Wednesday, 16 November 2016

WEDNESDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2016

WEDNESDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2016

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

Pacific Parliamentary Forum—Delegates

Mr SPEAKER: Honourable members, I am sure that members would wish to welcome delegates from the parliaments of the Pacific region attending the Pacific Parliamentary Forum, who are present in the gallery.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Economic Impact and Government Financial Position

1. NUK KORAKO (National) to the Minister of Finance: How does New Zealand’s growing economy and the Government’s commitment to responsible fiscal management mean New Zealand is well placed to respond to the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): As we have asserted to the House many times, the Government is focused on getting its books back into surplus and maintaining growing surpluses, for exactly the reason that we need to be able to handle economic shocks, including natural disasters. So with a manageable level of public debt, surpluses, and a growing economy, we are well positioned to respond to the Kaikōura earthquake. Treasury has advised that the economy has relatively strong momentum, and business and consumer confidence, and with low public debt and strong surplus there is fiscal headroom to support the rebuild and recovery.

Nuk Korako: What market commentary has he seen on the ability of the New Zealand economy to respond to the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Market reaction has been relatively limited, which is reassuring, given that the international coverage of the earthquake has tended to emphasise its more dramatic aspects. The New Zealand dollar fell initially, but has largely now reversed that fall. BNZ reports that the hit to GDP will be substantially less than the Christchurch impact, although there will be some significant short-term effects for the regional economy and some pretty dramatic effects on some industries—potentially, the fishing industry. Activity, of course, will be significantly boosted by the rebuilding of infrastructure.

Nuk Korako: What advice has he received from officials on progress in responding to the earthquake, and what indications are there of fiscal implications?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: We are fortunate that the main impact has fallen outside highly populated areas, but, of course, the impact on the smaller communities is intense. Officials advise that the most significant impacts are likely to be increased infrastructure expenditure to repair roads and other utilities infrastructure, and decreased tax revenue in the short term as a result of business disruption. No cost estimates are yet available at this stage. The Government’s focus at this point is on immediate response, but, of course, a number of organisations, such as owners of buildings and ports, will be making their own estimates of damage.

Nuk Korako: How does the Government’s ongoing commitment to fiscal responsibility mean that New Zealand remains well placed to respond to future shocks?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: As the Government’s books have come into surplus, it was always going to be a challenge to manage rising expectations about what the extra money could be spent on. This week’s earthquake is a sharp reminder of why fiscal restraint will need to be ongoing—that is, having surpluses does not mean that the Government can go spending more money on ineffective public services or infrastructure that may not be needed. We know that there will be economic and natural disaster shocks at some point in the future—we certainly did not predict this one so soon after the Christchurch earthquakes—so it reinforces the need for the Government to stick to its approach, which has been successful.

Earthquakes—Lessons from Canterbury, Funding for Related Agencies, and Affected Government Buildings

Mr SPEAKER: My office has been advised that the answers to questions Nos 2 and 4 will be longer than normal, as the Prime Minister attempts to give more detail.

2. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Has he spoken to relevant Ministers about the lessons learnt from the Canterbury earthquakes to ensure people affected by the recent earthquakes have an easier and faster recovery?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I have had several discussions with Ministers about ensuring that affected communities receive the support they need, both immediately and over coming months. We can take some lessons from Canterbury, but the latest earthquake and aftershocks present some quite different challenges. In particular, I refer to the enormous damage to State Highway 1, which has isolated Kaikōura—I saw the damage again first hand this morning; it is clear that repairs will be a huge undertaking—and the affected communities in North Canterbury and Marlborough are more rural and spread out than in Christchurch. As I said in the House yesterday, the Government will stand alongside affected communities. That includes providing immediate support and emergency supplies that they need, and evacuating people who need to get out. It includes working to restore vital transport and communication links. Finally, we will ensure that the Government provides the financial support needed for a successful recovery and rebuild.

Andrew Little: Why is Geonet still not funded to be staffed overnight and on weekends?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I simply do not have those details. You would need to put that down, I think, to the civil defence Minister.

Andrew Little: Has he received advice on the number of Earthquake Commission (EQC) claims lodged so far as a result of the recent earthquakes?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Last night the Minister responsible said to me that there had been quite a number of inquiries, but not a lot of lodged claims. One thing I would say is that if you look at Christchurch and both the number of claims that were filed and the repairs that were undertaken, I think it is not correct to say that EQC did not do a good job. I think there were an enormous number of claims—well over 65,000—that were successfully completed to the satisfaction of the homeowners. But it is certainly true that there were some that needed to be done again, and we need to learn some lessons from that.

Andrew Little: Just in light of that answer, then, what steps has the Government taken to prevent a repeat of the situation in which Cantabrians are still, even today, being shunted back and forth between the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and their private insurance company?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There has been consideration given by EQC and insurers to see whether there is potentially a better way of operating and a better model. One of the insurance companies has been trialling, with the blessing of EQC, a different way of potentially handling the full claim, if you like, with recourse back to EQC. That may, ultimately, be a change in the system over time, but the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission will need to consider the merits of all of those arguments and, obviously, seek a formal change if that was the way it was to operate.

Andrew Little: Can he confirm that the Ministry of Defence headquarters has been evacuated, and what impact does this have on the Defence Force’s ability to help people following these earthquakes?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In terms of the latter part of the question, I do not think there is any impact that I have been made aware of. I was with the Chief of Defence Force in Kaikōura about an hour or so ago. Yes, I am aware that Defence House has suffered some structural damage. Just how long it will be out of action for I do not know. Like any building though, of course, even when buildings are built to a very high level of code it does not mean that they cannot and do not suffer damage as a result of an earthquake. What it means is that they provide a greater level of safety for those working in the building. It looks, if you consider the number of buildings that have suffered major structural damage, by the looks of things, that the intensity of the earthquake has been particularly strong at one point here in the Wellington CBD. In the end, we will have to look at that. As the member may be aware, there will be discussions with the council and others tonight about the Statistics New Zealand building, and there will be discussions about a number of other Government buildings as well.

Andrew Little: What steps is he taking to respond to the evacuation of Statistics House, the Ministry of Defence headquarters, and now Pipitea House due to the damage from the earthquake that they were supposed to be able to withstand; and just how compromised are Government services, given the number of Public Service buildings that seem to have been evacuated?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am not aware of a major deterioration in the services that can be provided, but clearly people have moved out of buildings, and we need to do that if they are structurally unsafe; we cannot put people back in buildings that are unsafe. There may be some inconvenience and there may be some reduction in service. As I said earlier, it is actually not correct to say that even if a building is built to a strong and a high level of code compliance, it cannot and does not suffer damage as a result of an earthquake. They sometimes do. But, again, people will need to go and have a look at that and get a proper assessment. There is a formal review of all the buildings being taken—or, at least, a formal assessment of the buildings that is being taken—to make sure that they are safe, and people would expect that.

Andrew Little: What measures will be put in place to ensure greater oversight of the quality of building repairs, to ensure that communities do not suffer, or at least do not face the same issues as homeowners have in Christchurch?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot answer that question. The Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission might be able to give the member some insights. There were learnings that came out of the Christchurch earthquakes, for sure, and they are learnings that EQC has taken on board. The Chairman of EQC, Sir Maarten Wevers, is well-known, both to this Parliament and to New Zealanders, I think, as someone who is of very high quality as a chairman, so he will be making sure that if there are lessons that need to be learnt, they will be followed through with.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Government Response

3. STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura) to the Minister of Civil Defence: What update can he provide about the Government’s response to the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources) on behalf of the Minister of Civil Defence: This morning I accompanied the Prime Minister on his second visit to Kaikōura since the earthquake. I was able to see first hand the extensive damage to essential connections and basic infrastructure, which has isolated Kaikōura from the north and also from the south. I can report that agencies from across Government are working together to support Kaikōura and affected areas. Essential supplies continue to be delivered to Kaikōura, and teams on the ground are ensuring that all members of the affected communities are contacted to ensure their well-being. The response stepped up today with the arrival of HMNZS Wellington and HMNZS Canterbury. These vessels will assist in the evacuation operations and will prepare for continued operations with the delivery of supplies. Ministry of Defence helicopters will continue to provide relief supplies to affected people. Can I personally thank everyone who has worked long hours and has helped with this effort to date. As the response continues, the Government is here to support the communities of Kaikōura and affected areas.

Stuart Smith: What additional support is being provided to the disaster response?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I would just like to acknowledge that the New Zealand Government has been offered help from a number of nations that are involved in the International Naval Review, and the New Zealand Defence Force is assessing the best use of these ships and aircraft. The Royal New Zealand Navy has already sent HMNZS Canterbury and HMNZS Wellington to Kaikōura, which arrived this morning. It will also send the frigate HMNZS Te Kaha and the fleet tanker HMNZS Endeavour, which are expected to arrive tomorrow morning. The ships Vancouver, Sampson, and Darwin are currently en route. They are expected to arrive in Kaikōura overnight, and their embarked helicopters will provide, I think, a very significant addition to the humanitarian operation under way. Although the New Zealand Defence Force was well placed to respond to the unfolding situation in Kaikōura and surrounding districts, we are very grateful for the help offered. It is heartening to see overseas partners so willing to alter their plans and to offer assistance.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—South Island Communities

4. RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Can he update the House on the situation in quake-affected areas in the South Island?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Maybe it would be best if I just gave a quick summary of the most recent visit we have had there—a couple of hours ago. What I can say is that, on the one hand, I think spirits are actually quite high in the Kaikōura region. There has been significant additional support coming from police, coming from the military, and coming from civil defence. The locals, I think, in that regard, are feeling well supported by this Parliament and by the services that support them. Secondly, what was clear is that there is real concern about the upcoming tourism season and the capacity for tourists to actually get into Kaikōura because of the damage to the road. I think the Government will need to provide a business support package, and the Minister responsible, Steven Joyce, is likely to make that announcement in the next 24 hours, in a package that would be similar in nature, I think, to what took place in Christchurch.

The only other point that is probably worthy of note for the House is that I think it is increasingly possible, if not likely, that the House will have to pass some sort of emergency legislation, and political parties will need to think about that. Just to give you one example: because of the lift in the seabed floor, the advice we got from those running whale-watching was that they would be able to operate for only 2 hours a day. I think that this House knows that to fix that issue would require some dredging, which would require a resource consent process that is likely to be very slow. I told the local business people that I thought this Parliament was unified in its support of the people of Kaikōura and the region, and that I thought that if emergency legislation was required, enough political parties would support that to allow it to take place. I also mentioned it to Mark Solomon from Ngāi Tahu, as a pretty interested stakeholder in what has taken place.

Ron Mark: What specific updates does the Prime Minister have on the situation on small settlements like Hanmer Springs, Cheviot, Parnassus, Rotherham, Culverden, Ward, and Seddon?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think it is fair to say they are each in slightly different places. Some have had electricity and the likes fully restored; some have not. There is an outreach campaign that is happening, so they are going out to all of those individual communities. They are visiting them and they are trying to visit each of the individual farms and isolated houses to make sure that they have got the support that they need. There are, as I understand it, in the wider area 22 farms there that are dairy farms. I met with the representatives of them. They are all Fonterra farms. They are dealing with the situation as best as they possibly can at the moment. So if you want a very detailed answer we can obviously get that from the different departments, but I think they are literally going around and dealing with the variety of issues, which all fit around the same areas: the restoration of electricity, water, telecommunications networks, and roading access.

Ron Mark: Has the Prime Minister received any updates or any information on the percentage of farmers and their families who are isolated and who are yet to be contacted?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, I do not have an exact number there but I asked, effectively, that same question when we were in Kaikōura today as we met representatives of each of the different disciplines or areas. They inform me that they have been going literally house by house, community by community. So I think there has been a lot of work happening to make sure that people are being contacted and are getting support. I cannot, hand on heart, say that every single house has been contacted, because they were not able to give me that assurance, but they are certainly working their way through it as rapidly as they can. I got the impression they had covered most of them off.

Ron Mark: Did he receive any briefings this morning as to whether residents in Mt Lyford village had been contacted and asked whether they need assistance, given the reports that are coming out that are saying that people are being “left to fend for themselves”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, and obviously we will follow up on those reports.

Ron Mark: Did the Prime Minister have an opportunity to speak with Waiau fire chief Hugh Wells this morning, who was quoted in a British newspaper story posted at midday as saying “It has been very frustrating watching all the reporters flying around taking pictures but not landing to help us or seeing if we are OK.”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: From memory, no, he was not there, but the fire service absolutely was there and regionally represented. They gave us an update of the number of fire service personnel and the work that they were doing. With respect, the journalists are having to rely for the most part on the military capability to get in and out of the areas, so that, in the first instance, has been going to Kaikōura because of the logistics of the number of people who are there. Again, we will follow up on those issues but communities are being dealt with as rapidly as they can be, and certainly from the review that we got from the various different services, there is contact being made as best there can be.

Ron Mark: Could the Prime Minister give the House an assurance that he will personally ensure that the 200 residents in Waiau who are camping out on grass and saying that they feel like they have been forgotten, having not had any contact or assistance up until now, are so contacted and that their circumstances are given some attention?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, we will follow up on the matter.

Climate Change Policy—Leadership and Donald Trump

5. JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Is he committed to all his Government’s policies?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

James Shaw: Is he committed to cutting New Zealand’s domestic greenhouse gas emissions despite US President-elect Donald Trump’s stated commitment to withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and to investing heavily in coal?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, and I think that is one of the things that the Government has been saying for a long period of time: that we have got a plan when it comes to climate change. I think we have been very consistent about implementing that plan. I think it is consistent with best practice in the world, except that the Government has always said that it wants to be a fast follower, not a leader. But we are committed to the commitments we made in Paris, and we do not have any intention to change them.

James Shaw: Would he be prepared to re-evaluate his position, of New Zealand as a fast follower on climate change, given the calls for greater leadership at the Marrakech climate change conference, which wraps up on Friday?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, the Minister is there—Paula Bennett is representing the Government. I do not think there is a need for New Zealand to change what it is doing. I think that in areas where we really can be a leader, which I think have always been agricultural emissions and scientific work, we really are doing good work there. I think that in terms of our emissions trading scheme, as I have so often said, others may claim to have one but very few seem to have one that is across most sectors and operating pretty well. The Government is on track to be 90 percent renewable, from an energy perspective, by 2025. I think that by most measures we have been quite consistent in our view when it comes to climate change. Some countries, if you think about it over the last 8 years, have made soaring comments in both directions. I think we have plotted a middle path, and it is probably proving to be about right.

James Shaw: Would he be prepared to join Ban Ki-moon and Francois Hollande and call on Mr Trump to drop his campaign pledge to cancel the Paris climate agreement?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think a better way to phrase that would be—having had a conversation with the President-elect this morning, we expressed an interest, at an appropriate point after he is sworn in, to have a more broad discussion about a range of issues, including trade, and climate change would be one of those. I personally hope that the United States will actually honour the commitments that were made in Paris, because if you look—as I have argued so often to this House—the issue of climate change is a global issue, but we really need those huge emitters to be part of the solution. That includes the United States, China, and, of course, India. The genesis of the work that President Obama took to Paris was really a bipartisan agreement reached with Xi Jinping from China. So the risk, of course, is that if the United States is not actively engaged, other big emitters might not be as well. Given the very strong scientific evidence about the rate of global warming that is taking place, I think that that would be very dangerous for the planet and for countries, so we will certainly be raising the issue of climate change, along with a number of others, when we talk to the President-elect when he becomes President of the United States.

James Shaw: Given the probable loss of US leadership on climate change, will New Zealand demonstrate greater leadership by, for example, ending deep-sea oil exploration in our oceans?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, and I think the reason for that is that, as we have often said, there is no question that the world is going to move towards fewer fossil fuels and more efficiency over time. But I genuinely believe that if New Zealand stopped drilling for deep-sea oil, or for oil in general, then that oil would just be found from another source supplied by another country. I do not think that it would actually achieve anything.

Mental Health Services, Canterbury—Kaikōura Earthquake Aftermath

6. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statement that following the Valentine’s Day earthquake this year in Canterbury, “it was timely to review whether any additional mental health and wellbeing support was needed”; if so, will he consider reviewing whether any additional support is needed for Canterbury and Nelson-Marlborough district health boards as a result of the recent earthquakes?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Yes; and yes. Officials have been in constant contact with the district health boards (DHBs) since Monday’s earthquake, and the Government will be doing everything that is required to ensure that people have access to the services they need. As with earlier earthquakes, we are always monitoring the levels of resourcing required. Services come first for the people of Kaikōura, great support is being provided, and we will continue to follow matters closely.

Hon Annette King: Can he provide reassurance that the Canterbury District Health Board will be able to provide additional mental health services to the people affected by the recent earthquake in light of its projected $37 million end-of-year deficit, mainly due to previous earthquake-related costs?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes, it will, and do not forget that the Government covers that deficit and has each year. Since the earthquakes, there has been a total of $106 million extra support provided to the Canterbury DHB to cover the impact of those earthquakes. Specifically with regard to mental health, the spend there has gone up from $123 million 8 years ago to $155 million in the past year. That has been an increase of 25 percent.

Hon Annette King: If Healthline is answering, at their peak, 150 percent more calls than usual, as he said yesterday, will he consider securing additional resources for it to cover the additional costs of staff etc., and not only it but the two Healthlines that are responding to people affected by the earthquake?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Thank you for that question. There have been extra resources put in place. An extra two mental health workers and 20 hours of nursing time have been provided. The calls peaked on day one at 150 percent of normal volume, but the advice is that they have tapered off in the meantime.

Hon Annette King: What travel and accommodation assistance, if any, will be made available to people from the Kaikōura region who are required to travel to Christchurch for mental health services arising from the recent earthquake?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: We have not got details on that at this point, but people have not so far travelled to Christchurch specifically for that purpose, but officials are keeping us updated on the resources that are needed along the way.

Hon Annette King: Is there the potential for burn-out of mental health and addiction staff at the Canterbury District Health Board, given the number of vacancies amongst senior medical officers and the crisis resolution team?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Obviously, they are working in an area of the health service that comes with quite a burden in terms of stress on workers, and it is something that the Canterbury District Health Board will have to look out for and take appropriate action on as a good employer, to make sure that those risks are mitigated.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Transport Infrastructure

7. JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to the Minister of Transport: What updates has he received on damage to transport infrastructure following the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): This morning the MP for Kaikōura, Stuart Smith, and I joined the Prime Minister for a briefing and fly-over of the widespread devastation caused by the Kaikōura earthquake in the early hours of Monday morning. It is clear that there has been incredibly significant damage to local roads and State Highway 1 between Picton and Christchurch. Crews are working hard to repair roads where it is possible and safe to do so, and although alternative access routes are being established, it is now very clear that it may be many months before roads are fully operational, especially given what is now likely to be an unprecedented level of damage to the State highway network. I just want to thank all those who are working around the clock to clear and repair the State highways and local roads.

Jacqui Dean: What progress has been made on repairing and restoring transport infrastructure and services?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: As the Prime Minister has said, it is clear that there has been widespread devastation and that the transport links with some towns have been cut—Kaikōura being the biggest example of that. I just want to reassure those who are currently cut off that our absolute priority at the moment is to restore transport to them. Crews are working around the clock in the upper South Island and in and around Wellington to repair transport infrastructure and to get services back up and running. The current priority is to open the inland road to Kaikōura so that people can get in and out by vehicle and so that we can get more supplies into the town. It is hoped that we will have this inland road open by this weekend, and, as I say, people are working around the clock to ensure that. The Transport Agency is also working closely with local authorities and local contractors to understand the extent of damage to local roads and to reopen links where it is possible and safe to do so.

Denis O’Rourke: Will the Government fund new roll-on, roll-off facilities and a passenger terminal at Lyttelton to enable KiwiRail and other ferry operators to ship freight and passengers to and from Wellington?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I think it is far too early to make those kinds of predictions. We are doing the work, and I think the member can be rest assured, in terms of the underlying issues of getting freight in and around the South Island—the Mainland—that we will make sure that happens.

Denis O’Rourke: Will the Government carry out a comprehensive inquiry into a possible new road and rail connection along the Awatere Valley and the Molesworth Road from Seddon to Hanmer Springs, including a tunnel at Wards Pass if necessary, as a means of providing faster high-capacity and resilient road and rail routes to Christchurch and the rest of the South Island in the longer term?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Our absolute commitment is to have a safe, resilient, and very efficient network for transport in the South Island, including road and rail. The member, it is important to note, should recall that State Highway 7 is open. That is getting freight through from Canterbury to Picton and vice versa. Of course, we are also, as I said yesterday, actively exploring other options to, as I say, make this the strongest, most resilient network it can possibly be.

James Shaw: Given the future risk to State Highway 1 and to the rail line from climate-related storm surges and rising seas, would he be willing to do a full evaluation of alternative inland routes as an option alongside the business cost ratio for the full rebuild of the existing route?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I think the member can be rest assured that we will be doing thorough work in relation to the roading network, and the State highway network in particular. I think there are good reasons, though, why State Highway 1 is, broadly speaking, where it is. But as I have said now and in the media a number of times in the last 24 hours, the exact route where it is may require realignment, and I think there will be—to ensure that safe, resilient network that he and I both want—some necessity for improvement and change on what is there.

Pay Equity—Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles

8. JAN LOGIE (Green) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: What is his response to yesterday’s call from members of the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles for the Government to “immediately right this historic wrong and implement the JWG principles”?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I presume the member’s question refers to correspondence to the Prime Minister dated 15 November and copied to Minister Bennett and me. That correspondence was from the trade union members of the joint working group, not the working group overall. Nevertheless, the Government will be in a position to respond to all of the members of the joint working group in the near future. As I have said before, the Government acknowledges that this is a significant issue, and we are fully committed to finding a clear and workable solution for all parties involved.

Jan Logie: Given that he told me 3 months ago in this House that we could expect a response in the “not too distant future”, can he please be more specific on when women will know—are we talking days, weeks, months, years?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I can confirm we are much closer to the distant future that I described in August, the last time, so I would call it the near future.

Jan Logie: Is it acceptable that the women who 18 months ago put aside their legal claims for equal pay so that this work could be done are still waiting for a response from this Government?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The process has been a very long one. They put aside those claims in order to seek a resolution with the Ministry of Health. I understand that work is also continuing. But I think everybody would accept that these are complex issues—indeed, that is what the joint working group told me and Minister Bennett when it wrote with its recommendations to me in June. I maintain that it is important that we get it right rather than get it early, and that is what we will do.

Jan Logie: Is it not true that if the joint working group had not been set up, the court would probably have already established the principles?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, that is purely speculation, and, indeed, the Government is not a party to those court processes. But if I were a betting man, I would be betting on the answer to that question being “absolutely not”.

Jan Logie: As the Minister responsible for addressing pay equity, is he satisfied that, as of yesterday, the average woman in this country is, effectively, working for nothing because women are paid 13 percent less than men and his Government is delaying the essential work to change this?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: In respect of the first part of the question, I am the Minister responsible for administering the legal framework regarding employment relations and equal pay, and that is what I will do diligently. In respect of the second question, no, I do not agree.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Support for Small Businesses

9. JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to the Minister for Economic Development: When is he likely to announce a recovery or support package for small businesses in earthquake-affected areas?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): Work is progressing at the moment on a business support package for businesses in the area most affected by the Kaikōura earthquakes. I am not able to give the member the exact time of when an announcement might be made, but I would hope that I will be able to provide more details in the next day or so.

Jacinda Ardern: Has he or his officials worked with small-business owners at all in the design of a small-business assistance package, as was done in Christchurch?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: In the time available, we have not worked with a significant number of small-business owners themselves, but my officials have been talking to, for example, the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce. I myself have been talking with Winston Gray, the Kaikōura mayor, and my colleague Stuart Smith, the MP for Kaikōura, has also been having input on behalf of his constituents.

Jacinda Ardern: Will the criteria for small-business support be similar to past packages, or will he build in criteria that recognise that some businesses may not experience physical damage but will suffer significantly due to a drop in demand for their services?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: We are working on those details at the moment. I think the member raises an interesting point. The nature of the impact in Kaikōura is a bit different, in some ways, from what we have seen in past incidents, and it is more affected by the relative isolation caused by the closure of State Highway 1 in both north and south directions. That will be one of the considerations, obviously, in terms of this package.

Jacinda Ardern: At this stage, is he looking to develop both a short-term package of relief but also a medium-term package of support to cater for the needs of businesses that count on a tourism high season to carry them through the year?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not in a position to give the exact details of the package today, but, obviously, one of the considerations is for what period of time businesses will be in a position of not being able to have their normal tourism season. Unfortunately, we do not have that knowledge to date, although I would point out that the New Zealand Transport Agency—and I have had discussions with my colleague Minister Bridges—is talking in months rather than weeks in terms of the return of that road in both directions to a serviceable level.

Jacinda Ardern: What work, if any, is he aware of being done to improve the communication links for small businesses in the area, where mobile communications, for instance, are reportedly failing frequently?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There is a range of work being done. Some of it has been in the public domain. But in terms of the attempt to use different additional networks for telecommunications to back up the loss of fibre-optic cable down the main trunk line, I am pleased to report to the member that I was talking to the mayor earlier today and he said that telecommunications in the area have improved dramatically today. We will be getting further updates as to the likely reliability of that, in the coming days. But we are seeing services, not just telecommunications, steadily resume and I think that is a tribute to all the people working on those infrastructure services for the people of Kaikōura and the surrounding districts.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—New Zealand Police

10. KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) to the Minister of Police: What are New Zealand Police doing to support the Kaikōura community?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police): The New Zealand Police is working extremely closely with Civil Defence, the New Zealand Defence Force, fire, and other emergency services, community partners, and iwi, particularly at Takahanga Marae. Seven local Kaikōura police officers have been on the ground since the initial earthquake, working to provide immediate emergency response and to support the safety and well-being of the community. I would like to acknowledge the total professionalism and commitment of these local police staff who, like others in Kaikōura, have suffered personally but continue to look after their community. The New Zealand Police has also sent a further 19 sworn officers and approximately 10 non-sworn staff to Kaikōura. I am advised that there are plenty of sworn police staff on the ground in Kaikōura to meet any and all needs for service. So if help is needed, people are urged to make contact.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What reports has she had about the Police focus in Kaikōura today?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The Police Commissioner, Mike Bush, has travelled to Kaikōura today. He has advised me that the current focus of the Police is on coordinating the evacuation of approximately a thousand people from Kaikōura. I have been advised that the Police are also prioritising Community Reach Out, which is, essentially, doorknocking, with Civil Defence volunteers and Defence, in and around Kaikōura today, to ensure that residents are getting the support that they need. They are also reaching all areas of the community, utilising air support from Defence to get to remote areas. I would like also to acknowledge and thank Sir Mark Solomon for his leadership of Ngāi Tahu, who have been outstanding in their support. I know the Police is very grateful for the support of Sir Mark and Ngāi Tahu.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Secondary School Exams

11. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: When did she first discuss the potential impact of Monday’s 7.5 earthquake on NCEA and Scholarship exams with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Although my first direct contact with the Chief Executive of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) was at approximately 8 a.m., I was in continuous contact, from approximately 6 a.m., with the Acting Secretary for Education on the status of schools, including the likely impact on examinations. I was concerned to ensure one source of coordination, to minimise operational distraction in what was a very fluid situation.

Chris Hipkins: Why did she not ask the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to postpone all of Monday’s exams, at first light that day, when it was clear that there was extensive but unquantified damage, that serious aftershocks were continuing, that many students had had little sleep, and that thousands were anxious for their relatives’ safety?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I was relying on the technical expertise of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and their experience through the Christchurch earthquakes. The advice I received from them was that 48,500 students were sitting NCEA that day, of which, in the areas directly affected by the earthquakes, something like just over 13,500 students could have or might have been affected. Their concern, which I share, was that although three-quarters of students were not in the areas directly affected by the earthquakes, they too would not be put at a disadvantage by the examinations being cancelled for all of them when there was a process to deal with those who might be.

