So, again, it is just interesting that with more resourcing, which this bill is attempting to address, hopefully we can get prosecutions, not only at a higher rate than four out of seven, but also to protect those 68 native lizards that seem to leave our country.

I will now just turn to the bill. I particularly want to focus on clause 5. Clause 5 not only talks about the rangers whom this particular bill is giving extra powers to but clearly identifies the rangers who are not receiving these powers. I want to make note of them. In new section 39AA, inserted by clause 5 in Part 1, clearly this does not apply to certain rangers—so this is the section that says these additional powers do not apply to fish and game rangers or rangers appointed under section 38(2) of the Wildlife Act or any honorary fishery officers within the meaning given in section 2 (1) of the Fisheries Act 1996.

Then we move to subsection (2) of new section 39AA, where it talks about the rangers whom this section applies to in terms of the powers that are conferred on these rangers. I just want to highlight a couple of them and then make reference to a particular submitter who submitted to the select committee. That power is in new section 39A, inserted by clause 5—“Power to seize evidential material”. The section there talks about “A ranger to whom section 39AA applies may seize any evidential material (as defined in section 3(1) of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012) that he or she reasonably believes relates to the investigation of a suspected offence against this Act or any regulations made under this Act.”

I am glad Minister Barry has taken the chair, because I just want to reference the submission provided by the New Zealand Law Society, where it actually talks about the power to seize evidential material. It talked about “The express incorporation of the meaning of ‘evidential material’ from the S&S Act creates an inconsistency. Under proposed section 39A, the evidential material must ‘relate’ to the investigation of an offence against the Act. But the S&S Act definition of ‘evidential material’ uses slightly different phrasing:”. The phrasing that the Law Society refers to is “in relation to an offence or a suspected offence, means evidence of the offence, or any other item, tangible or intangible, of relevance to the investigation of the offence.” Perhaps it is just a question to the Minister of whether we have covered off that particular issue that the Law Society raised in relation to section 39A, inserted by clause 5, around the use of evidential material.

I am going to leave it there, because I know lots of my other colleagues have got contributions they will make, and I would like to make one a little later in the debate. Kia ora tātou.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I was not on the Local Government and Environment Committee, so I was very interested to hear what the previous speaker, Meka Whaitiri, had to say. This is a very important issue to the Green Party. Obviously, we support the protection of endangered species 100 percent. I think there is nothing more despicable than the international smuggling of our most important species, such as the 68 lizards that the last speaker was just talking about.

I want to take a call on this issue, even though I was not on the select committee, because I think that we are at a very interesting time in our history in relation to how we enforce the law. The Green Party is fully in support of the full protection, under law, of endangered species. But the point that I wanted to discuss, in terms of the powers that are given under this bill, was the importance of recognising that we are now in a new era where a lot of land that was previously administered purely by the Department of Conservation (DOC) is now or will be administered under co-governance regimes or in models such as what has been developed very creatively between the Government and Tūhoe in Te Urewera National Park.

Although there is no dispute about the need to protect these important species, when we enter into new forms of governance arrangements, it is, basically, based on—one would hope—article 2 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is an opportunity to talk about how this policing is carried out, with reference to those relationships. I think the critical word is “relationships”. I would hate to see the powers be used in a way that does not recognise the cultural sensitivity of some of these situations.

There is a history of customary take, which is not affected by this bill. Customary take is clearly not affected, so there is nothing to fear in that sense for tangata whenua. But there is also a necessity of recognising that some people have been arrested or charged with taking birds that are endangered, and although that is the law—and it should be the law—I and the Greens would like to see a higher-level discussion between the governing parties of conservation-related land and endangered species around the best mechanisms for doing that and how that is done.

So although I am not challenging this bill at all or the powers—particularly because it is targeted at a group of despicable international smugglers taking our wildlife. I think that there is a need for a more nuanced and sophisticated conversation than we have had in the past between the Treaty partners around how it is enforced, so that for people living in the forest, according to their traditional ways, their customary take is protected. This law does not change it, but there is still the necessity, where things occur that breach the law, that the cultural understanding is deepened and that the conversation and education that tangata whenua are leading with their own people—and I am thinking of people like Kevin Prime from Ngāti Hine, who has led this for many years—about the need to protect endangered species is recognised by my culture as well as the need for a more nuanced dialogue rather than the heavy hand of our way of going about enforcing the law.

So it is a plea, I guess, that these new powers in terms of those contexts that there is a dialogue and that there is a discussion with the co-governing parties wherever whenua is co-governed and where the issues are affected, so that this is not just a matter of taking power, but sharing power and a discussion on how power might be shared in order to do that.

Other than that, we are in full support of the necessity to protect our wildlife. But let us do it with recognition of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and recognition of conversations and dialogue about how these powers are used so that we do not entrench some of the misunderstandings that have existed between DOC and mana whenua hapū on the ground. It is all about relationships. It is really important that this stuff is well understood and owned by all of us, and also that we recognise the sensitivities around these relationships, because they come from a time and from the leadership of those who in the past and into the future want to sustain all the resources. Kia ora koutou.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I want to take a call on the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill. I sat on the Local Government and Environment Committee and heard the submissions. Can I begin by thanking the Minister in the chair, the Hon Maggie Barry, for bringing this bill to the House—I think you are absolutely right. I was convinced by the speeches that you gave in earlier readings and also by the evidence that was presented at select committee that there is a need for greater enforcement powers to protect our wildlife—particularly, our lizards, geckos, tuatara, and also our birds—from unscrupulous people, particularly from overseas, who are trying to steal what are endangered species to add to the collections, both alive and dead, of people from overseas who think that they have got a right to come into our country and take what is ours and to put at risk the viability of some of those populations.

I know from down in my own patch in Otago with the giant skink—there are very, very low numbers of these animals. We all know where they are. They are in a small number of reserves, which are often fenced these days to protect them from predators, around Macraes, near Alexandra, and up behind Earnscleugh. It would not take much for those populations to be completely cleaned out and for us to be responsible for the extinction of another species. It is absolutely right that we give the Department of Conservation (DOC) officers the power they need to properly prevent that and, therefore, I am absolutely supportive of these additional powers of search and seizure that have been given to the Department of Conservation. I thank the Minister for bringing this to the House in the hope that we can make offences less likely or less frequent, and that these abuses of New Zealand law will be detected and prevented. So thank you for doing that.

Can I mention a submission that was made by the New Zealand Fish & Game Council. Fish & Game New Zealand, of course, have a delegated responsibility for looking after our game birds in New Zealand, amongst other things. The Department of Conservation does not do that in respect of introduced game species—ducks and the like. The fish and game councils throughout New Zealand have been given that role by Parliament, they fulfil an important function of managing those species, and they do that in a number of ways: they protect habitat—in fact, they do more to protect the habitat of those sorts of animals than anyone else; they police bag limits; and they police seasons. So they came along and said that they should have the same powers as are extended to the Department of Conservation. The advice from officials was that they should not. I agreed with officials that they should not have all of those additional powers, although not with the logic that was used for that reasoning.

The department came and said that because the Department of Conservation are government officials they are bound by a code of conduct, which means that it is more appropriate for them to have these extended powers than the Fish & Game Council. I do not think that is a justification. Parliament has seen fit to give this area of power to fish and game councils, and if they needed those powers of search and seizure, then they should have them. They are bound by the statute, and I did not think that the fact that they were not government officials was a point of difference that was relevant.

What I did think, though, was that they did not need powers. So although we do need powers to protect our lizards and geckos and things from being stolen and taken offshore—I have not heard many mallard ducks being targeted by overseas smugglers—I was not convinced that the Fish & Game Council, whom I have high regard for and have done a lot of legal work for over the years, needed the additional powers. And on the basis that you should not give any government official—whether it is the Fish & Game Council under its delegated powers or the Department of Conservation—any broader powers than they need, I did not think they should have the additional powers.

But there is one exception, and it is one that relates to my Supplementary Order Paper 243. It arises from the fact that under the prosecutorial guidelines for a prosecution to be laid in the courts by the New Zealand Fish & Game Council, it has got to include the date of birth of the person who is being prosecuted. Under the prosecutorial guidelines that bind the Fish & Game Council—and it has to comply with—it cannot bring a prosecution for someone hunting without a licence or out of season or with an excess bag limit or using the wrong firearms if it does not know the person’s date of birth.

It is an absolute nonsense that it has not got the power to require people to give their date of birth. I did not agree that the Fish & Game Council needed the broad suite of powers that had been given to the Department of Conservation. It absolutely does need the power to ask for someone’s date of birth; it is not enough that it can get someone’s address and name. As Paul Foster-Bell said at select committee, he has, at periods, lived at the same address as his father, who shares the same name.

Paul Foster-Bell: No, it’s my grandad.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Grandad—your grandfather. Thank you. Sorry, Mr Foster-Bell. Therefore, in order to differentiate from him and his grandfather, in a prosecution sense, you have got to be able to have the date of birth. Otherwise, you might serve the information on the wrong person. And, even if you did not serve it on the wrong person, you could not file the prosecution anyway—because the prosecutorial guidelines say that you have got to have the date of birth.

So it is an absolute nonsense that the Fish & Game Council have not got the ability to require someone to give them their date of birth, because it cannot otherwise meet its statutory duty, which we have in Parliament conferred upon it in respect of game birds, to have that date of birth. The officials at the time said to us—and it is recorded in the report of the committee; the whole of the committee recorded it—that it would be a useful power for full-time fish and game rangers, but it would not be necessary to extend the power to honorary fish and game rangers because honorary rangers are generally accompanied by full-time fish and game rangers.

That is what we were told by our departmental advisers. It did not seem right to me and you will see that the minority said that it was not convinced that they should not have the power to ask for, or require, the date of birth to be given. Sure enough, after our report became public Fish & Game contacted, I think, virtually every member in Parliament to say: “Well, actually, the advice from officials is wrong anyway, because most of the prosecutions are carried out by honorary rangers and they’re the people who give the infringement notice out.” They are good members of civil society. They go through the same training as full-time rangers. It is very similar to the training that is given to DOC rangers—we have had that evidence at select committee that there was no lower quality of training or, somehow, irresponsible conduct on behalf of honorary rangers. If that was the case, we would be taking away the existing powers that they have to get a name and address.

So although I did not agree that they should have the power to seize cellphones or other things, which we are giving to the Department of Conservation, I do agree that they need the power to require someone to give their date of birth, to comply with the Government’s requirements that they do provide that information when they file information that is charging someone with an infringement. So that is what my Supplementary Order Paper does: it actually gives the power to honorary rangers to ask for a date of birth. I hope that Government members are going to support that, because—[Interruption] The Minister shakes her head. Minister, I am disappointed. It is an absolute nonsense. It is an absolute nonsense that they have got the power to prosecute, they need the power to get a date of birth in order to be able to prosecute, and the Minister is saying we are not going to trust them—

Paul Foster-Bell: Vigilantes charter.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Vigilantism—ha, ha! Mr Foster-Bell, yes; I am sure that is said in mirth. This is a farcical situation. This is like Yes Minister.

I was disappointed that the select committee would not make this common-sense recommendation itself, unanimously. If the prosecutorial guidelines require a date of birth, it is obvious that those people who are actually doing the prosecuting, or writing out the infringement notices that form the basis of the prosecution, have to be able to gather the evidence that is required by the Government to be submitted at the time the information or the infringement notice is put into court—which is the date of birth. I do not think that is an infringement of civil liberties. I think it is ridiculous to think that DOC needs that power, but that Fish & Game New Zealand does not.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): I will take just a short call on this. First of all, I would just like to point out that I think the terminology is wrong in new section 39D(2)(b), inserted by clause 5. It talks about “every officer in command of any vessel, aircraft, or unit of the New Zealand Defence Force:”, and then talks about “(c) every Customs officer …” and “(d) every fishery officer …”. I would just like to point out a clarification here. I hope that the legislation will use the wide term of the definition of “officer”, because in the armed services the term “officer” actually means something different from what it does in the Customs Service or the Ministry for Primary Industries. In the armed services, “officer” actually means someone who has been commissioned and has completed officer training. I think this should actually read: “every member in command of any vessel, aircraft, or unit of the New Zealand Defence Force:”, because what we may find is that there are people who are actually non-commissioned officers who are in charge of vessels, aircraft, or units of the Defence Force, who, under this legislation, actually will not have those arresting powers. I think that would perhaps be an unintended consequence.

