Thursday, 16 February 2017

THURSDAY, 16 FEBRUARY 2017

THURSDAY, 16 FEBRUARY 2017

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Leader of the House: When the House resumes on Tuesday, 7 March, the Government will look to complete the second reading of the New Zealand Intelligence and Security Bill; the second reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2016-17, Closely Held Companies, and Remedial Matters) Bill; and a number of other bills on the Order Paper. Wednesday, 8 March will be a members’ day.

Motions

Christchurch and Selwyn Districts—Fires

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of Civil Defence: I seek leave to move a motion without notice on the fires in Christchurch and Selwyn.

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

Hon AMY ADAMS I wish to inform the House that the significant fires in the Christchurch and Selwyn districts, which started on Monday, 13 February, increased in severity overnight across the Port Hills. A state of local emergency over the areas affected was declared at 5 past 6 on Wednesday evening.

Firstly, can we send our deepest sympathies to the family of helicopter pilot Mr Steven Askin, who tragically lost his life fighting the blaze. Mr Askin gave outstanding service to his country over his life, and I know that he will be greatly missed. I also want to acknowledge the front-line crews of emergency services, who are doing an outstanding job as they work to contain the fire and protect public property in difficult conditions, and, of course, the many volunteers who are supporting them.

This morning the Prime Minister, the Minister of Civil Defence, and the Director of Civil Defence Emergency Management, Sarah Stuart-Black, visited some of the affected areas and emergency operation centres. The Ministry of Civil Defence has been actively monitoring the situation in the emergency National Crisis Management Centre.

The Port Hills fires are being fought on three fronts: Early Valley Road, Worsleys Road, and Governors Bay. The estimated area of the fire is now in excess of 2,000 hectares. The fire is extremely intense, and is particularly challenging to contain because of the steep terrain, high levels of highly combustible vegetation in the area, particularly limited access, challenging wind direction, and the location near to urban areas. The geography and access has meant that the fire is largely only able to be fought aerially.

Evacuations have been continuing as the fires burn. At last update 450 properties had been officially evacuated on the Port Hills, areas around Victoria Park, Dyers Pass Road, Worsleys Road, in Westmorland, and Kennedys Bush, in particular. Most people are staying with family and friends. It is certainly heart-warming to see New Zealanders looking after each other. People were supported by Civil Defence Emergency Management overnight and civil defence centres are open for those who need assistance. There have been homes that have been damaged by the fire, and the extent of the damage is still being assessed, although it is fair to say that the damage and the number of homes affected would be considerably greater if it was not for the tremendous work of those fighting the fire.

I know you will join me in expressing that our thoughts are with all of those affected by the emergency. The Government stands committed and ready to provide whatever resources are needed to assist the local response. A number of agencies are working together to fight the blaze and support the community: rural fire authorities across the South Island, the New Zealand Fire Service, the New Zealand Defence Force, the New Zealand Police, Civil Defence, and private aircraft and heavy machinery operators. Everyone is working hard to make sure the people affected by the fires are kept safe, and communities and emergency services receive the support they need.

Our No. 1 priority is, of course, ensuring the safety and well-being of the public and the emergency responders. People should keep themselves up to date with the latest news through the Christchurch City Council, Civil Defence’s social media and website, or Selwyn District Council’s information line. It is imperative that members of the public keep away from the affected areas of the hills.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): Labour supports the Government’s motion. I know that this is a very small action that we can take, as compared with the work on the ground by so many people in Christchurch, but it is to show our support and solidarity across the House. This House and the people of New Zealand will be feeling for the residents of Christchurch. As if they have not faced enough in recent years with the devastating earthquakes, there is now a deadly blaze spanning 1,800 hectares, with no let-up in sight. We are told that nearly a dozen homes have been burnt, and we do not know how many have been damaged. Hundreds of residents have been evacuated from their homes, and the strengthening winds—that old nor’wester they get down there in Canterbury—are likely to fan the fire and drive the front closer to residential areas. Obviously, all efforts are being put into directing the fire away, but it must be directed towards saving lives and people as a priority.

This is a city that is already in a state of anxiety, and, as one person said as they watched their house burn down, it is gutting. There are only 6 days before the anniversary of the 22 February earthquake, and that is a time that is now bringing back those bad memories—the deep sadness at the loss of life and of their beautiful city as they knew it. I know that we feel deeply for them.

I too want to thank the emergency services who are bravely fighting the fire, those who are going door to door to alert people, and those who are providing advice, shelter, and food. We know that they will be increasingly becoming tired and stressed themselves, and they deserve all the support and encouragement that we can give them—the firefighters, those from the Department of Conservation, territorial authorities, volunteers, and the police patrols, who are working around the clock. It is great to know that in true Kiwi style other regions are pitching in to help, and additional firefighters and helicopters are coming in, we are told, from Nelson and from Timaru. At this stage something like 15 helicopters and planes are in the air—the maximum that you can have in safety.

I agree with the Minister that it is tragic that one life has already been lost: Steve Askin, killed when his helicopter crashed when he was fighting the Port Hills fire. We also extend our deepest sympathy to his wife, Elizabeth, his children, and his extended family, and we can only hope that no more lives will be lost.

This is not the time to look at the whys and hows. That needs to come at a later date. Next week we need a real assessment as to what services and support the people will need—the people who have suffered. There should be no delay in Government support, particularly for those who might need mental health services, and we will back whatever support is needed. I know that our Labour members of Parliament in those electorates are already on the ground, and they will be contacting their schools and their community organisations to see how they are coping and how they can help. It is now a time for us to do all we can to support the people of Christchurch. There will be a time to see how another such tragedy can be avoided.

JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): The Green Party would like to support the Government’s motion, and we express our sympathies and offer our support to people who have lost their homes or who have been otherwise affected by the Christchurch fires. We also want to acknowledge the incredible emergency services personnel: firefighters, helicopter pilots, police, Defence Force, Christchurch City and Selwyn District Councils, the civil defence staff, and volunteers who have been working around the clock to control the fires.

I would particularly like to acknowledge the helicopter pilot, David Steven Askin, who lost his life while working to protect the city and its residents, and to extend our deepest condolences to his loved ones. The commitment and the courage of the helicopter pilots, the firefighters, and support personnel, who are working incredibly long hours under horrendous conditions to try to contain the fire and to protect homes and people, are extraordinary. I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the media, who have been working hard to keep residents informed about the situation through their channels as well. Our colleague, Christchurch-based MP Eugenie Sage, has been visiting welfare and emergency management services in Christchurch City and talking to civil defence and other volunteers. She has told us this morning that she has found it very heartening to see just how well organised those centres are on incredibly short notice.

It is once again a deeply unsettling and uncertain time in Christchurch. The city has been through so much over the course of the last decade and it is absolutely heartbreaking to see people experiencing trauma and loss all over again. Cantabrians have had to build resilience and a community spirit to get them through the last few years, and once again we are seeing that come to the fore.

It is obviously tremendously frightening for residents to watch the glow of the fire on the hills at night and to see those brave people in helicopters disappearing into the huge plumes of smoke to subdue the flames. Many in the city will be feeling the uncertainty and the anxiety that comes with an emergency of this nature, so it is a good time to reach out to neighbours, to work colleagues, and to anyone who may be feeling vulnerable or anxious. The community support and the kindness of residents and strangers was an enormous help in the aftermath of the earthquakes; it will be, once again, in helping the city to recover from this emergency. Kia kaha, Christchurch.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): It is a privilege to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Minister’s motion, and to endorse and support all of the comments made by the previous speakers from the various political parties who have spoken thus far. It is our party’s desire that we express, along with the Parliament, our solidarity with the people of Christchurch, especially the families of those first respondents who are in the field doing their duty right now.