Chris Hipkins: Does she think it is fair that students who had studied hard for an exam because they needed a good result in order to get NCEA for their future study and employment are either denied the opportunity to sit or have to sit when they are sleep deprived and are still being shaken by aftershocks?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The emergency derived grade process, which was the one that was used in the greater Christchurch area and is used for exceptional emergency situations, relies on the school using the assessments throughout the year to make the case.

Hon Trevor Mallard: There were no quakes during the NCEA exams in Christchurch. That’s just not true—just not true.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: It is true that that is the process that is used and that is the process that is being applied here.

Chris Hipkins: Why is she claiming that the derived grade process was used following the Christchurch earthquakes, which were in September and February, when there were no NCEA exams?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I am not claiming it; I am stating it on the advice of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. Where students’ academic records might be affected by an emergency or exceptional circumstances, this is the process that is in place and was used during the greater Christchurch earthquakes.

Chris Hipkins: Is she aware that the derived grade process will penalise those students whose internal assessments through the year do not necessarily reflect their true abilities because they may not have been as prepared and they may have been relying on their exams to get them through their NCEA?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: In this situation, we are weighing up the fact that three-quarters of students were not in the areas directly affected by earthquakes. Secondly, we know that schools are interested in the best results for their students and will be making cases based on that.

Chris Hipkins: Will she commit to ensuring that those students who had to sit NCEA exams on Monday, during the aftershocks, and that those unable to sit the exams that they had been scheduled to sit on Monday will be given an opportunity to sit a fresh exam before the end of the year; if not, why not?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: No; because that is not the advice I have received from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, which is the expert on this. It is not a matter of political intervention to determine the academic results of students. That is why we have an independent qualifications authority that operates with integrity and that is respected for that, and it will ensure, along with the schools of these students, that it does the best by them.

Chris Hipkins: Will the completed examination papers of the students who completed scholarship exams on Monday that had already been cancelled be marked, as NZQA has advised on Twitter; if so, how will those results be fairly compared with those of students who will be sitting a different exam at a later date?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: This is an area that I have asked for advice on from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, and I am expecting to receive that advice.

Chris Hipkins: How is it fair to set different exams for different students at different times, given that the results of scholarship exams determine the allocation of awards that can be worth tens of thousands of dollars to each student?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I imagine that the irony of the member promoting exactly that course for the NCEA exams now opposing it for the scholarship exams has not been lost on this House. Again, I will reiterate that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority takes its role extremely seriously and will ensure, in discussions with schools, that they arrive at the best result in what has been an unanticipated, exceptional emergency situation.

Earthquake, Kaikōura—Primary Sector

12. IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister for Primary Industries: What recent reports has he received on the impact of the recent earthquakes on the primary sector?

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): The earthquakes and following disruption have had a major impact on the wider primary sector around North Canterbury and the top of the South Island. My sympathies go to everyone who has been affected. There has been widespread and extensive damage to farmland and buildings. In some cases, stock has been isolated and water supplies damaged. Many farmers are still busy assessing the damage on their own individual farms to get a full picture, but the big challenge ahead will be repairing infrastructure. All dairy cows in the affected areas are now being milked; however, some dairy farms cannot get their milk collected due to road closures and are having to spread milk back on pasture in a controlled way.

Ian McKelvie: What other primary sector industries have been affected?

Hon NATHAN GUY: The Ministry for Primary Industries is working closely with the Kaikōura community to analyse the impact of the earthquake, in particular on local fisheries. The seabed has lifted several metres out of the water in places along the coastline, exposing pāua and crayfish habitats. As a result, there may need to be some areas closed to fishing in the short term, once this has been discussed with local groups. Some wineries in Marlborough have suffered damage to storage tanks and lost some wine. Engineers are checking the damage, and early indications are that this has been a more significant impact than the 2013 earthquake. Overall, this is a real blow to North Canterbury, given it is an area that has been suffering through a drought for nearly 3 years; however, there is a whole-of-Government response under way and the community is pulling together.

Richard Prosser: Can he assure farmers and other primary producers that undertaking necessary emergency remedial actions due to circumstances beyond their control will not lead to an unreasonable response from some authorities, as has happened on occasion during and after natural disasters in the past?

Hon NATHAN GUY: My understanding, in particular, is that Environment Canterbury is taking a very pragmatic response in dealing with local farmers, and that it understands the issues that they are facing.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I am sure that all members of this House are united in offering absolute solidarity to the people affected by the earthquakes in the early hours of Monday morning. We just offer that solidarity to those who—fortunately, in so few cases—have lost loved ones, those who have been isolated, those who are picking up the pieces of damage, and those who are working there. We offer our thoughts and our feelings, I am sure, united as a House in relation to that. All of us, in a sense, have been affected by these earthquakes. Indeed, here in this House we have felt them—but, of course, not to the same extent as many of those there in the South Island. Also, in respect of some of the effects here, around Wellington, I will just say once again that I am sure we are united in offering our solidarity.

I was in Kaikōura this morning. I was there with the local member of Parliament, Stuart Smith. I say that he is doing a great job. He knows the people there and is feeding back—[Interruption] That is right. He is feeding back to Ministers like myself the issues that he is hearing about in isolated communities, that he is hearing about in Kaikōura. I just thank him for what he is doing. Also there was the Prime Minister, who was there the day after those earthquakes and then today, and for whom, I know, this is very personal. He is really taking the effort to understand exactly what is happening and to make sure that the Government, at every level, is supporting the efforts.

We of course met with the civic leadership. We met with Winston Gray, the mayor. We met with his chief executive. We met with the many Government agencies there, from the junior through to the most senior. We met with police and defence and health personnel in a range of areas there, through to the workers and the business people, who are very grateful, I think it is fair to say, for what they see happening from this Parliament and Government. We take that very seriously. And through to the tourists, who also, clearly, would greatly prefer not to be caught up in these earthquakes, but who I think are resolute—all of the people I have mentioned are resolute and determined, and without wanting to paint a rosy picture of it, they had a solidarity and a strength to them, and an upbeat-ness about what they were doing. So I just want to pay tribute to all of those involved down there, particularly the workers—the people who are really making a difference.

We saw some fantastic examples of that this morning when we were down there. We went to the local marae there with Sir Mark Solomon, and many others as well, and they have literally been feeding about 500 people every mealtime, and they were not meagre rations, I have to say. When we were there, they were cooking up fish, there were stews, and they are doing, I think, just a tremendous job for those who are looking for company; looking for food and sustenance. Indeed, the tourists there—although this will not be, I think, one of their positive experiences in life—will go back to their home countries with memories of what they had there.

The police are going out to isolated areas. I met some of those who had come down from Auckland, and the work that they are doing is, really, pastoral work, and I would just like to pay tribute to those people.

As Minister of Transport, can I say it is very clear that these issues of transportation and connection, and getting access back, and also dealing with the freight issues of Canterbury, are going to be some of the biggest issues that we face. Of course, the immediate concern here is about providing the supplies and the services, but for me—and I know this is something the Prime Minister has a very strong sense of—the No. 1 priority is getting access back to the communities in these areas. I think the news so far is good. The work being done on State Highway 70 to have it back up and running so that the people of Kaikōura are connected in days rather than in months is important.

No one, I think, having seen the pictures—nor I, having seen the damage today from the air—could underestimate the slips, the several slips, the very serious mother Nature - made realignments, or could underestimate the work that is ahead of us in terms of State Highway 1 and the rail line. I want to say to this House and to those people affected by this that we will rebuild. We will rebuild that State highway network and the rail line there after the physical damage that has been done there.

Can I just once again express the solidarity of this House and pay tribute to all those who are working on the ground right now to make a difference.

ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): I want to acknowledge the Minister who has just spoken, the Hon Simon Bridges, and Stuart Smith. His stories of the marae—it has been one hell of a morning for him. Events like this—the earthquakes that we have seen in the last couple of days across New Zealand—are a test of our national character. As is always the case, it is a bit about whether we as a nation will rise to the challenge of helping those who are suffering as a result of circumstances that are beyond their control. What we have seen in Kaikōura, and further north in the South Island, around Wellington, and in other parts of New Zealand is a real test of the Kiwi spirit.

The things that New Zealanders have done to reach out to each other, to reach out to friends and neighbours, and to reach out to tourists and travellers who are here as our guests have been absolutely amazing. I saw it myself on Monday morning, during our brief evacuation—how Wellingtonians responded and offered a helping hand to all who were there. I think particularly of BizDojo here in Wellington, a commercial premises. The staff did not have to open their doors. They happened to be around and about at 2 o’clock in the morning, and they made their premises available to anybody in central Wellington who just needed a place to be with others and feel safe. They put on coffee and they put on snacks, and it was a very nice thing to do.

It shows that when New Zealanders are up against it, we have a sense of determination and of resourcefulness, but also we never lose our sense of kindness and compassion. We have seen that during that night and on Monday morning and throughout the day, and yesterday as well. What New Zealanders have done for each other and to each other over the last couple of days has been absolutely fantastic, and when New Zealanders are just looking for safety and security in a time of need, this experience tells us they do not have to go very far. Even Parliament itself here, Mr Speaker—no doubt, under your mandate—opened its doors early on Monday morning to offer refuge and solace to those living nearby when they needed it most. We are a country and a people who look after each other and look out for each other, and we should be very proud of that.

It is one thing to rise to the challenge of the circumstances of the day—when the adrenaline is pumping and the circumstances are novel, we are motivated by the height of our compassion to make sure our neighbours and friends are all OK—but there is a longer-term challenge that we have to rise to, and Simon Bridges, the Minister who spoke just now, spelt out some of them. They are: what does the future look like? How are we going to rise to that challenge? What are we going to do to make sure that our road and rail linkages are safe and secure for the future? What are we going to do for the community of Kaikōura? There are people there who, when they get over the adrenaline rush of the last few days and the travellers have gone—when they have been evacuated—are going to be faced with decisions about what they do, their business’ futures, and their families’ and homes’ futures.

That is when the support of the community of all New Zealand is going to be needed most, and when the support of the Government is going to be needed most, as well. Let us make sure, in the days and weeks and months that follow, that we learn from the lessons of the past, and there are no lessons stronger than those that have come out of the Canterbury earthquakes. Let us make sure that the Earthquake Commission and the insurance companies are working with each other hand in glove, not against each other at the expense of those who just want to get their insurance claims settled. Let us make sure that those who are charged with doing the rebuilding and doing the repairs do a quality job. Let us work to the principle of “Do it once and do it right”. That will ease a lot of people’s anxiety.

We cannot get over the fact that we are a country prone to earthquakes. Sir Geoffrey Palmer put it like this, once upon a time. He said: “Sometimes it does us a power of good to remind ourselves that we live on two volcanic rocks where two tectonic plates meet, in a somewhat lonely stretch of windswept ocean just above the Roaring Forties.” Add to that his description of New Zealand as a “pluvial nation”, and we get an idea of the nature of the environmental and natural hazards and risks that we face. We are that nation. That is who we are, and earthquakes are a reality for this great country of ours.

The challenge for us—actually, as somebody put it to me the other day in Kaikōura when I visited and I asked him about it: “These earthquakes are the price that we pay for being in the most beautiful country in the world.” Let us make sure that we are a safe and beautiful country, that we look after each other, and that we look after the buildings and those things that are there to make us work and keep us safe.

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): I acknowledge the contributions of the two previous speakers. If there is one thing that this Government is very good at, it is managing its way through natural disasters. I was thinking about the Christchurch earthquakes and the Pike River disaster—I mean, this Government has a lot of experience in being very reassuring to New Zealanders and, actually, to our international partners as well. I acknowledge all of the international support that is still pouring in from around the globe—people ringing the Prime Minister and others, indicating offers of support. We acknowledge that, and we thank them very much.

This Government has also shown that it can respond when we have other challenges. I was thinking that we have had a few in the primary sector, with WPC80, and the 1080 criminal blackmail scare as well. This Government has a huge amount of experience in reassuring New Zealanders and reassuring international partners around the world that we are in good shape when it comes to dealing with natural disasters or with issues that this Government has had to deal with over a period of time.

Importantly, this afternoon I want to focus back in on the issue that we are dealing with now: a significant earthquake event and aftershocks that have rattled North Canterbury, the East Coast of the South Island, and, actually, right through the North Island as well. We think about the 1,600 aftershocks, and we think about the 100,000 landslides that are estimated. Of course, we have seen the visuals of those affecting the State highway network and the rail network, but we should not forget that these landslides have affected a huge amount of rural property. There are huge tracts of sheep and beef land and, also, dairy land in the areas that have been affected.

Personal property—this is going to be a massive build for a lot of our rural communities to cope with. Of course, a lot of them will have insurance, they will work through with the Earthquake Commission their own personal property, and as a Government we will do what we can to support them through. We have proven in the past that we can support our rural communities through droughts, through flood events, and through natural events such as the event we are dealing with right now.

I am pleased to say, as I mentioned in the question to the House a few moments ago, that all of the dairy cows are now being milked. I thought it was fantastic that TV ONE was showing on Seven Sharp last night a farmer down in North Canterbury, Don Galletly, whose whole dairy system—his whole cowshed, his yard, and his facilities—has been devastated by this earthquake. A thousand cows could not be milked. What did he do, and what did his neighbours do? They got on the phone and they talked to one another, and these cows have gone and been milked on another 11 properties. These are not farmers bleating to the Government saying: “You need to do more.” These are farmers who are innovators and entrepreneurs, who understand the mentality of No. 8 fencing wire. They pick up the phone and they deal with it. They put the cows on the truck and they send them off to their neighbours to be milked. They will come back, probably in better condition, in 12 months’ time, ready for another go on this farm—because Don Galletly is indicating that he is going to rebuild.

On a positive note, we had the Global Dairy Trade auction pop up another 4.5 percent last night. That is great news for our dairy farmers, who have been struggling through a very tough time. I also acknowledge the wine industry, particularly in Marlborough. They have suffered some tank losses there, in damage. I know that engineers are out there assessing that as we speak. They are right in the middle of their bottling plant period.

We should not forget the fisheries, either, in the Kaikōura area. What has happened there is that we have seen the seabed rise, and I am getting some estimations in that it could be up a metre, it could be three metres, or it could be even higher than that. As a result of that, we have got pāua and rock lobster stranded, and, unfortunately, they will die. My message to anyone thinking that they can go in there and get a feed is: be careful. Ministry for Primary Industries food safety scientists are out there now saying that this fish will rot very quickly, and you will get a food-borne illness if you are not careful. We will work with the fishers and do what we need to do to rebuild this fishery. It is going to take some time. It is possible that there will need to be temporary closures while we work on the overall biomass.

But, as I say, this has been a whole-of-Government response. We are reassuring the community that we will do what we can to get them back on their own two feet again. Thank you.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): It is very hard, at times like this, to try to draw anything positive out of these adverse events. We went through the trauma of the Christchurch earthquakes, and then the Seddon earthquake, and now we have the Kaikōura earthquake. But I think there is one positive message we can draw, apart from the displays of extraordinary community resilience. I think there is a much deeper sense of awareness amongst all New Zealanders that earthquakes are a norm in this country. Perhaps over the last 50 or 60 years we have had a slightly abnormal period, in that there have not been that many large ones, but normality is now returning. As a consequence of that, a lot of the frivolity, bravado, and casualness with which we have approached the earthquake risk in New Zealand, historically, have gone away.

A few years ago, before the Christchurch earthquake, in the boredom of Opposition, I surveyed every local authority in New Zealand about its earthquake at-risk buildings. I received some extraordinary answers. The Auckland City Council of the time said it had not updated the list since 1956. The then Wellington City Council said: “We don’t want to make the list available, because it will scare people.” The best one of all was the Ōāmaru council—I am not sure whether it was a borough, a county, or whatever at that point—which said: “We don’t have a problem in Ōāmaru, because we build our buildings with Ōāmaru stone, the safest substance known to man.”

How things have changed. And it is really good to see that councils are now being much more proactive, both in ensuring that unsafe buildings are remediated or removed, and in being open about the information that is available to their citizens. But I do have some concerns, in the wake of the recent earthquakes, about whether that sense of openness is being continued. Last night in Wellington, very prompt action was taken to close a building in Molesworth Street, which I see is now to be demolished. Earlier today, a building in Tennyson Street in the central city was evacuated, and so it goes on. That is good, but we cannot put a cloak of silence over some other events. There are many buildings in and around central Wellington on reclaimed land that are likely to be at risk. And I say: the sooner the public is made aware of that risk, and that information, the better.

There is also the issue of the Wellington waterfront. I was down there at lunchtime today; there are large superficial cracks in many parts of it. There are questions of safety, I think, not just in terms of the public safety but also in terms of our economic safety. Is this port going to be able to continue to trade as it has done of late? What are the impacts for the regional economy, and beyond, of that? I do not want to sound as though I am sounding a churlish note—that is not my intention. I am simply saying that a public that is now engaged, right around this country, with the need for resilience and response and good activity needs to be kept informed about what the risks are and about what steps need to be taken as soon as possible, because there are many people’s lives that, literally, depend on those decisions. I do not mean their physical lives, but their economic and social lives, and they need to be kept in the loop.

I realise that at a time like this there is often a sense of “Let’s not panic people by giving them too much information.” The reality now is that most New Zealanders, be they people who have been through the earlier earthquakes or the most recent spate, have had direct experience and can take full information being provided to them. They need to know, partly for their own reassurance and partly also as they seek to recover from those earthquakes.

I have the highest regard for everyone who has been involved in relief work: our official organisations, the voluntary organisations, the many individuals who have set up websites or who have gone in and physically committed to recovery, and that is great. That is the good thing about being a New Zealander. But it is also important at this time that we work together honestly and openly at a political level, at an organisational level, and at a community level to, firstly, make a response and, secondly, ensure that our communities remain resilient and active for the future.

The next few days are going to be difficult for all of us, whatever our station, whatever our situation. We need the confidence that we are all working in the same direction for us to get through this. I have confidence that we can do it as a nation. We have done it before, and I am certain we will do it again.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Associate Minister supporting Greater Christchurch Regeneration): Sunday night was a bit like déjà vu for those of us who live in Christchurch or Canterbury. It was a shocking and a rude awakening and such a long earthquake. But this time we knew what to do. I would like to start off by saying a huge thankyou to all the emergency responders: those who leapt out of bed and snapped to attention—they did a great job. Our thoughts are also with the families, the friends, and the communities that were affected by the earthquakes, especially those who are new to earthquakes. Our sympathies are with those who are injured and particularly with those who have lost a loved one.

The National-led Government is no stranger to the difficulties of seismic activity. Over the past 6 years, we have had half a dozen major earthquakes and tens of thousands of smaller ones. The response to this most recent 7.5 magnitude earthquake has shown that we know what to do and we are here to get on with the job.

It is a really tough job being a first responder. You have to adapt, you have to improvise, and you have to overcome new and challenging situations. Making decisions is particularly difficult in such fluid situations, and I think the Prime Minister and Minister Brownlee have done an outstanding job in reassuring those affected by the earthquakes that they are committed to supporting those communities. I would also like to thank local MP Stuart Smith, who has been working so hard in the area.

We need to remember that the situations of a disaster are always different. There is no one single correct method of dealing with it. Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches, and that is exactly what our communities are doing. They are looking after each other, they are supporting each other, and they are making sure that everybody is moving in the right direction.

Shortly after the earthquakes on Monday morning, I went to the Linwood College welfare centre in Christchurch. There were over 400 people there, and they were mostly evacuated due to tsunami danger. Thankfully, of course, Christchurch was not hit by the tsunami, but there were 2-metre waves recorded in Kaikōura and a 1-metre wave recorded in Wellington. At the Linwood centre everything was really calm, very well organised and professional, and the volunteers knew exactly what to do. Mostly, people came in, they sat down, they waited it out, and they had a cup of tea. The minor emergencies were dealt with quickly and pragmatically. Everybody could be useful, and I actually ended up with the job of driving a man with very high blood pressure to the hospital and then relocating his car.

I want to thank everybody who was involved at Linwood, because they did a really good job. I know that right across the country, right across the affected area, that sort of thing is happening in communities everywhere. I suppose that if there is one thing that is consistent about these difficult times, it is that this is when the Kiwi spirit comes out. Somehow disasters seem to bring out the best in all of us. Neighbours talk to each other, they check on each other, and they support each other. I think that is something that is really heartening to know—that when things get tough, Kiwis come out and support each other in our time of need.

The same thing can be said with our international partners. In Christchurch, we were very appreciative of the offers of international support that we received. It felt like the rest of the world was there, standing beside us and working with us. This week is no different. Countries from around the world have offered their assistance this time, and we have accepted offers from the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, and Singapore—and this time they are bringing their ships and their helicopters. It is humbling to see our overseas partners prepared to work with us, and it certainly strengthens our international ties.

Finally, I think international experience and our own local experience tell us that recovery takes time. But just as our Government was there to support us in Canterbury and was committed for the long term, it will be here for Kaikōura also, and for anyone else and their communities that have been impacted by these earthquakes. Kia ora.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): About half an hour after the earthquake was first felt, Kevin Keehan realised that his family in Kaikōura would be in some danger. He was working near Wānaka. He then got in his car and he drove as far as he possibly could, and he made it all the way to Mount Lyford before the road ran out on him. The person who came to his aid was named Hugh Northcote. Hugh’s farm had been severely affected by the quake, but what he did was work with Kevin Keehan to make sure that Kevin Keehan could make it through to Kaikōura to see his family. When he was asked about that, Kevin Keehan said: “That’s what country people do, they look after [each other].” The good news is that right around New Zealand, country people and town folk alike have been looking after each other in the last couple of days.

I want to pay a huge tribute to all of those in the emergency services in New Zealand—what the Americans call first responders—who get out of their beds when something like this happens and go out no matter what is happening in their own lives. I know that in Kaikōura, with the volunteer fire brigade, there were people whose homes had been severely affected who got up and went out and helped others, and did not return home until the evening. That is the kind of spirit of response and empathy for the community that we hold so dear in New Zealand.

As I say, it was not just in the Kaikōura area that we were seeing acts like this. As has already been noted, Mr Speaker, here at Parliament you opened up the doors of the precinct so that anyone who needed to could come in. It was quite an amazing sight when I was in here early in the morning, having had a look around Wellington Central, to find dozens and dozens of people down in the foyer being looked after and being given breakfast, and having other members of the public come in to say: “Once you have to leave here, you’re welcome to come to my house.” That is the spirit of generosity that we have seen in city and in town, and I think many people around the world have been staggered by the way in which the New Zealand Parliament opened itself up, let alone the many other houses around New Zealand.

I too want to pay tribute to the member of Parliament for Kaikōura, Stuart Smith—who I think might be about to speak soon; I know he has done a huge amount of work—and to my colleague Rino Tirikatene. His electorate also covers this area, where the epicentre of the quake was. As politicians, it is a difficult time when your own community is affected, and I pay tribute to both Stuart and Rino for that. We have seen an enormous outpouring of generosity and support. I want to pay tribute too to the student armies that have been recreated down in Christchurch, here in Wellington as well, and also a special one created in Marlborough for the occasion. It is great to see that across generations people are wanting to support those who are around and are wanting to come together.

Clearly, Kaikōura is going to require a huge amount of support over the next period of time, and I want to join with other party leaders and politicians who have said that this House, together, will support them. But I also specifically want to mention the other communities in the Marlborough and North Canterbury regions that have been affected by this.

Ron Mark: As we did today.

GRANT ROBERTSON: New Zealand First did acknowledge that earlier today. I know that in my own family—for my aunt and uncle who farm near Ward, this is now the second time in 3 years that their communities have been severely affected. In their case, there are two houses on their property and they have to swap between the two as they reinforce them. Those communities have been hit hard, and they too will require our support over the coming period, and as the aftershocks continue, I know how difficult it is for them.

The other way that we come together as a country in these situation is in the services that we provide. Public services and servants have really stood up. I want to particularly pay tribute to those in the civil defence and emergency management area, right across New Zealand, but also to a couple of areas that we, perhaps, do not always note. I want to pay tribute to Geonet and the service that it provides in advising New Zealanders of hazards, and I want to particularly pay tribute to Dr Ken Gledhill, the Director of Geonet, and echo his call for a 24/7 monitoring service, in terms of tsunamis and disasters. We need that in New Zealand. It is a price that we need to pay to ensure we give New Zealanders the confidence to face these disasters.

The other agency I want to specifically mention is Radio New Zealand. All media in New Zealand have performed a good job over the last few days in keeping New Zealanders informed, but Radio New Zealand, in its role as a public broadcaster, has been outstanding in providing service to New Zealand, including Susie Ferguson’s amazing run into the studio early on Monday morning. It deserves far better support. Its funding has been frozen for 8 years. Let us make this the occasion on which the House decides we need quality public broadcasting and we will fund it properly.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): I would have to say that 2 minutes past 12 on Monday was quite a moment. I woke up to hear our daughter yelling out from down the house, and I said: “Well, you know, just stay there.” Actually, lying in bed was a pretty good way to respond to it, I thought. But anyway, that started what has been quite a surreal period.

I would like to start by acknowledging one of the first people to send me a text, Rino Tirikatene. I would like to thank him for that. I do support him in things such as JP nominations and so on—between ourselves we do work quite well together. But it has not stopped at Rino; there has been much support coming from right across the House, and I would like to acknowledge that. It is fantastic.

However, I am not the person who needs the support; it is the people who are affected by the earthquake. Once I got out of bed—when it finally stopped rocking—I headed down to the Civil Defence Emergency Management headquarters centre in Marlborough. I have to say, you know, you go right back to the Boxing Day fires in 2000—the response was not that great in Marlborough. It led to a complete review of how things were being operated. Richard McNamara, who is the chief there, is doing a fantastic job. He is internationally renowned. The systems they have in place are, I think, laudable, and they had a very swift response. Of course, we did not know at that stage what the situation was further down.

Once I learnt what had happened in Kaikōura, I decided to drive down there. I thought I would go as far as I could. When I spoke to the Mayor of Kaikōura—incidently, they had a council retreat at Saint Arnaud—a bit after 1 o’clock in the morning, they were making their way through Blenheim on their way back to Kaikōura. So I said: “Text me when you know what the road conditions are.” Nothing came through. I figured it could not have been that good. So I waited and timed my run so I would be on the coast at first light. I stopped at Seddon, and came across the community sitting around and people sleeping on the wooden deck outside the school. They made the right decision. They had assessed their houses as being dangerous, and they did what I think was very sensible: they gathered together in a place they knew was safe and sheltered there. It was great to talk to them. I went on to Ward and talked to the people in Ward, who had done something similar. I went as far as I could past the police barricade. The policeman smiled at me and more or less said: “Well, it’s against police advice but away you go.” So I went down the road as far as I could, and I got to the end and I thought: “Well, this is really going to take some fixing.” But it was not until a very kind Alan Wilkinson offered me his helicopter and I flew down there yesterday in a Hughes 500 and the pilot told me “That’s as bad as it gets.”, that I realised how bad it was.

It was pretty rough when we got down there, but to see the damage along the road—I thought I had a good handle on it on the way down, but on the way back it really hit me how big a task it is going to be to fix this. But we must fix it. It is part of the vital lifeline of New Zealand, and it is a part of Kaikōura’s absolute economic survival, so we must fix it. It reminds me that the Douglas-Cliffords set up a farm that was New Zealand’s biggest farm at Flaxbourne, and they built a wharf on the Flaxbourne River. This was in the early or mid-1800s. In 1848, I think—I stand to be corrected on the year—there was a massive earthquake that uplifted the coast, much as has happened today. That wharf was left high and dry. The river was no longer navigable, and that prompted their shift down to Stonyhurst in Canterbury, where they set up a similar operation with a wharf out on the coast, to trade with Christchurch, which was emerging as a town at that time, rather than with Wellington, which they were going to do from Flaxbourne.

The people of Kaikōura—there has been much said about them today. I have been there twice now in the last 2 days. Tomorrow I am going to North Canterbury. I am flying down there. Someone is driving my car to Christchurch as we speak, and I will be driving up into Hanmer Springs, Rotherham, Culverden, Waiau, and Cheviot, and I will try to get around as much of the area as possible over the next 2 days. Those people who are most isolated are often the worst affected and the most difficult to get to, but we will do our best to do as much as we can over the next few days. So my thoughts and sympathies go to the families of the people who lost their lives and to all those who are injured. Thank you.

BARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. We have seen the great response of citizens, iwi, and our communities in supporting each other through this crisis. But yesterday, at a time when our fellow citizens were recovering from the massive earthquake, Parliament was engaged in passing legislation. Yesterday we saw the last chapter in the long, sad story of the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA). New Zealand has been, perhaps, the first—and will possibly be the only—country to ratify an agreement that will probably never come into force. There was no possibility of it being signed in the United States before the presidential election, and there is very little possibility under the new president, President Trump, that it will be signed after the election.

A lot of people are saying that it is because of the election of Donald Trump that the TPPA has failed, and I think that is to misread the situation. Actually, the demise of the TPPA started 7 years ago, in the period when negotiations were undertaken in extreme secrecy, apart from corporate advisers, who influenced the delegates into supporting their proposal. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been what we call a Trojan Horse agreement: the kind of agreement that has, apparently, trade benefits—that is its visible sign—but it includes elements that are profoundly dangerous for our society.

We have seen a major movement rise up against the TPPA, not only in New Zealand but internationally, across the 12 countries negotiating it. We have seen fantastic work done by doctors in analysing the way it would undermine public health. Lawyers, including the Chief Justice of New Zealand and the Chief Justice of Australia, have expressed deep concern over investor-State dispute settlement provisions, which would allow foreign corporations to take cases above the Government. We have seen local government mobilise, representing 60 percent of the New Zealand public, concerned about the way the TPPA will undermine local democracy. We have seen iwi representatives take a case under the Treaty of Waitangi, concerned that granting new rights to corporations will undermine their rights under the Treaty of Waitangi. We have seen those concerned about internet freedom recognise that there are privacy concerns when our data is held overseas with no local control. We have seen concerns from trade unions and workers about a race to the bottom in human rights and in workers’ rights in particular. We have seen concern about climate change. In the 6,000 pages of the agreement, there is not a single mention of climate change, even though the TPPA can undermine action on climate change.

We have concerns about the environment; two-thirds of the 696 cases taken under the investor-State dispute settlement provisions have been about the environment. We have seen academics undertake peer-reviewed research that has been necessary because the Government has not undertaken the research. We have seen small-business concerns about advantages being given to large foreign corporations, rather than protecting small business. We have seen action in Parliament, where 7 years of the Green Party raising issues has been joined by concerns and a strong position also from Labour, New Zealand First, and the Māori Party. In New Zealand over 100,000 citizens signed petitions and many thousands march in rallies, including 35,000 in Auckland on 4 February.

This is part of a global movement. This is why the TPPA was defeated. We do not want agreements like this to be resurrected, so we are calling for fundamental change, and for transparency and accountability in the processes. We are talking about rules that benefit companies that trade—not at the expense of small business and local economies, not at the expense of social inclusion and human rights, and not at the expense of the environment, but in ways that will protect and support democracy. Thank you.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): We have learnt a lot in the years since the Christchurch earthquakes—the Canterbury earthquakes—which disturbed much of Canterbury and much of New Zealand many years ago. We have learnt from a government and from an administration perspective so many lessons with regard to the Government’s response and to what is immediately needed in what are now North Canterbury’s earthquakes, centred in the Kaikōura district, and so the response has been swift and the response has been sure across a number of Government agencies. I want to acknowledge the wide support across the Parliament and across the parties, including across party leaders, for the response that the Government is making.

We have also learnt a lot about the NGOs responding with surety and with swiftness, and so is the community. Communities all around New Zealand are responding strongly to what is now the terrible situation that the Kaikōura and North Canterbury communities find themselves in. I am very mindful of the message given by Christchurch and Canterbury people, arising out of their earthquake, and that was: “Do not forget us.” And we have not. This Government has not forgotten Canterbury. There continues to be a large amount of support that goes into Canterbury, and it will be the same for Kaikōura. The Prime Minister has, on several occasions in the last 3 days—I doubt that the Prime Minister has thought of much else, nor have senior Ministers, nor indeed have any of us thought of much else. But the message from the Prime Minister right down and across the Parliament, I am sure, is that “No, we will not forget you, Kaikōura. It is a crisis now. It is a crisis that is going to last for some time—some many, many months—but you will not be forgotten.”

We have so many regrets now, and the first and strongest regret is for the loss of life. Two people lost their lives in this latest earthquake, and we all send our condolences, and have done and will continue to do so to their families. We regret the disruption and the fear that people have in these current times, particularly with the aftershocks continuing. We regret damage to homes. We regret damage to businesses. We regret the ongoing disruption of tourism opportunities in and around the Kaikōura district. Many of us are very familiar with that district. We holiday there, we have family there, and we know that these are tough times ahead for them. Again, the Prime Minister has indicated that “No, we will not forget you.”

We regret things like the beautiful coastal drive from Picton down to Christchurch. We regret that we will never see that again in its current form. We regret that Waterfall Creek looks like a place of the past, as a significant and well-loved breeding colony for seals and the most wonderful experience for New Zealanders and tourists alike as they have done that short walk up to Waterfall Creek to see the pups waiting out the time, getting into mischief while their parents are out to sea, fishing, so that they can come back to shore and feed their pups. We regret the lifting of the seabed. That is going to make a fundamental difference to the ecosystems of the Kaikōura coast recreational fishing opportunities. We regret all those things, but I tell you what, it is the response that matters now—the response by Government agencies, which has been legend, but also the response of the locals.

I just want to read an email I have received from a person dear to me who lives right in Kaikōura Bay itself. “Thanks so much,” she says, in response to my email. “All good here, but we really do need the internet so we can keep working. Can’t be far off now. Just saw a huge frigate. I think it’s the New Zealand one and there’s choppers in South Bay and all sorts of choppers all flying around today. We had light showers earlier but now cleared. Gosh, it’s a busy old place. We made a fish and rice curry and took that up to the marae yesterday and will head up again to see if they need a dishwasher or a vegetable peeler. It’s all good really.” Mr Speaker, that is the power of the people and the power of the community. Thank you.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I want to start by congratulating the Acting Minister of Civil Defence on taking on suggestions from New Zealand First. Yesterday we asked about the Cook Strait ferries running to Lyttelton and today KiwiRail confirms it is looking at doing precisely that. We just hope that Bluebridge is not left out those conversations.

Yesterday we asked about buildings occupied by the Public Service and expressed our concerns about earthquake strengthening. We believe the Minister—that everything is being done—but we again raise the question of modern building standards and the rising issue of design integrity and the sensibility of some of the occupancies we have seen. How can it be that one of New Zealand’s oldest pubs, the Thistle Inn in Wellington, could survive a 7.2 in 1942 but the headquarters of the New Zealand Defence Force, which was opened in 2007, is now deemed to be uninhabitable? The fact that the 111 service has had to relocate to a safer building and that the new award-winning Statistics New Zealand building suffered pancaking is of concern to New Zealand First, and we know that the apartments in Tennyson Street have been evacuated and that, also not far from us, the old Deloitte building has been structurally compromised.

We want to draw the House’s attention to a report written by Wairarapa reporter Piers Fuller on 9 October, saying that in Masterton there are 13 near-new buildings that have been deemed now to be earthquake prone due to design flaws. We cannot be smug here when considering these issues, because the worst-performing building in this precinct is the Beehive. This 1970s monstrosity, which New Zealand First suggested should have been knocked down back in 1998, wobbles like a jelly, which might be an acceptable risk to some except when one considers that buried in the bottom of that is the bunker that is our national response headquarters. So we ask again these questions: how sensible are some of the occupancies and some of the placements and some of the usages to which we are putting some buildings?

We think it really is time that we started looking through the implications of the hitherto undiscussed or mentioned reality—that being, what will happen if the southern fault goes and we suffer an 8.2 like we did in 1855 and what we can expect of an earthquake of that magnitude. I am pleased that Mr Dunne spoke the way he did, because this is not to be critical; this is about putting things in the air and considering, in the light of what the nation has gone through, what we should be doing. We need to be looking closely at our Defence Force and asking ourselves how many more times we can turn to our men and women in the Defence Force and ask them to pick up and assist us to put our country back together in times of natural disasters and disasters of this magnitude given the budgets we give them and given the equipment we give them in the inventory.

One surely has to consider the difference in capability between the Indonesian vessel moored up in Auckland right now, the Banda Aceh, and Singapore’s Resolution, and compare that with what is, essentially, a ferry design converted into a multi-role vessel for the New Zealand Defence Force. We have had good service out of HMNZS Canterbury, but it really is not a Mil-Spec vessel and is not much use to us in anything more than a sea state 1. We as a nation need to be looking forward to these major purchases going on with these disasters in mind.

We need to be seriously thinking about where we should be placing Government agencies, and it is time that we started considering what is, essentially, an earthquake bowl here in Wellington. It is time we started asking why the 111 service could not be in Masterton or Waipawa. Is there any reason why the headquarters of the New Zealand Defence Force, if it has to be rebuilt, could not be in Ōhākea or Linton? Is there any reason why the Electricity Authority has to be in Wellington instead of Kaitāia? Above all, why does the bunker have to be under the Beehive—a building that we all know to be very unstable?

Now is the time for some broader thinking about Government agencies and where they should be placed. New Zealand First would say that there is a very strong argument for moving some of these agencies and head offices out into provincial New Zealand for the future and the betterment of all New Zealanders.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): As a New Zealander, my thoughts are with all New Zealanders this week who are feeling the impact of these devastating earthquakes. As a very proud born and bred Cantabrian, my thoughts are with other Cantabrians who are dealing not only with the impact of this earthquake in the early hours of Monday morning but also with the issues of previous earthquakes over the last 5 or 6 years. As a North Canterbury resident, my thoughts are with other North Canterbury residents who are very much at the hard end of the impact of this devastating earthquake. My sympathies go out to the families, friends, and loved ones of the two people who lost their lives. But what I do know is that it is at times like these that the country will come together. We are one nation—it is the way we come together, keeping connected to support each other through the atrocity of such a fatal earthquake.

Can I acknowledge my parliamentary colleague Richard Prosser, also from North Canterbury, who came into my office on Monday as well to look at how we can work together for the benefit of North Canterbury. Can I also acknowledge my colleague Stuart Smith, who has shown great leadership and, most of all, what North Canterbury communities are known for, which is pragmatism, getting out there, and getting things done. Stuart has been out on the ground assessing the impact on his constituents as well. I know he has a very big electorate to get round, so I have offered my help in supporting him with how we can work better for some of the districts, although not in my electorate, that are quite hard hit—for example, Hurunui.

When we look at some of the impact on the “Waimak” district—in fact, I feel, through a lot of focus and upgrades on our infrastructure and our buildings since the last earthquakes, that we have, in fact, increased our ability to cope, and there was very little damage in the “Waimak”. Because of that, I have been working with Jim Palmer, the chief executive officer of the Waimakariri District Council, and David Ayers, our mayor. We have been able to look at how we deploy resources further north, to our neighbouring districts like the Hurunui and like Kaikōura, to support them in getting vital infrastructure in place—roading, electricity, water, telephones, and connectivity.

What is really important about the “Waimak” is the coastal towns. Of course we all know, with the experience of an earthquake, the risk that it may result in a tsunami. We know a lot of people were evacuated, and a lot of people self-evacuated out of the towns in my electorate, like Kaiapoi, Pegasus, Woodend, Waikuku, Pines Beach, and Kairaki. We set up welfare centres. I talked to many of the volunteers, and I would like to acknowledge our civil defence volunteers who staffed those welfare centres in Kaiapoi, Woodend, further inland in Oxford, and in Rangiora and the great work they did in supporting people who were very anxious and stressed at the time.

It was not only the welfare centres that were at full capacity. There were a lot of the high streets, like in Rangiora, Cust, and Oxford, where many people had parked up and were sleeping overnight in their cars. There were great stories coming out about the night-shift workers in supermarkets checking on people parked in their cars in supermarket carparks to see whether they were OK.

There is one great story—I am working with a lady called Lilly in the “Waimak” at the moment, who put a call out through her networks, through her social media, and through media to collect perishable donations and non-perishable items for the people in Kaikōura. To date, Lilly has collected five shipping containers worth of goods to be taken up to Kaikōura. I will be working with her to understand the logistics of how we actually get up there. Of course, in Woodend we are receiving the NH90 helicopters, and we have a welfare centre set up in Woodend as well to support those people coming off the helicopters, as well. So there are great stories coming through about how communities are supporting each other and how the Government is supporting these communities, as well.

Having a background in mental health, I just want to finish by saying that I am acutely aware of the impacts of the earthquakes. We have seen that from previous earthquakes—stress and anxiety. I would tell people to look after each other and to contact their GP, the Canterbury District Health Board, or their local member of Parliament’s office. Thank you.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): In closing this general debate, I too would like to acknowledge the local members of Parliament and the work that they have been doing in that area—Stuart Smith, who has spoken in this debate today, and, of course, my colleague Rino Tirikatene. Rino and I both entered Parliament in 2011—

Dr David Clark: Good year.

Dr MEGAN WOODS: —representing an area—that is right, Dr Clark, a wonderful year—that was suffering from earthquakes. So for both him and me, our whole parliamentary career has been dealing with earthquakes. I would put money on the fact that Rino will continue to work closely with the local member there, Stuart Smith, and I acknowledge the kind words that Stuart did offer about Rino.

Over the last few days—and we will in the coming days, I am sure—we have heard a lot about the Kiwi spirit, about rolling up our sleeves, about stoicism, and about resilience. These are all important attributes that communities need to dig deep to find in these days. But I would also like to make the point that it is OK for people not to be feeling this. These are very difficult days. These are difficult things for people in these affected and impacted communities to cope with, and it is OK to say that you are not feeling all right and that you do need help. I echo the words of my colleague who said that, Matt Doocey.

We have seen remarkable things, as we did throughout Canterbury after our earthquakes: organisations, people, and individuals stepping up; the sense of community; and the coming together. We have seen the remarkable work that has been happening at Takahanga Marae, where my colleague Rino Tirikatene is heading—where 500 to 600 people are being fed, where people are being housed, and where people, importantly, are being offered the opportunity to be together, to have a place to go, and to feel safe. That is one of the things that we always have to ensure is there.

There are many things we can look to that happened in Canterbury that went well. It is very heartening for me to see many of the communities of Christchurch and Canterbury now wanting to give back, to support those further north who now suffer the same terrible fates that they did 6 years ago.

It is not the time for politicking or bickering; we have a huge job to do, and there will be problems that need to be solved. Labour will support the Government in doing things to get things moving. But, in saying this, it is also important that we learn the lessons that we have been through in the last 6 years. We have learnt an awful lot in this country over the last 6 years about how it is that we need to deal with both disaster and recovery and how we put those things together. It would be a mistake if we did not learn those lessons.

What I do not want to see is a situation where the people of Kaikōura in 2022 are still waiting to get their lives back on track, and if we simply copy what we have done in Canterbury, that could well be the outcome. We need to ensure that we have good mental health services from the beginning, that we do not fund on a business-as-usual model, and that we ensure that the local organisations and professionals who are in the area are well placed to help the people in their community.

We need to ensure that the claims process for people getting their homes fixed learns the lessons of what we have been through. We need to ensure that we do not have a huge spike in housing costs, by getting in there early, by providing the temporary accommodation. We need to ensure that we do not end up re-repairing people’s homes, by getting the scoping process right the first time. We need to ensure that we send in trained professionals who can see what is wrong with particular buildings. We need to ensure that support is there—legal support for people to deal with their claims process. Where we got to in Canterbury—and I am sure many Cantabrians can attest to what a great organisation the Residential Advisory Service has been in helping them get through their ordeal—is that there is so much that we can do together. There is so much that we can and will achieve as this part of the South Island and Wellington puts the pieces back together and rebuilds lives. We are a great country; we have great character. Let us learn the lessons of what we have been through and move forward together.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

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

In Committee

TIM MACINDOE (Senior Whip—National): With the agreement of the whips across the Committee, I seek leave for the Committee to consider all the clauses of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill as one debate, with the voting on the clauses to be taken separately.

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

Clauses 1 to 11 and schedules 1 to 3

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I want to begin the Committee stage of the debate by again starting where Labour started in the second reading debate, and that was to point out that we have long had a desire to be in a position to support this bill. But, really, the Committee stage will determine whether or not that is going to be possible for us.

We have long advocated for the clauses in this bill that allow the age of care and protection to be increased. In fact, we would have liked to see the age overall be increased, both for the age of care and protection and for Youth Court jurisdiction, but we accept that half is better than nothing. However, as I outlined in our second reading speech, that proposal has come at a cost. In the same bill where the Government has done an excellent thing by increasing the age of care and protection—which we have pushed for, for 8 years now—it is also proposing to allow very permissive powers to the chief executive to delegate what currently only social workers and the New Zealand Police are able to do, under our laws.

We have a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—I want to flag now, up front, before I delve into the Committee stage debate—that would, essentially, delete clause 7, which is all of the powers that allow the chief executive to delegate the powers of social workers. We do not feel there is adequate explanation or constraint around those powers, and our support of this bill beyond the Committee stage will be contingent on that SOP succeeding. We made that view known in the second reading debate, and I have made that view known personally to the office of the Minister for Social Development. We have wanted to be as constructive as possible because of our support for elements of this bill. But this could not be at the cost—the massive cost—of what the Government has asked of us to make those changes. I also want to state, up front, that if it comes to that—and we will be very disappointed if it does—it will be with great sadness, because we have walked alongside the likes of the Dingwall Trust and Lifewise to see this point and the age of care and protection raised.

I want to come specifically, though, to clause 4 of the bill. Clause 4 enacts the raising of the age of care and protection but it also highlights the difficulty we are creating for ourselves by having two distinct age ranges within the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. Clause 4(1) sets out that the amendment to section 2(1) of the principal Act will replace the definition of “young person”, which in Parts 2 to 3A, now means “a person of or over the age of 14 years but under the age of 18 years:”, and in Parts 4 and 5, now means “a person of or over the age of 14 years but under the age of 17 years:”. So this bill is basically saying that there are two different meanings to the words “young person”—that a young person can be two completely different things. For the purposes of care and protection, which under the Act is set out in Parts 2 to 3A, there we will agree that a young person is under 18 years. But under Parts 4 and 5 of the Act, which are all the parts that relate to the youth justice system, oh, you are not a young person until you are 18; you are a young person until you are 17. That makes absolutely no sense.

If we believe there are grounds to consider that a young person should be someone under the age of 18 years, then we should be consistent about that. There is no rationale in this bill to say that we consider you a child for care and protection, but we do not consider you a child under the criminal justice system. I want to be very clear here. If we are looking for a rationale—a consistent one—there should be one no greater than the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. That is the guiding principle that says to all countries, not just to New Zealand, that a young person is a child if they under 18 years, and we should treat them that way, not least for care and protection. But if you are going to have that convention, then perhaps the most important measure of society is whether you are willing to do that in your criminal justice system, where you have the ability to imprison.

In terms of the practicalities of what these split definitions in clause 4 mean here—essentially, we could have a situation. Parts 2 to 3A of the Act relate to care and protection, including family group conferences, but often those family group conferences are dealing not just with care and protection issues. Often they will deal with youth justice issues. We could have a situation where you could have a family group conference around the future care and protection needs of a child, but you would not be able to discuss any criminality that might be involved, because that could be dealt with only in a District Court. We have now split this young person in two, based on an arbitrary measure of their age.

We are firmly of the view of Andrew Becroft, who is our Children’s Commissioner but has been Principal Youth Court Judge, that you cannot do that in any functional system—we need consistency—and that the Youth Court is not a soft touch. It is the best option for a person in that age group in terms of rehabilitation, the ability to restore, and the ability to prevent a young person from staying in the system. So we are not saying this just because we believe in the rights of a child; we are saying it because the outcomes are better as well—the outcomes are better.

We have an SOP as well—SOP 248—that will bring consistency to what is currently two split definitions in clause 4. Having said that, I will highlight that although we want the age raised, generally, we will vote for the clause that allows for the age of care and protection to be lifted because we do support that happening.

I want to come now to clause 6. This gives an amended set of duties to the chief executive around giving consideration to the needs of those who are in care. So, basically, it is giving a chance for a young person to express their views around the services they receive—basically, around what happens to them. The point we want to make is that we absolutely support these clauses and we will be voting for them. But we really want to give a bit more clout to them, and put a bit more responsibility on the chief executive to make sure they are actually happening. One way we thought we could do that was to publish annually what action had been taken to make sure that the views of children were being taken into account. We are going to pop that into the bill as well, through our SOP. If memory serves, it was a suggestion from the Children’s Commissioner at the select committee that we thought made absolute sense, not least because the Children’s Commissioner has an advocacy role for children at present, and does a very good job, but it is very difficult for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, on its roughly $2 million budget, to play the advocacy role it would like to play, to give children that voice.

We are adding new functions in here, but there has been no suggestion as to how that would be funded. It is our view that if we put in a requirement to report to Parliament, we would have a very acute eye as to whether or not we were doing enough to operationalise what is here in the legislation around giving children a voice, keeping in mind that, of course, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, in recent times, has had to close offices and has had to reduce visits to residential facilities, which is a legislated function that it has, from 1 year to 18 months because of the financial constraints that it has. If the intention is that the Office of the Children’s Commissioner is the one to operationalise some of these checks and balances that ensure children in care are having their voice heard, then it is absolutely under-resourced to do that job.

I would be very keen to hear the view of Nicky Wagner, the Minister in the chair, on what opposition there would be to simply putting in a requirement that we just report on the first anniversary of the commencement date on how well we have been doing in giving young people a voice. I think it seems like a fairly common-sense provision, to me.

I want to come to clause 7. This is where a number of our most significant concerns lie. I imagine it is something that I will need to continue a call on.

We raised in the second reading our concern with these new sections. This entire section allows the chief executive to delegate social worker powers to anyone they are satisfied meets three basic tests. The first requirement is that they meet section 41 of the State Sector Act 1988. I have looked up section 41 and that mostly relates to what practically you need to do to delegate any powers as a ministry. Basically, in summary, it says that the Minister has to approve it and you have to write it down. That is, basically, what section 41 is, so it is not too dissimilar to what is noted in the bill itself. I would like to come back in another call to speak more on this.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a call on the Committee stage of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. This is a bill that we have been quite clear we are unable to support in its entirety. There are specific provisions in the bill, however, that we are very happy to support if they were all that was contained in this bill. In my contribution this afternoon I would like to go through some of those specific provisions and talk in a bit more detail to them: the lost opportunity that we see in some, the very real concern that we see in others, and the sense of hope in others, again.

First of all, I would like to speak to the commencement date, which is in clause 2. This bill is intended to commence on 1 April 2017, which is set to coincide with the start of the new ministry, which has been so poorly named: the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki, which has raised very significant concerns in the community. I think the point has been well made that “Oranga” in terms of well-being is cancelled out by the concept of vulnerability. To put those two things together in a title is misunderstanding the concept, and, actually, it wipes it out in practice. We have concerns about that.

It does need to be understood that what this legislation does is not a mild tinkering with our current child protection service. This is a potential dismantling of the State care and protection services, and that is enabled by this legislation. But there is very little detail in this legislation. As was pointed out by some of the submitters to the Social Services Committee—I think the phrase from the Children’s Commissioner was that it seems that the legislation had “outstripped the policy process”. It may have been put a little bit more eloquently than that. But it is basically saying that we have got legislation that enables anything to happen, because the policy work has not actually happened to work out what this will mean in practice.

We are being asked to pass legislation that provides for protection of our children who have been hurt and damaged, without knowing what that is going to mean in practice, and this is going to come into force on 1 April. I do think that the commencement date, and the time frame for this, is really important to consider. Although I have been pushing for a long time for changes, for more money to be going into the system, for more urgent action, and for the need for urgency—as have others on this side of the Chamber, because we know that kids right now are unsafe in the system as it is operating and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner does not have adequate funding to be able to provide oversight of the safety of the system—if the policy work has not been done to make sure that we get the right answer, to make sure that we have got a system that will protect those children, then it is not right. That really has to be our first priority. We have to put the thought into that, to make sure we are not making mistakes. The Green Party is not confident that that work has been done.

I move on to speak to some of the other points that we do support in this legislation. We do support the raising of the age of care and protection to 18. This, again, is one of those things that has been asked for, for a very long time. I sat on the Social Services Committee when we considered the Vulnerable Children Bill. We heard from young people who had been transitioned out of care at a time when they were not able to sign a lease on a flat to be able to live independently, and who ended up homeless on the street. At that time it was really clear to me that we needed to raise the age of care and protection to 18, yet this Government chose not to do that.

Here we are, several years later, finally—after several opportunities have passed—we are giving this House the opportunity to act on that call from those young people and to be able to provide that smoother transition for those young people into the next stage of their life, and that is really critical. However, as has already been pointed out by Labour’s Jacinda Ardern, it is nonsensical from our perspective to be raising the age of care and protection and not be raising the age for youth justice as well. As we were told time and time again by the submitters to the select committee, these are often the same young people. Many young people in our society who have youth justice concerns have been in care or are in care at the same time. To say that if nothing is going wrong, you are a “young person”, but if this half of you did something wrong, you are an “adult” just does not make sense.

New Zealand is lagging behind internationally in understanding this. We have an exception in place on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. That is an international agreement that puts the onus on us to recognise that our young people are children until the age of 18, regardless of whether they have committed crimes or not.

This is not to say that our system does not hold those young people to account if they do something wrong. Youth justice responses are actually more effective than adult justice responses. This is not about giving young people a pass; this is actually about recognising that they are children. This is about having an effective system that is consistent and sets out consistent expectations and responses, and it is also about what is effective.

It was really compelling to hear the new Children’s Commissioner—I think it was his first submission, when he got to present on this—who was previously the Principal Youth Court Judge, telling us how effective the youth justice system is and how much more beneficial it would be for all of us, and especially those young people, if we were to extend the age to 18.

We will be very happy in the Green Party to be supporting Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 248 in the name of Jacinda Ardern, to be able to define “young person” and replace “17 years” with “18 years”, to get that consistency in our system. It really needs to be done. It should have been done before, and it is, frankly, embarrassing for me that New Zealand is one of the last countries in the world that is still treating our children as adults in the justice system.

I do not have that much more time in this call, but I would like to also say that we will be supporting the other aspect of Jacinda Ardern’s SOP. That adds a little bit more grunt to the aspect of the bill that embeds the views of young people and children into the system and that requires publishing annually, after the first anniversary of the date of commencement, how the views of children and young people have been given regard to in changes in the system. There is more that we would, perhaps, have added to this, but this is, I think, just taking us a little bit further in giving the intent that has been specified by the Minister previously as the purpose of this bill.

ALFRED NGARO (National): I rise to take a call on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill in its Committee stage. We had the report from the expert advisory panel (EAP), and some of those findings in that report were quite significant. Hence, in response to that, the first phase of changes to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act is quite important.

The previous speaker, Jan Logie, in her comments talked about, in a sense, the legislation as it stands and some of the challenges. We do not disagree with that. In fact, it is out of the EAP, and we think that is important.

The expert advisory panel report was significant because what it did was raise a number of significant things. There had previously been 14 different reviews. What was a point of difference for the Minister for Social Development and her leadership but also for the Social Services Committee was around looking towards overhauling the system. Inside of that, there was no disagreement that there needed to be some change. There needed to be change that was significant in a number of different ways, hence the reason for the first part of those changes, through this bill.

The first change that was significant was in regard to the raising of the age and extending the State’s responsibility for the care and protection of a vulnerable young person until the person’s 18th birthday. In fact, I can remember—it might have been in 2012 or 2013—I was at an event for the Dingwall Trust, I think it might have been. Ms Ardern was there. I remember the young people who got up and shared their stories about their transition from State care, the challenges that they faced, and the trauma, at times, in regard to having a place of lodging and accommodation—they had already been through a traumatic experience themselves, which led them to their current circumstances. They pleaded, they encouraged, and they challenged the system that at that time it was important that we needed to have that change. So I believe that this is important. We also heard in submissions from those same young people about this. In hearing that, this change is actually quite significant for those young people. The extending of State responsibility is critically important to that, as well.