One thing that I would like to point out here is that I suspect, knowing what has gone on in the past, that some of these cases will end up in court. I do know, in absence of any solid information, that what judges may do is they look at the Hansard of the debate to see the intent of Parliament. There are a couple of clauses here that talk about “reasonable in the circumstances”. In new section 39B(1) it would “require a person to stop and to remain stopped for a period that is no longer than is reasonable in the circumstances;”. In new section 39E(3) it says: “If the arresting officer is not a constable, the arresting officer must deliver the arrested person into the custody of a constable as soon as is reasonably practicable …”.

What I would like to highlight here is that I hope, if these do appear before the court, that the judge takes into account the definition of “reasonable circumstances” in these situations within which an arrest has occurred. For example, we are not talking about an offender who has been caught on Ponsonby Road and there is a reasonable expectation that an officer will turn up in 10, 15, or 20 minutes. We may be talking about a circumstance where an arresting officer has made an arrest in a situation where it is unreasonable to expect an officer of the law to turn up in a time that is less than an hour or even 2 hours. So what we absolutely need to ensure, I believe, is that every case that is prosecuted takes into account that reasonable or practical time in the circumstance within which the arrest was made.

There is just one other point I would like to make, and that is about new section 39E(2). It talks about: “At the time of arrest, the arresting officer must, unless it is impracticable to do so, … (b) produce evidence that he or she is authorised …”. I can envisage a number of circumstances where an arresting officer, as defined under this legislation, simply has not got any identification on them that would prove to the person, when they are making an arrest, that they are a fisheries officer, that they are a ranger, or that they are a member of the New Zealand Defence Force. So, again, I hope this is taken in the context of what the legislation means, and that is we have got to deliver a level of pragmatism around this.

We are talking about a situation where, often, people are out and about, in the wilderness, out on the beaches, or in the rivers, and therefore the expectation around what the arresting officer will have on them at the time of the arrest or when an officer can turn up or when they can deliver that person to a constable is a lot different from many other circumstances.

One thing I would say is I agree with everyone that this is a fantastic piece of legislation. We absolutely need to tighten up what we can do and who should be able to arrest people who seek to take advantage of our wildlife. So congratulations, Minister.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): It is a great pleasure to rise before the dinner break to talk on behalf of New Zealand First on the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill. It is nice to see the Minister of Conservation, Ms Barry, in the chair, so, hopefully, she will respond, because I did see her, dare I say, shaking her head in disagreement with Supplementary Order Paper 243, which was put down by David Parker. That just goes to show that there is no common sense in this Government.

It is an absolute shock, really, because I thought that the Supplementary Order Paper was just a common-sense approach. The funny thing about common sense, of course, is that it is not that common. Ms Barry, I hope you find it in your heart to see the sense in it and actually change your mind when it comes to voting on it, because if you do not support it, you become a toothless tiger. You have got people out there doing their bit in the community, outside their communities, and in the wilderness of New Zealand, protecting our species and our environment, and they can do nothing but just say: “Well, OK. Just stop doing that and be on your way.” It is ridiculous.

Look, New Zealand First absolutely supports this legislation. We have spoken to it in all the readings and will continue to support it, but this Supplementary Order Paper put through by David Parker does absolutely make sense. It is tidying up a tiny loophole that I think you have overlooked, and you are just too proud to say: “Hey, well done for picking it up. Let’s vote it in.” It is absolutely ridiculous that you are not, and it just goes to show you how out of touch this Government is, if it does not see the sense in it. I would certainly like to hear your excuse or your reasoning behind not supporting it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! You are bringing me into the debate.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: I will not, sir. Thank you.

This bill here does do a number of good things. New Zealand First has certainly cautioned on the side of giving more powers to Fish and Game New Zealand rangers, but certainly supports empowering our DOC rangers. We have seen and heard of a number of high-profile incidents involving the stealing, if you like, of our wildlife and protected species for personal gain. We certainly want to see that come to an end. We do not want our very, very precious species taken away for profit, and we certainly want to protect them as best we can, enabling our DOC rangers to gain evidence to help prosecute these offenders. Whether they be natural Kiwi New Zealanders or whether they be foreigners it does not matter; rangers must have the ability to seize computers and cellphones to get on with their jobs so that we can get these prosecutions.

Again, another loophole addressed was the simple fact that now rangers can ask for the person’s name, address, and their date of birth, just like any arresting police officer would with the same sorts of powers, and then demand proof of that, just exactly like this Supplementary Order Paper outlines for honorary rangers, expecting honorary rangers to be able to do the same thing. If you cannot prove who they are, how could you possibly take a prosecution through to court, not knowing whom you are actually, genuinely prosecuting? Certainly we would like to see the Minister explain her Government’s position. I have always liked Maggie Barry, and I have to say that I hope that she sees some common sense between now and 5 minutes’ time when we vote on this bill, but I cannot see it happening. Thank you.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I am really pleased to lend my voice to the support of the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill during the Committee stage. But before I make a contribution on that, can I just pay a tribute to the many personnel, volunteers and professionals, who have lent so much support to the people who have been affected by the quakes. I also pay a tribute, as a mark of respect, to those who lost their lives, and give support to their families. As many people pointed out in the contributions earlier today, it really shows the New Zealand spirit when people are in need—people who have been affected by a natural disaster—and the first thing most New Zealanders do is say: “What can I do to help?”. That is something that we should treasure as part of our culture, and it is also something that our systems should support. We know from lessons learnt in Canterbury that that was not always the case.

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

Hon RUTH DYSON: I am delighted to continue my contribution in support of the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill. When we adjourned for the dinner break, just after I had started my contribution, I was commending the amazing work done by both professionals and volunteers to help all those impacted by the Kaikōura earthquakes, and to extend my sympathy and condolences to the families of the two people who have lost their lives. We have seen more and more photos coming through of this tragedy and it is great to feel the response of New Zealanders, which is not to sit in shock but to say “What can we do to help?”. That really needs to be commended.

This bill has been substantially improved by the work of the select committee, and I want to commend the chairperson of the committee, who is gazing longingly at the swaying—

Scott Simpson: No, no, you’re making the earth move.

Hon RUTH DYSON: All right. I will not wander down that path, but I want to commend the member for his leadership in improving this bill—in fact most of the bill has been rewritten. I also want to commend the work of my colleague the Hon David Parker and urge support for his Supplementary Order Paper 243. I heard his contribution prior to the dinner break and it is really a sensible, straightforward amendment. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why the National Party would not say: “This is sensible. This is a really good move, and we will support it.” I am urging the Minister to take the opportunity to explain her opposition to this Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) or to risk looking a little churlish, actually—that it is a SOP put up by a Labour member and, therefore, should be opposed. I do not agree with that sort of politics, and I hope the Minister does not either.

So this Supplementary Order Paper 243 fixes an omission in the current legislation that means that when fish and game rangers try to get a prosecution against somebody who has broken the law they are not able to, not because they have not got a high level of proof, not because the person did not do it, not because they have not been rigorous in following their job and doing their job but because of a simple bit of information that they are required by law to present, and that is the alleged offender’s date of birth. If the alleged offender says “No, I am not going to give you my date of birth.”, there is nothing at all that the fish and game ranger can do about it, so the prosecution lapses. People who are breaking the law, who are doing the very sorts of things that this bill wants to make harsher in terms of prosecution against those offences—those prosecutions lapse because of a foolish omission in the law made years and years and years ago that requires the fish and game rangers to present the alleged offender’s date of birth.

That is what this Supplementary Order Paper hopes to fix. It just takes out that provision, which, as I say, is stopping prosecutions. David Parker sat on the select committee. Scott Simpson will, I know, support my view that he is a very hard-working and diligent member and would have taken a lot of time looking at the detail of this legislation. I am sure that Scott Simpson, actually, and other members of the National Party who would have sat on this committee and heard the evidence would be supportive of David Parker’s SOP as well.

So the primary purpose of this bill is to give greater powers to the full-time DOC rangers. I think that is a very good thing. We all care about our environment. We care about the species that are particularly endangered. Of course, where the law has not kept up with the passage of time and where the powers of the rangers are too weak or the prosecution levels are too high then, of course, we would support improving it, and that is what this bill does.

There is the ability for the rangers to seize a wider range of evidence and there is the power to stop a person. Currently the DOC rangers do not have that. They can temporarily stop somebody whom they suspect of causing an offence and they can do an investigation while at the same time being allowed to stop that person. They can seize evidence, which they have not been allowed to up until now—it might be laptops, it might be cameras, it might be mobile phones, or something that they believe has evidence that would aid the prosecution—and they would have powers of arrest. So we support these measures.

I am anxious that the Department of Conservation is yet again being asked to perform more work and yet again has seen a budget with less money in. In 2009 we had 803 DOC rangers in New Zealand; today we have 637. That is a big drop in the number of rangers, and at the same time we have had annual cuts in DOC’s budget. In 2009 its budget was cut by $46 million and in 2013 by another $8 million and a bit. This year it was cut further again. We cannot expect our dedicated DOC rangers or any other public servants to do more with less year after year after year. Sooner or later it gets to the point that is literally a tipping point and they say “No, we just can’t do all that.” This is important work that we want them to do. This is important work that I think every party in Parliament is going to support being progressed—giving our rangers, the DOC rangers and the Fish and Game rangers, greater power.

The only further improvement that I can see in this bill is that we support David Parker’s SOP. So I urge the Minister to either stand and take a call and explain why she is not supporting that SOP, to give us the benefit of her wisdom on this matter, or otherwise vote in support of it. Thank you.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E Te Tiamana o Te Whare, tēnā koe, tuarua, ki ngā mema o tō tātou Whare, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Chairman, and, secondly, acknowledgments to you all, members of our House.]

The Green Party is pleased to be supporting the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill. We want to see the Department of Conservation staff and Fish and Game officers better able to stop the smuggling of distinctive wildlife, such as our native geckos, because we know that they are being illegally smuggled out of New Zealand and that there is a very real problem.

Department of Conservation staff told the Local Government and Environment Committee that very few green geckos have been legally exported from New Zealand, but the supposedly captive-bred population in Europe is actually much larger than the breeding capability of those legally exported geckos, so they are obviously being smuggled out of New Zealand without being apprehended. Very low levels of take can significantly impact on species like the green gecko, the forest gecko, and others because some of these species do not breed until they are 8 years old and then they have got a maximum of only two offspring each year. Those offspring are very vulnerable to predators like cats. Gecko populations are very slow to recover from losses from smuggling.

We certainly want to close the loopholes in the Wildlife Act, which have made it more difficult for Department of Conservation staff to take action against smugglers and to investigate offences. The 1953 Act is more than 60 years old and those enforcement powers have not been updated during that time. But if Parliament is amending the Wildlife Act—and this is the second time we have considered changes around the offence provisions; the last time, of course, was with a member’s bill by Jacqui Dean, which increased the penalties—then it is time to actually look at a much larger modernisation of the 60-year-old Act. I think it reflects the Government’s lack of ambition that we have not had that much wider modernisation. There has not been an effort through this bill to actually provide the same protection for our native fish species as we do for our indigenous birds through the Act.

It is this Wildlife Act that provides protection for our native birds from being kept in captivity. You cannot kill any native bird except the pūkeko, the sooty shearwater or tītī, or the paradise shelduck because of provisions in the Wildlife Act, yet there is no protection in the Wildlife Act for any of our native freshwater fish species. That is despite the hugely precarious position of a lot of those native fish. Seventy-four percent of our native fish species are facing extinction; that is a much higher proportion than in virtually any other country in the world. Thirty-one of our 66 freshwater fish species are found only in Aotearoa New Zealand, so if they go extinct here, they go extinct on the whole planet, yet the schedules to the Wildlife Act do not include any protection for native fish.

We protect lizards, we protect our native bats, we protect Powelliphanta snail and a few other species of snail—we protect them from being killed, from being hunted, from being traded, and from being held captive without proper authorisation. The freshwater fish regulations provide legal protection for introduced species, such as trout and the chinook salmon, but they do not provide any protection for native fish species. So, Minister Barry, we would be very interested as to whether you would take a call on making sure that the Wildlife Act is amended to actually provide protection for some our most vulnerable native species, our freshwater fish.

There has been a major increase in the risk of extinction for those native fish species. Back in 1990 the Department of Conservation recorded only 10 of our 66 native species—and 10 was too many—as being threatened with extinction. By 2002 that number had increased to 16, and as of 2013, 74 percent of our native fish species are threatened or at risk of extinction. That includes four of the five species that New Zealanders eat as whitebait patties.