To the brave men and women of the various fire services involved: we thank you. To the police officers who are involved in protecting life and, might I say, dealing sometimes with the frustrations with those who would, for no other purpose than to go somewhere to have a look, jeopardise not only their own lives but the lives of their children when they take them on such bizarre sightseeing trips—to those police officers who are dealing with these issues day by day, hour by hour: we thank you very much and we recognise that sometimes your job is very difficult.

I had a conversation with a very senior veteran firefighter prior to coming to the House. I think some of the comments that he made need to be said here. There is much that has already been said in commentary about what could or should have happened, but, to reinforce the words of the Mayor, Lianne Dalziel, this is not the time for those conversations. Those conversations will come.

As far as the firefighters on the ground are concerned, this is something that they have never seen, and this firefighter said to me—and he has been a veteran of Australian bushfires, a veteran urban search and rescue firefighter who has operated internationally. He said that in the 38 years he has served, he has never seen anything like this. The difficult terrain, the gullies, the wind shifts, the climate, the weather, and the terrain have all combined to produce something, as he said, that is very, very unique, and it is testing and challenging even those amongst them who have seen it all before. In his words: “This is unique. Let’s deal with what we have to deal with. Let’s pray that no one else is injured or dies, and thank God that whilst we lost 11 homes we saved another seven.”

I want to now pay homage to Corporal David Steven Askin, New Zealand SAS and recipient of a New Zealand Gallantry Star. On behalf of the people who know him, might I read this poem, which I know they are all familiar with. This is for Steve and his family and his former colleagues from the New Zealand SAS.

Go as a Pilgrim and seek out danger

Far from the comfort and well lit avenues of life.

Pit your soul against the unknown,

And seek stimulation in the company of the brave.

Experience cold and hunger, heat and thirst,

And survive to see another challenge and another dawn.

Only then will you be at peace with yourself

And be able to know—and say

‘I looked down on the farthest side of the mountain

And, fulfilled and understanding all,

Am truly content I lived a life that was my own.’

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go

Always a little further; it may be

Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow

Across that angry or that glimmering sea.

Thank you.

Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, kia ora tātau katoa. Hei whaiwhai haere i te kōrero o tēnei nā me tana kupu kōrero ki te hunga kua ngaro atu, ka tautoko ake. Tautoko ake i te tangi ki tērā i mate nā runga i te āhuatanga o tana hiahia ki te āwhina i te hunga e rongo nei i te ngau o tēnei o ngā aituā ēngari, ka tangi ake ki te ia o te kōrero, te wairua o te kōrero kua puta i tērā o ngā mema o Te Pāti a New Zealand First, ka tangi ake, ka mihi ki a koe mō tērā korero. Me te kī atu ki tērā o ngā mate: “Haere koe, haere koutou, te hunga mate ki te hunga mate.” Anei tātau e hui nei i tēnei ahiahi, tēnā tātau katoa.

Ēhara i te mea he nui ngā kōrero hei whakawhānui atu i te āhuatanga o te kōrero kua puta i tēnei ahiahi, ā, kua whakapuakinahia e Te Minita, i te kōrero mō te taha ki Te Kāwanatanga. Ko tātau tātau e kōrero nei mō te āhuatanga o tēnei o ngā aituā nui, e aroha atu ana ki te hunga i kitea i runga i te pouaka whakaata i te ata nei. Ka titiro ki tō rātau whare, ā, kua tahuna ki te ahi, ko tā rātau noa iho he tangi, he tangi, he tangi, nā runga i te āhua o te mamae kua tau ki runga i a rātou. Nō reira, kua kōrerohia kētia ērā kōrero, ko tāku ko te kī atu, ā, tēnā, mā wai rātau e tiaki ā muri ake nei? I tēnei rā, mēnā ka kite koe i te āhuatanga o tō whare, ka ngaro i te āhuatanga o ngā matikuku o Mahuika, he rā anō āpōpō, ātahi rā, ā, ā ngā rā kai mua i te aroaro.

Nō reira, koinei te tono atu ki ngā mea o roto o te kaupapa o Whānau Ora, kia whakapiri atu, kia whakatata atu enei, ki ēnei tangata. Pēnei i te rū i ngā tau kua hipa ake ki runga o Kaikōura, ki Ōtautahi tonu, arā anō ngā mamaetanga, ngā uauatanga ka puta, kaua āpōpō ēngari, ā ngā wiki, ā ngā marama kai mua i te aroaro, kai reira tonu. Ka kite i te mamaetanga, kaua i tēnei rā tonu nei i tōna kotahi, kāo, ēngari, ā ngā rā kai mua i te aroaro.

Nō reira, he īnoi noa atu ki ngā ringa raupā, ki ngā ringa āwhina o ngā tari o Te Kāwanatanga, ka mutu, o ngā mea e whiwhi nei i tētahi pūtea Kāwanatanga, ko te hunga anō hoki o roto hapori, kia whakatata atu ki te hunga e rongo nei i te āhuatanga o te mamae, o ngā pēhitanga kua tau ki runga i a rātau. Me taku kī atu, hei whaiwhai haere i te kōrero o tēnei o ngā hoa o roto i Te Whare Pāremata o Te Kākāriki: “Ōtautahi, tū māia, tū kaha, tū mataara ā ngā rā kai mua i te aroaro.”

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, and salutations to us all. As a means of following the address of this one in regard to his tributes to those who have gone, I truly endorse those tributes. I endorse the grief for that one who has passed away under the circumstances in terms of his desire to help those affected by this one of the calamities but I really mourn the cadence and spirituality of the tribute expressed by that one of the members of the New Zealand First Party, I truly grieve and commend for that tribute. I say to that one of those who has died: “You go forth; you, collectively, go forth, the dead to the dead!” And so here we are assembled here this afternoon, my accolades to us all.

It is not as though I have much more to say to elaborate on what has emerged in the contributions this afternoon, the Minister has disclosed what the Government has to do. We are here expressing our personal views in regard to this one of the huge calamities; I empathise with those ones who were seen on television this morning. They looked at their house being consumed by fire and all they could do was to cry, grieve, and weep because of the nature of the hurt that had descended upon them. Consequently, those stories were related and I would merely say: who will look after them after this? Today, if you see the circumstances of your house, gone at the hands of Mahuika, there is another day tomorrow, the day after, and in the future.

So this is a request to ones within the Whānau Ora scheme that these ones get closer and align themselves with people like these. Like the earthquake in years just past in Kaikōura, and in particular in Christchurch, namely the pain and difficulties that emerged, not the next day but weeks and months ahead, it is still there. The hurt is still evident and not at all straight away on this very day in isolation, no, but in the days that are before us.

Therefore, this is an appeal to the practical and to those helpful ones in Government departments and, furthermore, those who have access to Government funding and those also in communities to get closer to those experiencing aspects of pain and oppression upon them. I also urge them to follow on the statement of this one of the colleagues of the Greens of Parliament: “Christchurch, stand bold, courageous and vigilant in the days ahead.”]