The second part that I think is important to the changes is ensuring that vulnerable young people are able to express their views. We know that inside the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act itself—we have talked about the paramountcy foundation clause that exists. That is to ensure that we have the voice of the children—that the concerns of the children are taken into account—but what we have not always factored into that process is where you include the voice and the concerns of children. Part of the EAP’s work was to ensure—and the Minister had commissioned it—that there would be a youth advisory panel as well. What was quite interesting in the panel’s responses was around the needs expressed by them—that they were not always taken into account. They said that what was critically important was to ensure that they had a stable place of lodging, rather than being transitioned from one home to the next. That was quite a common story that was expressed.

Ensuring that they have a voice for their concerns and issues but also opportunities is critically important, hence the reason why, inside this bill, we ensure that the voice of children is included. That actually is consistent. When we talk about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, we talk about the other jurisdictions internationally that also have attempted to include the voices of children, hence the reason why the youth advisory panel was significant and important, as well.

The third thing that I believe is important is the establishment of a youth advocacy service. The important role that that plays is to ensure that—a variety of services are needed. They may not always be social work practices and they may not always be those that are therapeutic services, such as counsellors, psychotherapists, and the like, but there are a range of other youth advisory support services that exist. That service is critically important. We believe that that component is important as well.

We know that the EAP said that the system does not place children at the centre, and does not meet the needs of vulnerable young people. It is fragmented. It lacks clear accountability. It is not organised in a way that we believe is consistent and also has the best outcomes of the young people and their whānau at heart. We believe that these changes have been important—we heard from submitters inside the select committee, as well.

It is encouraging to see that the majority of the House is actually in support of this legislation, especially its first phase of changes, which are coming back. I commend this legislation, in its Committee stage, to the House.

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): Labour has been clear in its position. Jacinda Ardern has outlined previously that the bill contains a change that we have pushed extremely hard for, and that is the raising of the age for care and protection. It is something that we believe passionately in, and it was the basis of our support for this bill at every stage up until now. But also within the bill is a regressive and dangerous set of provisions, in my view, that will allow the chief executive to delegate powers that can currently be performed only by Child, Youth and Family (CYF) social workers. There is no ability in the new legislation for Parliament to have the kind of oversight of these powers—the checks and balances—that has previously been in place. We cannot support that provision when it could allow any professionals, at the whim of the chief executive, to hold powers like the removal of children.

I want to speak a little to that, because my experience with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provisions goes back a way, to when I was working in Treasury a number of years ago. It has been a source of some embarrassment to New Zealand that we have not met our obligations internationally in this respect, so it is good that that age is being addressed, but it is also a concern that we have been slow to act to meet our obligations. In part, I think this is motivated by the fact that we do not fund this area as well as we might. It is an incredibly difficult area to address because it deals with complicated problems. When we have children who are vulnerable, who are in trouble, and who come from families where things are not as they should be, something has to go very wrong before the State intervenes, and so, by definition, the problems we are dealing with here are complex.

My concern is about the accountability loss for Parliament. If we enact these clauses, we will not have the same oversight that we have had. The danger that we have seen repeated in this House—and it has happened in the healthcare sector, too—is that we delegate responsibilities down, without allowing the funding to follow. We delegate to the community the care for vulnerable people—often in the mental health sector—without allowing adequate funding for that care in the community. It may well be that in many cases that delegation is appropriate—that community care agencies are the best people to handle the care of vulnerable children. But there must always be accountability at the parliamentary level, in my view, for the quality of that care because it is incumbent upon the State to look after all of its citizens, and especially its most vulnerable citizens.

If we look closely at the history of the cost pressures within CYF, we can see that CYF is struggling already within its current budget. In 2016-17, for example, it is forecasting a deficit of up to $36 million due to demand-driven costs. That has a very real impact on its ability to deliver services. What I am concerned about is that this framework that we are looking at here in the Committee, which is likely to go through, will facilitate something that has the best of intentions behind it but upon which the State cannot deliver and cannot then be held accountable for. It is a basic principle of public policy that the State ultimately—particularly in these matters—should have a care and protection overview and accountability function, to know that it is discharging its duties properly.

So I would be interested in the Minister in the chair perhaps addressing how those accountability measures are going to be put in place, so that the public can be reassured that this legislation really will achieve what it is going to achieve on what is already a very limited budget. Thank you.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I am very pleased to take a call on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. I do want to acknowledge the work that Minister Anne Tolley has done in her time as Minister for Social Development and that, you know, I am aware that the Minister is wanting to make some changes to support our most vulnerable citizens, and I do commend her for that work.

What I want to point to in this bill is that I do believe that there are some bigger principles and some wider policy discussion that needs to go in place, because I believe that this is one of a suite of changes that the Minister wants to make. It is evident that some of those changes will impact on the way that this particular piece of legislation will operate when it becomes an Act, and actually is enacted into Child, Youth and Family.

Why I say that is because of some of the comments that the submitters made at the select committee. There were several submitters, such as the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services, the Nurses Organisation, and the Public Service Association (PSA), and they had a similar theme. Their theme was that they were concerned about the fact that the legislators were being asked to support radical reform to the core functions of the State before any detailed design, including impact analysis and stakeholder consultation, was undertaken. Also, there was a comment by the PSA to say that its members were dubious about agreeing broadly to these preliminary proposals without knowing how they might impact on advocating for vulnerable children in the future. The submitters were giving us a sense that there is a broader plan in place and that this is one aspect of that broader plan, and without actually knowing the aspects of what the Government has in mind, it is difficult for us to be supporting some of these proposals.

One of the most significant proposals in here, which Jacinda Arden spoke to and which relates to new Part 7—the details that are in schedule 2 of new Part 10—relates to the ability of the chief executive to delegate responsibility. The example that has been quoted by other members in the House has been about the responsibility with regard to the uplift of children. That is a significant issue. It is a significant issue for Māori and Pacific families, and it causes an awful lot of distress. My concern in this regard is that we have not been given fulsome details about who might be the responsible agencies that may then take up the role of caring for our vulnerable children, should they be uplifted. I believe that part of that discussion is yet to be decided, and that is part of a wider, broader policy debate that is currently happening within the Ministry of Social Development.

I would really recommend that we get a sense of what is going to happen before we actually decide the mechanism with which we are going to allow that to happen. I understand that there are some principles in some clauses within this piece of legislation that sit outside that framework, but in this regard, which is the most significant—the uplift of children is a hugely distressing and disruptive thing to happen within a family, and many families do not recover from that. It takes many, many years—sometimes generations—to recover from that if it is not done well, and in this regard I would want us to give full consideration to the mechanisms of that and to who is actually going to provide that support.

I do want to pick up on the discussion of the previous speaker, David Clark, about accountability, because not only does the responsibility of that particular act need some further discussion but also how we are going to ensure accountability back to the ministry in that regard. It is a significant part of the legislation and one we need to give considerable discussion to. Thank you.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I thought it would be appropriate if I took a call at this stage and addressed some of the issues that have been raised in the debate to date. I thank all members for their thoughtful approach to this first piece of legislation.

I stress that this is the first piece of legislation to be put in place in order for the new ministry to be up and running on 1 April, with some changes in place to help what is going to be a programme of—I keep saying—4 to 5 years’ change. I understand everyone’s enthusiasm and perhaps impatience for those changes to happen fast, but I stress—and it will indicate why I am not going to support the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) from Jacinda Ardern—that in order to make this work, we have to do it properly. We have tried on many, many occasions to make some quick fixes and, actually, it has not changed the lives of those young people who are in State care. So I have said from the beginning that we are going to take this slowly and carefully, and we are going to make the changes in the time and the manner that we can be assured is going to be in the best interests of the young people who either are in State care or are at risk of going into State care.

So let us take some of the issues one by one: first of all, the idea of immediately bringing into this bill the 17-year-olds in the youth justice system. There are about 5,000 of them who would have come, from the time this bill was enacted, into the youth justice system. There is not the capability to deal with them. Whether it is through the police youth aid, whether it is through community organisations, or whether it is through NGOs, there is not the capability to deal quickly and effectively with that number of extra young people in our youth justice residences. I am sorry, but I could not stand in this Chamber, hand on heart, and say that there are about 100 to maybe 120 of those 17-year-olds who are quite serious offenders and that our youth justice residences could cope with that number from the date of the time that this legislation comes into being. So—

Hon Ruth Dyson: Well, phase it in.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: That is right. As I have said before, the youth justice age is under consideration by Cabinet. It is under careful consideration as to how that might be phased in, if at all, and no decisions have been made at this stage. To just plonk an SOP down and say that “From the time this bill is enacted, it is going to happen.” is headline-making, and it might make people feel good, but I can tell you it will not have the effect for those 17-year-olds that the genuine mood of this House wants to achieve. So that is the first thing.

I make the point that we are extending that age of care quite carefully. This bill represents that first change, up to the 18th birthday. We believe that we can manage that effectively, but, beyond that, we have already signalled we want to create that right to remain in care up to 21, and that will be phased in. That is in the second piece of legislation, and we will show some indication of when that will be phased in when we believe we are capable of providing the sort of support that these young people need.

There is no point in legislating for stuff that we cannot deliver. And it is not just a question of money; it is a question of capability and it is a question of effectiveness, because we have a system in place now that is not delivering. We have got to change that, and we have got to change it from the ground up. Quick headlines are not going to change those kids’ lives.

Secondly, I want to deal with the issue of publishing the young people’s views. Look, I understand the desire to see that this is truly happening—I genuinely understand that. All I can say is that this bill is not the appropriate one to do that in. The next bill is the appropriate one to show how those young people’s views are in place, when we have that much broader piece of legislation that shows what those major changes are going to be. If you want to get an idea of that, I have already made available, I think, four, possibly five, Cabinet papers that show the sorts of changes we are proposing to make in that second piece of legislation. I hope to have that in the House by the end of the year, and I am happy to provide full briefings on that legislation to anyone who wants it.

The third point in SOP 248 is around the point that the previous speaker, Poto Williams, talked about. I do accept that it is hard to understand why you would make a change like that without that broader aspect of how it is actually going to work in practice. Let me assure you that I have not proposed that change lightly—the Government is not proposing that change lightly, and we do understand that it is a significant change. First of all, research, evidence, and overseas experience show—and, actually, our own social workers themselves know—that too many more of these young children today are presenting with higher and more complex issues that cannot be solved by social workers alone. We need that multidisciplinary approach—many professionals sitting around and working together to help children, young people, and their families.

To give some examples of what might be possible by making that change: for instance, we are talking with a large number—and Child, Youth and Family already has six contracts, I think, with iwi that are wanting to take, and are taking, more and more responsibility for dealing with their tamariki. I can see that there could be the possibility of working with capable iwi that have the capacity to actually put that process into practice themselves. It could be delegated to appropriately qualified people within an iwi to work with their tamariki. That is a possibility.

There is also a possibility of working with some of our very well-qualified NGO providers that have qualified social workers themselves, whom we may wish to contract with in terms of some of those issues. Again, as I say, we might have a multidisciplinary team where we have paediatricians, child psychologists, hospital social workers, etc., all working together, and one of them might make the application. That is the sort of thinking behind this change. The Social Services Committee has strengthened some of the oversight around that. All of that has to be published in a way that the public can access, so they can see who these people are who are having these delegated powers. I do appreciate that some of this is quite high level, ahead of the operating practices. That does make it difficult, and those are the right questions for people to be asking.

As I say, I think that the select committee has done a good job on this bill. It is the first bill, with just a few changes. I am hoping to have the major legislative change that we are proposing in the House by the end of the year. I do thank the select committee and members of the House for their attention to these kids, who really need major changes to the way the State takes responsibility for their lives, to ensure that they can live full lives.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for this opportunity. First can I take this opportunity to farewell Mr Fred Whata, who worked hard to ensure that Māori values were in the justice system—a rigid justice system. He was based out of Rotorua and was laid to rest on Thursday of last week—can I farewell him.

In farewelling him, I cast my mind back to other significant contributors to this discussion. Despite not being in the earthly realm with us today, their influence continues, and Judge Mick Brown is one who comes to mind. When the Minister for Social Development spoke about the length of time it takes to make such changes, I could not help but pull out my copy of Pūao-te-ata-tū – Daybreak—published some decades ago—and consider some of the recommendations made in there. I am reminded of the quote used by the member Jono Naylor, who quoted my grandfather in his maiden speech. He said: “We have come too far not to go further. We have done too much not to do more.” I am reminded of that particular saying at this point in time, when I consider the proposed changes in this bill.

My colleagues on this side of the Chamber have certainly expressed their view quite clearly on it, and I want to contribute in the same vein, with regard to—as detailed in Supplementary Order Paper 248 submitted by Jacinda Ardern—the changes around the age of 18, and with regard to how important that is in the wider debate about those particular circumstances that those young people find themselves in. It speaks to the confusion that is offered in this particular instance for so many of our young people, and I mentioned this in a previous debate on this bill, around a sort of rite of passage: “When am I a young person? When I am no longer a young person? What does this mean when I turn 18? I am still 17. Can I drink? Can I drive?”—well, not at the same time, and they certainly cannot drive after drinking. But they are wondering: “When can I do all these things?”. There is a large confusion amongst our young people, and we want to make sure that the law is very clear—I would not say “seamless”—that for these young people who find themselves in these unfortunate circumstances, in this particular instance it includes up to 18-year-olds.

I also want to talk about clause 7. Clause 7 is the one around the delegation of powers, and I take the Minister’s point around the delegation of powers to, potentially, iwi that look to care for the many Māori and many of their descendants who find themselves in the Child, Youth and Family system. Although I appreciate that there are a lot of Māori operators in the social work space, I cannot help but have a sense of trepidation and concern about, not the intent, but what this would look like. How do these powers of delegation actually play out on the ground, if we are, for example, as the Minister pointed out, giving responsibility to iwi to look after their young people? I have got a lot of concerns about that because in Tāmaki-makau-rau, where most of the children in State care are, we know that the majority of those tamariki are actually from Ngāpuhi, and, in terms of iwi influence, Ngāpuhi’s ability to provide services on the ground in Tāmaki-makau-rau is almost non-existent. I say that in respect of actually facilitating and executing those responsibilities of care as an entity—as a tribal entity—in Tāmaki-makau-rau, and that is a bit of a concern to me, although I acknowledge that many of the social workers in Tāmaki-makau-rau are actually of Ngāpuhi descent. But it gets back to that scope of delegation of powers and who that should go to.

I commend the stance made by many of the iwi at the Iwi Leaders Forum around their commitment to our young people. In fact, I was there a number of years ago when Naida Glavish and others made that commitment at the Iwi Leaders Forum. A number of years later, not much has changed. Speaking of “not much has changed”, if you just look in the Pūao-to-ata-tu – Daybreak book, you will see that the number of children in State care back in the 1980s is actually not too dissimilar from the number today.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I would like to thank the Minister for Social Development for standing and taking a call on this, because it is good to engage on the substance of what we are debating. However, I must say that I found the statements of the Minister rather confusing, if I am honest. We are being told on one hand that this is going to take 4 to 5 years, that the Minister does not want quick fixes, that she is going slowly and carefully, and that she will make sure that the changes will be in the best interests of the children. Yet we are passing legislation without the content and the policy work having been done.

That seems to me as if that is a process going ahead of itself and actually is being rushed, and I would challenge the Minister to question herself on that point. When the response is that we cannot raise the youth justice age because there is no capacity to deal with the numbers in the system at the moment, when there is the ability to phase it in through this legislation, I would ask the Minister to bring us a Supplementary Order Paper to actually phase in that aspect of it. If there is not the capacity right now, then let us not rush through this legislation, which is going to create mixed messages and confusion within the system. Let us phase that in in a proper time frame, so we can do it all at once, in a way that is consistent and does honour the wholeness of those young people.

Also, I really do take exception to the Minister giving us examples about what might happen from the delegated powers. I acknowledge, as the first point around that, that this legislation, as it is written at the moment, enables the wholesale delegation of what are currently Child, Youth and Family social worker and police powers. And they could be delegated to anyone, and they could be any of a large number of powers, including the uplifting of children and the search of houses. They are very, very significant powers. The Minister has told us that “Well, yes that work hasn’t been done yet, but that is OK.”, and that on some of the issues we should just trust her, despite the fact that the State Services Act guidance tells us that legislation should not enable the wholesale delegation of powers—but we should trust her because there is the possibility that iwi may be able to take on these roles.

So those of us who are concerned that 60 percent of children in care currently are tamariki Māori—and I would challenge anyone in the Committee to suggest that that does not show that institutional racism exists within our system at the moment. So, OK, we will enable iwi to be able to work with whānau, and, to me, I am actually OK with that. But what we have seen in the consultation to lead us to this legislation is that the expert advisory group consulted—and it said that it consulted with 200 people. The only people in that list identifiably from iwi, or even from Māori social services—there were nine. Nine out of 200.

So tell me how that is in any way going to lead to a Treaty-based solution. You throw it out there that this will enable iwi to be able to care for whānau, when there is so much deep concern that tamariki Māori are being taken and severed from their whakapapa and their families. You throw it out there that this will enable iwi to be able to work with those whānau, when there has been no decent consultation. There is not even a sniff of partnership in the process to this point. I think that is dishonest, and I will not accept that. The Green Party does not accept that we should be passing legislation without any specificity, on the promise of something that is not matched by evidence or practice up to this point. That is, frankly, unacceptable.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I do love passion, because it tells me that a speaker firmly believes what they are advocating, and you cannot ask for more than that. But I guess, of the points that have been discussed here today, if I was to categorise them, New Zealand First would be saying that it would pass the general thrust of this legislation. New Zealand First will still continue to support the bill through this Committee stage. With regard to the five points that are enunciated in the commentary on the bill, New Zealand First has already put on the record that it supports four of them, but it is concerned about the fifth bullet point.

There have been a couple of other things raised here today in regard to which I need to put our view squarely on the table. The first one is around Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 248, which effectively raises the age of criminal responsibility from 17 to 18. New Zealand First will not support that SOP, and New Zealand First will probably draw the Committee’s attention back to 27 May 2008, when the second reading of my youth offenders bill was held in this House.

New Zealand First has reviewed all of the data. In fact, I have to commend Darroch Ball, who has picked up the social services portfolio for New Zealand First in his very first term. He has done a sterling job. One of the things he has done—and it has surprised even me—is to go back through and have a look at the data that we argued was clearly available to everybody in respect of youth offending. That data is very, very clear. Sometimes we gloss over these things and forget victims and we do focus on the offender.

I guess what we would say of that data, which is the reason we would not support this SOP, is that we challenge the statements being made by certain people—namely, the former Judge Becroft—about how wonderfully successful the youth justice system is, because we would say that the evidence shows that it is not effective. We know that back in 2008, 43 percent of all violent offending was carried out by youths—43 percent of all apprehensions across all crimes, all categories, and all age groups came down to the age group of 10 to 20. That, in itself, begged questions about the effectiveness of the youth justice system and questions as to what it was we were doing right and what it was we were doing wrong.

In fact, the evidence showed that all the 18-year-old adults of whom Judge Becroft was saying “Well, they’re adult offenders.” had all been through the youth justice system and had been failed within the youth justice system. They had gone in there at the age of 10, 11, 12, 15, 16 and had all been subjected to the wonders of this world-leading youth justice system, and the result was they were in prison at the ages of 18, 19, 20, 21. Of course, people used to argue back and say: “Well, that’s about adult offenders. It’s adults that are going to jail.” No, these adults were the graduates of the failing youth justice system.

So we would put on the record that we are happy to have this conversation in the context of the age of responsibility, in a more holistic form that examines coldly and clearly, on facts, the effectiveness of the youth justice system, the parameters of its jurisdiction, and what types of punishments or rehabilitation programmes it might be able to utilise or put into effect. We would say of this conversation around raising the age of criminal responsibility—accepting all of the arguments about the development of the brain. I have spent a lot of my time between my stints in Parliament involved with fostering kids and have had the privilege of listening to many clinical psychologists talking about the development of the brain. I understand those arguments.

And, by the way, I was a foster kid myself and was a kid who went through State care as a ward of the State. If you want to have this conversation about raising the age of care to 18, I am happy to endorse that because I was one of those kids who were put out at the age of 17. In fact, I often tell the story about how I got home and my parents had run away. Well, in actual fact, my foster parents no longer had any responsibility for me and, therefore, I had no home. In actual fact, when I joined the army at, get this, the age of 16—uh, oh! I was able to be subject to the military justice system, with everything that goes with it, because I was smart enough, bright enough, and intellectual enough, and my brain had developed to the state that I could understand the difference between right and wrong. But no, today, 16-year-olds are not, it would appear.

So I was in the military at the age of 16, but as a ward of the State in the care of the army. At the moment I turned 17, I was discharged as a ward of the State. I was out of the army’s care, I was out of the parental care of my foster parents, and I was on my own.

To find that we are sitting here in 2016 discussing this is a little sad, but I compliment—and I have done so privately—the Minister for Social Development on having the courage of actually making this move and raising the age of care up to 18.

We could probably have a conversation about going further than that for some young people who have gone through specifically traumatic events that have shaped the way they think and behave, through no fault of their own. But you cannot move the age of criminal responsibility and ignore the fact that age of 17, young people are fully entitled to make a decision around being parents, and are fully entitled to drive a vehicle and make split-second decisions about how they manoeuvre that vehicle at speed on a highway, where thousands of other people are driving. We cannot say that they do not have the compos mentis or the intellectual ability or the cognitive skills, or that their brain is not developed enough to be held responsible for their criminal behaviour, but they are able to be given a firearm and given a firearms licence, and they are allowed to drink under supervision—or not—and allowed to drive a vehicle of any cc rating on a motorway. That is a conversation that we are prepared to have. We would like to have that conversation around the age of responsibility, because there does need to be consistency right across the law, and we have failed to address that.

We will not be supporting the legislation. We would support a thorough, in-depth examination of the youth justice system. If we could get some improvements in there, then we would be open to a further conversation—but not one without the other.

On the issue of tamariki Māori being ripped from their iwi and put into ward care, let us just put on to the record James Whakaruru, “Lillybing”, Moko—there are a whole bunch of Māori kids out there. Me and Ria Bond, another ward of the State in the New Zealand First caucus—we know exactly what people are talking about. I had six foster parents, all of them Pākehā. Did I miss out on Te Reo Māori? Did I miss out on tikanga? Did I miss out on those things? I probably did. Was I given the opportunity to pick it up later on? Not when I would have liked to. But those things can come to you, and they have come to me. I ended up being Chief Executive of the Federation of Māori Authorities, and I have done a whole bunch of Treaty settlement work beyond that.

What is more important than anything—and this cuts across any decision to place people with a particular race of people because they think they will be better off there—are three things: that the home that they go into is a home where they will be loved, that the home that they go into is a home of compassion, and that the people who have chosen to put their hands up to take those children into their care want them in there, and they are not an accident and an inconvenience. That is all that matters, and it does not matter whether those caregivers are Chinese, Scottish, Irish, English, or South African—it does not matter. For me, as a Māori, the only thing that was important was being cared for and brought up in a safe home, in a loving home, in a forgiving home, because, boy, I made lots of mistakes and I caused lots of people a lot of heartache and heartbreak, and yet those foster parents stuck with me. That is what matters.

That brings us to the other point. We do have concerns about outsourcing and the opportunity for privatisation of care and the corporatisation of it. That worries us. We have no issues with dealing with NGOs like Fostering Kids, the Salvation Army, and some of those other NGOs that have been giving care, like the Open Home Foundation, for decades. But it would worry us if this legislation was used in some way, in some part, in some form at a later stage down the line to introduce a more corporatised model, and for the State to be devolving itself of its ultimate care and responsibility to those children.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): It is a pleasure to speak in this, the Committee stage debate of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. I particularly want to focus on Supplementary Order Paper 248 in the name of my colleague Jacinda Ardern, and focus on our rationale for deleting clause 7 of the proposed legislation. New section 7A, inserted by clause 7, is titled “Delegations made under section 41 of State Sector Act 1988 to social workers”, so the emphasis in this particular part of the bill is, in fact, on diluting the influence of social workers and social workers’ current statutory responsibility in the management of the processes that determine whether or not young people are going to be removed from their families, and then on who, in fact, is responsible for caring for those young people.

I have managed to find the document titled Statutory Care and Social Work: Service Specifications, which the Ministry of Social Development released in 2015. It says that under section 19 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, in working with iwi social service, cultural social service, and child and family support service providers, the social worker actually is empowered as a care and protection coordinator within the system. They have a statutory function and a statutory responsibility under section 20 to convene the family group conferences.

Within the proposed legislation there will be a requirement for delegations to persons who are not social workers. So it got me thinking: why would we want to remove that delegation? Why is the social work profession now not central to the whole functioning of the assessment of the needs of children, young people, and families that it then determines what the response is from the State? In the legislation we will enable the chief executive to delegate to—this is from new section 7C(2)(a)—“the person [who] is appropriately qualified to perform the function or exercise the power, taking into account the person’s training, experience, and interpersonal skills;”. So, currently, people who are qualified in the social work profession are deemed to fulfil that responsibility.

I would really like some further clarification from the Minister about whom she envisages is appropriately qualified to actually meet the objectives of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. Looking through the objects of the Act, it is about promoting “the well-being of children, young persons, and their families and family groups by—(a) establishing and promoting, and assisting in the establishment and promotion, of services and facilities within the community that will advance the well-being of children, young persons, and their families and family groups and that are—(i) appropriate having regard to the needs, values, and beliefs of particular cultural and ethnic groups; and … (iii) provided by persons and organisations sensitive to the cultural perspectives and aspirations of different racial groups in the community:”. So there is very much an emphasis on people having the skills to determine and make a diagnosis of what the actual issues are.

When you look on the Child, Youth and Family website, at its job description for the people who are most appropriate to perform this function, the ministry is really clear about what you need: “A qualification in social work (minimum of a Diploma at level 6, or Degree at level 7 or higher) is the preferred qualification.” It talks about consideration being given to applicants who have some papers towards a social work qualification at level 6, but there is a big emphasis on “papers that provide a theoretical framework for understanding human behaviour and there is a clear commitment to completing a recognised social work qualification.” So I think it is really important for the Minister to justify why, at the heart of Child, Youth and Family, the social work profession is now being completely—in some ways—erased.

I know, having completed a Bachelor of Social Policy and Social Work, that it is a 4-year commitment to a degree that then would have empowered me to have the qualifications to be able to make some of the determinations that we want from people who are participating in determining what the needs of the young person are and what the needs of children and families are, with the hope—

JONO NAYLOR (National): It is a pleasure to be able to rise to speak on this bill in this Committee stage. I think what we need to do is ensure that we do understand that this is, in fact, a bill that is in the context of a complete overhaul of the way that we are approaching Child, Youth and Family and the way that we do child welfare here in New Zealand.

I just want to address a couple of things that have been raised throughout this debate already this evening. The first point I want to just address is that it was said that the new title, “Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki”, has elements that are somehow contradictory to one another. I think it is a little bit disingenuous to put it that way—talking about vulnerable children and then, of course, “Oranga Tamariki”, where we are talking about the well-being of children. I would have thought that actually, for vulnerable children, we want them to have positive well-being and have positive outcomes. So I actually think that the title of the new ministry actually is exactly where we need it to be. It is about actually wanting us to ensure that vulnerable children will have good outcomes and that there will be good well-being for them.

I think we would all acknowledge that some great work has been done by Child, Youth and Family over the time of its existence. There has been great practice done in various shapes and forms and it has been world-leading in different ways, but, as Alfred Ngaro intimated before, there have been 14 reviews, and yet we are still not achieving the kinds of outcomes for children in care that we would want to achieve. I want to commend the Hon Anne Tolley for grabbing the bull by the horns and saying: “Actually, we’re going to put a line in the sand. We’re not going to accept those negative outcomes that we have been achieving, and we’re going to do things differently to ensure that we get better outcomes, better well-being, for our vulnerable young people in New Zealand.”