I do not think that a lot of people are aware of the fact that the kōaro, the shortjaw kōkopu, the giant kōkopu, and the īnanga are all at risk of extinction, yet it is their young that are fished and killed as whitebait and that end up in whitebait patties. I think we need a serious national conversation about the fate of whitebait and whether we should be having a moratorium on whitebait fishing to give a better chance for species like the kōaro and the giant kōkopu to survive. I have been out at night on the West Coast looking at just a small creek through an area that had been disturbed, and there were giant kōkopu there. They were amazing. The fish we saw was as big as my hand, and yet it is the young of these species that are being killed as whitebait. We should not have a double standard in the Wildlife Act, where our native birds are recognised as taonga—where they are protected from being hunted and killed—and yet our native freshwater fish enjoy no similar protection and can be hunted and killed despite the fact that many of them are staring extinction in the face.

I would be very grateful if the Minister in the chair, Maggie Barry, could comment on whether she and her department, in the remaining time available to this Government, propose to bring a much more comprehensive change to the Wildlife Act to actually provide protection for native fish species. It is ridiculous that these fish can be caught and then commercially sold without any regulation. You cannot commercially sell trout, for very good reason, yet you can commercially sell whitebait—why? Why has the Government failed to act to close this glaring loophole, when these species are so vulnerable and when they are threatened with extinction? We need to improve their prospects. We can do that by amending the Wildlife Act to actually give them protection by having the Department of Conservation establish some freshwater fish reserves, and by looking very closely at more of the irrigation schemes and the intensive agriculture that are actually destroying their habitat, as is happening with Ruataniwha.

The bill is a good one in providing stronger enforcement powers, allowing Department of Conservation staff to actually investigate these offences in a better way. We in the Green Party will be supporting the Hon David Parker’s Supplementary Order Paper 243, because fish and game officers—the honorary officers—go through exactly the same training as the warranted officers. Fish and Game has got statutory powers, so it is not just a non-government organisation in the same way that Forest and Bird is. It has a lot officers around the country who are doing work to implement the Act, and they do need the power to actually ask people for their date of birth, in order to ensure that any prosecutions that are taken can actually stick. I encourage the Minister to comment on why the Government is failing to support this sensible amendment to the bill and to comment on whether there is likely to be a much more significant change proposed for the Wildlife Act to actually provide much-needed protection for our native fish species, which are staring extinction in the face. Thank you.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): I am pleased to be able to offer some comments and continue to endorse Labour’s support for the bill. I also want to acknowledge the efforts of the people at Takahanga Marae in Kaikōura, who have opened not only the doors of the marae but also their hearts to ensure that people who are stranded in Kaikōura can be well cared for.

You know, it is that voluntary spirit that we need to really ensure is kept alive when we think about the Department of Conservation (DOC) estate. The DOC estate, as I have heard the Minister say many times in the House, is able to function well because of the voluntary effort and contribution of a whole lot of groups and organisations throughout the country to ensure we can preserve the biodiversity, the wildlife, and the quality of what we have to offer within the estate. It does concern me that the Minister has not taken a call with regards to David Parker’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) around fish and game rangers being able to collect date of birth details for prosecution purposes. It seems, to me, very straightforward. The bill so much amplifies the extension of powers for DOC rangers to seize evidential material, to intervene and prevent offending where it occurs, to be able to stop people if they believe there is enough evidence that they have been conducting something like taking wildlife, lizards, and the like. I am concerned that although the select committee considered at length the submission by fish and game, there was not, I guess, a common thought that more could be done in this space. So I commend our colleague David Parker for putting the SOP up.

It would be good for the Minister to take a call and clarify why the simple collection of date of birth details is not something that she would recommend as an inclusion in the bill. For people listening to the debate, they would see it as a simple and straightforward amendment that does not supersede the powers of honorary fish and game rangers, but actually helps to support the work of DOC rangers in ensuring that we do not have people taking wildlife from our estate illegally. I mentioned previously in the debate that it was quite sad to see at the border the many ways in which people smuggled New Zealand species out of the country, and also how they tried to get things into the country. So we need as many hands on deck as possible to be able to ensure that this work can be done in a constructive way.

Probably, the question, Minister, if I could again urge you to take a call on SOP 243 is—collecting date of birth details only helps to support the objective of the bill. It does not divert from the intent; in fact, it only supports the objective of the bill. It is a very straightforward inclusion. It does not extend the ability of honorary fish and game rangers beyond what the committee had intended when it looked at the powers that were able to be extended not only to DOC rangers but also those with a statutory ability to enforce. To some extent, it does not even—in my looking at it—contravene some of the aspects of the Search and Surveillance Act that were also considered in conjunction with the bill.

So, Minister, it is really important that the House at this stage of the bill gets a clear response from you. You have been very passionate, Minister, in advocating for these small but useful amendments to the Wildlife Act, which will help protect the biodiversity that exists within our DOC estate. Taking a call on this would only aid clarity around the purpose of the bill, and ensure that everybody who is tasked with being able to support the role of DOC rangers can carry out those roles effectively.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): I rise to speak to the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill at its Committee stage with great pleasure. Before I address Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 243, which has been preoccupying some of the members in this Chamber, I will reaffirm that this is a primary piece of legislation empowering the Department of Conservation (DOC) to do something very specific indeed, and that is to protect vulnerable native species. This is not about mallard ducks. This is not about black swans. It is not about the kind of work that the fish and game rangers, voluntary or full time, do as their core business. This is about vulnerable endangered species that smugglers and others could take away with them. We are very clear on the purpose of this bill.

The Wildlife Act is an old piece of legislation, no longer fit for modern purpose, so we have carefully thought through and targeted a sensible upgrade and expansion of the powers given to DOC. In addition to that, fish and game full-time rangers will also have an additional power.

To quickly recap: DOC rangers are currently not able to intervene to prevent offences taking place or about to take place, should they come upon them. That is foolish, so we have tidied that up. New section 39C, inserted by clause 5, now allows them to take action “in a manner that is reasonable in the circumstances” to do so.

Second, rangers are currently authorised to stop and search vehicles, vessels, bags, and other items in transport, but they cannot stop people from leaving the scene of a suspected offence, to ensure that they have enough time to gather evidence and take details. New section 39B, inserted by clause 5 of the amendment bill, addresses this aspect.

The third one is that the Act currently allows rangers to seize only a few types of evidence. Again, this is proving the old-fashioned nature of the era in which this Act was originally conceived. It does not include modern technology, such as mobile phones and computers, which are, of course, vital sources of information in modern investigations. Section 39A, as inserted by clause 5 of the amendment bill, empowers them “to seize any evidential material (as defined in … the Search and Surveillance Act 2012) …”.

Finally, establishing and verifying an offender’s identity is essential to any ability to prosecute. That is true, and, as it stands, the Act allows rangers to require a name and an address, but there is no provision to provide further proof of identity. That is a loophole. Under new section 66A, inserted by clause 7 of the bill, DOC rangers will be able to require date of birth, name, and address. This power will also be extended to full-time fish and game officers. So they are getting additional powers that they did not have before, but that power has not been extended to voluntary fish and game officers, nor has it been extended to voluntary DOC rangers or to voluntary police, fisheries, or defence rangers, because these people are voluntary. They are not signed on to a code of conduct, as other public servants are, nor is there any accountability. If they do not do the right thing, we are not able to come back at them. This is a very important distinction, and it is the reason why we are not, as a Government, supporting the SOP from Mr Parker.

I am a bit surprised at his SOP, actually. It could have gone further than it did, but, as it happens, it just wants to get voluntary fish and game rangers to be able to have the same ability to require that they can ask for the date of birth, because at the moment they cannot. The bill is very clear on this: honorary fish and game rangers, honorary fisheries officers, or rangers appointed under section 38(2) of the Act can ask for someone’s full name and residential address—not their date of birth. What we have done with this is we have said that fish and game rangers are able to get and require—require—a person to give their full name, their residential address, and their date of birth.

When you look at the penalties for what happens under this legislation, section 67F as under clause 8—this is under the Wildlife Act of 1953, and I have brought it down if anyone wants to take a closer look at it. What it says is that in the case of someone refusing to give their date of birth—refusing to supply their date of birth to the fish and game ranger—the penalties are substantial. This is harking back, actually, to my friend and colleague Jacqui Dean’s bill. The penalties have been greatly increased. In the case of an individual who does not give their date of birth, they are liable for a term of imprisonment not exceeding 1 year or a fine not exceeding $100,000, or both. In the case of a body corporate not giving the information about date of birth, there will be a fine not exceeding $200,000.

Mr Parker, I understand, is a lawyer, so I would have expected him to go back and check his facts. That he has not done. It is very important that this Committee and others support and understand the purpose of this bill, which is to protect our native taonga species—not to protect ducks and swans and other game birds.

It is very much in DOC’s core business to be able to do the work that it is doing under these powers, but, we acknowledge, the work of the fish and game full-time rangers is very good. There are some 52 of them, and there are 222 honorary fish and game people. We felt that by giving those extra powers to those 52 full-time, paid staff from Fish and game, they would be getting an extra amount of power that they have not already got—that is, to ask for the date of birth.

The follow-through from that is the penalties. If you do not give a date of birth, that is serious under this legislation, because it has been required under the Wildlife Act. These are the sorts of details that really do need to be well understood, and it is disappointing that neither the Labour Opposition nor the Greens nor New Zealand First have bothered to actually look into the detail of the penalties, because that is a very important element of this legislation. If you are, for example, shooting game birds without a permit or a licence, you are in some trouble, but you are not in $100,000 worth of trouble, nor are you liable to a term in prison not exceeding 1 year. These are the important provisions that we have given fish and game rangers, because we think that they are trustworthy and that they do a good job, and that is an excellent thing. But this is not their core business. They are about an entirely different set of species.

While I am on the business of not core business, under the Wildlife Act, as you know, fresh fish of native varieties do not come in, nor do they under the Conservation Act, so the member Eugenie Sage was speaking outside the scope of what is in fact a very narrow amendment to the Wildlife Act. The powers that we have given will, I think, do a great deal to protect our very threatened, precious wildlife. We are not so much concerned in this piece of legislation with game birds or bird hunters, and I think it is very important that the Opposition acknowledges and understands that, because this is very carefully targeted. I have said that from the start.

I commend the Local Government and Environment Committee, under the very able chairmanship of my friend and colleague Scott Simpson, who led the select committee through this process. It is complicated legislation, but only because it is very narrow in its scope and needs to be read in conjunction with the Wildlife Act in its original form and with Jacqui Dean’s legislation, because otherwise it is not well understood that the penalties are very big indeed.

It has also been pointed out to me by some that we do need to be very careful around the powers that we give volunteers. We do not want to be giving people the capacity to arrest or stop or search and keep, because these are not trained people who are able to do that within the confines of their mandate. I do not believe we should extend it out. David Parker, in his call on this very bill earlier, before the dinner break, said that he acknowledged that those powers were not needed to be expanded. We are in absolute agreement with that.

On that uplifting note, I will conclude my call. But, again, I commend this legislation in all its various forms and the level of intellectual rigour and scrutiny that the select committee gave to it, if not the Opposition members of that select committee, who were, apparently, missing in action when it came to the detail. They lack intellectual rigour; what they do not lack is the braying and the nonsense and the capacity to just yap on about things that are not factually correct. I am very keen indeed to give credit where it is due, and that is to the Government members on the select committee, who I think did a tremendous job. Thank you.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 243 in the name of the Hon David Parker to clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 12; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2.

Noes 61

New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendments not agreed to.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

Bills

Charities Amendment Bill

In Committee

Clauses 1 to 12A

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): I draw it to the attention of the Committee that all of clauses 1 to 12A will be considered as one debate and voted upon separately.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I want to start my contribution by adding my voice to those across the Chamber to say that I have been just so impressed by how Kiwis have reached out to their fellow man over the course of the last few days. Our emergency services have done an extraordinary job. It has been very distressing, and I want to send particular aroha out to the families and children who will be wondering just what is in store for them. I am just sending my thoughts to everyone who has been impacted by the events of the last couple of days.

This Charities Amendment Bill came from a carve-out from a statutes amendment bill. I want to commend the work of the charitable sector and a couple of groups in particular—Hui E! Community Aotearoa, and Sue Barker from Charities Law—who actually saw within the Statutes Amendment Bill the four clauses that made up Part 3, I believe, that have now been carved out to become the Charities Amendment Bill. The reason that they saw this as being very important is that they wanted an opportunity for the community and voluntary sector to have a chance to submit on what they felt were some of the implications of Part 3 of the Statutes Amendment Bill. It is important to raise this because there were some real concerns raised by some of the submitters who did eventually submit to the Government Administration Committee, ably chaired by my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson—a very good committee—and it was very interesting to be part of that particular process.