Kia ora tātau.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I want to join with other members in supporting the motion that the Minister of Justice, on behalf of the Minister of Civil Defence, has moved regarding the fires that are currently fringing Christchurch. I want to join with other members in expressing our solidarity with the people of the Canterbury region at yet another natural onslaught, and to offer our deepest sympathy to the family of David Steven Askin on his tragic death the other day while fighting those fires.

I thought I should share with the House the latest information that I have received from the New Zealand Fire Service regarding the situation. To put this into perspective, the area of the fire is now some 20 square kilometres. For those of you who know Christchurch, that is more than 12 times the area of Hagley Park, so that is a very large area.

The intensity and the size of the fire, I am advised, is, in its own way, restricting the number of firefighters who can be safely put on the ground. There are currently some 20 rural crews and 20 urban crews working in the area, three fixed-wing aircraft, and 13 helicopters, and crews are coming from other parts of the country—a crew is on its way north from Dunedin. The advice that I have received is that the main tactic at present is an aerial attack to fight the most intense parts of the fire. This is being supported by firefighters on the ground, who are being strategically positioned around Christchurch to protect life and property.

As has been reported elsewhere, this is a rapidly moving and changing fire, and it brings with it those huge emotional impacts on the local people, who fear property loss, who fear for their safety, and who fear for their livelihoods, and on their wider families, who fear for them. I have family living in the affected area. I think they are OK, but my attempts to make contact so far have been, typically, to no avail. But there will be many people around New Zealand wondering similarly, and wondering what it means. Is this yet again another natural disaster for this city, which has suffered and endured so much in recent years, and will that spirit of resilience that people have spoken of and admired so much come to the fore again? We have to hope that is the case.

Someone said to me just before I came to the House today that there is something very weird going on here. We are used to looking at these sorts of scenes from Australia. The fact that our second-largest city is now home, if you like, to the sorts of scenes we normally associate with Western Sydney and parts of Victoria is extraordinarily disturbing. Others will draw their conclusions as to the reasons why, but I simply want to express again my huge thanks to the men and women of the New Zealand Fire Service, rural firefighters, and our emergency services for the work that they are doing in Christchurch. There will inevitably be a debrief afterwards as to the lessons, and we will await the outcome with appropriate interest.

My sympathy and support go to the people of Christchurch in this moment of trial, and I think that the House can show them proper respect and due support today by passing this motion.

Motion agreed to.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Health Services—Funding Levels

1. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: Is he satisfied that the current level of investment into public health facilities and services is meeting acceptable standards and patient needs?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Yes. The Government has invested $1.7 billion into new or refurbished health facilities over the past 8 years, up and down the country. The list is long, but some examples include major upgrades at Waikato and Waitematā and new facilities at Whakatāne, New Plymouth, and Canterbury. West Coast is next, and then Dunedin. In terms of New Zealand’s 100-plus health services, it is difficult to find a service that has not improved under this Government, but of course there is always more to do.

Hon Annette King: In light of that answer, why has he not taken action to address the permanent overcrowding of the emergency department (ED) at Waikato Hospital, which led to management wanting to put beds in the corridors, with patients being given cowbells to ring for the nurses?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I am glad the member finds the issue amusing. Look, the fact is that I have had reports from the health target champion on what is happening in our EDs around the country. I specifically spoke about Waikato; it has got a very specific plan around the ED there. I would just remind the member that in the last Budget Waikato’s funding went up by $55 million. It has had an extra $351 million over the past 8 years. Of course, it has also had that major upgrade of its facilities, and it is providing very, very good services to the people of the Waikato catchment area.

Hon Annette King: Why has he allowed Capital and Coast District Health Board to struggle to find the capital funding to rebuild its forensic mental health unit, which is reported not to meet fire or health and safety regulations, which is not fit for purpose, and from which 22 forensic patients have absconded since 2013?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: As the member knows, there is an upgrade rebuild going on at Kenepuru Hospital. We have actually turned around the situation at Capital and Coast District Health Board. The deficit is about $20 million at the moment, unlike the $70 million deficit we inherited from Mrs King—it was much worse in your time, I am afraid.

Hon Annette King: If his so-called ring-fence for mental health funding is set at a level to meet growing demands for service, why did the chief executive of Southern District Health Board (Southern DHB) admit yesterday that “it is not investing enough [money] in primary and community mental healthcare.”, and that the only options were for more funding or making tough decisions?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Of course, Mrs King’s answer is always more funding, but I am delighted to tell her that, actually, at Southern DHB we have put in an extra $194 million over the past 8 years. A total of $884 million is the budget at this point. We have actually had quite a job turning around the mess at Southern District Health Board. As you know, there is a commissioner in there. We will be rebuilding the hospital there and there is a firm plan for turning the place around. You know, we had deficits of $42 million, and that is now down to $35 million and on track for about $26 million this year. So it is getting better all the time, and the key thing is that no one has actually missed out on vital services there.

Hon Annette King: What tough decisions does he recommend Southern DHB take in light of the warning given by the Southland Mental Health and Addictions Network to the DHB that patients could be stranded without services if extra funding is not provided?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I can assure you that no one is going to be stranded without services. The decisions are always difficult in health, but actually, the easy decision for people in Dunedin this year will be to vote for National.

Hon Annette King: How can he continue to deny underfunding of mental health services when DHBs’ acute adult bed numbers have decreased—decreased—since 2011-12, in the face of increased readmission rates within 28 days over the same period?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: As the member well knows, the model of care around mental health has changed dramatically. We are actually treating more and more people in the community. That was actually also happening under the Labour Government. I can tell her that over the last 5 years we are treating an extra 28,000 people per year compared with 5 years ago. That is an uplift of 20 percent. So there are more people we are treating. There is more money we are putting into it. We are doing more all the time, but of course there is always more to be done.

Freshwater Management—Water Quality of Rivers and Lakes

2. CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: How would he describe the state of Aotearoa’s rivers and lakes this summer?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): Good but not good enough. The Land, Air, Water Aotearoa website that our Government helped establish in 2014 gives real-time E. coli data on 205 specific river and lake sites around New Zealand—184, or 90 percent, of those are currently meeting the Ministry of Health guidelines for swimming. There are rivers and lakes where water quality is unacceptably low, and that is why our Government is doing so much work in this area. I am planning on releasing comprehensive information on water quality across New Zealand later this month, as well as tighter rules to improve the state of our rivers and lakes.

Catherine Delahunty: How would he describe the state of Coes Ford on the Selwyn River/Waikirikiri, once a popular swimming hole but due to more than 100 percent of the water being allocated for irrigation, as well as the effects of climate change, is now a puddle of algae?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I would draw the member’s attention to the Environment Canterbury water quality scientist who pointed out that Canterbury has had 3 very dry years and that that has contributed. It is also true that Canterbury needs tighter rules on water quality around nutrients. This Government, with the support of the Environment Canterbury commissioners, has put in place the first caps and limits on nutrients in that region because water quality is not acceptable.

Catherine Delahunty: Will the Government commit to doing whatever it takes, including winding up Government subsidies for irrigation schemes, in order to prevent other rivers in Aotearoa suffering the same fate as the Selwyn River/Waikirikiri?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member makes two mistakes—the first is to assume that the only water quality problems in New Zealand are in rural areas, when, actually, some of our most polluted water bodies are in our cities, and if we are to clean up waterbodies in New Zealand both town and country need to do their share of the lifting. The second poor assumption the member makes is that water storage schemes automatically result in reduced water quality. I could give the member numerous examples of schemes, such as, for instance, in my own electorate with the Waimea community dam that will enable us to both improve water quality and increase horticulture production.