Of course, this very first step is about raising the age from 17 to 18, and I think that is absolutely critical. I think any parent of a 17-year-old, if they have any values whatsoever, would not necessarily just boot them out of the house at the age of 17 and say: “You’re on your own.” It does not make any sense whatsoever, and yet that is the way it has been. So this legislation is going to go some way to putting that right, and we have had indications that there is a possibility down the track that we will extend that further, but this first step is absolutely the right step in that regard.

There has been some unrest, I guess, throughout this debate about section 7, or clause 7, I think—I cannot remember; I am probably using the wrong terminology—in terms of the delegating powers of the chief executive. This type of thing actually occurs already. If anybody has heard of the Open Home Foundation or Barnardos, or any of these other very good non-governmental organisations that are engaging in care and protection work on behalf, sometimes, of the ministry, they do some very, very good work.

Poto Williams talked about the upheaval for families when children are uplifted and the ongoing scars. Having been involved in that practice, I can tell you that it does leave scars on social workers at times, as well, not just on the families, although, obviously, it is far more traumatic for the families. If there is an ability to be able to delegate some of those responsibilities to someone who is going to be able to do it with a greater sense of care and be able to achieve a better outcome and better long-term outcomes for those young people than perhaps having eight social workers and two police officers break down your door and storm into your house and pick up your children—well, if there is a better way of doing that I would absolutely support that because I can tell you now that that is not a great thing for families and it is not a great thing for social workers, either.

So let us just be sensible about this. We are not trying to pass it off to anybody. What we are wanting to do through this bill is ensure that children and young people in New Zealand will be given the very best service that we can possibly give them, that we will extend the age of care, and that they will actually go into families where they are loved, where they are cared for, and where they are supported, not just because they happen to be relatives. We have had some practices that do need to change to ensure that we have better outcomes long term, and I support this legislation. I look forward to further legislation where we will be able to do even more for the young people of New Zealand.

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I want to take the opportunity to respond to some of the comments that Minister Anne Tolley made from the chair, and to seek a little more clarity from her. It is always helpful to hear directly from the Minister around the intent for some of these clauses. The Minister responded to some of our calls around clause 4—about having a split definition for the age of care and protection and then a split definition for youth justice, as this bill now contains—by saying that she had worked through the number of young people who would be brought into the system and there simply was not capability within the system to deal with an extra 5,000 young people.

I have two quick responses to that. Firstly, not all young people under those circumstances would need to go into a youth justice residence. They would not all, by default, be given supervision with residence, as was implied, and so we would not suddenly have 5,000 people needing to go into the system.

Even then, there would be a way to deal with that. The implication was that there was not capacity within the youth justice system to deal with it. Even then, one simple way around that would be to phase in the commencement of that element of the bill. On this side of the House, we would have supported that. We are absolutely pragmatic; we understand that it would take time to build what capacity might be required. I would, for instance, encourage the Minister to shut Te Puna Wai ō Tuhinapo tomorrow and start again, when it comes to services in the South Island. If that means building in a later commencement date so that we have services that are not dangerous to young people, we would work alongside the Minister for that. We have the capacity in this House to build in commencement dates that are staggered, so we would support that. I do not think capacity within youth justice is a justification to have what the Children’s Commissioner has described as a very difficult logistical way to deal with young people in two systems.

The second point that I want to make is—the Minister talked about this bill being, overall, about trying to do things differently to make sure we improve outcomes for kids. Look, no one is saying that the outcomes we have now are good. Even the former Children’s Commissioner Russell Wills pointed out that in some circumstances the point at which we intervene is not necessarily an improvement on the environment that these young people are in. That is a staggering comment to make, and should give us pause for thought. No one here is arguing that we have got great outcomes and we do not need to do anything.

However, making the argument that this bill we have before us, for instance, is going to be the thing that changes everything fails to acknowledge that we never actually really gave the current system we have a very good shot. The analogy I would draw is that it is like driving a brand new car around for 10 years and never servicing it, never changing the tyres, and never putting oil in the car, and then, when it breaks down, saying: “Well, that car was stuffed. Let’s chuck it out.” If you do not service a system properly or resource it properly or work alongside to build the capacity of your professionals properly, of course you are going to have problems. Taking powers away from professionals and giving them to others carte blanche, with a blank cheque, changes nothing about the way you originally resource the system. That is just an analogy I wanted to make.

I also want to absolutely acknowledge that when the Minister talked about clause 7, which has been the most controversial of all of the clauses that we are discussing, she talked about the need to make sure that we do the work properly. I absolutely agree. In fact, had the Minister wanted to take a bit more pause over this bill—maybe keep it at the select committee a little bit longer and spend a bit more time putting more definitions and constraints around the delegated powers—we would have been able to give that clause proper consideration, because some of the examples I have heard of how we might want to delegate powers have been reasonably innocuous. For instance, I have heard the idea that psychologists might want to have the ability to put a report directly to the Family Court, rather than via a social worker. That is a reasonably innocuous thing to do. If that was what the bill said, yes, we would have been able to consider that and probably look quite favourably on it. That makes sense.

That is not what this bill says, and I must be absolutely clear on this. In fact, what the members on the other side of the House referred to when talking about other community organisations—[Bell rung] Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Jacinda Ardern.

JACINDA ARDERN: Mr—oh, my name, right. In fact, when the members on the other side of the House have talked about other community organisations being able to carry out functions, obviously, we support the ability of those organisations to be part of the differential response model. We implemented that. We implemented that, but we clearly defined what our intent was and what power those organisations should have, and, in fact, they are powers that those organisations were comfortable with. We had a scenario at the select committee in which we had organisations that might have the professionals the Minister describes as taking over these powers, which said (a) “We don’t know what they are.” and (b) “If they are as big as this bill implies, we don’t want them. We don’t want those powers.”

Let us be absolutely clear. Given that the Minister talked about the need to take a multidisciplinary approach to working with children, that makes it sound like we are going to have psychologists and social workers working alongside each other to formulate a plan for a child. That is what it sounds like. But what the bill says about this multidisciplinary approach—let us be very clear—means that they might have the power under section 39 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act given to them. What is that power? That is the power to remove a child. That is the power to go and uplift a child.

What about section 40? That is the enforcement of access rights—that is, taking possession of a child and taking them to an access arrangement. You do not need a multidisciplinary approach to uplift a child under those circumstances. What you need is accountability, responsibility, and oversight. That is what you need.

What about ensuring that a child is at a hearing? Or search warrants to recover a child who has absconded or is absent? Or safety warrants? None of these are things that are about, for instance, trying to give psychologists greater access to the Family Court or, for instance, giving a paediatrician a say in a care plan for a child. All of that we would probably have sat down and considered very reasonably. That is not what this bill does.

Minister, I would just like to highlight again that we absolutely agree that we want to, of course, work towards the best outcomes for children. But there is a reason that since 1989 the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act has been very specific that only police officers and Child, Youth and Family (CYF) social workers—not even differential response social workers, not even contracted social workers, but CYF social workers—have those roles. That is because we have to be the ones with the care, the responsibility, and the accountability. If we make a mistake collectively, as the State, then we are the ones who must take responsibility.

The closest example I can draw is that you would never want these powers to be held by the likes of Serco. The Minister might say that that is an extreme example, but, actually, I have got nothing here in clause 7 to demonstrate to me that it could not have that power delegated to it. In fact, new section 7C(2)(b) in clause 7 explicitly states that you could have someone who has contractual obligations and who sits entirely outside the State have these powers awarded to them. That is significant, and if that is not what the Minister intended to do, then the Minister should have been explicit about that. We might then have had a position where all of us could have supported this bill, because the Minister knows how hard we campaigned for some of the elements that are in this bill.

I am being honest. It breaks me that we are going to be in a position where we are going to have to vote against it because the powers that we are giving to just about anyone are too great. That is the true test of how far this bill is going.

Just to perhaps also draw on one of the Minister’s points, to finish on—she talked about, as an example, contracts with iwi and how the delegation powers would enable, I am assuming, a greater role for iwi in working with children in these situations. Well, actually, (a) we are able to do that now, (b) have you asked iwi whether they want the ability to remove a child or to investigate a child abuse allegation involving a child and do they want those powers—it is a genuine question; I have a big question mark over whether they would want those powers—and (c) you cannot say with one breath that we want to enhance the relationship with iwi, and then put out a Cabinet paper that says we are going to fundamentally remove the presumption that they are going to be the first place we go to when we place a child who has been removed from their whānau. That is in direct contradiction with all of the principles the Minister claims she is trying to uphold.

JAN LOGIE (Green): My contribution, I think, will follow on from that of the previous speaker, Jacinda Ardern, in specifically talking about clause 7. I want to just finish my earlier train of thought around what this may mean for Māori and the point that (1) there has not been good consultation leading up to this point, and (2) that Cabinet papers indicate that the Minister is looking, at the least, at amending the provisions to place children with whānau, hapū, and iwi. That is not just with immediate family, and to say that actually there is no safe person within someone’s iwi is an extraordinary statement that cannot be anything but racist. Then to say that this is about enhancing opportunities for iwi is, frankly, ridiculous.

We need to remember that it has been 20 or 30 years, I think, since Pūao-te-ata-tū. That was a result of such heartbreak for Māori of seeing children taken out of families and put into residences and abused and harmed, and the consequences of that time we are still living with, in that most of the people in our prisons are those people. We got that report because we recognised a need for a fundamental change, and yet here we are moving backwards from that time—back to that time when so much of the thought about what was going wrong with our system at that moment and how to address it was the focus of the Māori Party previously in the development of Whānau Ora. Actually, that was supposed to be the response to this—to be able to build up whānau so they were not at the point of having children needing to leave their immediate family—and yet that has not been properly resourced, and now we are having legislation that again provides some very, very mixed messages.

I will speak now to what this means for other, say, Pākehā services, even if they are working just with Pākehā families. I want to address this and what the Minister has been saying. The previous National speaker, Jono Naylor, has said: “Well, actually, why should we have this role, of uplifting children, searching homes to go and find children and assess whether they are in danger, and removing the kids, restricted to Child, Youth and Family? Couldn’t that role be given to a nice lovely NGO that has got a nice relationship and would not be quite so scary?”. Well, the NGOs that presented in front of the Social Services Committee, which that member sat on, told us they do not want that role—that, actually, core to their ability to have that relationship with those families is the fact that they do not do that work. They do not have the potential to come and uplift those families’ kids. The actual relationship is at the heart of that work, and to uplift children would be to actually undermine the entire process.

We also need to recognise, and it was stated very clearly by the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services, that talking about handing over roles to the community sector and the NGOs at a time when they are so underfunded that their staff are just at breaking point, and we heard at the homelessness inquiry that it was a little bit like being in a war zone without medicine because they have not had funding increases for 8 years—the talk about giving those agencies and those staff members roles far, far beyond what they have now is, frankly, irresponsible. We were told that very clearly in the committee process.

We need to recognise as well that the oversight of the system is also inadequately funded—that the Office of the Children’s Commissioner has that statutory role for ensuring safety and it has said that within the existing centralised system, it is not funded to be able to adequately ensure the safety of the children. So then, if you talk about delegating out those responsibilities and powers, how on earth can they provide that check and balance when they cannot do it in a centralised system?

We also heard from NGOs that they were very concerned that this would have an impact on maintaining expertise and lead to the fragmentation of the system. It is worrying, to say the least.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I want to make a couple of points—probably three, actually—in my contribution to the debate on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. The first thing I want to do is congratulate the Minister for Social Development. Raising the age of kids in care is a really positive move, and I want to congratulate her on that. She knows that Labour has pushed for that change for a very long time. It is something that we passionately believe in. It will be good. I think most of the submitters—in fact, all of the submitters, perhaps with a couple of exceptions—supported that change. The fact that the Minister has indicated that there are further steps to take in supporting a better transition from being in care to being out of care is a really welcome move.

In fact, we had a bill before the House in 2008 that had exactly this provision, and then we lost the election and the incoming National Government dumped that bill. I am really sort of puzzled as to why it did that, and it is now introducing the very provision that we could have had in place all those years ago—8 years ago. But I guess we have wasted only 8 years, and now the Minister has, clearly, been able to win the argument within her own Cabinet and caucus and has managed to reintroduce the measure that was dumped so long ago. I remember the petition from Lifewise and the Dingwall Trust to do this very thing, and I just want to acknowledge the passionate work of those people and many others who signed the petition and have been part of an ongoing campaign over many years to introduce this policy change. I also acknowledge the former Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft. He is the Children’s Commissioner now, and his has long been a voice for this change and others.

I want to acknowledge the sad contribution that Jono Naylor made. I thought Jono Naylor had more experience in this area and would have been able to make a more thoughtful and considered contribution, but I was disappointed with it. The idea that, currently, organisations like the Open Home Foundation and Barnardos can perform core statutory roles that are, in the law, to be performed only by Child, Youth and Family is just wrong. It is incorrect, and I saw the Minister nodding. I thought she should know better. She should know better than to agree with the nonsense that that member said—that the issue that is causing such concern for so many people, which is included in this bill, is currently able to be done. What a nonsense. Why would we be changing the law to allow it if it is currently being done? Jono Naylor said that the Open Home Foundation and Barnardos are breaking the law around the country currently, and the Minister nodded her head.

Jono Naylor: No I didn’t. You should’ve listened, Ruth.

Hon RUTH DYSON: There are some provisions—I did listen. It was hard work, but I did. The idea that any role can be performed by any organisation is just without moral, in my view. There are some actions that should have the accountability of a Minister and the accountability of a department and the accountability to Parliament. In my view, the removal of a child from their family is one such provision. We should not say that it should be done by any organisation, without any professional qualifications mandated, at the discretion of a chief executive who has very limited accountability to Parliament and has accountability only, really, to the State Services Commission. I think it is wrong.

I agree with the differential response model. I think it is a really good programme, because it shows that there are lots of organisations that can provide high-quality support to children in our communities who need that support, but the differential response model never went as far as saying that the removal of a child is not the responsibility of a State. I want to invite the Minister to consider over the dinner break one single point: the Minister would be celebrated around the country if she persisted with the raising of the age in care. Everyone would celebrate that move, and there would not be a negative word against this Draconian provision, this regressive provision, of saying that a child can be removed from their family by somebody other than a Government department—a statutory responsibility that we would give to a Government department.

I think it would be a great thing on an issue that is as important as the welfare, the well-being, the care, and support of children who need intervention in their lives to have a good outcome. We can debate about a whole lot of the other provisions that other colleagues have mentioned tonight, but I think it would be a great outcome for Parliament in a week when we have shown that with natural disasters we can present a unified response, because we are more mature than the way that we often behave in this Parliament. We can rise to the occasion. I think it would be a great move for the Minister to rise to that occasion, to put aside that section of the legislation that gives, other than a statutory responsibility to a Government department, an intervention in a family without any accountability to this Parliament. That is a step too far, and it has caused Labour to say that because of that step, we are unable to support this bill—a bill that has got the raising of the age of children in care, which we have campaigned for for so long.

It is a mistake. We would love to support this bill, Minister—and we do not often say that about National bills. We truly do not. We say it when it is true though, and in this case it is true. With the removal of that one provision, this could send a really strong message to families in need, to Child, Youth and Family as an agency, and to the non-Government organisations—the community and voluntary sector—which do so much good in our society. We could say to them: “Parliament as a whole listened to you.”

We think there are some issues that would be a step too far in this bill, and allowing the chief executive, at his discretion entirely, to delegate any of the core roles of Child, Youth and Family to another organisation or individual—there is not even a qualification put in the legislation. They do not even have to be of any particular age, let alone have a qualification. That is wrong. I think the Minister has been advised incorrectly on this issue. I think she needs to have reflection time between 6 p.m. and 7.30 p.m., and come back and say that the Government will reconsider it in the next piece of legislation, which she has said is coming down the track. That would give her time to perhaps listen to the genuine concerns.

There is not a single member in this House, in my view, who does not want better outcomes for children who have been in care, who are in care, or who will be in care in the future. We all know that we have done badly in this regard, and I know that the Minister wants to spend her time in this House making a positive difference. That is a good thing for a Minister to want. I am delighted that she has done that in so much of this legislation.

I think the Social Services Committee has done a jolly fine job. I wish I had been able to sit on it. It has got some competent members on it, and it has clearly worked hard on this bill.

Just one change, Minister: take that clause out. It is a step too far, it is regressive, and it is dangerous. We should not do it. If the Minister does not reflect well and change her mind, I will be very sad if we have to vote against this bill.

I was the Minister who introduced the 2008 legislation to raise the age. I was really annoyed that National came in and dumped it. There was no good reason. It just decided it was Labour legislation, so it would get rid of it. I think the current Minister is better than that and can show that by listening to the concerns we have about giving away core statutory responsibilities in terms of care and protection to unnamed, and not even known, organisations that do not even have to have a profession identified.

The Minister might have confidence in her chief executive, and I think that is a very good thing. That is not the point. It is a step too far to opt out of the current statutory responsibilities. Jono Naylor was wrong—we do not do it currently. Barnardos is not acting illegally. The Open Home Foundation is not acting illegally. They cannot do it, they are not allowed to do it, they do not want to do it, and for very good reason. We should have the accountability of the department and the Minister to this Parliament for something as critical and important as removing a child from their own family. Thank you.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I want to make a couple of comments. There have been some impassioned speeches in the Committee on this issue, and I understand the concerns. But I just want to remind members of the Committee that, actually, it is the court that has the power to decide when a child is removed. It is the court that makes that decision; it is not the State. The State makes representations on behalf of that child in order to keep them safe, but the essential part of the safety net, if you like, is that the court considers all the evidence and makes the final decision. That, I think, is the best protection that we can give the system.

The second thing is that the comment has been made that these powers could be delegated to anyone. Well, that is not true. Read the bill—read the bill. The bill says quite clearly that the person has to be appropriately qualified to perform the function or exercise the power, taking into account the person’s training, experience, and interpersonal skills. So it is not just going to go to any Tom, Dick, or Harry. That power goes to someone who has the experience, who has the skills, and who has the interpersonal skills that are necessary. We are not talking about just one small part. Right through the current Act, it is only a constable or a social worker who can do a large range of jobs, and that is not acceptable today. The evidence is clear that we need more than social workers, and that is what this bill intends to put in place.

So, yes, I understand that there are some reservations about this, and I am sad that the previous speaker, Ruth Dyson, is going to be sad, but we have thought very long and carefully about this. I come back to the fact I gave at the start. The court, which is completely independent from Parliament, has the power to make those decisions about whether to uplift a child from their family. The ultimate decision in a child’s life is made by a completely independent power, which is our court.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): Following on from the sound contribution of my colleague Ruth Dyson, I want to make a comment on a number of matters that have been raised in the Committee but, more importantly, to ask the Minister for Social Development to clarify what evidence she has received to determine that delegating the authority, or giving the chief executive power to delegate care and protection responsibilities, in itself is a sound decision. For example, if, as I heard in previous contributions, the Minister is basing that on agreements with iwi, there would be evidence built into the memorandums of understanding that have been secured over the last 2 years, when iwi have been giving feedback on the way in which better responses to child care and protection could happen. So I want to comment on the report that she recently received with regard to Mokopuna Ora, and some of the reflections—let us say, observations—that Waikato-Tainui have experienced in trying to make a care and protection system work well within an iwi context.

There are a number of challenges. The Minister has been briefed on them, and I know that she has been aware of the various aspects of the process by which Waikato-Tainui responded to the 87-odd cases that they dealt with within their contracted period to try to ensure that (1) mokopuna were able to go back into whānau, (2) the process worked better for those who were caring for these mokopuna, and (3) there was better coordination of the discussion with Child, Youth and Family, whose processes were not as accessible to whānau as they could have been.

In working through the process, just the amount of effort that the iwi went into in ensuring and identifying and aligning Child, Youth and Family expectations of whānau who were able to be carers and the kaitiaki who were selected—there was quite a bit of intensive work to try to ensure the right whānau were being picked. By “right”, I mean whānau were being given enough information about their responsibilities but also about how to navigate the system in a way that was going to, ultimately, be beneficial for the mokopuna. A number of hui were held—wānanga, if you like—and they made some, I think, useful observations to the Minister. Were it to be adopted, there were things that were needed that were absolutely crucial.

The other part of it was the iwi support advisers, who, ultimately, were charged with working with kaitiaki and mokopuna to better ensure that whānau plans were being developed. From my understanding of the amount of intensity that went into this, very little of that, I guess, engagement required a specific set of social work; it was more around case management. If that is the case—that case management, or navigator assistance, was at the core of the iwi support advisers and of being able to develop whānau plans for mokopuna that were not only going to be implemented but implemented to the extent that you would not see these mokopuna going in the revolving system of State care—there was a range of issues that were identified in making this work.

Minister, I think the concern that I am raising right now is that this, at its initial stage, was evaluated—this whole process. There were some insights gained. Obviously the extent of wraparound services envisaged was a lot more than was thought of at the beginning, so it was a design phase that they went through. Once they presented the evidence, Minister, it would be, I think, only prudent to explain to the House again what justification to delegate State care has been received. From the information I have received there is still a lot more work to do within iwi settings in order to have absolute confidence that the care of mokopuna is at the heart of any decision-making process and that the core oversight of the chief executive of Child, Youth and Family remains key to ensuring that children are not in a revolving system of State care, but, more importantly—and I think this is the insight from the iwi experience—that there is a greater emphasis on the role of whānau being responsible within the whole process.

I am aware, Minister, that evaluations were made. There must be further evidence, beyond the case that I am citing, whereby you are making the decision to delegate—that the chief executive can delegate power—but on the basis of the report that I have seen, it is too early yet. I would hate for iwi to be used as the gold star standard of the reason why such a provision exists, when even they have observed that it is at a very early stage. Quite frankly, our children are far too important to gamble on with provisions like this, which do not give absolute confidence.

So I am asking the Minister to take a call to identify the range of evidence that has been provided to her to give her confidence that the chief executive should be given powers to delegate the care and protection responsibilities to another entity. If that evidence is based on iwi examples, I do think that needs clarification. I know that there is some nervousness that still remains with some of the iwi providers about ensuring they have got the best system possible, before everything gets delegated to iwi.

In saying that, Waikato-Tainui have been very proactive in wanting to work alongside Child, Youth and Family. They have observed that the processes are clunky and do not work in favour of informing whānau clearly of the court process, the family group conference process, and the consequent impacts on decision making. They do favour, from the evaluation that I have seen, monitored implementation of whānau plans for the successful placement of mokopuna. They absolutely favour that as a process. They raised with you, Minister, concerns about any prospect of changing section 5(2) of the principal Act, and you may wish to take a call, Minister, because you have forecast future changes to the legislation. It would be—beyond Waikato-Tainui—interesting to know whether there was a consistency of evaluation feedback, again, that would give confidence around the models being embarked on within iwi to retain children within whānau kin group care and also to monitor the prevention of children going into the care cycle so that they are into long-term care placement. Kia ora tātou.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Members, I propose to group some of the clauses for votes, to leave the opportunity for people to vote the way that they want to where there is division, but not to take all night putting the votes.

Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 248 in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 4 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 44

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 13.

Noes 75

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The result corrected after originally been announced as Ayes 43, Noes 75.

Clause 4 agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 5 be agreed to.

Ayes 106

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

Noes 13

Green Party 13.

Clause 5 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 248 in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 6 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 44

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 13.

Noes 75

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 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 clause 6 be agreed to.

Ayes 106

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

Noes 13

Green Party 13.

Clause 6 agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question that clauses 7 to 11 and schedules 1 to 3 be agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry. I apologise. I have made an error in my grouping of the clauses. So I am going to go back and put Jacinda Ardern’s amendment, the effect of which is to delete clause 7.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 248 in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 44

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 13.

Noes 75

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 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 clauses 7 to 11 and schedules 1 to 3 be agreed to.

Ayes 75

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

Noes 44

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 13.

Clauses 7 to 11 and schedules 1 to 3 agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Report adopted.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave for the House to suspend slightly early for the dinner break.

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

Sitting suspended from 5.58 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Bills

Maritime Transport Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): I move, That the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to consider the bill. It gives me great pleasure to introduce this bill to the House. The purpose of this bill is to promote maritime safety and marine environmental protection. This bill amends the Maritime Transport Act 1994, which provides the regulatory framework for the maritime transport sector. The bill will set out new international compensation arrangements for maritime incidents causing marine pollution and will manage the risks of alcohol- and drug-impairment in the commercial maritime sector. This bill will also improve the flexibility of empowering provisions for the making of rules under the Act and clarify existing provisions, address operational issues, and correct some minor anomalies.

Turning to the international maritime conventions, the bill will give effect in New Zealand law to the Supplementary Fund Protocol to the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund, which the Government agreed to in December 2014. The original supplementary fund provided an inexpensive global compensation scheme to cover oil spill damage from tankers, providing up to $388 million in compensation in the event of a spill in our waters. By acceding to the protocol, we increase the compensation available to $1.432 billion.

The bill also addresses the limitation of liability for maritime claims. The grounding of the Rena on Astrolabe Reef highlighted the need to update and strengthen our liability limitation regime for maritime claims. That is why this bill provides for the implementation of reservations under the protocol of 1996 to amend the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims 1976. The reservations exclude liability limitation—that is, there will not be limitation of liability for wreck removal costs, cargo removal costs, or damage from hazardous and noxious cargo substances. This will provide more scope for cost recovery by public authorities, businesses, and the community in the event of another major maritime incident.

This is also a bill about what many have called “clear heads”. One of the most significant proposals in the bill addresses the risks associated with alcohol and drug use in the commercial maritime sector. A new Part 4B to the Act will more effectively manage these risks. Under these new measures, all commercial maritime operators will be required to have drug and alcohol management plans to manage the risks associated with drug and alcohol use. The management plans must provide for random drug and alcohol testing of staff who carry out safety-sensitive activities.

The Director of Maritime New Zealand will also have the power to undertake drug and alcohol testing in accordance with the testing requirements and operator management plans. This testing may also be done at any time, for any reason, and is not limited to random testing. In the event of a test result other than a negative result, an operator must stop a worker from undertaking safety-sensitive activities until he or she is again safe to do so. Operators will need to implement their drug and alcohol management plans by incorporating them into employment agreements. This is in line with the treatment of drug and alcohol testing under current employment law for employees and contracts for services for contractors.

New maritime rules will establish requirements concerning the content of, and procedural requirements for, drug and alcohol management plans, procedural requirements for random drug and alcohol testing, and other related matters. Existing offence penalty and cost recovery provisions in the Act will cover enforcement of, and funding for, the new drug and alcohol management requirements.

The bill also contains miscellaneous measures to improve the operation of existing provisions in the Act and to address minor anomalies by way of amendments. This includes amendments to improve the adaptability of maritime rules by allowing the Director of Maritime New Zealand to determine how requirements of the rules are met in response to developments in technology, international standards, and industry practice. It also includes changes to allow regional councils to retain fees from infringement offence notices issued for breaches of maritime rules, providing an incentive for councils to enforce the national rules directly rather than replicating them in local by-laws.

The bill will also improve access to shipping services to the Chatham Islands and other offshore islands by easing the restriction on the use of foreign-registered ships to carry freight between these places and mainland New Zealand. The bill will also enable territorial authorities to transfer responsibilities for harbour works to another public authority, and to transfer responsibilities for maritime activity to council-controlled organisations and port operators.

The proposals in this bill will improve safety outcomes in the maritime system. They will, I think, significantly improve the compensation regime for marine pollution incidents and ensure that this Act is good law, is very serviceable law into the foreseeable future. I commend this bill to the House.