Members of the community sector were concerned about a couple of particular issues. I am going to deal with one of them now, and it is about what they saw as a threat to their ability to raise appeals. Their right to appeal was, they thought, under some threat. There is a very valid reason why they felt that this was so; part of that was because over the course of the last few years the charitable sector has felt itself under some pressure—you know, with the requirement to be registered by the Charities Registration Board there are a series of criteria that need to be examined by the Charities Registration Board, and there is also the threat of deregistration if some of those elements are not met.

One of the key issues is about the definition of “charitable purpose” as it sits within the legislation. Supporters of the charitable sector know that there have been promises of reviews of charities legislation by this Government and those reviews have not occurred. One of the significant parts of those reviews would have been the ability to review the definition of charitable purpose within that, because the current definition comes from a very old statute—the Statute of Elizabeth, which is 400 years old—and it is right and proper that in this modern day and age we should start thinking about what a charitable purpose is, and how we should define charities, their purpose, their ability to attract favourable tax status, and the like.

It is overdue that we examine that, but for the purposes of this legislation and for the examination of the clauses that came through the Statutes Amendment Bill, the charities were very concerned about their ability to appeal. This is because there have been cases taken to the court where charities have been deregistered because their definition of “charitable purpose” did not meet what the Charities Registration Board had set out. But they have had to actually go to court to defend their constitutions—the constitution of charities—and in some cases they have actually won those cases.

I want to point to the National Council of Women, which fought in the High Court to ensure that it could retain its charitable status. One of the submitters to the select committee, Sue Barker, was instrumental in supporting the National Council of Women in this particular case. It was not an easy case to defend, and it did come at some cost to the National Council of Women. At the heart of it was the definition of what a charity like the National Council of Women could use as a charitable purpose. I would have thought that gender equity could be considered as a charitable purpose. The Charities Registration Board, of course, did not, and, as a consequence of that—[Bell rung] Mr Chair?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): I am quite happy to—please take your seat—give the member another call, but the purpose of the Committee stage is to examine the bill and what it does, not what it does not, and it is also to relate to the House sitting in Committee those submissions that were made in the course of it. So if the subject of what she is saying, which does not appear to be part of the bill that is in front of us at the moment, was raised by submitters, then she really needs to reference that and—I do not know whether she is doing this—not just make points that may well be close to her heart, and may involve charities but do not form part of the bill. So if it was the subject of specific submissions that were made before the select committee, the member is free to be able to refer to those as an aside, but they are not substantial parts of the bill, and that is what the Committee stage is about. She may well want to make those points in the third reading, but not during the Committee stage.

POTO WILLIAMS: What I do want to do, Mr Chair, is actually take us back to—thank you very much for your guidance—one of the submitters, who was Sue Barker. And I reference her because in the official report back a lot of the comments were made about her particular submission, and her view about the ability to appeal is central to the particular argument I want to make. They reference Sue Barker and charities law in particular. Sue Barker had been instrumental in ensuring the National Council of Women, in particular, did actually have a successful appeal.

So my point about that is this: at the heart of my particular discussion in this call is that she felt in her submission—and it was backed up by submissions made by other organisations, including Hui E! Community Aotearoa—that the right to appeal would be under threat if we allowed clause 13, amending section 61 of the Charities Act 2005, particularly, to proceed. That is for anyone who is involved in the charitable sector, and is something that we have ensured we do not lose the ability to do. It is at the heart of all of our law, actually—the ability to appeal—and groups like charitable organisations feel a sense of being under some restraint when it comes to their ability to take cases to the High Court.

I thank you, Mr Chairman, for your guidance. That was the substantial part of the call that I wanted to make. We want to ensure that charities have the appropriate opportunity to appeal any decisions that may affect their ability to operate in the charitable sector. Thank you.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I am really pleased to support the Charities Amendment Bill through the Committee stage. This bill started off as part of a Statutes Amendment Bill, and, as you will know, Mr Chairman, and I am sure other members of the Committee will know, statutes amendment bills have some particular criteria that must be reached before changes can be included within a Statutes Amendment Bill. They are meant to be a small number; you are not meant to do a big raft of changes to any particular Act. They are meant to be technical—so no policy changes. They are meant to be non-controversial. So if you meet those criteria then your proposals as a Minister can go into the Statutes Amendment Bill, and that is how the Charities Amendment Bill started its passage in the House.

When it was received at select committee, as part of the Statutes Amendment Bill, there was suddenly a flurry of activity from people—primarily from Hui E! Community Aotearoa and charitable organisations—who were adamantly opposed to the provisions that were contained within the Statutes Amendment Bill. As soon as our committee was alerted to that fact, by dint of emails and submissions and phone calls and visits—they were pretty upset and concerned—we decided that we would no longer accept these provisions as part of a Statutes Amendment Bill. Clearly, with the controversy, they did not meet the criteria. But, in good faith to the Minister, whom we do not believe was trying to trick anyone but we believe was legitimately trying to progress what she thought were Statutes Amendment Bill provisions, we decided to progress this as a separate bill. The alternative for the committee was just to say “No, strike it out.” We would have done that if we thought it was a problem.

Scott Simpson is getting very energised by this speech.

Scott Simpson: It’s doing it again.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Yes, that is what happens after big quakes: you get a lot of aftershocks. Just carry on. Keep calm. We thought that the Minister had introduced these provisions in good faith, so instead of striking them out we said we would put them in a separate bill, and thus the Charities Amendment Bill has come to the House.

There were four clauses in the bill originally, and the aim of those clauses was to provide that a person could not be an officer of a charity if they had been convicted of tax evasion or a similar offence under the Tax Administration Act. That had been admitted, not clarified previously. Another aim was to provide that an application for registration as an entity could be treated as withdrawn if an applicant did not respond to a request for information or some other requirement from the chief executive, under section 18 of the Act. So if they just do not reply and do not provide the information that is required, then they can have their application treated as withdrawn.

The third provision, which covered two clauses in the original Act, was to correct 2012 drafting errors. It was in the second of those two that the controversy arose in the first place and that caused this bill to be carved out of the Statutes Amendment Bill and then was the subject of nearly all the submissions to the committee. Nearly all of them on this bill were in opposition to the proposed changes in section 61, and, as my colleague Poto Williams explained, the submitters’ view, which was contested by the officials but in the end agreed to by the Labour and Green members of the committee, was that it took away the right to appeal a decision of the chief executive. Their view is that that right has always been there. It may not have been used, but it was there in the law and they did not want it taken away.

The other changes were not contentious and we believed that they met the requirements of a Statutes Amendment Bill. The Minister might want to comment on this, but we were advised during the process of this that even though we had carved this bill out of a Statutes Amendment Bill and named it against its own primary Act, if changes were to be proposed to the bill that we are now debating—so if in the Committee of the whole House a Supplementary Order Paper was put forward—then it would have to get the agreement of every single member of Parliament because it is still under a Statutes Amendment Bill, even though it has been carved out. I think that is really interesting. I have got no idea whether that is agreed or understood to be the case by everyone, but that was certainly the advice that we have given. So we have taken one of the four clauses out. I hope the Minister understands that we did it, thinking we were doing the right thing, and that we have progressed the rest of the bill to her satisfaction.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I am pleased to rise to take a call for the Green Party in the Committee stage of the Charities Amendment Bill. We are supporting this bill through the Committee of the whole House. As this is my first chance to speak after the quakes, I would just like to add my voice to others in this Chamber offering my aroha to the people of Kaikōura and Marlborough, and also those affected in Wellington. I know that people in Canterbury are familiar with these shaky times, but it is a new thing for many other people and we do not underestimate what a toll it takes. For people who have lost family members and indeed their houses and their dreams, our thoughts are with you.

So back to this bill, which, as has already been stated, started off as an amendment to four provisions by way of a Statutes Amendment Bill. We understand that the Minister put them in and presented them as minor technical and non-controversial changes, which is appropriate for statutes amendment bills. Through that process the community sector noticed one of the amendments in there that caused significant alarm for them, and as a result there were 33 written submissions and seven oral submissions, which is a very unusual thing, in my experience, for a Statutes Amendment Bill.

There was pretty much general support for three provisions, which are what we now see in this bill, because, as a select committee, there was a choice—and it only takes one member in the House to say “This causes concern.” and it cannot go ahead. So the Government Administration Committee very constructively said: “Well, there’s concern from the community affected by this bill—by one provision—so let’s move that aside and not deal with that, and let’s create a separate bill and provide an opportunity for people to have specific feedback and further the things that did not cause concern.”, which is what this piece of legislation is—those three provisions.

I am very pleased that we did that, and I think the Government in supporting that in the House and going through these stages is also taking a step to—at least on the surface level—restore relationships with the sector that have been damaged over the last, I would say, 8 years and also by this being brought through in a Statutes Amendment Bill process. We know that there were different views on that point, but for us the relationship and the concerns of the sector were primary, so we were pleased to have had that taken out.

What does remain in this bill, which will pass through the House, hopefully, without contention, is an amendment that means that a person cannot be an officer of a charitable entity if they have been convicted of a tax evasion or similar offence under the Tax Administration Act. That is just and right, and no one disagreed with that at all. It also clarifies that if a group applies to register as a charity but does not respond to a request for follow-up information or any other notice by the chief executive under section 18 within 20 working days, then the Department of Internal Affairs gets to say, basically, that it is no longer an active application, and takes it off its books. That may not sound like a very long time for some people, if you think about charitable organisations. A month is often a cycle for organisations where they may only have one meeting in that time, but we need to remember that this is for an application to register. It does not mean you have to be able to provide all of the information—just be able to respond. That did get the support from the community sector.

We noticed that the Department of Internal Affairs informed us that there were 180 applications in the 2015-16 year where it did not get that information, or anybody replying at all, within that time frame, so it is a significant issue for the department. We do not want our systems tied up responding when people are not responding. Thank you.

Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): I rise to take a brief call and to express some sentiments to the Committee, the first of those being that, as other members of the Committee have done so tonight, we have a Charities Amendment Bill before us and we have many charities springing into action in North Canterbury in the South Island, and also here in Wellington to assist people who have found themselves in dire straits and even just needing support during this time after a significant earthquake. So I do want to send my best wishes out to them and thank them for the work that they are currently doing and the considerable work that is probably ahead of them as they support other New Zealanders.

I want to respond to the members tonight who have raised the issue of the reason why we are here with a separate bill rather than the amendments coming under the Statutes Amendment Bill. The power, as the Hon Ruth Dyson has mentioned already, of any one select committee member or one member of this House to disagree with one point or a part in the Statutes Amendment Bill is very powerful indeed, and it is a very strong check and balance. It is, therefore—and I thank the member for her generosity towards me—not going to surprise you that I was under every impression that, in fact, what I proposed for amendment was completely non-controversial.

When it became of concern to some members of the charitable sector—and I do take issue with the previous speaker Jan Logie’s comment about the last 8 years; I have been the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector now for 5 of them, and I have seen a distinct change in terms of confidence and, also, the working relationship between the Government and this sector. I have to say that they know my number and I know theirs, and we have a full and frank exchange of ideas and views. They did tell me they were worried about this, and it did not matter how often I said to them: “I still believe, and have legal advice, that it is not a matter for you to be concerned about.”

We are here and we are, now, in the best place we can be. This has been resolved to the satisfaction of the members of the Government Administration Committee and, I hope, the members of this House. We are moving forward, we are making good changes that have been fully canvassed in the former debates here tonight and also in the second reading, and I thank the members of the committee for finding a way forward. I very much appreciate that, because I do believe the changes that will come about as a result of this bill will make for a better Charities Act. With that, I thank the members again, and, in my view, this is a good path to move forward on.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I appreciate the call. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call on the Charities Amendment Bill, which was, once upon a time, part of a Statutes Amendment Bill. After hearing the explanation from the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, it makes perfect sense why it was pulled out of the Statutes Amendment Bill, because, of course, there was some sort of ambiguity concerning a number of people in the public sector who cried a little bit foul. Rightly or wrongly so, they have done that, and now we are finding ourselves in a position that is looking like it is fully supported across the Chamber.