Catherine Delahunty: What will he do to resuscitate the Selwyn River/Waikirikiri, which does not even meet the national standard of being safe for wading or boating simply because there is no water left in it?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Government can do many things, but it cannot make it rain. But, interestingly—the member will be aware of the support this Government has given to the central plains water storage scheme. There is an opportunity to use that storage scheme to actually reinject water into the aquifer and the springs, which would make a material and positive difference to the quality of water at the very area the member seeks.

Scott Simpson: What advice has he seen from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment about the practicality of all rivers and all lakes being swimmable all of the time?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Dr Jan Wright has been a consistent and well-informed advocate for cleaner rivers and lakes, but I did note her statement this week that to make a decree that every single place is swimmable “is not necessarily right”. I think she is correct. We need stronger rules to improve water quality that are aspirational, but they also, the Government believes, need to be practical.

Catherine Delahunty: How will he protect the world-famous waters and wāhi tapu of Waikoropupū Springs from the increased nitrate pollution that is certain to occur if plans to increase irrigation for dairy farming upstream are allowed?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That is not the technical information I have had from the Tasman District Council and its water-quality scientists, but I think the really important thing about those very special springs is that there is a proposal—from both iwi and the community—for a water conservation order on that area. It is my intention to advance that through the proper legal process.

Catherine Delahunty: Given what he has heard from New Zealanders, who want to be able to swim in their local rivers, does he intend to announce a new national standard from “wadeable” to actually “swimmable” in the near future?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Government is considering the 4,000-plus submissions that were received on the next steps in freshwater management, which were published last year. It is my hope that before the end of this month we will be able to respond to those submissions and changes to policy.

Fires, Christchurch and Selwyn District—Government Response

3. NUK KORAKO (National) to the Minister of Civil Defence: Can the Government provide an update on the response to the Christchurch and Selwyn District fires?

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of Civil Defence: My thoughts are with the people of Christchurch and Selwyn, especially the family of Steven Askin, the helicopter pilot tragically killed fighting the Port Hills fires on Tuesday. The Government is committed to providing whatever resources are needed to assist the local response. There are a number of agencies working together to fight the blaze and support the community. Civil Defence is working closely with a number of agencies to help support and coordinate the response and to ensure that those on the ground receive the help they need.

Nuk Korako: How is the Government assisting local authorities with their response?

Hon AMY ADAMS: Local police have a dedicated team of about 50 officers on the ground, focused on evacuation, managing cordons, and providing reassurance to the community. There are 45 staff from the Department of Conservation also supporting the response. Defence Force liaison officers have been deployed to the two emergency operation centres, and 42 personnel are assisting New Zealand Police. The air force is also flying an additional 21 officers from Auckland to Christchurch on Friday to bolster police resources there. Defence Force logistics personnel and equipment are prepared to provide catering services to evacuation centres if required, and additional force elements in the North Island have been placed at high readiness in case they are needed. The United States’ Antarctic research vessel Polar Star, which is in Lyttelton, made an informal approach to provide personnel assistance to the inter-agency response, which has been formally accepted by the New Zealand Government. Defence Force personnel in Christchurch are engaging with Polar Star to determine the best deployment of those additional personnel. There are 330 firefighters, 14 helicopters, and three fixed-wing aircraft also assisting the Selwyn rural fire authority to combat the blaze.

Housing, Auckland—Supply

4. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister for Building and Construction: What was the increase in the housing shortfall in Auckland between June 2008 and June 2016, given that the population increased by 208,900, meaning, at 2.7 people per household, 77,370 additional houses would be needed?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Construction): Officials advised that there are not reliable figures on the housing shortfall, and variations in assumptions can shift the numbers up or down by 50,000. Nor do officials agree with the member’s assumption of 2.7 people per household. I have seen shortfall estimates of between 15,000 and 70,000. The exact number does not change the policy response, which is to pull out all stops to grow supply. The last 5 years has seen the number of homes being built in Auckland grow from 4,000 per year to nearly 10,000 per year. Auckland has never before had 5 straight years of such strong growth in home construction.

Phil Twyford: Surely he must accept that with only 44,000 homes consented over this 8-year period, with 77,000 additional homes needed, a shortfall of more than 32,000 homes has built up on his watch?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, I do not accept that, and I would draw the member’s attention to his own leader’s comment, and that is that it takes time to grow supply. And if you look over history, the truth is that the population growth varies more quickly than what you can—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: If you look at history, population varies far more quickly than the construction industry is able to respond, and there have been many periods when there has been a lag in getting the new homes built to support that population.

Jami-Lee Ross: What reports has the Minister received of opposition to housing projects in Auckland that would help to increase supply?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Housing projects that would help address the shortfall are being opposed all over the place in Auckland for reasons like character, impacts on bird life, impacts on landscape, impacts on the Hauraki Gulf, and impacts on amenities. The Three Kings Quarry development by Fletcher’s, which involves 1,500 homes, has been held up due to opposition being led by Labour MP Michael Wood. The Point England project involving 300 homes in Tāmaki is also being opposed by members opposite. There is a big 500-home development, the Ōtuataua housing project in South Auckland—that too is being vigorously opposed by members opposite. Those members cannot have it both ways: complain about supply not growing fast enough, and then, every time there is a housing project, invent some reason as to why it should not proceed.

Phil Twyford: Did he know that the number of new homes is year after year falling so far behind population increase that it means more overcrowding and extreme demand pressures that have given Auckland the fourth most unaffordable housing in the world; if not, why not?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Firstly, I would point out that house construction dropped to the lowest level in 40 years when Labour was in office during the global financial crisis in 2008, and that over each of the last 5 years the number of homes being constructed has grown by more than 20 percent per year. I simply challenge the member: tell me a period between 2012 and 2016 where there has been longer and more consistent growth in house construction?

Phil Twyford: Does he agree with Bernard Hickey, who said this morning: “The Government’s attempts to downplay the scale of the shortage and to exaggerate the scale of the building response makes it look out of touch and defensive.”?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No. Furthermore, I would simply point out that the number and value of building consents have grown consistently very strongly for 5 years. And, again, I have to agree with Mr Little that you cannot grow housing supply overnight.

Phil Twyford: Is he aware that Aucklanders are suffering unaffordable housing and gridlocked roads as a direct result of his Government’s failure to invest in infrastructure, including housing, and is this the problem Bill English meant when he said that rapid population increase is the right kind of problem to have?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is true that both New Zealand and Auckland are very successful and are growing strongly. It is equally true that during Labour’s years, hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders left for Australia, rather than choosing to live in our country, and that has put pressure on infrastructure. But it is rich for members to say that infrastructure is not being invested in. Only yesterday I announced the process for two more $2.2 billion roading projects going through the board of inquiry process under Resource Management Act reforms that members opposite opposed. I do also understand that the Waterview project, the biggest single transport project in New Zealand ever, is due for construction and completion in the next couple of months.

Phil Twyford: Does he agree with the Reserve Bank’s comment last week that “Migration flows have increased demand for housing.”?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is absolutely true that not having 40,000 Kiwis leaving for Australia is putting pressure on the education sector, in terms of kids, in terms of housing, and in terms of transport. The difference is that members on this side of the House welcome the fact that Kiwis are voting with their feet and staying in this beautiful country.