SUE MORONEY (Labour): Can I first of all start my contribution to the debate on this bill by taking the opportunity to extend my condolences to the family and friends of those who died and were injured in the earthquakes early on Monday morning, and to pay homage, really, to the great Kiwi spirit and resilience of our communities, which is once again being tested in the current environment. Are we not standing up. I see communities where people are seeing the best in each other, are helping each other out, and, despite the adversity of the times, we have a great community spirit, which I believe is the thing that is going to see people through. I know that the coming weeks and months are going to be very difficult. I think that at the beginning of the process there is a great deal to be done, there is a great deal to think about, and people have had a new experience in their lives. And then the daily grind begins. So we have all got that opportunity now to help each other through that period of time.

With this bill, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, it would be wonderful, would it not, if we were able to have the nimbleness in this Parliament to be addressing the things that we really need to address within our maritime transport system, which I think is exposed when we have these natural disasters and these emergencies that we must respond to. It would be wonderful if this bill could enhance our maritime transport sector, and in particular the coastal shipping part of our transport system, not only in order to help us through times like this, where it is really apparent that it is desperately needed to have a really robust coastal shipping strategy in place, but also for our day-to-day way of shifting both people and freight around our country.

If I were to be introducing the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill into this House, I think that it would be a great deal more aspirational than this one is. I will say, though, at the outset, that Labour is supporting this bill because it does have some useful measures in it. It certainly has some useful measures in it, but we believe that it misses the opportunity—the big opportunity staring us right in the face—to enhance and improve our coastal shipping services as part of a fully integrated transport system. It certainly does not bring that about.

In fact, I think I could hear it in Minister Simon Bridge’s voice when he presented his speech on this bill. Given the many complex issues that he is dealing with right now in his role as Minister of Transport—and I want to thank him for all of those efforts that he is making—to then come and present a bill about maritime transport like this to the House must seem deeply ironic. I know that the Minister will be thinking about the adequacy, or the inadequacy, of our coastal shipping fleet and its ability to respond in the current emergency situation. And yet, here is this bill, which actually does nothing to enhance that, and I suspect—but I will be interested to hear from the submitters—it may even take us a step backwards.

I am referring to the issue that the Minister raised in his speech, that about allowing foreign-flag vessels to deliver coastal shipping services to islands in and around New Zealand. That, I suspect, will actually have the effect of decreasing the robustness of our domestic coastal shipping fleet, and we have seen that already in recent years. We have seen that already, where our coastal shipping fleet has diminished in numbers and capacity and capability, and I believe that provision of this bill may well serve to undermine it yet again.

I raise this issue particularly because when road and rail fail—as they have done when mother Nature gets hold of them and shakes them about and gives them a jolly good shake-up and they are no longer usable, as has happened just this week—then the one reliable mode of transport is the transport system available to us by sea. Particularly for an island nation like ours, that is the one area that we can rely on when these natural disasters occur. We have seen it today. We have seen people being removed in large numbers from Kaikōura by the Defence Force by sea—by ship. That has ended up being the most reliable way to mass evacuate that area.

I know that the coastal shipping service—which is almost all in private hands—has been incredibly responsible in each of our emergencies that we have been faced with, in pulling together and offering those services to make sure that New Zealand can continue to operate. I am concerned that there is at least one provision in this bill that may make that harder in the future, but I will be very interested to hear what submitters have to say on that when they come before the select committee.

The issues of safety in the marine sector are important, so we will be supporting the drug and alcohol management plans that are proposed through this bill. That is a good thing. I would encourage the Government to look at other sectors where issues are probably more pressing and take an equally strong approach to ensure that workplace health and safety is first and foremost. Although I am not aware that drug and alcohol issues are a major problem for our maritime sector, I am aware that the problem that we face with quad bike deaths in this country, for example, is an area where I would like to see the Government take a regulatory approach. I would think that that would have more of a priority than what we are debating here in this bill today. None the less, that is a useful provision. It is a useful provision, but I urge the Government to take an equally serious approach to that mounting problem of quad bike deaths, which is plaguing our landscape as well.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are moving away from the bill.

SUE MORONEY: At the first reading—I will, of course, bring it back to the bill and will be discussing the bill’s inadequacies as well.

So to the other provisions of the bill: part of the bill addresses the shortcomings that were made very obvious when we had the grounding of the Rena some years ago. The shortcomings in our ability to require compensation from companies and international organisations that we should be able to expect compensation from are addressed by this bill, and that is not before time. So we will be fully supportive of those provisions. It is important that we can have certainty that if these disasters—these oil spillages, these wreckages—happen on our coastline, we are able to ensure that it is not just the New Zealand taxpayer who cops the full force of the outcome of that. This bill certainly brings greater clarity and more options forward for the Government, on behalf of the people of New Zealand, to pursue compensation from those who have been complicit in creating the problem in the first place.

There are many other bits and pieces—technical changes that are brought forward by this bill. They are measures that, by and large, we will support, but we will listen very carefully to what submitters have to say. The people who are experts in the field and the people who work in the maritime transport sector are the people who will know what the very real consequences and implications are for all the issues that are traversed through this bill. We will listen very carefully to those. We hope that we will have a good working relationship with all members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, so that if there are unintended consequences that are discovered through that process, we work together. I think that our committee does have a history of being able to work together, to do exactly that.

I look forward to hearing the submissions and working with all the parties to bring forward the best Maritime Transport Amendment Bill that we can at this point in time. But I would also urge the Government to be more ambitious about having a maritime transport sector that can fully participate in an integrated transport system, whether it be in response to an emergency or on any other day of the week.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): This bill deals a lot with the health and safety of people in the maritime industry. I would also like to echo the sentiments of Sue Moroney, the previous speaker, by acknowledging those people in Kaikōura who are in the business of keeping us safe across the community: the police, the Fire Service, civil defence, the ambulance service, NGOs, and the Defence Force, which is down there with our allies from offshore. There are also the persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs), which we have talked about in previous legislation; the health and safety officers who are in our businesses; and a new term—which is in this bill—the DAMP operator. The DAMP operator is the term that relates to the drug and alcohol management plan operator.

Andrew Bayly: Very important.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: It is. It is a very important person. That DAMP operator—that person—is responsible for a management plan that is initiated in this bill, which brings in the regime for random testing for drugs and alcohol that has come out of an earlier tragedy—in Carterton, in fact, in my electorate—which was the balloon tragedy. The review of that has brought about some of these changes and has applied them to the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, which we are dealing with today.

So that is all about improving safety—and people scoff at some of the health and safety regulations that are put in place. I am sure people would say that this is going over the top with health and safety, but we only need to be reminded of what can happen and what could happen, because things that have happened only in the last couple of days demonstrate that no matter how hard we try to keep people safe, there are always going to be accidents and there are always going to be emergencies. But what we are trying to do here is raise awareness of health and safety—raise the bar a little bit further—in the maritime industry.

The bar was raised in the health and safety law reforms earlier, as I said, with the persons conducting a business or undertaking, giving the responsibility for the health and safety of workers and employers to each other, so there is shared responsibility. This bill complements that and talks about, as I say, a DAMP, and a DAMP operator. Sorry about the word “DAMP”.

Andrew Bayly: Acronym.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Acronym. Thank you. This bill also deals with a couple of other issues. It deals with compensation, and, particularly, it un-limits the liability—or creates an unlimited liability—to the operator, regarding cost when there is the cost of removing a wreck, when there is removal of cargo, and when there are remediating damages from hazardous substances. Previously, there were limitations on the liability of the operator; this bill would make those liabilities unlimited. It also opens up a larger fund, which is an insurance fund, essentially. It is able to be accessed—as the Minister of Transport said, from $388 million to $1.4 billion worth of funding—where there is an oil event in our patch.

So there are three major parts to this bill. There are a few bits and pieces around flag-bearings, as the previous speaker, Sue Moroney, mentioned, and that is related to competition, which I am sure we can discuss robustly in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which I look forward to. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): The Labour Party is supporting the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill to select committee. I want to focus, in particular, on the changes to the law that enable New Zealand to accede to the changes made by the 1996 protocol amending the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. There are two aspects to that that are important. One is that this bill enables the New Zealand Government to accede to the 2003 protocol that led to the establishment of an international fund for compensation for oil pollution damage, which originally started in 1992.

This change, which has been open to New Zealand for some time now, enables New Zealand to join this other fund. It is paid for by a levy on oil importers into New Zealand. They are charged a levy, and that levy goes into this international fund, which is a bit like an insurance fund. If there is a big oil spill our way, then that fund can be drawn upon in order to deal with the consequences of a major oil spill. It is very appropriate that New Zealand protects itself in that regard. We hope we never have to call upon those sorts of things, but one only has to look at some of the terrible consequences that have dogged parts of America for decades, since the Exxon Valdez went down off the American coast, and you realise how terrible the consequences can be if you have the foundering of a major oil tanker. So that is good, and that is one of the reasons why the Labour Party is supporting this to select committee.

The second aspect, as the prior speaker, Alastair Scott, mentioned, is that it also enables New Zealand to take the steps that are necessary to exclude ourselves from some of the limitations of liability that apply to other forms of carriage of goods at sea. Unless New Zealand changes its rules and makes reservations that exclude the limitation of liability that otherwise applies—so, unless New Zealand takes an active step to remove the limitation of liability that currently applies—the New Zealand Government is limited in its ability to recover costs in respect of the consequences of other vessels that founder on our coastline.

This is a very real issue that was encountered in New Zealand as a consequence of the grounding of the Rena. The explanatory note, the departmental disclosure statement, and the regulatory impact statement all variously mention the Rena, but none of them make explicit that one of the problems with the Rena was that New Zealand had not done what it could have done by then, to have removed the limitation of liability, which meant that there were limits on the amount that the New Zealand Government could recover from those at fault for the Rena disaster, and, effectively, more of it had to be borne—or potentially borne—by the New Zealand Crown. I cannot remember—because it is quite a while ago now—what the final amounts were, but the Rena foundered on 5 October 2011. When it hit the Astrolabe Reef, it subsequently broke up, and it released about 2,500 barrels of oil—about 400 cubic metres of oil—and there were also containers that went overboard, and the contents of those containers ended up in the sea as well.

The ability of the New Zealand Government to sheet home the cost of that remedial work was limited by the then limitation of liability under the international convention, which the New Zealand Government had not been able to remove, because this legislation had not been passed. It was a criticism that was made by the media and by Opposition parties at the time—that if we had acceded to the changes to that treaty earlier, and if we had enabled, in law, the New Zealand Government to remove that limitation of liability, then the position could have been different.

It is sad enough that that happened in respect of the Rena, but you have to ask yourself, if that was on 5 October 2011, why it is that it has taken 5 years since that event to bring this legislation to Parliament, because it was evident at the time of the Rena disaster that this problem needed to be fixed. Luckily, there has not been a significant foundering of a large cargo ship off the shores of New Zealand since then, so we have not been adversely affected by that in the intervening period—but we could have been. It is only a matter of luck that, in the period since 5 October 2011, when the Rena grounded, and now, we have not been faced with a substantial claim where the Government’s ability to recover compensation from the owners of the vessel that caused the environmental damage—you know, had that occurred during this intervening period, the New Zealand Government would have been hindered in its ability to do the right thing.

I cannot see why it has taken that long to get this into Parliament. It is not a particularly long bill, as others have already said. This also covers drug testing, and the total bill is 25 pages long—it is not a large bill. A significant part of that relates to the drug and alcohol management plans. Looking at that, those go for about five pages—the explanatory note and the index sections are about 10 pages of it—so, you know, the relevant provisions that the Minister of Transport, if he spent less time looking in the mirror and more time looking at his papers, he would—[Interruption] I know that he is from down near the Astrolabe, and I do not know whether that is where he got the idea for the Brylcreem, but—[Interruption] You know.

Hon Simon Bridges: This is—this is—

Hon DAVID PARKER: I know, this is a cruel contribution, but I am sure that your ego is strong enough to take it. The Minister of Transport should have had this in Parliament years ago. I am looking forward to a contribution from the National Government to explain why, given that it was evident in 2011, we had a gap in New Zealand’s law that meant that there was a limitation of liability as to how much we could recover from an overseas owner of cargo ships that foundered in New Zealand waters.

Hon Simon Bridges: Some people can never be happy.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I am actually very easily made happy. I am a very happy person, but I am disappointed at the slackness of the Government and the Minister in not bringing this to the House to cure this problem that was so publicly aired in 2011 following the foundering of the Rena.

I am not going to spend much time on the drug and alcohol testing provisions. I agree that they are necessary. I agree that technology has improved in a way that enables those testing regimes to be more practical than they used to be. And I also agree with the last speaker that the tragedy that we had in respect of the balloon that burnt and then crashed to the ground following a collision with wires may have been avoided—we do not know that it would have been—if we had those tests and arrangements in place earlier.

One of the questions that does, I think, need to be asked by the select committee is why it is that there has been this delay in respect of the empowering provisions that enable the changes to the protocol to be brought into effect, both in terms of the oil spills for oil tankers, which is a different thing from the cargo ships, but also why there have been the delays in respect of getting rid of this limitation of liability in respect of cargo ships. And I would also be interested to see a time line as to how long it is going to take, once this legislation is passed, for those changes to be brought into effect, in practice, through the changes that are then made to New Zealand’s participation in those international agreements.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be talking to the first reading of the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill. I have got to say that I think I have to defend the Minister’s integrity and honour from the previous speaker, who so slanderously talked about his hair. I just want to put it on record from this position: there is no Brylcreem. I have got to admit that the hair looks beautiful and well-coiffured, but I am putting it on the record that there are no further additives. But I do take this moment just to say that this bill comes from a very hard-working Minister who is doing a lot for transport, particularly in my electorate in Hunua, where we are doing a lot of good roading projects and rail projects.

I think it is very timely, given the circumstances that Kaikōura and the people of the northern part of the South Island are facing today, just to acknowledge all the wonderful work that the various coastal shipping companies and navies are doing, including our own, in terms of helping the people down there through the earthquakes that have occurred and, unfortunately, seem to be occurring as we talk.

Just turning to this bill, there are four really good parts to this bill, which I think are vitally important. I think there has been a lot about the oil spill capacity in terms of accessing a much higher pool of money, raising it, basically, from $388 million to $1.4 billion, which we do need to have in the event of a catastrophic failure of an oil tanker. This is prudent planning. But the one part that I find particularly interesting is the change that we are putting in place as a party to the protocol in 1996 to amend the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. Of course, this is all covered under section 86, in clause 8.

Basically, what it means is that in respect of both ships or cargo, where a ship has sunk or cargo has sunk, or been wrecked, stranded, or abandoned, there is in place some compensation, which means that we can actually increase the amount of compensation we can get from those vessel owners. The Rena event was a very strong example of where we had trouble as a Government trying to get proper recompense for what was going on. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am really looking forward to discussing that element in particular, but I thank you very much for the opportunity to talk tonight.

JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The Green Party will be supporting this bill at its first reading. As some of the other speakers have mentioned this evening already, notably the Hon David Parker, we do wonder why it is that this bill has taken so long to come before the House, given that it has been 5 years since the catastrophic event of the Rena hitting the Astrolabe Reef. Of course, there have been ongoing problems because of our inability to claim the amount of costs that were actually incurred as a result of that cargo ship running aground and disintegrating.

This bill has three to four main points. The first one is that, of course, it increases the amount that we are able to receive in compensation in the case that an oil tanker should have a catastrophic spill or accident—that only makes sense. But, again, I wonder why it has taken so long. This is the Protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage 1992. So, presumably, it has been about 13 years that we have been waiting to accede to this particular protocol, and I am not sure why it has taken quite so long.

New Zealand is a country that trades on its clean, green reputation in the world. Part of the reason people come here—tourism being one of our major exports—is that we have these pristine beaches. That reputation is at risk if there is an oil spill, which could then potentially result in far costlier damage than what we are even able to access in terms of a major oil spill. Under this legislation, we are increasing it from $377 million to $1.392 billion. That is considering no-fault claims. But, obviously, it would cost us far more—and that much is clear from the national interest analysis, which goes into the ways in which a tanker spill in New Zealand may cause environmental and economic damage.

These include damage to New Zealand’s aquaculture industry, fishing stocks, and decreased demand for New Zealand seafood, and an oil spill could also potentially impact shipping vessels reaching or leaving ports, resulting in delays and costs for exporters and importers. The environmental damage if oil reaches our coastline—or the occurrence of an oil spill itself—could damage New Zealand’s tourism industry. So we are highly vulnerable to the impacts of a catastrophic oil spill. Even if the chances of one occurring are quite low, the impact and the consequences of such an event would be so catastrophic that we should be taking it very seriously and making it a priority.

For that reason, of course, it is probably also a very, very, very bad idea for the current Government to be pursuing deep sea oil drilling as an economic development strategy, because the risks of a catastrophic spill in that case are equally high and the pay-offs are actually quite low—particularly given that we know we cannot afford to burn all of the fossil fuels that we currently know are proven and exist while we are exploring for new fossil fuel reserves, and we know we cannot afford to burn them. The risk of a catastrophic oil spill could potentially do enormous damage to New Zealand’s reputation and economic ability to earn a living in the world. It seems a bit short-sighted.

The second point of this bill is, of course, the removal of the limitation of liability on certain types of accidents relating to cargo ships and other types of ships, which is directly related to the Rena. Of course, it has taken 5 years for this legislation to come to the House. We are glad that it has finally come to the House, and we will be supporting it, but we do wonder what would have happened if, in the intervening years, there had been a similar accident. It would have been quite costly for New Zealand—and quite problematic.

The third point of the bill, I do have some personal concerns about. Although it makes absolute sense to have drug and alcohol testing for people who are operating marine vessels, there is a question about whether or not it would become problematic if any level of alcohol or drugs showed up in the test sample for a worker who submits a positive drug test. I mean, obviously, most people in this House would enjoy a glass of wine or two when they have the ability to, and as long as that is done responsibly, that is OK—if they are not on the job. So we are interested in drug testing for impairment, rather than for the presence of the drug. I will be interested to see, in the select committee process, if the regime that is set up for drug and alcohol testing is going to be appropriate for assessing impairment on the job rather than just the presence of alcohol or the drug.

The other changes that are proposed by this bill, in Part 3, are a whole range of technical changes. One that jumps out, for me, is to “improve access to coastal shipping services to non-mainland ports by allowing for foreign-registered ships to carry freight to and from New Zealand’s offshore islands,” and “to enable territorial authorities to transfer responsibilities in relation to maritime activity to council-controlled organisations and port operators:”.

I am not yet convinced that this would be the right approach. If anything, I think the events of this week have shown how important it is for the resilience of New Zealand’s transport system to have a robust domestic coastal shipping service. I think that it is something that this Government has let languish in its term since it came to power and it cancelled the paltry amount of money that the Ministry of Transport had assigned to it—which was $1 million to $2 million a year—for investigating the ability to increase coastal shipping. Of course, in that time, the freight tonne kilometres carried by coastal shipping have actually declined from 15 percent to 14 percent of the total overall freight task.

At a time when we know we need to be reducing carbon pollution from transport, and knowing all that we do about the high cost of infrastructure and the high cost of transporting goods inter-regionally around New Zealand, we should be looking for opportunities to increase coastal shipping. We have got the ocean all around us—we are a coastal nation. It is true that it has not flourished in the previous decades, but that is not to say that there are not economic opportunities in moving more goods by sea. By the Government examining the opportunities to increase coastal shipping services, it could potentially be vastly reducing the cost of moving goods around New Zealand, the pollution associated with moving goods around New Zealand, and the number of big, heavy trucks on the road. But, at the moment, our transport funding and assessment of infrastructure projects is very, very siloed.

The Government has a huge fund for putting money into a few State highway projects, on the assumption that they are going to benefit people driving around New Zealand, whether they be in trucks or cars. The reality is that if we made it easier to move goods by sea, it could result in huge economic benefits, in terms of reduced cost of wear and tear on the roads, of congestion, of cost to our domestic shippers, and of an improvement in terms of safety risk. We want to make our roads safer, and moving more goods with big, heavy trucks is obviously not the way to make our roads safer, and it is certainly not going to reduce the cost—

Hon Simon Bridges: You like trucks, don’t you? What’s wrong with trucks?

JULIE ANNE GENTER: Trucks have their place, Minister. Trucks have their place, but there is the potential for more goods to be carried by sea or by rail. If that is going to result in benefits to ratepayers and people who are using the roads, then I think the Government should not be ideologically opposed to rail and sea freight—which it obviously is.

The Green Party would like to see a resilient and safe integrated transport system, and we recognise the enormous opportunities afforded by utilising our “blue highway”, which is available to us if we can keep it safe and if we can protect our national environment. Thank you.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I would like to begin by extending my condolences to the families of those killed in the recent earthquakes, and I send my best wishes to all those in and around the quake-affected areas for a speedy recovery.

New Zealand First will support this bill to the select committee. I think it should be called the “Rena Bill”. It is a shame that it takes a marine accident of that scale to generate the changes needed to improve health and safety, to protect the environment, and to ensure that adequate compensation is payable for oil spills, in the way that this bill does.

Looking first then at compensation, the bill does significantly increase the level of compensation available to meet claims for oil pollution damage caused by a spill from an oil tanker in New Zealand waters. I understand, from what the Minister says, that that increase is to $1.4 billion, which is certainly a significant sum. The bill will enable New Zealand to accede to the Protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage of 1992. That establishes an additional tier of compensation that can be called upon in the event of a major oil tanker spill in the waters of a contracting State. New Zealand First obviously supports that.

But I have a concern, and it relates to clause 11 of the bill, which amends section 342, in which the term “ship” is defined. Subsection (2) states: “In the Civil Liability Convention, ship means any sea-going vessel and seaborne craft of any type whatsoever constructed or adapted for the carriage of oil in bulk as cargo,” and so on. So that raises a question for me as to whether the Rena would have been covered by that definition, because she was not an oil tanker. It would seem to me that that is excluded from the provisions of this bill, and yet the Rena was carrying 2 million litres of oil—easily enough to pollute the beaches of Mount Maunganui. So that is a significant concern for me, and I wonder why the definition of the term “ship” is so restricted. I would like, certainly, the select committee to take a good look at that.

The public has been rightly concerned about how lightly the Rena operators and their owners have been let off. There is an urgent need to ensure that New Zealand does all it can to see that the costs associated with these accidents are sheeted home to the people who are actually responsible. That did not happen in the case of the Rena, and I certainly worry about whether this bill will rectify the situation at all.

I see that the bill includes provisions that would allow New Zealand to “exercise its right, as a party to the Protocol of 1996 to amend the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims, to make reservations that exclude limitation of liability for three different categories … wreck removal; cargo removal; damage caused by hazardous and noxious substances.” Those exclusions mean, potentially, a lot more money to meet claims for pollution damage in the event of a major maritime accident, such as the grounding of the Rena, subject to the reservation I mentioned before. It is a good bill as far as it goes, if it goes far enough to cover vessels like the Rena.

New Part 4B, inserted by clause 6, is keenly supported by New Zealand First. It establishes measures to deal with alcohol and drug use in the commercial maritime sector. That includes a requirement for commercial maritime operators to have drug and alcohol management plans to manage the associated risks with drug and alcohol use—a very important provision. There is also a requirement for those plans to provide for random drug and alcohol testing of staff carrying out safety-sensitive activities. There is, further, a requirement for the Director of Maritime New Zealand to see that the drug or alcohol testing is actually done in accordance with the plans. Where the test is other than a negative one, an operator must implement its response plan, and the individual in question will not be allowed to perform any safety-sensitive activity until the person is again capable of doing so. These are very good provisions that have long been needed on the New Zealand coast.

There may, however, be an issue for the select committee to look at around consent to testing, and I wonder why it is not mandatory rather than requiring consent. I tend to think that a mandatory provision would be justified and should be possible, and I wonder why it is not provided for. Whether or not it is provided for, the bill does require the operator to respond to an individual’s refusal in the same way as it would respond to a positive test result. But I would like the select committee to look at whether we could make the requirement mandatory rather than requiring the consent of the employee concerned.

I have noted that the new maritime rules will establish requirements for the content of management plans and also procedural requirements for random drug and alcohol testing, which will obviously be necessary. I understand that existing Maritime Transport Act offences, penalties, and cost-recovery provisions are sufficient for enforcement purposes, but I would like to see information brought to the select committee to satisfy us all that that is in fact the case, because unless those provisions are robust, and unless, in particular, the enforcement provisions and penalties are sufficient, it is not going to be an effective piece of legislation.

The remainder of the bill contains a group of miscellaneous amendments to improve the operation of existing provisions of the Act and to address some minor anomalies, but amongst those, regional councils will be able to retain fees from infringement offence notices issued for breaches of maritime rules, so that they can enforce the national rules directly. I think that is very important, otherwise the poor old ratepayers of sometimes quite small regions would be required to front up with significant amounts of money for matters that really have nothing much to do with them and are actually national issues rather than regional ones. I think that is actually, although a minor provision in the bill, an extremely important one that we should not overlook. Regional councils have for too long had far too little power and far too few resources to do the jobs that have been conferred upon them by national legislation, so it is good to see that at least some movement in that direction is being made in that regard.

Finally, one of the things New Zealand First does have reservations about in this bill is the move to allow foreign-registered ships to carry freight to and from New Zealand’s offshore islands, including the Chatham Islands, and we would wish to hear submissions on that before we would agree with those provisions. As you know, New Zealand First has always been very hot on putting the interests of New Zealanders and New Zealand employees and New Zealand businesses first, so I wonder why that provision is in this bill. And it would be typical of the National Government to slide this past us—

David Bennett: Come on, you’re voting for it!

DENIS O’ROURKE: —in a bill of this kind without a proper explanation of why New Zealand people and New Zealand businesses are not being put first. New Zealand First will do that. Mr Bennett never will—never look to him, never look to him for those sorts of things, because he does not care, but New Zealand First does.

We will hear the submissions and see what people have to say about that before making a final decision. We would need to be assured that the interests of New Zealand businesses and New Zealand employees are not compromised by this measure, and I doubt that will be the case, and, in the end, this measure alone may force us to vote against the bill. I hope that is not the case, because, as I have said, there are some good things in it, subject to a number of reservations that can be corrected. However, subject to those reservations—and some of them, as I have pointed out, are quite serious—New Zealand First looks forward to being able to support the bill, should it make it through the select committee in a way that we consider to be satisfactory. We will be looking forward to that process and to a robust examination and a robust debate.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): The Maritime Transport Amendment Bill addresses the risks associated with drug and alcohol use in the commercial maritime sector. Under the proposed changes, commercial maritime operators will be required to have an alcohol and drug management plan, including random testing for staff carrying out safety-sensitive activities.

We do need to have a balance between economic activities and the environment. On the one hand, you have to support commercial and economic activities; on the other hand, you need to protect our environment. The natural environment is our greatest asset. This is particularly so in New Zealand. For example, tourism is now our largest export sector. So it is very important for us to make sure our country and our environment remain clean and beautiful. Also, we have vast coastlines and exclusive economic zones. These are very vulnerable to environmental disasters—for example, oil spills. I can still remember the Rena oil spill 5 years ago, in the Bay of Plenty, which is regarded as one of the most disastrous maritime accidents in New Zealand. Globally, it is recognised that oil spills can cause huge damage to society—environmentally, socially, and also economically.

Maritime accidents do occur; however, there are some factors that make such incidents more likely to happen. For that reason, it is important for us to make sure that employers and workers are more responsible, to make sure that they are more responsible not only with regard to themselves but also with regard to the environment. One simple way to prevent maritime accidents is to have a strict policy regarding drugs and alcohol. The detrimental impact or effect of drugs and alcohol on people’s reactions has been well researched and documented, and is well recognised: being under the influence of drugs and alcohol means a person is impaired.

There are many jobs in the maritime industry that are already very dangerous. They require a quick reaction—to be alert, focused, and able to concentrate—to be able to react or to operate safely. For such kinds of jobs, people need to be sure that they are not influenced or impaired by any particular drugs or substances. This bill will improve both safety outcomes in the maritime system and the compensation regime for maritime pollution incidents. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Green Party is pleased to support the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and it certainly supports the provisions in the bill that will enable New Zealand to access much more financial compensation in the event of an oil spill—up to $1.39 billion. Of course, New Zealand is one of only five OECD countries with a coastline—not including the United States—that has not acceded to the Supplementary Fund Protocol of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which the IMO adopted more than 13 years ago, in 2003. So this bill is overdue given that the oil tankers that operate around New Zealand generally carry between 55,000 and 100,000 tonnes of oil as cargo. The advice that officials have provided is that a spill of between 10,000 to 20,000 tonnes—if it should ever happen—would easily exceed that $377 million compensation.