I will join in the chorus of support from New Zealand First to say that we too will support this bill going through the House, because, of course, it is relatively innocuous, really. It does two things—well, it does three things, but the third thing is really not even worth mentioning because it is just a little bit of a grammatical tidy-up. The first thing it does is not permit a person who has had an offence under tax legislation or something similar—tax evasion was the phrase I was thinking of—to be able to have a position within a charitable organisation or a trust. That does make absolute sense. The second part of this bill is about removing charitable status from an entity if it does not provide the right information in the right amount of time. I think if it has been 20 working days, which is about a month—which some people may say is a little bit too short, but then, at the end of the day, I think there would be good reason to remove charitable status if, of course, the entity was not giving that information forward nice and quickly so that it can actually be dealt with.

I would just like to talk a little bit about these statutes amendment bills that are supposed to be minor, technical, and non-controversial. It does bring me to other bills that we have seen brought into a Statutes Amendment Bill that have had all three of those characteristics, such as Nuk Korako’s bill about lost luggage and, of course, Matt Doocey’s bill about enabling board members to get access to papers online. Those bills have now made it into a Statutes Amendment Bill, and that does beg the question—I would say, probably some of the most controversial things we have spoken about in the House and that the media have picked up on have been those two bills themselves, and it may beg the question as to how they have actually got themselves into that bill. I think it is out of embarrassment by the Government that it actually put them through to obscure—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): So, back to the bill.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Thank you—back to the bill, but a great way to sort of obfuscate, if you like.

The elephant in the room, however, is the charities themselves. I think there have been a lot of people, since this bill has been tabled, who have discussed it, certainly with myself and with members of New Zealand First, around the eligibility and genuine nature of what constitutes a charity. I think some of the things that have been raised—it is not part of the bill, I know, but it is part of what is actually important to people who have raised it in conjunction with the bill—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): But we are discussing this bill. We are discussing this bill, so the member should talk about this bill.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: But, as I have mentioned, these were raised as questions about this bill, which raises questions about what constitutes a charity. We have a number of charities that have got charitable status that may need to be reviewed, and I think that in light of us discussing charities and removing charitable status it is worth bringing into this debate and discussion a potential review overlooking what is considered to be a genuine charity, in light of New Zealand’s benevolence in putting time and effort and money into these organisations. I think the people of New Zealand have a right to ask that question—and, I guess, asking the Minister herself: is this something that is likely to come up in the future?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Order! The whole point, and the point that I made earlier on, is no, you cannot. It does not matter what you are asked about as an MP in relation to that; you talk about this bill. You talk about matters raised in the select committee, and no, you cannot go and ask the Minister whether she is going to do something about it in the future. I would have thought that would be clear by now.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Thank you very much for your enlightenment, Mr Chair, and I do have to say that speaking for 5 minutes to one piece of paper can be a little bit difficult, but they are good questions, well raised, and good points raised—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): You do not have to do 5 minutes.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: I have 52 seconds to go; I will see what I can do. The third part—the part that I was not going to mention but since I have been cut short with my speech—is literally to correct a 2012 drafting error by removing the words “of the chief executive” from this bill.

We will be supporting this bill as it goes through the House. I have just about filled up 5 minutes of the Committee’s time—and, I think, very thoughtfully, too. I know there will be some good nodding in agreement from people back home listening to it. I commend this bill moving forward through the House. Thank you.

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe, e Te Heamana o Te Komiti o Te Whare nei, oti noa, e tika ana kia huri atu aku whakaaro ki a rātou e noho pōuri ana i tēnei wā i Kaikōura i ngā āhuatanga o te rūwhenua; oti noa ki a rātou katoa e noho āwangawanga ana puta noa ngā moutere nei, e rū ana i tēnei wā. Nō reira, kei te mihi atu ki a koutou katoa e whakarongo mai nā ki tēnei kōrero.

[Thank you, Mr Chairman, and so it is fitting that I turn my thoughts to those who remain distressed at this moment in Kaikōura, due to the circumstances of the earthquake; and to all of those throughout these islands in a state of unease as tremors continue right now. So I acknowledge you all listening in to this contribution.]

I want to start off by just acknowledging, and also by joining my words with those who have already acknowledged, the people of Kaikōura, but also the people around the country who are feeling a little bit anxious right now.

It is fitting that we are talking about the Charities Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge all of those who made a submission on this bill—first of all: the process that was used to get those extra submissions. I want to thank the Government Administration Committee for its work and its thoughtfulness on how to make sure that people had the additional opportunity to make a submission.

In particular, I want to acknowledge Te Korowai o Ngāruahine Trust. I want to acknowledge the submission that it made in actually supporting this bill—first of all, its words around making certain that a person cannot be an officer of a charitable entity if they have been convicted of tax evasion; they particularly pointed that out. The trust also supported the amendment to section 60, “High Court may make interim order pending determination of appeal”, in clause 12A. Those are the things that are in—and I might point out that that submission was made from within my electorate. I wanted to point that one out, particularly because Ngāruahine is moving into—not quite the post-settlement phase of its development, but very close. I think it is very important that these words that are representative of the entire country come to this House. So I want to acknowledge this one, mainly because not all of our charitable organisations have made submissions on bills, and I just want to acknowledge it.

I also want to acknowledge what the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector has stated about this bill being divided from the Statutes Amendment Bill, because I am reflecting on the statement that I made in my second reading speech, and that clarifies that for me, so I just want to acknowledge that as well.

I also want to talk further about section 60, in clause 12A, and what that really means. I have not spoken to a lot of charitable organisations on this, but the ones that I have have said that they did have some concerns about what might happen in the event that this interim order pending might not happen. I know you have given guidance on what might not happen, but, nevertheless, that is what the people are saying; that is what the submitters have said.

In a wider context, I just want to speak very briefly on clause 1, the title—being an amendment to the Charities Act—and comment on the purpose of the principal Act. Throughout this country, right now, as other members have stated, we have a number of charitable organisations that are stepping up and doing what we need, so that that can give comfort not only to New Zealanders but to the many thousands of tourists who are currently suffering from what has happened in Kaikōura. Thank you.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 10 agreed to.

Clause 11 agreed to.

Clause 12 agreed to.

Clause 12A agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

Bills

Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill

In Committee

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

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): It gives me pleasure to take a call on the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill. I want to start with clause 22, “Requirements for specialist assessment”.

The people for whom this piece of legislation is important are those who have got significant addiction issues—so significant that they are at a point of it being life-threatening to them. The requirements under this particular clause—the specialist assessment—are to ensure that all the clinical advice and all the criteria with regard to their treatment are addressed appropriately before an application is then made for their compulsory treatment. The provisions for a court to make that compulsory treatment order sit within clause 32. It is an important part of the discussion that we had in the Health Committee. When you are actually compelling somebody into treatment, and you are withdrawing their ability to have free will and free access, it is a really important thing that we get that absolutely right in the legislation.

We looked, initially, at what happens under compulsory treatment orders within the mental health field, and looked to that as the model with which to ensure that somebody being compulsorily treated for their addictions would be able to retain the rights that they are due under that. It is a significant thing to have somebody take away from you the ability for you to decide how you want to be treated, and we have to, as legislators, ensure that we get that absolutely right. It is not an easy thing that we do. We are not talking about large numbers of people over the course of the year. I think that probably about 200 patients would possibly be in a position to have applications made for them and on their behalf.

We talked about the notion of compulsion and how important it is in this particular environment, where, generally speaking, when somebody is seeking treatment for whatever condition they may have, the usual way to do that is for that patient to be completely informed, and for that process to then allow them to make a decision. But we are talking about a different cohort of people who, because their addictions are so severe, may not be in a position to actually make those decisions for themselves.

During the course of the select committee process, there were some changes that we made to particular definitions: for example, the question of what a treatment centre is. One of the scenarios that was presented to the committee was around particular residential facilities and whether they could be considered as treatment centres. The decision was made that, being such a specialised field, we needed to ensure that we could define those appropriately to make sure that those centres were staffed by the people who had the expertise to deal with this significant cohort of people.

There were some other things that we really felt we needed to ensure that we get right, like the ability for that person to have somebody act on their behalf. This was where the role of the district inspectors came into play. It is similar to what happens in the mental health environment: somebody who is objective and can ensure that the rights of the patient are upheld.

We also talked a lot about what happens when somebody goes into this type of treatment and what might happen to their family members and their family’s ability to ensure that they know what kind of treatment their loved one is undertaking. So part of the legislation is to ensure that children, in particular, of patients have the ability to be notified when their loved one is having a compulsory treatment order placed upon them.

We spent a bit of time talking about what an approved provider and approved facility would be and just what the criteria would be to ensure that they could meet a particular standard. Some of the submitters said to us that they were concerned that the level of expertise to provide this type of care and this type of treatment is something that we have some way to go to address, even with the small numbers of patients that we will be treating over the course of a year. We have actually got some gaps in capacity and some gaps in knowledge in this country, and we were concerned at the select committee—and we discussed this quite a bit—about whether we would be in a position to have the treatment available, as is required in the legislation, from when the legislation actually is passed. There was some concern that that was not actually going to be in place.

So that is one of the things I would really like the Minister in the chair, Minister Dunne, to discuss: whether he is satisfied that the level of expertise is actually going to be available to ensure that the legislation is carried out to its full extent and whether there are plans in place that he is aware of to build that capacity into the health system. I will make some further contributions later, but I would ask the Minister whether he has got some confidence that he can supply to the Committee about that particular issue.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I too would like to begin my contribution tonight by acknowledging many whānau around Aotearoa, in Kaikōura, in Te Wai Pounamu, and here in Wellington who are dealing with the after-effects of our latest earthquake. I hope that people out there know that we all stand in solidarity at this time. I particularly want to acknowledge the leadership of Kai Tahu, the Kaikōura rūnaka, and Takahanga Marae for opening their doors and showing, I think, the true spirit of whanaungatanga.

It is my pleasure to speak in this Committee stage of the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill. I do that as a member of this House who is incredibly interested in issues to do with ethics. I particularly would like to ask the Minister in the chair, Minister Dunne, some questions about the principles of ethics. Those two principles are informed consent and do no harm. Underlying this piece of legislation, and certainly in clause 7 of the bill, is that the State has the right to intervene in someone’s life and for those who—and I will read out clause 7—“have a severe substance addiction” there is an underlying assumption that they do not have the capacity to make informed decisions about what the most appropriate treatment is for them.

Under this piece of legislation, upon application of somebody who is over the age of 18, we as a society can compulsorily treat that person, which means we can detain them in a facility that they have not given consent to being detained in. I think that the fundamental ethical principle of informed consent, complemented by do no harm, does actually deserve the scrutiny of the House. So I would very much appreciate the Minister’s justification for that ethical principle being compromised.

But, in highlighting that, I also want to note clause 57 of the bill, which is titled “Right to legal advice”. This clause was particularly remedied by the Health Committee process, because it did make some changes to the initial bill that was presented to the House. The assumption under this particular clause is that every patient is entitled to request a lawyer to advise him or her on their status and their rights as a patient and that the lawyer, if they agree to act on behalf of the individual, is permitted access to the patient’s records, files, and everything that pertains to that person being, under this piece of legislation, treated in a facility that they have not consented to.

So when I think about the ethical principles of informed consent and do no harm, I actually think the safeguards are within the legislation, but I do think that there is merit in the Minister talking about those principles. Underlying this piece of legislation, I think, are some very sound principles. Unfortunately, we have people in our society who become so addicted that, actually, that addiction means that they do not have the capacity to make appropriate decisions and look after themselves and their families.

I am particularly interested in families where people in this situation have dependent children, for example. What is the State’s responsibility within that context to ensure that the person receives the treatment they want, but also to ensure that the family has some pathway to reunification? Unfortunately, I think, people who have addictive tendencies—some people are now saying more and more that it is hereditary, that we are all born with it, and that under some circumstances there is really nothing we can do to moderate that particular disposition. So I think that the intention of this legislation and the provisions that we are making are valid, but I also think, at this time, it is appropriate that the Minister who is responsible for the legislation explain it a bit more thoroughly to the people of New Zealand. Kia ora.

RIA BOND (NZ First): I want to take this opportunity to actually thank the Health Committee, which put a lot of work into ensuring that this bill would help to fit with the very purpose that this bill’s intention was actually implemented for. I did not sit on the Health Committee on this particular bill, but I can actually see, through the recommendations made, that a lot of these recommendations are actually common-sense recommendations that can only be helpful to the practitioners, the professionals, and actually the end-users, who are the patients and whānau. I also want to echo what previous members have said in the Committee with the questions that they have asked the Minister, and I do look forward to the duration of this bill through the Committee stage and to having those answers given and provided by the Minister.