Work Visas—Fishing Industry and Labour Market Test

5. RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First) to the Minister of Immigration: Does his department monitor New Zealand-based businesses to ascertain whether they are employing New Zealanders ahead of visa-holding foreigners; if so, how?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): Yes; Immigration New Zealand is involved from the very first step. The employment of New Zealanders first is one of the key principles of the Government’s immigration policy. Immigration officers need to be satisfied that there are no suitable New Zealanders available before a job is offered to a foreign national who does not already hold a visa enabling them to work. The manner of that test depends on the occupation and the employer, but that could include reference to the skills shortage lists, a process of checking before an approval in principle is granted, or an individual application for an occupation that is not on those skills shortage lists.

Richard Prosser: Can he confirm to the House that this system of monitoring is working; and if he cannot confirm it, why can he not confirm it?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: In answer to the first part of the question, yes.

Richard Prosser: How does he reconcile that answer with the fact that New Zealand - flagged vessels fishing in New Zealand waters are clearly advertising for crews with Korean qualifications and experience?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I am aware that there have been some issues in respect of the way in which the labour market test is conducted by some foreign fishing vessel fleets, but the simple reality is there are not enough workers available to meet the demand for that occupation. The Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment are working hard to ensure that qualifications and skills are gained, so that New Zealanders can take those occupations up. But it is challenging.

Richard Prosser: Can the Minister guarantee that the minimum wage plus another $2 per hour is being paid to all visa-holding foreign crews working in New Zealand waters right now?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I can certainly confirm that for those people who are granted essential skills work visas, payment needs to be consistent with New Zealand employment law and that the contracts that have been offered to them are checked by both Immigration New Zealand before a visa is granted and by the labour inspectorate, if necessary, during the period of their visas.

Richard Prosser: Is he aware that Jaico, a Korean-owned, New Zealand - registered company, operating a New Zealand - flagged vessel, is recruiting for 100 Korean fishing crew; if so, will he suspend their request for an approval in principle, given that the advertisements are clearly shutting out New Zealanders?

Mr SPEAKER: There are two supplementary questions there.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: In response to the first part of that question, no, I am not, but I would not be surprised if that were the case.

Richard Prosser: I seek leave to table a copy of the Jaico Ltd advertisements for 14 different fishing boat career positions. It is not dated. I believe it is unpublished. It was received by our office on 11 February.

Mr SPEAKER: Is the member saying he is not aware what paper it is in?

Richard Prosser: It is not published in the paper as yet.

Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular advertisement. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is not.

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

Social Investment Approach—Policy

6. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister of Finance: How is the Government using a social investment approach that aims to improve the lives of vulnerable New Zealanders and reduce costs for taxpayers?

Hon AMY ADAMS (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: The social investment approach involves the Government better understanding the New Zealanders we support, what services will best improve their lives, and where that intervention will make the biggest difference to reduce the numbers showing up in hospitals or prisons, not succeeding at school, or stuck on welfare. We are building a world-class data analytics system to support this, and we are now able to identify, for example, a group of high-risk young people who will cost taxpayers, on average, $320,000 each by the age of 35—some of them over $1 million each. By looking at the evidence for what the best interventions are for each member of that group, we have the opportunity to deliver services that may involve a higher upfront cost but that will reduce the long-term costs and, most importantly, improve those people’s lives.

Chris Bishop: How is this different to previous approaches to social spending?

Hon AMY ADAMS: We spend approximately $61 billion each year on social sector spending; however, we know the specific effectiveness of only a very small proportion of this. The public sector has also, traditionally, struggled to understand the impact of spending in one area on results in another area. We have to change this. Social investment is different because Ministers, agencies, and those delivering services will be better informed and better aligned, through advances in our use of technology and data, to understand the areas of greatest need and how the Government can best direct our efforts and do more of what works.

Grant Robertson: Does the social investment approach offer anything to the 400 workers and their families in Dunedin who today discovered that with Cadbury’s manufacturing operations closing they will be out of work, or is the Government’s form of investment just in theoretical ideas and not practical regional development?

Hon AMY ADAMS: The social investment approach is about targeting how our social services best support those New Zealanders when they find themselves in times of need—so that if people are out of a job, we are comfortable and confident that our welfare system is best targeted to support them in a meaningful way to get back to the independence that we know New Zealanders want.

Chris Bishop: What examples are there of how this could reduce future costs for the Government?

Hon AMY ADAMS: The work that the Ministry of Social Development did on the welfare liability showed that the future lifetime cost has reduced by $12 billion over the last 4 years as a result of our welfare reforms based on this approach. The justice sector is another good example of where social investment can make a real difference. For example, we now know that a 9-year-old boy who is known to Child, Youth and Family and whose parents are on a benefit is likely to offend on average 3.3 times before he is 24. However, applying a social investment approach and the right interventions with his parents can lead to a more than 90 percent reduction in his predicted offending. This reduces costs to the taxpayer, improves lives, and means fewer victims.

Youth Guarantee—Performance

7. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: Does he believe his predecessor and officials have fully briefed him on the value and effectiveness of all existing programmes in his portfolio?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment): Yes, although I would note that Vote Tertiary Education is a $2.8 billion spend, delivered over a wide range of programmes, not all of which have yet been fully evaluated. There is plenty of success in these programmes, such as we have seen in the growing number of apprenticeships, from 36,000 in 2012 to 42,000, an increase of 16 percent. We have seen the number of workplaces delivering literacy and numeracy programmes increase to 170 percent. That is from 27 employers to 73 in the past year. So the Government systematically reviews its programmes to ensure they are effective and continue to deliver value for money, and if they are not, we will look to make changes.

Chris Hipkins: Does he believe that spending on the Youth Guarantee scheme represents good value for money, given up to 20 percent of the students participating in the programme already hold a qualification at the level they are enrolled in?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes. There is a target to get that down to 10 percent. There are lots of reasons that students might be studying in a programme at the same level. It ranges depending on a number of factors, but, for example, some students may take a generic trades level 2 qualification, which gives them experience in a range of trades, before they then enrol in a level 2 qualification for their trade of choice. So it is not a simple thing to say that nobody should be doing a course at the same level, but we do want to reduce the number of times it happens.

Chris Hipkins: Was the Youth Guarantee scheme set up to assist those who were not succeeding in the education system; if so, how does enrolling students who already have qualifications at the level of the Youth Guarantee programme they are enrolling in help to achieve that objective?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The Youth Guarantee programme is indeed set up to help people who have not been in training get into training.

Chris Hipkins: Does he believe that the taxpayer is getting good value for money from the Youth Guarantee scheme when around $44 million of the money being pumped into it over the last 5 years under Steven Joyce has gone to support kids getting qualifications at the same level as qualifications they already hold?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: As I said, there would be a number of reasons why it sometimes makes sense for a student to be studying at the same level as they have before.

Chris Hipkins: Why does he believe the Youth Guarantee scheme represents good value for money when an evaluation that has already been carried out by the Government last year found those who participated in the Fees-free Youth Guarantee programme were more likely to end up reliant on a benefit than those who did not?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I am not sure of the member’s figures in that area, but I am certainly aware that the reviews have shown that the NCEA level 2 achievement rates are higher for participants against a comparison group, and that an estimated 300 additional 18-year-olds achieved NCEA level 2 from their participation in the Youth Guarantee Fees-free programme than otherwise would have. We should be aware that this is the most difficult group and we are very keen to make sure that that group of New Zealanders has every access to education. There is a wide range of programmes across the tertiary sector. Many of them are very successful; others are successful in part. We are very determined to make sure that they improve, and that is why we are very focused on it.