It is ironic that the Government is introducing this bill in the same week that the world’s largest seismic testing vessel, the Amazon Warrior, has arrived in New Zealand waters to start seismic testing for oil along our eastern coast for the Norwegian company Statoil. It is really disappointing that the Government has ignored the huge opposition to this. When it is well known that we have got to keep oil in the ground to protect our climate, the Government has, in fact, allowed Statoil to take over Chevron’s permit, and then to have seismic testing with these big airguns, blasting the marine environment from now through until May next year. The Government is really short-sighted in allowing that in the same week that we have got this bill.

The other major concern that the Green Party has with the bill is that the Government is allowing, through this bill, foreign-flagged vessels to carry cargo between New Zealand and our offshore islands, like the Chatham Islands. It shows an absolute lack of commitment to a thriving coastal shipping sector to force the New Zealand coastal shipping to compete with foreign-flagged vessels. In Budget 2015 we finally got the Government committing to investing $51 million in a new wharf on the Chatham Islands. That is long overdue. Given the rusting metal in the concrete on the wharf at Waitangi, the Chathams need a new wharf. But this bill, by allowing competition from foreign-flagged vessels, will potentially be undermining the south-east shipping and the community-owned Chatham Islands Shipping and their ability to service the Chathams’ wharf. Why, when they finally get a new wharf on the Chathams, is the Government allowing foreign vessels to use that and undermine our own coastal shipping companies? That is likely, because we know that there is overcapacity in the global shipping fleet and that has resulted in what some commentators have called “zombie ships”. They offer out their services at rates that are just enough to cover the interest on the vessel. They do not cover the capital costs, and so they will be undercutting our own coastal vessels.

We need a thriving coastal shipping sector. As the earthquake events in Kaikōura have shown, we need to use what Julie Anne Genter calls the “blue highway” to move freight around New Zealand, because transport greenhouse gas emissions are a major component of our climate emissions. We can reduce those if we invest in coastal shipping, but this bill and its provisions, which undermine the services to the Chathams, will potentially cut right across that. So we will be very interested in submissions from the Shipping Federation, from our own coastal shipping services, and from people in the Chatham Islands and the council there, because this legislation potentially cut across there.

In respect of the provisions around drug and alcohol testing, given that each week I put my trust in the pilots in Air New Zealand to land in Wellington Airport, in often difficult conditions, assuming always that they are fully functioning—and I am sure they are—I say that this bill is likely to help reduce the incidence of alcohol and drug impairment in people providing commercial transport services.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): May I join with others in conveying condolences and sympathies to those families who have lost loved ones as a result of the recent earthquake.

My colleague Sue Moroney has indicated to the House that we are supporting this bill in its first reading, but she also gave a challenge to Minister Bridges and the Government about the need for us to look to a more comprehensive bill that covers broadly and in the long term what our needs are in terms of transportation. I recall, in 2011, when the Rena—that is right; in October 2011—crashed into the—

Kris Faafoi: Reef.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: The reef.

Meka Whaitiri: Astrolabe.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: Astrolabe Reef, that is right. I recall watching on TV the spills—not just the container spills but the oil spills. My first reaction was one of anger, because the impression I got was that here again was a ship run by an international company, and it appeared, from the reports that I recall, that there was a rush by the captain to get from one point to the next point, and a failure by the staff on board that ship to direct it away from the reef. As a result, it was the local community, the animals, and the biodiversity that suffered as a consequence of that wreckage. I remember the reports about the locals who depended on the sea for food and who were devastated by this. I remember also interviews saying that it was going to take such a long, long time for us to clean up the mess that had been caused.

I cannot help but think that it is another example of an economic activity where cases of failure as a result of human error mean that it is not only people who suffer, through no fault of their own, and have to face the consequences. The animals suffer, biodiversity suffers, the land suffers, and the seawaters suffer. All of those are interconnected, and if we have learnt anything from the recent debates over climate change, it is that man-made harm is resulting in what we are now experiencing throughout the world, particularly in the Pacific region, where we are seeing that harm being caused. Often these economic activities are driven by greed, and I want to lay that before the House because of how I felt when I saw the wreckage back in 2011. It took a long, long time for us to be able to get on that ship and not only try to recover the cargo but also ensure that the harm caused by the spillage would be contained in some way.

So I support the fact that this bill increases the level of compensation available to meet the claims from all pollution damage caused by a spill from an oil tanker in New Zealand waters. But I wonder whether the definition that we are given in this bill is sufficient. So I am hopeful that not just the shipping industry and the transportation industry will take the opportunity to make submissions. I am hopeful that the Maritime Union, both local and international, will take the opportunity to voice its concerns. I am hopeful that Local Government New Zealand will also take an interest, because any spillage along our coast will have an impact on the local government that looks after that particular region. I am also hopeful that iwi—local and throughout this country—will pick up the opportunity to spell out for parliamentarians’ information their role as kaitiaki, and spell out too the harm and the damage that our economic activities often impose on our land and our wider environment.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand in support of this bill, and I say thank you to the parties that are supporting it. What this bill does is make some adjustments to legislation that enable us to have a greater ability to access compensation if occurrences happen that create some environmental impact. I think it is important to understand, as much as the previous speaker, Su’a William Sio, spoke about all of the negative effects of the Rena grounding, that we are a trading nation, that he comes from a trading nation, and that iwi were a trading nation even before Europeans came here. We are traders, and we need to be able to take our exports, our products, across the oceans of the world, which, by the way, do not cost anything. I do not know how you invest in the oceans, because they are free already.

We are pro-development, we are pro-trade, we are pro-export, and we need to understand that in this day and age we are smart in technology. We are strong in regulations. What this bill does is it enables, if ever there was an occasion where there was an event that impacted our environment, the compensation that we can claim to be four to five times what it is right now. That is important, because we know that this Government invested a huge amount in that clean up. We know that we took that task on very responsibly, and we would like to hold companies to a higher level of accountability.

In my very brief contribution, I would like to say: “Let us be realists.” Let us understand that technology works for us, that we need to put safeguards around it, that we are people who understand that there is risk and that we mitigate that, that we have in place measures that hold people to account, and that we have regulations in place that demand a proper respect of the law of the land and the laws of the sea. This is what this bill is doing. I commend our fantastic transport Minister, Simon Bridges, who has a great task ahead of him in what he is doing down in Kaikōura. I am thankful that we can, in this bill, see some great progress.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. To inform the House, the Astrolabe Reef was originally called, by the local iwi, Ōtāiti—Ōtāiti reef. So when we refer to the Astrolabe Reef, we are talking about the Ōtāiti reef, and I would like to acknowledge the member Su’a William Sio, who mentioned the iwi involvement in that particular incident, and I too would encourage them to make a submission on this particular bill as we support this bill going on to the next stage, to the select committee.

I would also like to take this opportunity to encourage other iwi. As we know, the exploration for oil has turned its focus away from the Far North and has now headed down to the area where the Minister Hon Hekia Parata calls home, the waters of Te Tai Rāwhiti. The permit afforded to that particular company runs from Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka, or from the top of the South Island, all the way to Ruatōria up the East Coast. I just want to point that out, because talking about the compensation level rising to allow, in the case of a tragic environmental disaster—the limit of that compensation, of course, has been lifted so that money can be paid out to make sure that we can return as much and as best as we can the pristine environment. It was mentioned quite well by the member Julie Anne Genter that New Zealand takes a lot of pride in the 100 percent pure, green New Zealand image.

I want to now turn my attention to the alcohol and drug provisions within this bill, around the testing and the need for plans. Look, I think every member in the House and in the community will agree to make sure that these vessels are operating safely, that those who are in charge and working on the vessels are of sound mind, and that their vision and their judgment are not impaired by drugs or alcohol. I wonder whether in this bill we could explore more definitions when requiring a plan around drugs and alcohol. For example, recently, we talked about the ability for those who are on bail to be tested for drugs and alcohol, and it was very specific in that particular bill around the use of psychoactive substances in line with the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013.

I wonder whether we can be a bit more specific with our definition around that, because we all agree that it is important to have a good plan, and it is important to make sure that safety is paramount. But I wonder whether we can just be a bit more specific there—and I would encourage the submitters who do come in front of the select committee, of which I am a proud member, and I hope that we hear from the Maritime Union. We also, as I mentioned earlier, will hear from environment groups, who will take an take interest in the matters being proposed in this bill.

My colleague Mr Su’a William Sio also mentioned the need to hear from councils. It is mentioned in this bill here that there is the ability for regional councils to keep those infringement notices and the money that is paid to them, and also to have a bit more say in the care and the discharge, if you like, of this particular bill within their regions. That is an important thing. But for us to truly comprehend that, we need to make sure that those interest groups will submit or kōrero to the select committee.

I am also interested in hearing from the Shipping Federation. The point has been made many times through this debate about the need for a fully integrated freight and transport system. And, in light of the recent events—the earthquake and the damage to the infrastructure, mainly road and railway, in New Zealand—we wonder why this bill is not more ambitious in making sure that the infrastructure is there so that we can have a more sound sea-freight operation.

I was reminded as I sat in the House recently as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Bill went through the House that the Government continued to tell us that we cannot simply trade with ourselves; our country would die. That is true, but it is important that, in the event of natural disasters like we have experienced, we are still able to connect with each other. Obviously, the road network and the rail network are severely disrupted in the South Island and have isolated certain communities. Kaikōura is a classic example. If the infrastructure or, more importantly, the will of this Government was there, then, perhaps, we could have connected better and supplies would not have dried up. There would be a stronger connection with that particular community of Kaikōura, who have suffered over the past few days.

One of the things I like to do when we read these particular bills is this: my colleague Mr Parker mentioned the large amount of content focused on the drug and alcohol provisions in this particular bill, but there are, of course, some, as the explanatory note says, miscellaneous amendments—miscellaneous amendments. It is important to cast our eye over those, because we have experienced in the past from this Government that it sells you the old dummy. One thing Government members are saying is that “We’re going to do this.” when really, when you look just a little bit below the surface, you will find more miscellaneous amendments—ones that, perhaps, have a far wider impact than those larger chunks of the bill that are being debated, like the drug and alcohol requirements of this particular bill.

So we read through some of those and, first of all, in the explanatory note there are a few grammatical errors in there—but never mind; we will move on. Some of the things really are about transferring responsibilities shared by a territorial authority, which brings me back to my point. I hope that we can hear from the territorial authorities as the bill progresses through to the select committee.

Another one—subclause (4) of clause 32 inserts new section 3A, which provides that a transfer of a responsibility in relation to construction works under section 331 of the Maritime Transport Act does not transfer ownership of the works. I think that is slightly more important than being just a miscellaneous amendment, because too often when disasters happen, such as with the Rena, everyone points the finger and nobody knows who to blame. Somebody built this; it is their fault. Somebody was the captain in charge. It was the technology system, which Mr Young says will never fail us and will, in fact, lead us into the future. It was the technology that failed us in the case of the Rena crashing into Ōtāiti, and those particular clauses are, I think, important to make sure that we are able to establish, in the event of an emergency, who is culpable.

I just want to conclude by saying that we do support this bill going to the next stage, to the select committee. We will welcome all the submissions that will come to it, and we look forward to making sure that we take the opportunity right now—the opportunity that is being missed by this Government—to make sure that this particular bill is robust, that this bill is more aspirational than what it is right now, and that we can make sure that we do have a maritime transport system that better serves our country. We commend this bill to the House.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): It is great to see so much support in this House for the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, and from that last speaker, Peeni Henare, as well, who, obviously, is a member of the committee—

David Shearer: How many ships do you get in the Waikato?

Hon Damien O’Connor: You wouldn’t know what a ship was in Hamilton.

DAVID BENNETT: Is there a problem over there, guys?

David Shearer: How many ships do you get in the Waikato, David?

DAVID BENNETT: Oh, how many ships do you get in the Waikato? That is typical from the Labour Party, is it not? This is dealing with a serious issue, where a ship could get impaled on a reef—just like a car can get impaled. And we would hate to see that happen to any members of this House, but it does happen. Accidents do happen, and there will be varied members of this House who would have—

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Driver error?

DAVID BENNETT: It would be, yes—while driving, members could have accidents like that. Well, just running a ship could have similar problems. So, Mr Shearer, this is an important issue, and we look forward to you using your vote constructively, as you did with things like the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, to support your whole party and not your individual interests, as we have seen in the past.

I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge Stuart Smith, who is here from Kaikōura, and the great work that he is doing, getting around his people, and acknowledging and helping them in their time of need. From the rest of the country, you have our full support. We look forward to you carrying on that good work in your area.

I know that the Minister of Transport, who has just left the Chamber, has had an important role too. We all see how important transport is when you look at the disaster that has happened in that region and the importance of having good transport links.

I will not take too long. Everybody has explained everything.

David Shearer: Excellent, excellent!

DAVID BENNETT: Oh, here we go—Mr Shearer again. He just cannot be quiet, can he? Once he has got whacked down, he still comes back up. It is a shame he did not do that during the election campaign, but that is the nature of it. [Interruption] Yeah, it was a bit harsh, actually. It is a bit harsh, at this time of night.

This is an important bill, Mr Assistant Speaker, as you will be aware, and we look forward to its passing through the House. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

Bills

Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I move, That the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill amends the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Act of 2006, which was never brought into force. The amendments are necessary to clarify some provisions in the Act and to ensure that the registration process provided for in the Act runs smoothly and sustainably. Once the bill is enacted, it will be possible to bring it into force, once the regulations setting out the registration procedures have been finalised. New Zealand wine and spirit producers will then be able to register their geographical indications in New Zealand, such as Marlborough, the area that arguably produces the best sauvignon blanc in the world.

At this point, I do want to acknowledge the effect of the recent earthquakes on particularly the Marlborough region and parts of North Canterbury as well, where the wine industry, like every other industry, has been knocked about badly. So our thoughts and prayers are with them. There has been quite a bit of loss of bottled wine, wine in tanks, and tanks, and so the industry will be battling, over the next few months, but we wish them all the very best.

This bill will make it easier for local producers to register their geographical indications in other countries, because most other countries with registration systems for geographical indications will not register foreign indications unless they are registered in their country of origin. The registration of New Zealand’s geographical indications in other countries will be of particular assistance to our wine industry. It will help with maintaining the reputation of New Zealand wines as premium wines in overseas markets, commanding a higher price than wine in other countries, as we do.

It is worth talking a little bit about the industry. Many of us here in this House are eager consumers of the product, and it is worth just reflecting on an industry that was kicked off by the Mission vineyard in 1865, in Hawke’s Bay, by the French Roman Catholics. We had many pioneers of Dalmatian extraction, out in west Auckland, who really got things going, and Montana kicking off the sauvignon blanc in the Marlborough region in the 1970s, followed by very substantial investment, both domestic and international, in the last few decades.

So we have an industry that is dominated by both large and small producers, and it has been phenomenally successful over the last few decades. It was only $18 million of exports that the whole industry produced in 1990. I think it was around 1998 when the industry cracked $100 million in exports. Today, that figure is around $1.6 billion and rising fast. The United States is the largest foreign market, with about $460 million. Britain is second. They have a particular taste for our wine, it seems, with $380 million. The Australians are third, with $360 million. It is a story of hard work and enterprise by many New Zealanders. We celebrate that industry. We want to support it.

Paul Foster-Bell: What about the spirits?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: And the spirits. We drink the spirits, from time to time, and all in good cheer.

This bill is essentially about trying to strengthen some of the foundations that we have around the story that lies behind the quality of New Zealand wines. I will just briefly mention some significant amendments made by the bill. It provides for the payment of renewal fees to maintain the registration of geographical indications, provides an ongoing source of income to maintain the register, which is particularly important, given that most applications to register geographical indications will be made in the first few years after the Act enters into force, and the income from renewal fees will assist in keeping initial application fees lower than they would otherwise be. Another significant amendment is to incorporate opposition procedures into the Act, which will allow interested persons to oppose the registration of a geographical indication, and the alteration or removal of such an indication.

Finally, I do want to acknowledge the work of key stakeholders who are present in the gallery this evening. We have Mr Robert Brewer from Spirits New Zealand and also there has been a great deal of work by New Zealand Wine as an industry, led by Nicola Crennan. I am very pleased to commend this bill to the House. I want to acknowledge what is an important occasion for the New Zealand wine and spirits industry. Thank you very much.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call the honourable David Shearer, I would like to point out to the people in the gallery that they are being more than a little noisy. If they are going to continue at that volume, they should take it outside.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): It is with great pleasure that we support this bill as well. It was a bill that was originally put together, as the Minister said, in 2006. It lay in abeyance for all of that time. The Government did not pass it through. But now, with some amendments that it has made, and prompted particularly by the possibility that we might enter into a free-trade agreement with the EU, it has accelerated the importance and the significance of getting this bill through Parliament by the end of this year. Last weekend, I was very privileged to attend the Air New Zealand Wine Awards in Auckland. I acknowledge Stuart Smith over there, who was also in attendance, and was one of the—what do you call them—grand masters of the New Zealand wine industry?

Stuart Smith: A fellow.

DAVID SHEARER: A fellow—thank you, Stuart. I attended along with my colleague Jacinda Ardern, and the member for Wairarapa as well. I will not go through everybody else, because there were quite a few people there.

But let me get back to the point. I think, for me, the most significant thing, the most touching thing, was that the people who were there had a passion for wine. They were not the people whom you would maybe associate with high society, with tippling on wine. They were people who, when you shook their hands, had clearly been out in the vineyards for a while and had callouses on their hands. They were people who had grown wines, tasted them, and manufactured them. They effectively told the story of an industry that is an agricultural industry that feeds off our natural resources, through our expertise, and is now commanding the best prices in the world. It is truly a story about agriculture from the growing right through to the value-adding, the marketing, and the exporting—and it is, obviously, mostly exported. It really was, I have to say, a pretty sobering—ha, ha! Sobering—that is a bad word for it. But there was certainly a—certainly a—

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: This is quite rambling, David.

DAVID SHEARER: Yes. Thank you, Dr Coleman. It was something that I felt quite privileged to be at, to meet with these people who had contributed so much. As Minister Goldsmith said, we are now looking at $1.6 billion worth of exports. They are aiming towards $2 billion by 2020. That is in just under 3 years. That is an extraordinary expansion, and people would say that that is possibly impossible. But, in fact, in 1990 it was $100 million and now it is $1.6 billion, so that expansion is pretty extraordinary.

The other important issue around this was the fact that New Zealand wines do obtain the highest value. It is approximately $9 a litre for New Zealand wines, around $7 a litre for Australian wines, and a miserable $5 a litre for French wines, which you would have expected, possibly, to have been higher. But New Zealand wines are in that high level. They are sought after—they are high quality and they are sought after around the world.

The European Union (EU) trade deal that is coming up is significant for us. There are 500 million high-value consumers, easily the highest value trading bloc that we will have the possibility of going into in terms of a market, and a bloc that appreciates wine as well. The possibilities of being able to export wine into the EU without tariffs much more freely is a tantalising one, and one that I think will push those exports of wine even further.

This is an industry that, therefore, needs to be protected. The Marlborough sauvignon blanc, as the Minister just said, needs to be protected. It will be Marlborough, and it will be sauvignon blanc. Likewise, with Otago pinot noir—exactly the same issue. It is like champagne in that it can be called champagne only if it is grown within the district of Champagne in France. Even feta cheese can be grown only in a particular place within Greece.

These are trademarks that need to be protected. They are important for exports and for keeping that value-added value up, and for New Zealand, having that designation of Marlborough sauvignon blanc or Otago pinot noir maintains the quality and ensures that no other wine growing area across the world—France, for example, grows much less-quality wine than we do—can somehow call their wine Marlborough sauvignon blanc if they ever wanted to do that.

This is a bill that, I think, has got widespread support right across the House. I do not think there is anybody who would disagree that this is good for New Zealand, it is good for exports, and it is good for our wine industry. As I say, I was particularly impressed by the way in which our wine industry has not just grown in numbers but also in terms of quality, and the way that that quality is appreciated right across the world.

The Air New Zealand wine awards—and I have got to say Air New Zealand does a terrific job in terms of promoting New Zealand wines, both on their flights and also in getting behind this event—saw that the pinot noir that finally got the supreme award came from a 3.6 hectare vineyard in Otago. Although, I have say, there is a pinot noir from Marlborough that was highly recommended as well. Certainly, Marlborough did extraordinarily well in terms of the awards that were handed out last weekend—the premium awards of the year in terms of wine.

Like the previous speaker, Paul Goldsmith, we acknowledge what has happened in Marlborough: the challenges they have faced because of the earthquakes, the challenges that they face now, and the damage that they have sustained in the past couple of days. We wish them very well in terms of being able to get back on their feet and begin their terrific work that they have up to now been able to undertake.

So, with that, I just want to note that this bill is a rather technical bill. It just brings into play the 2006 bill, which has been, as I say, on the books and languishing there for a long time until the Government woke up to the fact that it probably needs to get it through. It will mean that there is a registration fee paid in order to be able to designate those wines. It will mean that opposition to that designation can be heard, can be noted, and, dutifully, be able to be considered. A third issue that is in part of this bill is that any terms or terminology that are offensive to Māori can be acknowledged and considered as well. I think that is very important too as we go forward.

So, with that, I will finish early and say, once again, that Labour supports this bill wholeheartedly. It is a bill that Labour brought in in 2006 that the Government has sat on for the last 8 years. We want to see our wine industry growing as it has done over the past two decades and going from success to success. Once again, I congratulate them on their fine work. Thank you.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): It gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak on the third reading of the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill as it passes through the House. I guess it is a little bit of a misnomer calling this bill a 2016 bill, as it was first passed in 2006 and, as the previous speaker, David Shearer, said, never brought into force.

Todd Barclay: Good things take time.

IAN McKELVIE: Exactly. Good things do take a lot of time. It is nice to speak on a piece of positive legislation. It adds value to an industry on the move—$1.6 billion to the New Zealand economy and growing at a rate of around 10 percent a year. It is going to be very interesting to follow that growth over the next few years.

I think another really interesting point about the wine industry is that if you look back at Marlborough, perhaps, 30 years ago—I think I have said it before in this House—it looked very much like the walls of this House. Marlborough now is a very different place, and it just shows how regions change as the fortunes of the food and beverage industry change in New Zealand. It makes a massive difference to what goes on in those regions.

Having listened to the last couple of speakers in the House, I feel a little out of it because I was not invited to the wine awards. I do taste the odd wine, but I clearly am not quite up to the wine-growing skills of the next speaker on my side of the House, or the blackcurrant-growing skills of who I would imagine might be the next speaker on the other side of the House. I guess you could make some sort of fermented beverage out of those blackcurrants.

It would be remiss of me—and I know that the next speaker on our side of the House will talk about this at length—to not mention the massive earthquake that has affected much of the northern South Island’s wine-growing area, particularly, the Waipara and Awatere Valley regions—both names that may at some future date become registered as geographical indicators. We can only wish them well and assure them that all in this House will do everything possible to expedite their recovery.

The bill originally arose, as the previous speaker, David Shearer, said, out of an obligation under the World Trade Organization agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, obliging New Zealand to provide protection for geographical indicators. A geographical indicator indicates that a wine comes from a particular region, or a Scotch whisky, for example, comes from Scotland—and I assume it must be made using products from Scotland—and, likewise, champagne comes from the Champagne region of France. These are hugely well-known names that have been around for generations and generations.

Paul Foster-Bell: What about bourbon?

IAN McKELVIE: I do not know anything about that stuff, Foz. Although we have a couple of wine growers in the Rangitīkei region, I find it unlikely that we will see a geographical indicator registered in the name of Rangitīkei. However, in due course we will see, I think, other sorts of food registered—not under this bill but under a bill that I am sure will come to this House at some stage in the future.

If you look around New Zealand now, in fact, you can—I think, on the menu in this House you can actually buy a thing called Rangītkei chicken from time to time. You can also buy Taupō beef. Taupō beef, of course, came about as a result of the changes to the environmental regulations around Lake Taupō: Taupō beef originated out of that. It was an attempt to prove that they could grow beef economically under the new environmental regime that ruled the verge or the catchment of Lake Taupō. It proved very successful. I think that we will see in the future, and there has been some discussion in the course of this bill—as there often is in the Primary Production Committee—around the opportunity for us to introduce a bill in the future that will provide for the opportunity to register geographical indicators around all sorts of other food. I think that is a pretty important point for us to remember.

But that is getting away from the object of this particular bill—and I am sure I will get there before you remind me of that. But this bill—as has been noted by the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and certainly by the speaker David Shearer, afterwards—is an extremely important piece of legislation from a New Zealand perspective. It will make a big difference going forward to our ability to attract markets and protect the regions of New Zealand, and perhaps even those individual towns or place names throughout New Zealand—particularly in the wine industry but also in other forms of spirit production. I guess that applies to blackcurrants.

So during the course of the select committee process we did make a couple or three basic changes to it. We talked about opposition procedures. Opposition procedures are really someone’s ability to appeal something, and so that was one of the significant things we dealt with. We also talked at length about the cultural issues and how we might look to protect cultural values as we move through the potential to register those geographical indicators. Also, there was some discussion about the renewal periods—in other words, the first renewal after 5 years, and subsequent to that those renewals will take place over 10 years.

I want to thank the select committee for robust discussion around most things that were not related to this legislation, but none the less we had robust discussion on a lot of issues. I also want to thank the industry because during the course of the submissions on this bill we had some very competent submissions and all of an ilk to support it. Thank you. I look forward to this becoming legislation.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): I acknowledge the good work of the chair of the Primary Production Committee over there, a man who should be a Minister, in my view, but the Government obviously does not understand true potential.

Can I firstly acknowledge, as other speakers have, the wine industry and all those connected to it, and all those people living in Marlborough because—and Stuart Smith is over there—it is a tough time there, and I would just like to acknowledge their efforts to get the region back up on its feet. We wish you all the very best.

The winegrowers will probably be hoping that, like a good wine, good things take time. In view of the fact that this piece of legislation has taken 10 years to come into force, they will be hoping that it is a good piece of legislation. I have to say that the select committee put its mind to that objective, and I think it generally did a good job, but we did have a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) brought to the Chamber at the latter stages to tidy up a few things that we had missed—that officials had not alerted us to. SOP 244 was about the interested persons who may oppose a proposed removal of a geographical indicator, or someone from that.

This is, effectively, a technical bill. It is trying to protect New Zealand winegrowers in their regions, where they grow the wine and produce it, and it is trying to protect their right to retain and build on their region’s reputation through the fine products they sell, whether it be Marlborough sauvignon blanc, Central Otago pinot noir, or, indeed, Nelson pinot gris. We are getting an evolution and a development in the wine industry and it is something I think we should be very proud of. This bill will, hopefully, help them to move along that path.

But we did have to look at some of the minor technical issues, and one in the Supplementary Order Paper that I referred to, which Labour supported, is a tidy up. It is around protection for individuals in any part of the system. Most of the time we have to protect the rights of smaller players. I refer to a very innovative wine company in Central Otago that ended up putting resveratrol back in its wine and marketing it as a positive aspect of the wine. Resveratrol is a by-product of the ultrafiltration process in the wine industry, just as permeate is a by-product of the ultrafiltration process for milk. The dairy industry has been adding permeate back for years and years. No one blinks an eye.

But when this innovative company in Central Otago added resveratrol back in and put a sticker on the bottle, it, effectively, had the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) telling it to take that wine off the shelves. There was a slight glitch, I have to say, by an overenthusiastic marketer who said that there might be additional health benefits from the additional resveratrol. The long and short of that is that we had a real battle to get MPI to pull its head in and acknowledge that resveratrol, like permeate, is a by-product of the normal process of making wine—the point being that we hope, as a select committee, we have got the right protections in this legislation for all the big and little players to ensure that their efforts and their passion in building a wine that is unique to their region can be protected over time, and, hopefully, to ensure that all their efforts in marketing will amount to them getting greater value for their efforts.