I want to also just point out that New Zealand First is, in fact, supporting this bill. Like previous members have said, I want to add to the fact that there comes a time in life for compulsory assessment and treatment for individuals with severe substance addiction who are totally unable to make decisions about their own treatment. This bill, New Zealand First believes, addresses this problem that members of our communities face in dealing with their loved ones who are going through an addiction like this. For whatever reason they have become addicted, what they face, along with whānau, is a real challenge, and we see that in today’s world, which is very different from that of the likes of my parents; with the degree of drugs that are being used in our community and society, we have to ensure that the legislation that we are bringing through is fit for the modern-day life that we now face and that our children face in the future.

It is a good bill. It is good that the bill is repealing the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act 1996. This is well past its use-by date. We in this House must acknowledge, as I said, that addictions have changed over the last 50 years and so has the way that we treat people with addictions. The current legislation does present some real challenges, not just for family and friends but also for health practitioners when we, as a society, are dealing with the growing scale of drugs and the problems that we have here in New Zealand.

Family members right around New Zealand become distressed when they are left out of the decision-making process when dealing with the simplicity of actually simply wanting to protect the ones whom they love when they cannot make the choice themselves. New Zealand First agrees that the criteria for compulsory addiction treatment in clause 7 appear to be robust. These provisions target individuals who have impaired informed decision-making choices and will require compulsory treatment. This means that there must be appropriate treatment provided and available to individuals simply because it is actually quite vital that a patient’s condition is correctly monitored and that it is reviewed. If the clinician believes that the criteria for compulsory treatment of any of the patients they are dealing with no longer apply, then the patient will be released and the after-care plan, which is critical for the patient’s success, can only be a positive outcome.

This wraparound support helps the individual not only actually deal with the secondary effect, which is the addiction itself, but also helps actually deal with the primary cause of an addiction. We know from feedback from submitters—there were 39 submitters and there were 15 heard orally—that the challenge that is faced is in terms of making sure that we are not only addressing legislation to help with the addiction and substance issues but also making sure that we are wrapping services around the patients so that they can actually cope with the day-to-day life of going back out into society and are able to reintegrate into their community.

I do want to say too that clause 4 of this bill defines who an approved provider is: “(a) a person who is certified, under the Health and Disability Services (Safety) Act 2001, to provide some mental health services;”. The recommendations by the Health Committee for amending clause 4, for us, really were common sense and we were really pleased to see through the commentary and through feedback that this bill, in fact, will help alleviate the current challenges that practitioners and whānau do have with trying to ensure that the people whom they love actually get the services and help that they need. So New Zealand First supports this bill.

JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): The Green Party is supporting this bill. I was not on the Health Committee when it heard submissions on the bill, but having spoken to my former colleague, Kevin Hague, who oversaw this through the select committee process—he spoke highly of the select committee process and the officials and the work that they did to ensure that this bill struck the careful balance between meeting the needs of people who are suffering from severe substance addiction and the right of individuals to give informed consent about their treatment. There are occasions in which there is a need for intervention, but it only affects very small numbers of people.

I think the best thing we can say about this piece of legislation is that it vastly improves the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act of 1966, which is well overdue for changes. The Law Commission undertook a very helpful report that identified a number of problems with the existing legislation, including that although two medical certificates are required before a person could be committed, there is no requirement that either of these certificates be issued by a specialist alcohol and drug practitioner following a personal assessment. The committal process, under the current legislation, begins with an application to the District Court, and families are finding it very difficult to make applications. There are delays and problems satisfying the regulatory requirements for applications.

The statutory period of detention under the current legislation is 2 years, which is quite extraordinary because it far exceeds what would normally be necessary to undertake any programme of treatment. The Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act makes very inadequate provision for review of the detention decision, and that is something that has been addressed by the piece of legislation that we are debating this evening. There are, generally considered, insufficient safeguards to protect the rights of people held under the Act, and there are few treatment facilities that are certified to accept people under that particular regime and, consequently, there is not able to be the flexibility and the type of treatment programme available. There are significant improvements in this legislation that should result in both greater protection of individuals’ rights and the potential for review, and should also ensure that there is greater access and treatment available for those individuals whose lives may be threatened by severe substance addiction.

I guess I will just make a couple of other points. One of them is that, fundamentally, we are starting to understand that addiction is not just a personal or individual problem; actually, it can be quite environmental. Financial stress, homelessness, and other life circumstances can contribute to addiction even though, clearly, there potentially could be hereditary or genetic aspects to it. I think it is important that we take an approach that addresses all of the environmental factors and looks to enable individuals to be empowered to live their lives in a healthy way.

Secondly, one concern that we have, overall, is inadequate funding of the health system and, particularly, the mental health system, and that is going to pose challenges for the wraparound support services that are needed by people in the future. So although the Green Party does support this bill—and I congratulate the Minister, the officials, and the select committee for making a substantial improvement to outdated legislation—I think that, overall, the more that society is faced with challenges of increasing inequality, increasing numbers of children growing up in poverty, and increasing homelessness, we could potentially be seeing an increase in the incidence of vulnerability to substance addiction. It is really important that we treat that as a health issue first and foremost, rather than a criminal issue, and that we ensure that there are sufficient treatment programmes available for people so that they are able to get the help that they need when they need it, because all of us in New Zealand are better off if we do not have people in these dire circumstances.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Associate Minister of Health): Can I thank those members who have taken part in the debate so far for their constructive and very useful comments. I want to take some time to comment on some of the matters that they have raised and the questions that they have posed. Can I begin by taking a phrase that the previous speaker, Julie Anne Genter, used when she spoke of the need to maintain a careful balance, and I think that that is a very accurate description actually of what we are trying to do with this piece of legislation.

The Committee may be amused to know that my first association with the old Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act was in 1983 when I was the chair of the Wellington coordinating committee on alcohol and drugs, and we decided then that the 1966 legislation, which was but a child of only 17, was well and truly outdated. So here we are, as the Act passes into its 50th year, finally putting it to a gentle rest.

There are a number of points that I want to pick up, but I guess the starting point is to be very clear about who and what it is we are talking about here. We are not talking about people who suffer temporary or passing intoxication from alcohol and drugs. We are talking about people who have a severe, progressive, long-term addiction that has proved difficult to treat in any other environment. So immediately the audience is a limited one.

A speaker earlier referred to a couple of hundred patients a year. I think that is probably at the outer margin, but it is a very small and discrete number. Let me just pick up some of issues, therefore, that members have raised. Poto Williams raised questions about gaps in capacity in terms of the ability to provide treatment services and time frames, and she is right to make that point. One of the reasons why the Health Committee recommended, and I certainly accept the recommendation, of a 1-year lead in to the implementation of the bill—so it does not take effect until 2018—is to ensure that we have as adequate a range of facilities as we can get by that time, that we also have knowledge and awareness amongst the health professionals who will be working with these people, and that we will have identified some of the gaps in capacity.

This legislation is a culture step forward from the previous legislation. Those health professionals who will have formed the view of the inadequacy of the current legislation will need to be brought along to understand that there is a new environment that is more reflective of their needs and, therefore, more able to respond to the types of circumstances that they face with their particular patients.

That brings me to the point that Louisa Wall made about the principles of informed consent and do no harm. One of the really important issues here is that the health profession generally, I think, understands the principle of informed consent, but, in this instance, you come back one step: the issue at heart here is not so much informed consent but the capacity of the person to be able to consent. That is going to open up another range of issues for the health sector and for those working with these people as to how that consent is obtained and whether it is of a quality that is sufficient for the purpose. If you look at the clauses of the bill post - clause 7, you will see that they really try to address this particular concern.

Clause 10 makes it very clear that compulsory treatment is the option of last resort. I think that is an important point, because often one comes across families who will be just absolutely frustrated that their particular loved one is in a downward spiral and nothing seems to be able to be done to intervene to help them. So by making it clear that we are looking at people who have severely impaired capacity, which is defined in clause 9, that this is treatment of last resort, in clause 10; and that there are very particular provisions around what is appropriate treatment, the duration of that treatment, and the protection of the rights of the individual during that treatment, we are trying to strike what Julie Anne Genter described as that careful balance between dealing with a problem and its enormity, which other people need to see the need has to be resolved, while respecting the rights and the integrity of the individual who is the subject of the legislation.

That, I think, is where the current legislation fell down. The way it was designed in 1966—it was still at the time when we had public drunkenness as an offence. If one reads the social commentaries at the time of people like James K Baxter, this sort of legislation was actually used as a way to get people off the streets—find that they did not have adequate means of support, suspect they had an alcohol or drug problem, and “bang!”, the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act suddenly started to apply. We have moved on from that environment, and I think it fell into disrepute because society had moved on also. What this legislation tries to do is recognise that there are people out there with genuine problems and genuine needs, and we, as a compassionate society, need to have in place mechanisms that help them through that addiction and, hopefully—and we can never be confident of this, but hopefully—set them on the path to living reasonable and sustainable lives in the future.

I hope that it is not 50 years before we have this debate again. I suspect many of us will not be here at that time, and in that regard, I am delighted that the Health Committee has recommended—

Scott Simpson: The member will be.

Hon PETER DUNNE: I probably will be, yes. I am delighted that the select committee has recommended a 3-year review, because I think that ensures that the legislation will remain current. I also think it ensures two other things. Firstly, the points that Louisa Wall made about this whole issue of consent and how that is applied will have been tested. If it is proved to be deficient in the legislation, we will be able to address it. Secondly, the question that a number of members have raised about the adequacy of our services will have been identified and tested as well. So to those members who have spoken I thank them for their support and for their questions. Although this is a bit like the tortoise and the hare, the tortoise is going to win eventually, but just not tonight. Thank you.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to clause 11 be agreed to:

in subclause (1), delete “that”.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

Part 3 agreed to.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Clauses 1 to 5

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): Given that this is my first opportunity to stand in this Chamber since the events of late Sunday evening and early Monday morning, I just want to join with the House in adding my concern and thoughts for all those who are still dealing with the ramifications of our recent earthquakes.

I think the bill that we are debating in the Committee today clearly demonstrates the effect of drafting errors. That is probably how I would describe—not necessarily drafting errors even, but, potentially, small oversights and the ramifications that they can have. I would certainly not describe the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill as being substantive. In fact, it deals primarily with only two issues, one of which there was very little discussion about in the Justice and Electoral Committee, and that was the use of holding on-licences or off-licences or special licences by companies. That warranted very little discussion at the select committee. In fact, I will leave that to my colleague Peeni Henare—I know he had a great interest in that aspect of the bill—to expand on in more detail.

The clause that did cause some discussion was the title clause, and that was around the display of low-alcohol beverages. All of our alcohol legislation defines very clearly what alcohol is considered to be. Of course, as a layperson, you would just consider beer, mead, wine, and spirits all to be under the classification of alcohol, but there are some very specific definitions that for parliamentary purposes we need to build into what alcohol is and is not. This is for good reason: if you are going to have a requirement that someone, for instance under 18, cannot purchase alcohol, you need to define what alcohol is.

So, by definition, in our legislation, the thing that we are obviously most concerned about is the content of ethanol, because, of course, that defines whether or not something is going to have an effect on someone when it is consumed. That means, by definition, something that may label itself as alcohol—say, a low-alcohol beer—would, in probably all of our minds, fall under the definition of alcohol. It is a beer, it is advertising itself as a beer, it is branding itself as a beer, but if it does not meet the threshold of what alcohol is—the ethanol level must be 1.15 percent of more by volume—then technically, by law, it is not considered to be alcohol.

Why is this of interest to this House? Well, of course, Parliament not too long ago, a few years ago—3 years ago now, in 2013—passed some of the most substantive alcohol reforms this Parliament has seen in some time. A significant part of that piece of legislation was to try to acknowledge that the availability of alcohol in our supermarkets—which we legislated to occur in, I believe, 1999—meant that some people, for good reason, felt that we were now over-advertising and making alcohol far too freely available in public areas. For instance, young people, who are not meant to be purchasing alcohol or be exposed to its advertising, were being exposed to it, and you had to walk through alcohol sections to access other things like bread and milk. In fact, I heard a number of submissions during that legislation, which I sat on the select committee for, where people who may have had some issue with alcohol abuse pointed out that they found it very confronting to constantly be exposed to displays in that way.