Corrections Facilities—Matawhāiti Residence

8. KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) to the Minister of Corrections: What recent announcements has she made regarding public protection orders?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister of Corrections): Yesterday I opened a new residential facility in the grounds of Christchurch Men’s Prison that will accommodate the highest-risk sexual or violent offenders who are subject to public protection orders. The Matawhāiti Residence is designed to balance public safety with the appropriate management and rehabilitation of its residents. It is intended to protect the community from almost-certain serious sexual or violent offending, rather than acting as a punishment for the residents. The Matawhāiti Residence provides an alternative for those who cannot live safely in the community, and it will reduce the likelihood of offenders hurting anyone else, while giving them the chance to turn their lives around. This is a balanced regime that is a proportionate response to the serious and imminent risk posed by a very small number of offenders.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: How will the new facility ensure the safety of the community?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Although residents at Matawhāiti have completed their term of imprisonment, psychologists and the courts have determined that they still pose an imminent risk of reoffending. This facility will improve public safety and save potential victims from almost certain serious harm, or worse. This regime responds to situations where an offender presents an unacceptable risk that cannot be managed through existing measures. It is our duty to ensure that someone who has the highest risk of imminent and serious sexual or violent offending is not placed in the community. At this level of risk, the law runs out of options to manage these offenders once their sentence is complete. This regime strikes the right balance between the rights of offenders and our duty to protect New Zealanders from imminently dangerous offenders. It is necessary, proportionate, and fair.

Immigration—Fraudulent Visas and International Students

9. DENISE ROCHE (Green) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he believe that it is fair that the Indian students seeking sanctuary in an Auckland church should be deported for visa fraud if they have not been charged with that offence?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): Yes, I do. I also think it is fair that despite being unlawful for 6 to 9 months, they have been allowed to stay in New Zealand, complete their studies, and receive their qualifications—as I am advised is the case with six of the seven students being represented by Mr McClymont. I also think it is fair that those students have had ample time to get their affairs in order, and I think it is fair that they have been given the chance to voluntarily depart New Zealand.

Denise Roche: Have there been no charges laid under the Immigration Act because the Government cannot in fact prove beyond reasonable doubt that these students were aware of the fraud committed by immigration agents in their name?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: No. I have a copy of a student visa application in front of me, the like of which would have been signed by those people, saying they had provided true and correct answers to the questions in the form, and saying that they had attached evidence that they had access to sufficient funds to support themselves throughout the intended length of their stay. There is no question that the responsibility for that information is the applicant’s.

Denise Roche: Given that answer, what evidence is there in that that there is the intention to defraud that you have seen that made you think that deportation rather than prosecution under the Immigration Act is fair or in line with the principles of natural justice?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The Immigration Act provides two mechanisms for dealing with the provision of false information in visa applications: deportation or prosecution. Immigration New Zealand (INZ) is satisfied that the students are liable for deportation for providing false information in an application they signed. A prosecution is neither necessary nor desirable. INZ can respond without burdening the courts. In line with the Act, the students were told why they were liable for deportation, given the chance to provide reasons why deportation should not proceed, and had appeal rights to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal.

Denise Roche: Given that the visa applications were found to be fraudulent after the students had paid their fees and after the courses, is it not fair to say that Immigration New Zealand failed a basic process in evaluating the visas at the start, and should the students have to bear the impact of that mistake?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, I think Immigration New Zealand has shown significant compassion in allowing the students to be able to stay and to complete their courses, and on, as I say, six or seven occasions actually getting the qualifications the students were seeking. I would also add that in a visa system that issues somewhere in the region of three-quarters of a million visas per year, the honest attestations of the applicants is a significant part of that, with sanctions for non-compliance.

Denise Roche: I seek leave to table this document, which is from the lawyer. It shows that Immigration New Zealand failed to interview some of the students during their visa process. It is not publicly available and it contains specific dates and specific notes about who was interviewed as part of the visa application process.

Mr SPEAKER: Does the Minister wish to speak before I put the leave?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, I still do not know what the source of the document is.

Denise Roche: It is from the lawyer.

Mr SPEAKER: So as I understand it, it is an information sheet of allegations by the lawyer against Immigration New Zealand. Does that sum it up?

Denise Roche: It is a summary of the notes that the lawyer has kept from the immigration file cases.

Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave and the House will decide whether it is relevant to them. Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is objection.

Denise Roche: Does the Minister agree with religious leaders Cardinal John Dew, Archbishop Philip Richardson, and Rev. Prince Devandanan, who have called on this Government to reconsider your actions in the name of humanitarianism and justice?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: At the time those religious leaders wrote to me, they were not in possession of, I think, very important information, and that is this: despite being unlawful, these students were able to complete their courses and obtain their qualifications. That was the purpose of their visit. The time has come for them to go home.

KiwiRail—Locomotives and Environmental Impact

10. DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) to the Minister of Transport: Is he concerned about the announcement by KiwiRail on 21 December 2016 that it intends to de-electrify the North Island’s Main Trunk railway system?

Hon DAVID BENNETT (Associate Minister of Transport) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: The decision to move to an all-diesel fleet on the North Island’s main trunk line was an operational decision made by KiwiRail. KiwiRail made this decision because it believes the shift to a single fleet is the best way to improve reliability and efficiency for its customers and to boost the benefits of rail for New Zealand.

Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was whether the Minister is concerned about that, and that should be answered.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I think if you had listened to the answer, you could interpret it—I will ask the Minister just to answer specifically, in light of his answer, whether he is concerned.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: This is an operational decision for KiwiRail.

Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The answer was the same as already given, and it still does not answer—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is very observant of the member. I did ask the Minister whether he wanted to be more specific. It is a question on notice. He has given his answer. I am not responsible for the answer given. It is now over to members to interpret the answer given as to whether he was concerned. The way forward, as I always advise my learned friend Denis O’Rourke, is to proceed with very incisive supplementary questions.

Denis O’Rourke: How could he not be concerned when he knows that the nation must meet demanding greenhouse gas emissions targets in both the short and long terms, pursuant to the Paris Agreement?

Hon DAVID BENNETT: This Government is committed to the environment and committed to public transport, and we can see from the investment in public transport of $1.7 billion to the Auckland rail network and $485 million to the Wellington network that we are effectively supporting electric trains in our transport spend.

Denis O’Rourke: How could he not be concerned when electric locomotives economically capable of full refurbishment are to be replaced with cheap, poor quality, energy-inefficient Chinese diesel locomotives, which will add thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases as well as other pollutants every year?

Hon DAVID BENNETT: KiwiRail is encouraging customers to use freight by rail, and that will help reduce carbon emissions and also provide a reliable service. Even when locomotives that are diesel are doing the heavy hauling, every tonne of freight moved by rail has 66 percent fewer emissions than by road. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am having difficulty hearing both the question and the answers.

Denis O’Rourke: Why is he not using the statement of intent process with KiwiRail to see that the de-electrification process does not proceed, coupled with more direct Crown investment in the railway system so that a fully electrified main trunk line can be achieved?

Hon DAVID BENNETT: The decision around the North Island main trunk railway line is one for KiwiRail, and it is an operational decision that it has made.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Supplementary question, Mr Speaker?

Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have a point of order first.