I think this has done a lot of other good things as well. We have changed the percentage of grapes that must come from a region if you are to put on a geographical indicator, say that the wine is from that region, and be protected by this legislation. We have changed that percentage from 85 percent to 100 percent, and I think that is great. The industry has developed and evolved to a point where it should be able to get sufficient grapes to do that.

I guess they might be mind-numbingly technical issues for many, but I have to say the vast majority of New Zealanders enjoy wine and the wine industry, and I think they want to, as the officials reported in their report to the select committee, be sure that they are getting what they are told they are getting. We want to provide consumers of wines or spirits with greater certainty that a wine or spirit labelled with a geographical indicator actually originated from the region identified by the geographical indicator—a very fair assumption by consumers.

So why would the Government not do that with food? Why will it not do it with food if we are so determined to do it with wine? In fact, there is a very good argument that says that wine is far less risky as a consumable product than is food and that if we know where the food is coming from and have some assurance about the possible or the likely or the most probable way that it is being produced, then consumers can make the judgment when they purchase that. But this Government continues to block country-of-origin labelling, which Australia and New Zealand should have but we have an exemption to. That is somewhat strange.

I know the members over there cannot get the connection between geographical indicators that are designed to assure consumers about wine and geographical indicators that are designed to assure consumers about food. The Government does not want to assure consumers about the food they have got. Government members are consistently inconsistent—I will certainly say that to them. I think it would be great to see them bring to this House—in fact, I think they need only change the regulations in order to be able to actually implement compulsory country-of-origin labelling in New Zealand. Labour will do that when we get into Government next year—[Interruption]—so you can take some credit for it and do it now or you can wait and we will do it at the end of next year.

As my colleague David Shearer said, the new movement on this legislation—it has sat around like a bottle of old wine for 10 years—has been because of a possible EU trade agreement. I think every one of us—well, we were all enthusiastic until Brexit—was looking forward to an EU trade agreement that would have broken down the barriers that are currently in the EU for a lot of our products. I am not sure where that is going to go, but one of the things that Europe does do is enforce and promote and highlight and enhance geographical indicators for its food, and we do not.

We do not even have country-of-origin labelling. We do not even say it comes from New Zealand, let alone that some of the food we consume may come from the Manawatū. I understand there is some very good lamb that comes from the Manawatū. In fact, I know the chairman of the Primary Production Committee, Ian McKelvie, has brought it on a regular basis to the select committee, and I think it should be marketed as Manawatū lamb. There is Canterbury lamb, which we have had for many years, and we have beef from Rangitīkei, or whatever. But until we develop stories that connect to the wonderful geographical regions in this country that can produce such good food, I think we are missing huge potential value for the producers and for the country.

Geographical indicators, as they are implemented in Europe, must be implemented here in New Zealand, and we must respect one another’s geographical indicators before we have a trade agreement with the EU. The Government knows that. It knows that until we take the next step around food there is no deal with the EU, because those countries have a culture and a history that acknowledges the value of the cheeses and the food and the meats that come from different parts of Europe. We should never try to undermine that. We should be trying to enhance it. We should be trying to develop it here in New Zealand, rather than just sending frozen lamb to the EU countries and expecting them to pay a whole lot more for it. If we can develop a story and get lamb from a particular part of New Zealand, and tell a story and show them how we grow it with such pride and passion, I am sure they will pay a little bit more for it.

I have to put on the table, as I did earlier in this legislation, that I would like to develop a geographical indicator for Golden Bay—and for the West Coast. Golden Bay is a geographical area in the north of my electorate—like Marlborough is in Mr Stuart Smith’s—and it has an amazing group of innovative people. It has an amazing dairy industry, it has aquaculture, and it has a fishing industry, and we could develop a geographical indicator that gives us a premium for Golden Bay - produced products. That is where we must go—like Marlborough producers did so successfully with their sauvignon blanc. I congratulate them on what they did. What we have to do is learn from that success and apply geographical indicators across the country for all our primary produce. Thank you.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): It is almost a bitter-sweet day for the wine industry to have what is a fantastic and much-looked-forward-to bill passing through the House only a few hours, really, after an earthquake that has done some damage to the wine industry. My thoughts go out to the wineries concerned. I know some of them have lost stock and have had some damage done. You know, we cannot do anything about that now but get into the recovery stage. We are all, across the House, I am sure, united in sparing a thought for those people.

It was a great opportunity on Saturday night to share a great night of celebration with David Shearer, Jacinda Arden, David Seymour, and Alastair Scott at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards. It was a fantastic night—

Kris Faafoi: What about Ian?

STUART SMITH: —to celebrate. Oh no, Ian McKelvie was not there. There was not any Rangitīkei lamb there, so Ian could not turn up. But it was a fantastic night and it was about celebrating what is unique about the wine industry, and that is provenance. That is what is at the heart of this bill. It is about provenance, so the consumer identifies with the wine, where it comes from, who produces it, and the variety it is, and they are prepared to pay for it. If you do not have that you have a commodity, and the wine industry recognises that.

The reason the bill has taken to this point to be enacted has been well canvassed by others, but I know I have travelled the road, really, with this legislation, from the first bill and now the amendment bill, through the stages. I think it is vital for the industry that we have a good legislative framework to operate under. Trade deals and international trade are not simple matters, and it is quite important to do things right. I am confident that we have done it in the right order; we are in the right space. But I know the industry is very much looking forward to it, and I know there are representatives here tonight, waiting anxiously to see this bill pass through this stage. I cannot see why any thinking person would not agree that this is a wonderful piece of legislation.

I really would like to just finish by going back to the wine awards on Saturday night, and I must agree with David Shearer’s words that the people who were at that event on Saturday night really epitomised what it is that makes a product so special. They were the people who were involved in planting the vines, growing the grapes, making the wine, and then, as one person put it to me very early on—Peter Hubscher, who used to be the chief executive of Montana Wines—

Stuart Nash: Great Hawke’s Bay man.

STUART SMITH: Yes, he is a great Hawke’s Bay man. That is quite right. He said that “Growing the grapes and making the wine is really only half the job. Selling it is the hard bit.”, and that is what this bill is all about. It is about getting that assured legislative framework, so that the consumer knows that when they pick up a bottle of Marlborough sauvignon blanc or Hawke’s Bay cabernet sauvignon or a Central Otago pinot noir, those wines are what they say they are and they come from New Zealand. So it is with great pleasure that I commend this very good bill to the House. Thank you.

BARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to talk about the wine industry, and, like others, I acknowledge the loss that the wine industry has suffered, both human and material, in the earthquake. Our sympathies go out to those people in dealing with the earthquake and its aftershocks.

The Green Party supports this bill. We recognise the importance of geographical indicators to support the wonderful work of our wine sector in securing and maintaining a significant price premium in international markets, and, like other speakers, I would like to echo the fact that growing great grapes and making great wine is only half the story. You have to sell it, and full recognition to the industry—and, in particular, the leaders in the industry—for doing that very successfully around the world.

The identification of varietals like sauvignon blanc and pinot noir with New Zealand will be further supported by the ability to recognise geographical areas, including Marlborough, Central Otago, Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, Martinborough, Te Kauwhata, Wairarapa, and Waiheke Island. Our wine sector exports a total of $1.6 billion a year. It is our sixth-largest export, with significant opportunities for further growth. I note that there has been huge support for this bill from 133 submitters and far beyond. It protects our producers from misuse of the New Zealand brand and geographical brands in overseas markets, and it is important.

However, we have two additional points to make: firstly, to address the question of what took so long. This is an amendment to the wine and spirits registration Act of 2006, which never came into force. Obviously, the changed plans with regard to a trade agreement with the European Union were part of that, but we think that this approach to value addition for our primary products is crucial for adding and defending value, and together with the good work of the wine sector in certifying sustainability across the whole sector, it is a really important ingredient of maintaining our strong international position. So we think the lack of progress in getting this bill passed and the Government’s lack of enthusiasm on issues like sustainability may be contributors to the lack of progress in meeting the Government’s targets of increasing our exports to 40 percent of gross domestic product.

In fact, as many people know, the proportion of exports as a percentage of GDP actually declined from 31 percent in 2008 to 29 percent last year—going in the wrong direction. The related message is: if the geographical indications are so good for a wine, why stop there? I echo the previous speaker, Damien O’Connor, in saying that our food system has to be built on the combination of high-quality products with unique characteristics, built on diverse environments and production styles. We want consumers to know where our products come from and who makes them. These are the characteristics of high-value local economies.

Just by explanation, the European Union not only has geographical indicators, it has two other designations as well: protected designation of origin, which talks about the know-how embodied in processing, and traditional speciality guaranteed, which highlights the traditional character of the unique products from each area. These designations protect meat and meat products, cheeses, beer, fruit, and flowers.

In New Zealand, it has been long recognised that we need to get beyond commodity production. Here is an opportunity, through building on geographical indicators, for our food as well as our wines. So, bring it on—Bluff oysters, Morrinsville cheese, Pukekohe potatoes, Ōhākune carrots, Waiheke olives, Taupō beef, and maybe even Pongakawa kiwifruit.

We support this bill, but we call for real action to support the development of our food sector as well, to emulate the success of the viticultural sector, so we can develop more sustainability and a higher value, rather than a commodity-based food system. We want a community-based food system based on a consumer’s right to know, and country-of-origin labelling.

We support this bill, and we commend the great work of the leaders amongst our wine-growing industry, as well as the leaders and the further potential in our food industry. Thank you.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise and take a third and final call on the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill. New Zealand First will not be voting for this bill, despite the fact that we acknowledge the need for it, and despite the fact that we agree with almost everything in it.

It is a good bill in almost all regards. [Interruption] It is certainly a necessary bill—in almost all regards. It is certainly a necessary bill, in terms of what it does, and, indeed, what it needs to do, for the wine industry, and for New Zealand’s trade in general. Other speakers have made mention of the value of registered geographical identifiers for other products—cheese, honey, red meat, and so forth, as Damien O’Connor and other speakers on the other side have said. There are other primary exports that could benefit from being linked certainly with New Zealand by taking advantage of Brand New Zealand—but also going beyond that by being associated with particular regional flavours. I agree with the chair of the Primary Production Committee that that is something that the House will almost certainly come to consider, hopefully, not too many years from now, but that is a discussion for a different day.

This bill concerns the wine industry, and, being a winemaker and viticulturist by trade, it is something that I have a particular attachment to. I have to say, as members will acknowledge, I think, that New Zealand wines are amongst the best in the world, if not the best in the world. Certainly, in terms of two of our flagship varieties, those being Marlborough sauvignon blanc and Central Otago pinot noir, they are arguably the best in their classes in the world, and acknowledged as being such by recognised experts.

There are reasons for this, obviously, and they go to the heart of what this bill is about. Marlborough has comparable soils and climate to the Loire Valley in France, which is the home of sauvignon blanc, and that is coupled with, perhaps, a better climate and something else: there is a French word, “terroir”, for which there is no direct English translation, but it kind of means “the spirit of the land”. It is the combination of the soils, the climate, and something intangible that imparts itself to the wine that people come to recognise with some sense beyond the physical senses. That really is the essence of what this regional identifier gets to. There is only one place in the world that can create a wine that has a certain “terroir”, and that is what this is about.

I seem to recall, a number of years ago, a wine company—I think it was an Argentinian wine company—attempting to market what they called a “Marlborough-style” sauvignon blanc. It is this very situation that this bill is attempting to overcome, and, in fact, it may well have been the genesis of the original bill back in 2006. Likewise, the very best pinot noir in the world is grown in Central Otago, and, more particularly, in the Alexandra basin and on the Bendigo Loop Road, although it is fair to say that Waipara is catching up, as some of its vines have now got some proper age under their belts and are starting to mature a little.

These names need to be protected, and these geographical identifiers that link unrivalled quality with particular places need to be recognised and protected. That is for the good of the industry and the good of New Zealand Inc. as a whole. We need to provide this protection. We need to be able to say to our trading partners that we will recognise their unique geographic identifiers as well and respect those names, and recognise and respect the intellectual property, the ownership, and the investment that they have in them. Other Governments in other jurisdictions will reciprocate that.

So this is an important bill, and the issues it addresses are important. That is why it is very frustrating that we have had to pull our support because of the refusal on the part of the Government to remove from it the one clause that makes it untenable—the one completely unnecessary clause that gives special status and favourable treatment to Māori. New Zealand First has argued in the latter stages of this bill against the inclusion of special recognition, special concern for whether or not Māori are going to take offence, and a special advisory body that needs to be consulted, and that will not be free—you can bet the vineyard on that. That will come at a cost to wine and spirits makers, and it will introduce another delay. Both of these things are completely unnecessary and completely unjustifiable.

We just simply cannot let that go unchallenged. New Zealand First cannot sit by and say nothing while this rampantly PC National Government enacts yet another piece of racially-biased legislation. There is no requirement for any kind of special procedure to determine whether or not a proposed geographical indicator for a wine or spirit is, or could be, offensive to anyone other than Māori. The bill in new section 13A, inserted by clause 10, says: “… a significant section of community, including Māori.” Well, of course, a significant section of the community would include Māori, and it would include women, and it would include superannuitants—and the disabled, and cat lovers, and left-handed people, and any other significant sections of society that you care to name.

Of course, Māori would be sizeably represented in any of those particular designations because they are a significant part of—guess what—the whole of New Zealand society. But the bill does not make any special reference to any of these other groups. It does not provide special recognition for people of Scottish ancestry or Dutch or Samoan or anything else. But it does take another step towards the creation of two separate societies here in New Zealand. It does reinforce the National Party’s desire to appease a few Māori separatists: people who seek to divide this nation, to create division where there should be none.

I have no doubt that the clauses in the bill are solely to placate the racially-based Māori Party on whose votes this Government depends. They appear quite happy to sell out any principle at all in return for the guarantee of staying in power, and that is a sad thing for the wine industry and for this bill. The clause is neither necessary nor useful. In fact, it is the antithesis of those things. And incorporating it in this bill, actually, the Government has hijacked what in other ways is a very useful and necessary piece of legislation.

We offered a compromise. New Zealand First offered a compromise in the form of the Geographic Board instead of a special Māori advisory committee, which could be consulted to see whether a proposed name for a geographic wine region might be offensive to anyone. The Geographic Board does, after all, deal with place names and, essentially, this bill is about place names—names of places. But the Minister said that would not be appropriate and, frankly, I struggle to think of a situation where it would be more appropriate to have the Geographic Board involved than in a bill that deals with geographic place names.

But the bill will pass, because the Government has the numbers, and I am glad that the wine industry and New Zealand’s trade will benefit from it. I am sorry that it will cost them time and money for a part of the process that is counter-productive and completely unnecessary. I am deeply saddened that Māori are patronised and insulted by the inclusion of clause 21B, and I am deeply disappointed that the National Government has chosen to use it as an excuse to cynically advance the separation and division of races in this country. We are meant to be one people, one country—New Zealanders all of us, with one law for all. But this bill contains two laws: one law for Māori and one for everybody else. In other ways, this bill is perfectly acceptable; in this one way, it is utterly unacceptable. New Zealand First stands for one law for everybody, and for that reason we cannot support this bill. Thank you.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): I always find myself speaking after Mr Prosser on this bill, or on any bill actually. It never ceases to amaze me how the New Zealand First Party can always manage to focus on the minutiae of any particular piece of legislation, and this is just another case in point—talking about separatism on a piece of legislation that is fundamental towards actually advancing the prosperity of our wine and spirits industries on a global stage.

Representing an electorate that is the home of Central Otago pinot noir—well, half-shared with Jacqui Dean from the Waitaki electorate—this is a welcome piece of legislation for many of my constituents, because they see this as an opportunity to protect the significant amount of investment, bloodshed, and tears that they put into making the product the pristine premium brand that it is on the international stage. In that regard I want to acknowledge what the previous speakers have said—the tragedy that has taken place in the Kaikōura region. I would particularly like to acknowledge my colleague the MP for Kaikōura, Stuart Smith, who has done a phenomenal job putting his heart and soul into backing his constituents, many of whom are affected by this bill, actually, although it is probably the last thing on their minds at this point in time.

As he mentioned in his speech, he has progressed with this bill through all of its stages prior to entering into Parliament. I think that the background and the knowledge and the respect that he has within the industry—seeing that shepherd this bill through in its final stages has been a real mark of respect to the work that he has done prior to coming into Parliament as the chair of the winegrowers’ association and as the owner of a winery and a number of wine brands himself, and also being able to translate it into his work on the Primary Production Committee. I want to acknowledge what he is doing for his constituents now.

As I say, this by no means puts them at rest by any extent, because there has been a rather significant impact on the wine industry as a result of the earthquakes. I think what it does show is that it is one less thing that they have to worry about when normality kicks back in—hopefully, in the not too distant future—that is, that their brands and their businesses can be protected at least on the global stage where the brands that they have developed are competing with other brands, envious brands, in countries where the quality of the products are not as good as ours. It is an honour and a privilege to commend this bill. Thank you.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am pleased to take a short call on the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill. I do not often agree with Mr Barclay but I do endorse the comments he made then about Stuart Smith’s expertise in relation to wine and also the huge impact that the earthquakes have had on the wine industry. Yes, this will certainly be furthest from their minds at the moment, but we hope, of course, that they will be in a position to enjoy the improvement in the ability to market that this bill will bring with the next season’s vintage. We hope that they will be able to save some of this season’s, though I gather there has been quite extensive loss of the vintage.

Others have commented on the value of wine exports—$1.5 billion annually and forecast to reach $2 billion by 2020. The Green Party of course is supporting the bill in recognition of the importance of the industry but also because of the basic principle of provenance, of terroir, of consumers wanting to know where their food comes from and the fact that where it is grown can significantly influence the taste and the quality of what is produced. So, as others have said, this bill should not be applying just to wine and spirits; the Government should have a much larger vision, given the importance to our economy of food in our exports, for applying this concept of provenance to food products as well as to wine.

We have seen strong support from the industry in submissions on the bill. I was not on the Primary Production Committee, but the Villa Maria Estate, for example, said that years of investment in branding could be undermined if non - New Zealand producers sought to copy our wine, or to blend wine produced offshore with New Zealand wine and then market it as New Zealand wine. Of course, that will lead to a loss of reputation as poorer-quality wine is marketed as New Zealand wine. So this bill is about preventing that from happening by enabling the registration of geographic areas, such as Marlborough for sauvignon blanc, and by requiring that 100 percent of the grapes must be grown in New Zealand if the wine is to be called New Zealand wine, and that if the wine is to be associated with a particular region, then the grapes must be grown there.

The industry has wanted this formalisation of the ability to protect wine regions’ names and boundaries for some time. As my colleague Barry Coates noted, this is common in Europe, and it is an unparalleled opportunity to be able to tell our stories about where wine is grown and how it is produced. It is really unfortunate that the Government has not looked at doing this with food, both in relation to country-of-origin labelling—which it has resolutely opposed, despite Australia introducing legislation to establish it this year, and that legislation coming into force in 2 years’ time, and despite the ease with which the industry could pick up a lot of the standards because of the commonality of produce across the two countries and markets. We need to extend it to food so that we can get a premium in international markets for the food that we produce.

You only have to look at the Coastal Spring Lamb story, where the Rangitīkei lamb won the Supreme Award at Massey University’s New Zealand Food Awards recently. That business has gone from just a single farming operation to a multimillion-dollar company in 6 years, with 12 farmer suppliers producing for the domestic market and another eight for export. It has done that because it has told the story of the Coastal Spring Lamb—of the pastures that get sea spray, so that affects the taste of the lamb; the young age of the lamb when it is killed. It is a whole story around that about provenance, which consumers want to hear. They want to know that the meat they are eating is free-range. They want to know the farming systems that have produced it. They want the association with farmer-owners and the stories that those people can tell about growing food on their land.

So this is a lost opportunity—that we are not applying this bill to food products and establishing a similar registration for horticultural produce and for meat products to that that we are establishing for wine and spirits. We hope that we get into Government next year, and as Damien O’Connor noted, the Labour-Green Government would be introducing legislation to extend the system of provenance and registration to food.

Can I just comment on New Zealand First: it is outrageous that—

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

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): Speaking on the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill, in my view this legislates what is already happening currently. I mean, we all know about Marlborough sauvignon blanc, Otago pinot noir, and, of course, Hawke’s Bay syrah and chardonnay. Most of us can tell you about the regional variations, but very few of us can tell you the brands associated with those variations. So I just think that what this is doing is sort of codifying what happens already.

The one thing I would say is that I firmly believe that winemakers are inherently honest anyway. I do not think you are going to get a winemaker who is going to say their brand is from Hawke’s Bay—even though everyone wants to be from Hawke’s Bay—when it is not. They understand the damage they can do to their brand by being dishonest—in fact, not only to their own personal brand but probably the country’s brand. So what this does, in a way, is certainly to codify what is happening at this point in time.

There are three points that I would want to make: (1) the value of a brand; (2) a couple of advantages of this; and (3) a couple of concerns that I have. I have got only 4 minutes, so let me start. The first question I would like to ask is: how much is a brand actually worth? I mean, what are we actually protecting here? In 2005 the Ministry of Economic Development tried to quantify the value of “Brand New Zealand”. It came up with a figure of $20 billion a year. That is how much, in an overseas market, the “clean, green” and “100% Pure” brand is worth. PricewaterhouseCoopers did a study and it showed that 80 percent of those who are exporting leverage off our brand, so our national brand is worth a considerable amount of money in global markets. But I think, certainly in the wine industry, we have matured to the point where brands have evolved to a point where we can actually use sub-brands in overseas markets to differentiate quality and distinctive character.

The other thing, also—it is not just the producers that this legislation is protecting; it is also the consumers. When you buy a good Hawke’s Bay wine, you have an expectation that it is going to be ultra-premium. This is also sending a message that we understand the value to the market but we also understand the integrity of the producers themselves.

I must admit that this legislation does seem at odds with Nick Smith’s moves within the Resource Management Act to take away the ability of regions to, for example, declare themselves GE-free. In Hawke’s Bay we would like to declare ourselves GE-free, but Nick Smith says that cannot happen, which is at odds with this legislation, because I think that regional brands can be very, very powerful if done well, like is happening in Hawke’s Bay.

I do have a couple of concerns. First and foremost, the registration of geographic indication in this bill is effective for only 5 years. In the initial bill it was for 10 years, but for some reason the Primary Production Committee has pared it back to 5 years. Anyone who knows anything about marketing or brand development will tell you that an investment in a brand is often about time, it is about building up the attributes that sit behind that brand, and it is not done overnight. I suppose the one concern I have is that there is a possibility that wine producers within a region invest heavily in the brand for that region but find that in 5 years’ time they are not allowed to re-register. I am just unsure why the select committee saw fit to reduce the time of registration from 10 years down to 5 years.

The other concern I have is that, looking through this bill, it actually does not allude to any penalties at all or to any sort of penalty regime for actually breaking the rules. I could be wrong; I have had a look through it a couple of times. The thing we are trying to say here, first and foremost, is that brands are vitally important and wineries understand the value of brands, but the other thing that I think we need to make very clear is that if you break those rules, or if a winery or a wine agent or a distributor breaks those rules, then we need to send a very clear message that that will not be tolerated. I think we should come down quite hard on that.

The third point I have a concern about is that it talks about continuity of use in this bill. Continuity of use is defined as 32 years or, if a producer has been using a brand in good faith, 22 years. Yet they are only allowing registration for 5 years. That seems a little bit incongruous, and I am not too sure why they have done that.

Having said that, I am fully supportive of this legislation, especially coming from the top wine-growing region in New Zealand—that is the Hawke’s Bay. I know this will only add value. I do not see there being any downside. I just think it could have been slightly wider in order to protect the value of a brand as it is developed by certain wineries within a region. Thank you very much.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to take a short call on the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill. Although it is around wines in this particular situation, I also, as others have done, want to make mention of the terrible circumstances that have hit Kaikōura and that region in the last few days, because if there is a place in New Zealand that is very proud, that whole area is proud of its wine. We have talked a lot about the New Zealand story and food stories tonight in the House, and we have actually seen the pāua, we have seen the crayfish, we have seen the cows on the top of the hill, we have seen some of the wineries, we have seen the damage, and it is a very sad story for food in New Zealand at this particular time for that electorate.

I would also like to acknowledge my colleague Stuart Smith. There is nothing better than watching things go well in your electorate, and it must be extremely tough for Stuart at the moment just watching everything go completely wrong. It will be really important that we all get behind him in every way we possibly can.

We have talked today a lot about the story of food. That is why I am particularly disappointed with the New Zealand First stance on this. Mr Prosser knows that; we have had conversations around this. We have talked a lot about our story and then to be picky on clauses—I mean, our culture and heritage are around our Māori heritage and around culture. I just think it is really disappointing to make those comparisons with a whole lot of different minority groups in terms of supporting his opposing of this bill, because this is all part of our culture, this is part of our story, and I am really disappointed that we cannot pass this bill unanimously in the House.

We are extremely proud of our wines: 97 percent of wine production is exported, mostly at the moment to Australia, to Europe, and to North America. China and Asia are really starting to come on board with the wines from this country. It is already a $1.6 billion industry, and it is hoping to head, by 2020, to a $2 billion industry. I am hoping that the setbacks of the last couple of days, particularly in that part of the country, are not having too large an impact on that. It is a real pleasure to take a call and support this piece of legislation in the House. Thank you.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Can I join with the member who has just spoken in sending my sympathies to some of the winemakers in and around the Kaikōura electorate and also in North Canterbury who obviously have had some of their production affected by the events of the last 48 hours. I hope that they can continue with business as usual as soon as possible, because, as has been mentioned a number of times by a number of speakers already in this debate, some of those industries, both large and small, are very important to those areas that have been affected quite markedly by the quakes over the last 48 hours. Also, I should acknowledge Stuart Smith, the MP for Kaikōura, and our colleague on this side of the House, Rino Tirikatene, who is the MP for the whole of the South Island, who is down there doing some good work as well. Our thoughts obviously go out to the people of Kaikōura.

This piece of legislation has come about because our wine is good, and because we want to protect the integrity of that and do not want to see anyone else making money off it by scurrilous means, we want to protect the geographical indicators of our wine. I guess in plain English that means where it has come from. In the past anything that has had 85 percent of the grapes within it from New Zealand has been able to be passed as New Zealand wine; 15 percent of it could have been from anywhere else and it could have still been passed as New Zealand wine. This piece of legislation will mean that 100 percent of the grapes that go into making wine, whether it be for domestic consumption or for export consumption, have to be 100 percent New Zealand grapes to be passed as a local wine.

I am the one who has to see this out to the end of night, but it is an important piece of legislation. Someone has already tested it, about 3 years ago, when the Woolworths supermarkets in Australia were taken to court here in New Zealand for trying to trademark the South Island and an image of a mountain that bore a very close resemblance to Mount Cook. Woolworths was taken to court by New Zealand Winegrowers and it lost the ability to trademark the South Island as a brand and to have that logo. Interestingly enough, though, in Australia it has won the ability to have the South Island trademark as a brand. But there is an exception to that rule. Woolworths cannot protest if another brand of wine comes on the market that bears the South Island trademark, which obviously New Zealand winegrowers will be very happy with.

With the couple of minutes that I have got left, I think I do have to, again, as a previous speaker said, mark my protest at the New Zealand First point of opposition to this piece of legislation around the opposition process around Māori trademarks. I think it is a good thing. The select committee has put in a process, an advisory council, to make sure that has been done, so I think that is a good thing and that New Zealand First should rethink its opposition to this piece of legislation.

Also, around the 5-year trademark, I understand from my colleague Stuart Nash that that is around making sure it is financially sustainable—to make sure it can pay for itself—so that of course is also a good thing for the select committee to have done. I think that is all I should say at this stage.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 107

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 13; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Bill read a third time.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.