In 2013 Parliament tried to remedy that by creating areas where alcohol displays and promotions could occur, and it would be a single area in a supermarket. All of us will be familiar now with areas of a supermarket that are just alcohol. They are confined. They are able to be partitioned off, of course. Because of our hours of display, you needed to be able to partition them off, particularly if you have a store that would be open outside those hours.

So look, all well and good. Parliament passed that legislation, I have no doubt, with the expectation that everything we would consider to be alcohol—regardless of ethanol level, if it advertised itself as such—would be in that area. But it was not because, by definition, the alcohol areas were only for alcohol, and a low-alcohol beer, for instance, did not meet that definition. So here we clearly had something that Parliament intended to occur but, by definition, it had not quite met its own test. Look, these things happen. It was nobody’s fault. It is absolutely why on this side of the House we are without hesitation supporting this bill. We are, in a sense, just putting out there what Parliament always intended to do—that is, if people want a low-alcohol beer product, most people are going to seek that product in an alcohol area.

I want to give some credit here because the grocery stores would have been within their rights to put those products in non-alcohol areas, but sensed that that was not what Parliament intended and did not. So as a result we effectively had supermarkets who were not selling those products at all because they were in this grey area.

That has given rise to the one issue that was of substantive debate by the select committee, and it was this question: if we are legislating—enabling now—low-alcohol beer products to be advertised in alcohol areas, do we need to create legislation that partitions them off and, by law, will not allow those products to be displayed anywhere else? Technically, a low-alcohol beer can now be displayed in those alcohol areas, but technically it could still be displayed next to the soda as well.

So that then became a question for the select committee. The select committee gave it good thought because submitters did raise the question of whether we could put in parameters that said that these are the only areas where they could be displayed. Obviously that is our intent. The question, the test, for this House becomes: can you easily draft that intent? Could you, for instance, find a way to make sure that a branded beer product was not displayed in a non-alcohol area if it did not meet the ethanol test? What if, for instance, it was ginger beer? It does not meet the ethanol test but brands itself as a beer. Would you then have to explicitly say ginger beer was not included? What if the ethanol test was met by a ginger beer? What if you said alcohol companies—well, most of our alcohol companies produce non-alcoholic products, so that does not work either. We ran through a range of scenarios, and it became obvious to us that we were going to have further unintended consequences, and we did not want to end up back here in a slow process to try to rectify that.

I want it put on record, though, that Parliament’s intention, the select committee’s intention, and, I am sure, the Minister’s intention is that products that for all intents and purposes are trying to mimic the look, feel, and brand of alcohol but simply have low alcohol levels in them should never be displayed in the general areas of a supermarket and should only be displayed in alcohol areas. That is what we have intended here and, in fact, we gave strong encouragement to officials, and very proactively they have already indicated there would be guidance drafted to that effect. So let us leave no question that even though we have not drafted in the reverse, we have simply been permissive around low-alcohol products going into the alcohol areas. We do not intend for that to happen in the reverse.

That was probably the most substantive debate that was had amongst many other discussions, because the select committee, of course, was drawn to a certain extent back into a debate around the alcohol culture of New Zealand. What benefit have low-alcohol products had? Have they reduced alcohol consumption in New Zealand? Have they become a substitute or have they become just add-ons at the end? We were interested in these issues, as any Parliament should be, when it is clear that we have a binge culture in New Zealand. So it was good to have had that discussion.

The discussion we should have been having, either alongside this bill or after it, though, is the discussion that Simon Power flagged that this Parliament would eventually have. He indicated that eventually he wanted there to be a discussion on issues around pricing, but claimed at the time—in 2013, when the Act went through—that we did not have the data from supermarkets to fully understand the way that they were using alcohol to draw people in. He said that once we had the data we would have that discussion. Three years have passed. It is time for that discussion. Price matters. We know that supermarkets have had a role in heavily discounting alcohol. I would say that this is the perfect opportunity for us to raise that question so that this important debate does not end here with a discussion around low-alcohol products.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for this opportunity to take a short call on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. My colleague Jacinda Ardern mentioned probably a better description for the title, if we are to look into the deeper meaning of “(Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters)”. But, to pick up her closing remarks from her contribution, perhaps this should be called the “Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Making it Easier to Access) Amendment Bill”. The reason I say that is to touch on the points made by my colleague Jacinda Ardern, who has given me the onerous task of speaking to the, ah—

Jacinda Ardern: Companies provision.

PEENI HENARE: —companies provision. So new section 28(1)(ba) in clause 4 of this particular bill says: “(ba) any company within the meaning of the Companies Act 1993 that is not prevented by a restriction in its constitution (if any) from selling alcohol or from holding a licence (or a licence of the kind or kinds concerned); or”. That is a pretty low threshold. I say that in respect of the ease with which one can register a company under the Companies Act without requiring a constitution.

The requirements to register a company under the Companies Act have a relatively low threshold. Are we making this easier? Are we allowing for more rogue operators, or for those who are inclined in a particular way and trying to exploit a market, as my colleague Jacinda Ardern has mentioned, which would see basement prices for alcohol? Those are some of the questions that I have with regard to the particular threshold for those who are looking to sell alcohol or hold a licence through simply having a company registered under the Companies Act.

Of course, there are different circumstances for those who have a company constitution that does not allow them to engage in that. I can think of one particular example, and that is actually my marae. We have registered as a company. We have in our constitution very clear rules about the sale of alcohol, and that is quite simple: none. There is to be none within the premises identified in the constitution. So I think that is pretty clear. But what we are asking here is: are we making it easier for anyone to register a company in order to attain the ability to hold a licence? That is a serious question that needs to be considered.

I sat very briefly on the Justice and Electoral Committee when this bill was debated. It was, I think, Peter Dunne, the Minister who was in the chair previously, who described it quite well when he said it is like the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise will eventually win, but these are a slow progression of changes that will eventually achieve the goal of keeping our communities safe. I think that is an important thing to note. If anything, this Government is probably winning the mannequin challenge, which is going well on social media at the moment—it seems to be paused while the world is moving on, and that is just not quite good enough. Some of the recommendations from the reform were actually quite clear about pricing and display, and that is the purpose of why we are here today.

To the point around the technicality around the day—a Saturday, a Sunday, Waitangi Day, Good Friday. If Waitangi Day or Anzac Day falls on Saturday or Sunday, it then applies to the following Monday. I think that is pretty straightforward. It is one of those minor technical things that I think is in keeping with the times and the changes that happen when these types of bills come in. My colleague mentioned the unintended consequences, and here we are again going through some of those unintended consequences.

Otherwise, on this side of the House we do support this particular bill, but I do have that question regarding the Companies Act 1993 and the holding of a licence, and I wonder whether the Minister can answer that.

JONO NAYLOR (National): Sorry, I almost forgot to speak for a moment—I thought we were doing the mannequin challenge, as was laid down by my colleague who spoke previously, Peeni Henare. This is a good bill, and certainly, as we went through the select committee process, I think it actually, as other speakers have mentioned, brought up a bunch of issues that we possibly had not anticipated as we went through. I think, ultimately, it is eminently sensible, as many of the Government bills are, of course, because this is a Government that is moving so fast sometimes that to the Opposition it may appear that we are standing still. It is one of those things—such a blur, we have got so much on, and this is yet another good piece of legislation.

I think what we need to do in this kind of context is really look at what it is that we are trying to achieve. What there has been in New Zealand—as I think I mentioned in my speech in the second reading of this bill—is a growing trend for people to seek out low- and no-alcohol drinks. The sale of low- and no-alcohol beer is very much on the rise, particularly since we have lowered the alcohol limits for driving and those kinds of things. So what we need to do is ensure that when people go into supermarkets, for example, and want to purchase such products, they are easy for them to find.

With the way the law stands currently, if you walked into a supermarket looking for low-alcohol beer and went to the beer aisle, you probably would not find any, unless, of course, the supermarket is trying to stick to the spirit of the law, if not the letter of the law. The likelihood, or potential outcome, is that someone will walk out with full-strength beer under their arm, though that was not what they intended to go in and purchase. In this regard, what we are wanting to see happen is to make it logical for people.

Obviously, when the initial legislation was drafted it was thought that defining drinks by alcohol content made sense, but what we discovered as we explored this further is that, actually, that description really is not that useful. So this is about ensuring that people who are going in looking for low-alcohol beer or wine or mead can actually find it with the other beer or wine or mead and not find it sitting in the soft drinks section.

Jacinda Ardern: Good old mead.

JONO NAYLOR: Good old mead. Who even knew about mead being sold in supermarkets? This is yet another one of the great learnings that we had during the select committee process. I thought mead was simply something that Friar Tuck made in the Robin Hood movies, but, no, apparently it is sold in our supermarkets. So if people are looking for those particular beverages, they will now be able to find them in the appropriate aisle.

The other point that I think is really critical is that if something is being marketed as beer or wine or mead, it is entirely inappropriate for it to be sitting alongside the Coke, Pepsi, and Sprite. Children who are going past those aisles are not then being subject to the sorts of beverages that we would normally associate with alcohol.

As we went through this process, clearly we had some lessons that were learnt. The fact that there is agreement around the House that this is the right course of action for us to be taking I believe helps to reinforce that we have arrived at a sensible place.

That is the prime part of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. There are, of course, a few other remedial matters that are associated with that—obviously, particularly around looking at the idea of companies holding a licence. Again, that is pragmatic and sensible. It ensures that we have got some good legislation going forward. I look forward to when we can have the third reading of this legislation and put it into action.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora. This is a really interesting bill because, essentially, it amends the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, and within that Act, the definition of “alcohol” is a product whose content is 1.15 percent ethanol by volume. Under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, that is what alcohol is. What we have discovered through this process is that, actually, through the food standard and through the ingredients of certain products and the process by which they are made—that is, if hops are included and through the process of fermentation, through the Food Standard 2.7.2, the process enables products to be labelled beer, Food Standard 2.7.3 says fruit wine, vegetable wine, and mead products are able to be labelled as alcohol, and Food Standard 2.7.4 is wine and wine products.

The reality is that the definition of alcohol is not only contained within the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act but it is also contained within the Food Standards Code, which is how we have got into the dilemma that we have got. Under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, only alcohol can be displayed in alcohol areas of supermarkets, but what that particular Act failed to do was to acknowledge that under the Food Standards Code there are certain products that, because of what they are made of and the process they are made with, can also be labelled alcohol when, in fact, they are not.

So this is an opportunity for legislation to actually get with the programme, and the reality is that in 2012 we had no low-alcohol products for sale in New Zealand. But there has been a huge explosion in the number of low-alcohol products that do not meet the definition of what alcohol is by content, and that market is actually quite huge. As of May 2016 that is 4 percent of alcohol sales, which is $14 million. In Australia, the size of that market is 20 percent, so if we equated that out to New Zealand, we are actually talking about a $70 million market.

I think that we had some incredibly robust discussion within the Justice and Electoral Committee. We did not choose to extend the definition of “alcohol” in the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. What we have done is chosen to ensure that the effects of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act now take into consideration products that, by ingredients and by process, also meet what we consider to be alcohol, so that they can now be displayed in a single area.

I am going to highlight that a bit because we did have quite a few submitters—we had 30 submitters and six oral submissions—and the one issue that many of the submitters were worried about was that the supermarkets would get to choose whether or not products—not by content but by definition in terms of the Food Standards Code—were contained in the alcohol section of the supermarket. With the agreement of the industry—I want to highlight that the supermarkets and everybody who submitted wanted alcohol products, whether they were defined by 1.15 percent ethanol or by what they were labelled as, to be displayed in one area of the supermarket. I think that consensus really has driven the changes that the select committee made. I know that other members of the select committee might not think that is a big deal, but I think it is a big deal, and I think that New Zealanders think it is a big deal. They want to see alcohol products sold only in the alcohol area of the supermarket, and this legislation will enable that. Thank you.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First continues to support this bill. It is a very simple bill and it is a very common-sense measure, and I think that the Justice and Electoral Committee has done a great job in bringing it back to the House in the way that it now is.

I would have to say, just in passing, that I think that in terms of the principal Act there are many things wrong with it and that this Government has not done very well indeed in terms of the provisions of that Act. You can see it in a number of areas today. One of them is the fact that many country pubs and other organisations that wish to sell liquor, such as at race meetings and that kind of thing, are finding it very difficult to do so and to make a living these days. That is because the principal Act is pretty bad in the way that it deals with those issues. I feel very strongly, as do we all in New Zealand First, that those things do have to change.