Denis O’Rourke: The question was specifically about why the statement of intent process was not being used. It has got nothing to do with anything about KiwiRail’s operational decisions being concerned.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, and I agree, and I was very tempted to rule the question out because I do not see that it has any ministerial responsibility for the Minister of Transport. That question as phrased should have been addressed to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Could the Minister advise the House whether the new locomotives have Chinese-sounding names?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Such a question is not going to help the order of the House. Are there further supplementary questions?

Sue Moroney: Does he agree with David Bennett, who said in his speech on the Road User Charges Amendment Bill “If it is a diesel train, it is a dirty train.”; if so, has he faced vigorous lobbying from the new Associate Minister to keep electric trains on the electrified part of the main trunk line?

Mr SPEAKER: There are two supplementary questions there. The Minister is welcome to address one or both.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: On behalf of the Minister of Transport, I have full faith in my Associate Minister.

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

Mr SPEAKER: I hope it is a serious one.

Grant Robertson: Oh, it is a very serious one.

Mr SPEAKER: Grant Robertson—a point of order.

Grant Robertson: If you could advise the House on the process when a Minister actively misleads the House.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a helpful point of order, but that did not surprise me.

Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was not addressed. I asked whether he agreed with the statement from David Bennett and whether he had faced any lobbying from David Bennett.

Mr SPEAKER: No, no. The question was very definitely addressed. There were two questions; that was the difficulty. The Minister addressed them.

Roading, Wellington—Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway

11. IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister of Transport: What progress has the Government made on the Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway north of Wellington?

Hon DAVID BENNETT (Associate Minister of Transport) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: Today the Government opened the $630 million Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway, delivering a long-awaited road to the Wellington region. The expressway is part of the Wellington Northern Corridor, one of the Government’s roads of national significance identified as key to economic growth. This impressive piece of infrastructure has been a long time coming, and after 3 years of construction it is fantastic to be delivering it 4 months ahead of schedule. Thank you.

Ian McKelvie: How will the Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway benefit road users in the Rangitīkei—oh, apologies—the Wellington region?

Hon DAVID BENNETT: This new stretch of road will be transformational for the Kāpiti coast and the wider Wellington region. The new expressway will deliver a range of benefits and significant safety improvements. Improved journey times to Wellington’s port, CBD, Interislander ferry terminals, airport, and hospital will benefit the wider region. The new expressway also delivers a second, more resilient network north of Wellington—an important feature in the wake of recent earthquakes.

Hon Nathan Guy: Although this Government investment of $630 million has been eagerly awaited by motorists in my electorate for absolute decades—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I want the question.

Hon Nathan Guy: —what recent reports has the Minister seen of people opposing this investment in the Kāpiti community? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Before I call the Minister—[Interruption] Order! I just remind the House that Speaker’s ruling 174/3 says it will not be reasonable for the Government to be using a question to attack an Opposition member.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes, and I would like to acknowledge that member for his strong advocacy in this project. I have received reports outlining opposition to the expressway, including reports that it is an “over-the-top reaction for the needs of our community”, that it should be mothballed, and that the “Plug should be pulled”. These reports, of course, come from the Labour Party—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!

Beneficiaries—Welfare Reform and Reports

12. CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston) to the Minister for Social Development: Is she concerned that the SuPERU report released last week showed that 1 in 4 former beneficiaries return to the benefit within 24 months after they come off?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Yes. We are always concerned when beneficiaries return to dependency, and in 2013 the Government introduced welfare reforms that made significant changes to the benefit system. It is important to note that this research by the social policy evaluation and research unit (SuPERU) looked at people between 1 July 2010 and 30 June 2011—before those 2013 welfare reforms—and that is important because this data then gives us a good baseline for examining changes post-reform when the data becomes available. But we could be much more positive about this and say that three out of four have not returned to a benefit within 2 years, and the Government continues to make changes to the benefits system to better support New Zealanders. In Budget 2016 we invested an extra $111 million over 4 years to help more people into employment—most specifically, by extending the Youth Service to 19-year-old parents.

Carmel Sepuloni: Given that yesterday in the select committee SuPERU officials said that they could analyse the outcomes for beneficiaries post - welfare reforms, why has she not requested that information of them? Is it because she is worried that the outcomes for the post - welfare reform period will be even worse than previously?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: No, the member is absolutely incorrect. I have requested that post-reform information, but because the Taylor Fry report conducted by SuPERU used the Ministry of Social Development’s Integrated Data Infrastructure data, the ministry can do that itself and we do not have to pay outside consultants.

Carmel Sepuloni: If moving off a benefit is so good for parents and their children—and there are now, according to the Minister, 50,000 fewer children with parents on a benefit—why are there not 50,000 fewer children living in material hardship, and why has there been a 35 percent increase in hardship assistance grants in the last year?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Anne Tolley—two supplementary questions.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Well, the member is absolutely wrong. In this House last week, I think it was, when the data was produced by the Salvation Army, even its tables showed that, in fact, there had been a reduction in the number of children experiencing hardship. So the member is absolutely wrong, and, more importantly, to conflate those two actually messes up completely different data.

Carmel Sepuloni: Given that SuPERU was unable to determine the main outcome of 18 percent of former beneficiaries, does she now agree with the Salvation Army report that “Just what has happened to these people, and whether they are better or worse off, is a mystery.”?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: No, I do not agree with the Salvation Army, and, in fact, with the next piece of research we are looking to try to track down what does happen to the people who come off benefit. As we have said in this House before, people make all sorts of decisions in their lives. What the data shows clearly is that it is in the best interests of people and their children not to be dependent on welfare for long periods of their lives. That certainly does lead to child poverty.

Carmel Sepuloni: How can she continue to celebrate benefit reductions when most people who come off a benefit do not remain in employment after 24 months, 85,000 to 90,000 children still live in severe material hardship, and 45 percent of these children living in poverty have parents who are working?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Well, the member has to make it clear that she is working on data from that study that goes back 5 years. That is baseline data, and we are conducting more surveys to see what happens post-reforms. But the evidence is very clear: if people remain on welfare for a long period of time, their children do worse in school, they are more likely to have a Child, Youth and Family notification, they are more likely to be referred to the police for family violence, and they are more likely to be very poor. In this Government, we have had a Minister talking about social investment. That is about intervening early, effectively, and in a coordinated way to help people make their lives better.

Bills

Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill

Electoral Amendment Bill

In Committee

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Members, the House is in Committee for the consideration of the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill. I call Tim Macindoe.

Tim Macindoe: Oh, sorry, no. No, I am standing up to leave. I beg your pardon.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): It is hard to beat that last contribution! I have got two questions for the Minister in the chair, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, in respect of the Electoral Amendment Bill. Firstly, I would like the Minister to describe for the House the trend in enrolment over recent elections and to confirm for the House that at the time of the last election there were approximately 10 percent of New Zealanders of voting age who were not enrolled and, therefore, could not vote. [Interruption] I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am just not clear on who I am meant to be addressing—given that we did not have a Minister in the chair, but we do now, the Hon Mark Mitchell.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Momentarily.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you. Given that approximately 10 percent of New Zealanders were not enrolled at the last election despite being of voting age, I want to know whether that trend, as I understand it, is increasing a little, and whether the Minister accepts that this is partly a consequence of lower rates of homeownership in New Zealand. There are more people moving from house to house, more people in transient accommodation—putting aside the people who are in no accommodation. Is this one of the reasons why those people are not enrolled, and if that is the case—and I believe it is the case—why is it that we are not devising other ways to maintain the rolls more fulsomely so that we can maintain rates of democratic participation in New Zealand, which are on the slide, particularly amongst the young?