In addition to that, there are other parts of the country in which liquor outlets are actually being placed in areas that are very sensitive, where they should not be and, by the way, where there are far too many of them. That is another issue that needs to be addressed in the principal Act. But those are not debates for today. They are something that I will certainly be having some comment on at a later time, but for the purposes of this particular, simple measure, New Zealand First is, as I have said, in support.

There are two main issues, as far as I can see. The first is simply this: we should not underestimate the intelligence of purchasers, who know what they want and are not likely to be influenced in their purchase by where the product that they seek is displayed in a supermarket. So it is appropriate that they should be able to find those products easily. It is simply a matter of freedom of choice and ensuring that they can find the products they are after with the utmost of convenience. That is why New Zealand First does support the provision in this bill that allows non-alcoholic and low-alcoholic products to be displayed in a single area along with alcoholic products. It is simply common sense. If you go into a supermarket, that is where I think most people would want to find those products, and now they will be able to do so.

The second issue is simply this—that there does need to be flexibility. I am glad to see that that is being preserved in the bill, because supermarket operators do know their customers and do know how to set out their supermarket so that they provide convenience for those customers in choosing their products, as I have said they will do. It is very appropriate that we leave it to the supermarket operators to decide whether to display these products in the single area or elsewhere or both. I think that is very appropriate.

As far as New Zealand First is concerned, this is a very common-sense bill. It allows that flexibility. It preserves the freedom of people to buy the products they want and to find them conveniently in the place they would expect them to be. Again, we will be voting in favour of the bill, but, as I have said, there are a number of other things in the principal Act that are much more important than this provision that need attention, and New Zealand First will be raising those again at the appropriate time.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): It was an interesting debate that we had in the Justice and Electoral Committee. I just want to canvass the issue of whether or not low-alcohol products are additive or substitutive, because we had a bit of a debate amongst the submitters and the members of the committee as to whether or not these low-alcohol products actually increased overall consumption and whether or not people who chose to drink low-alcohol beers were actually, basically, substituting those products for full-strength products. This was not, I would say, a topic of great substance at the committee.

We heard one submission from Alcohol Healthwatch in opposition to the proposition that these products are substitutive. In fact, Alcohol Healthwatch argued quite strongly—particularly in its oral submission—that we should be looking to reduce the availability of low-alcohol products. The reason it said that was that it believed there was not enough evidence to suggest that people were replacing full-strength products with low-alcohol products, and because of that we might actually be increasing overall alcohol consumption, notwithstanding the fact that alcohol consumption in New Zealand is actually at 30-year record lows. That actually belies the claim from people who should know better that we are in some epidemic of a drinking crisis, or something like that. Actually, alcohol consumption is at record lows. Youth drinking is at record lows, as well. Youth binge drinking is at record lows. Youth drink-driving is at record lows. So, actually, the world is not going to hell in a handcart, as some would like to have us believe. The committee rejected that proposition.

Although the availability of low-strength alcohol products is a relatively new phenomenon, we did hear evidence from the industry—from Lion Breweries and others—and from supermarkets, that the category is growing exponentially. Certainly, the anecdotal feedback when you are in the community is that there are people out there who are deliberately choosing to enjoy a low-strength alcohol product—a low-strength beer, for example—when they go to a party because they are concerned about drink-driving, they are concerned about the tougher penalties for drink-driving and the reduced blood-alcohol limits, and because they want to be on their game or they have an event to attend.

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there about people deliberately choosing to substitute a full-strength product with a low-strength product, which is exactly why the category is growing so quickly and exactly why the bill has come before the House. We have this bizarre and abnormal situation, as has been canvassed by many speakers previously, where low-alcohol products cannot be placed with their substituted product, which is the full-strength product. We need to sort that out, and this is a bill that does exactly that.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 3A agreed to.

Clause 4 agreed to.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill with amendment, the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill without amendment, the Charities Amendment Bill without amendment, the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill with amendment, and the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill without amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill

In Committee

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I seek leave for the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill to be taken as one question for the purposes of the debate, with the question put separately at the end of the debate.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that matter. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

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

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): I am certainly not going to delay the progress of this piece of legislation. In my view, it is perhaps one of the most sensible pieces of legislation we have had in this House, because it goes right to the heart of coordination and collaboration across primary sectors, and specifically here, of course, horticulture.

I have one question for Minister Nathan Guy: why not meat? He knows that, because there is such profound wisdom in having the kind of coordination across the meat industry that we are actually putting in place through the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill. It amends an Act that came into force when Labour was in Government in 1987 and brings it up to speed. It allows groups to have flexible marketing strategies in new markets. It allows this through Supplementary Order Paper 247, which the Opposition will support. I have to say the Primary Production Committee is normally right on the ball and very, very efficient, but clearly we had some dud instructions from the Minister—

Hon Nathan Guy: Ha, ha!

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: —to the committee, which meant there was an omission, which the Minister will no doubt explain, where we have to include the ability to take a levy in the primary legislation and not just allow for regulations that would then set it. I am sure that everyone in the industry will be happier with that legislative guideline for what is, effectively, a tax. That levy will enable the Horticulture Export Authority to get on and do its job. It takes a very small amount from the product groups, I have to say, and oversees a growing volume of exports across a number of some of our big sectors, but some small ones as well. It does things like updating penalties for offences under the Act and clarifies the requirements of product groups that want to get into or out of the group—all sensible things.

The select committee has studied this piece of legislation, and we thought it through very thoroughly, except for this last-minute glitch, which the Minister is amending through his Supplementary Order Paper. Labour supports this legislation and always has done. We put it in place in 1987. We support its ongoing principles, and we think this Government should be applying this across other sectors—particularly in meat and wool—where we would have far better export outcomes for the whole of New Zealand.

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Can I acknowledge the previous speaker’s contribution. The Hon Damien O’Connor is someone who knows a lot about horticulture, from his own electorate, and is someone who thinks that the meat industry needs to be rationalised and thinks this would be a great model. Of course, what he does not talk about is the importance of the Primary Growth Partnership initiatives, where the meat industry has come together on several programmes and is actually proving to be doing and achieving a lot in regard to collaboration.

But, importantly, coming back to this bill, the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill, can I thank the Primary Production Committee for the great work that it did under the leadership of the chair, Ian McKelvie. This is a very important bill and, as the previous speaker has already mentioned, the Horticulture Export Authority—or HEA, as it is well-known—has a proud history of around 29 years.

The framework works overall very well, and this will indeed allow it to be modernised. But before I take you through the bill, I think it is important to realise that the horticulture industry is in really good shape, with exports to around 100 countries. Indeed, when we look back to 1989, its export earnings were worth around $1 billion, and now we think about what it has grown to, which is around $3.5 billion, and the Ministry for Primary Industries is forecasting that by 2025 it will indeed be about $5 billion of exports.

The bill will update the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Act 1987 and make some of the key provisions in the Act more flexible and clearer for the industry. There are nine active product groups currently involved. The Act is critical for the horticulture sector. Most of the industries in the sector are indeed small, but with many producers and exporters it allows them to get involved and collaborate in the market opportunity of their products. This is indeed enabling legislation. Producers and exporters decide when to come into this framework, and once under the framework they decide on the overall marketing strategies for their export produce. Great standards are a key component of their marketing strategy.

Indeed, I do have Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 247 in my name on the Table here this evening. After consulting with the authority—and indeed I think there was some confusion by the authority when it came in to talk to the select committee about whether it should be fees or levies or both—the bill that we are debating this evening is focused on fees, and the authority now recognises the fact that it wants to indeed have the levy mechanism in the Act. So this SOP 247, under my name, which I believe will get widespread support from the Committee, will indeed enable the authority to collect levies from product groups, which it currently does under contract, but it will be in the legislation.

So I commend this bill and this SOP to the Committee and, once again, I thank the Primary Production Committee for the great work that it has done.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I also will not take very much of the Committee’s time on this. I would like to echo some of the sentiments and statements of my colleague Mr O’Connor with regard to, certainly, the model that the Horticulture Export Authority provides for possible rolling out to other sectors of the primary sector.

I do have a couple of questions around Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 247 from the Minister for Primary Industries, which he has partly addressed. We did discuss this at caucus this morning. Obviously, it was fairly short notice—the Minister was kind enough to give us a heads-up on this—and there were some concerns amongst New Zealand First members that this situation has come about. I do confess that I missed at least one meeting of the Primary Production Committee when this was being discussed—and this submission obviously slipped through then—so my apologies to the Committee for that. Had I been on my game and there for every meeting, obviously it would not have.

The Minister has explained that the Government did publicly consult on enabling the authority to collect both fees and levies, and there was no opposition to this proposal. However, the reference to levies was removed during the drafting of the bill at the request of the authority due to a misunderstanding, and this technical SOP rectifies this. This, obviously, we take on spec from the Minister. I have no reason to believe that anything else occurred, but some members of our caucus would like some further clarification of that if the Minister would be good enough to provide it. Perhaps not even that—if the Minister wants to take the chair again to point me in the direction of where that could be found, that would be helpful. The one thing that we do not want to be doing is supporting a measure that does not actually have the support of industry itself. But, as I say again, we take it on spec that the authority does speak for its members, and we recognise that the sector groups that are part of the authority are there voluntarily. Presumably they would have made some noise had they had some objection to it.

I do have to say that for it to have got through the officials, through the ministry, and through the select committee with this omission in place is rather sloppy. Obviously, we point the finger at Government for that and will undertake to ensure that when New Zealand First is leading the Government these sorts of errors will not happen. If the Minister in the chair, Nathan Guy, could point me in the direction of some supporting information or give me some more assurance that, in fact, this is what the industry itself is asking for, because, as I understand it—as the Minister explained it—the collection of levies is something that happens between the authority and its member groups anyway, but it happens on an individualised basis. This SOP will empower the legislation to say that the authority can do that across the board. If industry is happy with that, then we are happy with that—but we would like to have that confirmed. Otherwise, we support the rest of the bill, as we have from the start.

Obviously, we have a lot of skin in the game as far as ”New Zealand Inc.” is concerned, and, like other parties in the House, we understand the importance of “New Zealand Inc.” working together, single-desk marketing, large cooperatives—those sorts of approaches. This is a halfway measure toward that, which, as Mr O’Connor points out, could be applied to the meat industry and, perhaps, other sectors. So, confirmation on the SOP aside, we continue to support the bill, and I look forward to hearing more from the Minister on that. Thank you.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. This will be a relatively short call on the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill, which the Green Party is supporting. We would also, like the previous speaker, Richard Prosser, welcome a bit more explanation from the Minister for Primary Industries about why this Supplementary Order Paper 247 is arising at this stage—whether it was the result of a genuine misunderstanding in the Primary Production Committee—but it looks reasonable at first glance.

The Green Party is supporting this bill because, like many others, we recognise the huge potential for increasing the value of our horticultural crops by doing more around marketing. I was fortunate enough to be on the Speaker’s delegation to China recently, and in Yunnan we visited a Dutch horticulturalist company that had huge glasshouses growing millions of orchids each year for on-growing both in China and Europe, and in New Zealand. The Dutch director of this company happened to be in Kunming at the time, and he said in his presentation that his dream for his company was to “do a Zespri” and develop a brand that was as appreciated by consumers around the world as Zespri. Zespri is obviously recognised here as being a major success story because of that decision back in 1997 by New Zealand growers to unite the export and marketing of kiwifruit under one brand and develop the success of that brand through a lot of innovation, a lot of research, and a lot of development, but with a single-desk marketing approach.

That is why this bill is a good one, because it is a major step to making available for our fruit and vegetable sector, and for more groups within that sector, the ability to do much more sophisticated marketing strategies to ensure that, through the licensing system that the Horticulture Export Authority manages and oversees, there are controls and standards around produce that is exported that work to actually protect the reputation of our horticultural products overseas. We have seen a major growth in horticultural produce and its value in the export sector in the last few years.

It is surprising, given the Government’s Business Growth Agenda and the goal of doubling the value of primary sector exports, that the Government has not moved faster with this bill—that it has taken 5 years, and for the last 5 years the Horticulture Export Authority has had annual reports where it has asked about the progress on the bill and called for it to be passed. It is surprising that the Government has not given it a greater priority, but it is a useful step, with this multi-tiered marketing system that it will implement, with the increase in the offence provisions if you do not export under a licence, and with the greater sharing of information between the authority and the Ministry of Primary Industries and Customs. I will not hold up the progress of the bill any longer—the Green Party supports the bill.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 247 in the name of the Hon Nathan Guy be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill with amendment, and no progress on the Children, Young Persons, and their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.