In particular, I want the Minister’s response as to why it is that we cannot have on-the-day enrolment. I cannot see why, in this day and age, people should not be able to turn up—they have all got a driver’s licence or a credit card or some other form of identification—and enrol. I would have thought that if it is good enough to use a driver’s licence as a form of identification for so many other things, a driver’s licence should be enough to enrol on the day to vote. So that is my first question. Why is it that we are not doing that?

Secondly, I still do not understand why we are not saving money by using the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) records as the basis for our electoral roll. Virtually everyone in New Zealand has an IRD number. Everyone who is in work has one—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Not all of them can vote.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Not all of them are entitled to vote—no, of course. That is obvious. But overseas, Mr Woodhouse, the IRD record number is the record number that is the basis of the electoral roll, because you have got everyone captured within it, and you then just have to exclude those people who have IRD numbers and are not eligible to vote, which is a much smaller task than actually forming a separate roll of everyone who is already listed in the IRD system. You know, at the moment everyone who is in work has an IRD number, everyone who is a superannuitant has an IRD number, and anyone who is on any class of benefit has an IRD number. In truth, virtually every New Zealander has an IRD number. What they do overseas, Minister, is they use their equivalent of the IRD number. They sometimes put a year of birth in it to minimise voter fraud, and that is the basis for their electoral system.

Hon Annette King: That might let people vote.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, that is right. As Annette King said, it might enable people to vote, which is actually meant to be the purpose of the system that we have for electoral rolls. So why is it that the Electoral Amendment Bill is going to persist with this antiquated system where 10 percent of New Zealanders are not enrolled on the day, and where we know that because of lower rates of homeownership and the increased transience of the population, the people who maintain the rolls are having more and more difficulty keeping up with the people who are on the move?

Hon Annette King: Keen to get their tax, aren’t they, but not to let them vote.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, that is right. Yes, they are keen to get their tax, and the Inland Revenue Department seems to be a lot more effective at keeping up to date with people than the electoral system seems to be able to be. So I cannot understand why we waste money, I think, on having these two parallel systems when, in actual fact, we should have one system through the IRD number that actually has an add-on to make sure that the people who are not entitled to vote—

Hon Annette King: What a great idea. What’s wrong with that?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I think it is such a simple idea. I know it is used overseas. It is not a novel idea but it is an idea that we in the Labour Party have been talking about for a while.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Ah—

Clare Curran: Clare Curran.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): —Clare Curran. Oh, sorry.

Carmel Sepuloni: Oh, my goodness! She’s only been here nearly 9 years.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Well, before we get too disparaging about the Chair, we should remember that I have the ability to get my own back later on, if the member is to seek a call. [Interruption] The House will understand that I am expecting some honourable member to seek leave for all these matters to be heard together. However, we are waiting for a certain party of a certain hue to make up its mind—ah, there we go.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave for all parts of the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill to be debated as one question but voted on separately.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Just to clarify—these are two separate bills and the member is seeking leave for both of the bills to be debated in one debate, is that correct?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): For both bills, in all parts.

Chris Hipkins: Yes, there is objection. I seek leave for the provisions in each of the bills to be considered as one debate. So there will be two debates: one on all of the provisions in the first bill and one on all of the provisions in the second bill.

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

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Can I now seek clarification that the bill that we are now considering is the Electoral Amendment Bill?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): No. It is the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill. Well, just to clarify for the House, the point is that the honourable member David Parker, who has just spoken was addressing both bills and so that was the understanding he had. We did not quite have our protocols down correctly, obviously because there was some issue.

Hon Annette King: Give him another go.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): He can seek another call, and he has got up to four.

Hon Annette King: A free call. A free call.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): We are not going to bargain this out. We will just see how well your whip behaves.

Clare Curran: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Can I just clarify which bill we are actually speaking on at the moment?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): We are speaking on the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and, actually, I had already given you the call. But now you will know what you are speaking about. So I need to state the question first. The question is that Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

Bills

Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Parts 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Mr Chair, for your helpfulness to the members. I take a call in the Committee stage of the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill. I also have some questions for the Minister in the chair, Mark Mitchell—and can I congratulate the Minister in the chair on his delegation as Minister in charge of these bills. I am assuming that he is well across the detail and will be happy to answer all questions.

My first question relates to some confusion during the first reading of this bill around the fact that it was as if there was a parallel process occurring on election advertising and opening and closing statements. There were submissions being held at the Justice and Electoral Committee on this matter at the same time as there was a process being undertaken by the then Minister of Broadcasting about digital convergence. There was a report titled Content Regulation in a Converged World, which contained a section called “Election programmes—Part 6 of the Broadcasting Act”, which was seeking feedback from the sector or from whoever wanted to submit on these matters, amongst others, as well. There was confusion about how and why that parallel process was occurring and how it would be married up.

I note that in the commentary on the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill, which we are now debating, there is a phrase on page 2 that says: “The Government response to the Inquiry noted that the Government would consider the other recommendations relating to Part 6 of the Broadcasting Act 1989 as part of the Government’s intended Digital Convergence Bill.” That is yet to be tabled in this House and, as such, is yet to be debated, so we do not know what is in it.

My question to the Minister this afternoon is how does he see the separate discussion that has been happening around this convergence paper, under the auspices of the then Minister of Broadcasting—and I would note that there is no longer a Minister of Broadcasting, because Bill English disestablished the position in December. As I understand it from Radio New Zealand representatives who appeared at a select committee today, there is still no delegated function for that, so there is no Minister. But what is the status of the discussion in that digital convergence paper, alongside this bill that we have got here today?

I think that it is a valid question because I have had people who submitted on the convergence bill tell me: “Well, we submitted on that particular paper on this matter, and yet there’s another piece of legislation that’s had a separate series of submissions before a different select committee.” I think that is a valid question and an important question for the Minister to answer as his first question, perhaps, to the chair.

Ultimately, Labour supports this particular bill that is before us. I think my colleague Jacinda Ardern, who took the lead in the select committee, made a number of worthwhile points around the anachronism of the existing opening and closing statements on television, which are, essentially, out of date and have dropping viewership. In terms of their value as election engagement tools, it has been diminishing. Although this bill does not change the general rules around electoral advertising, it is modernising and making more flexible this means of engagement with voters. My other colleague David Parker, who spoke before me, talked about the things that are not being done—and we will get to that when we get to that part of the bill—and the disenfranchisement of voters by other means, which we do have a number of questions about.

Here, though, is a sensible change that is allowing for engagement to take place. It is just making it more flexible, given that viewers and potential voters out there are not necessarily tuned in to TVNZ to watch the opening and closing statements. As we saw at the last election, many of them were watching a rugby game, so this just gives more flexibility to the parties. It is fair; it operates across all political parties. It actually increases the quantum allocation, as I understand it, which, again, is in line with making a commitment to increasing voter engagement. We support that, but I do have a question for the Minister in the chair, and I hope he will answer it.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very pleased to take a call on the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill at its Committee stage. I want to welcome some of the provisions in this bill because, it seems to me, they are simply catching up with technology and catching up with modern reality, and we certainly need to do that.

I note that this bill, for example, removes the requirements for Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand to provide time for the opening and closing addresses in a party’s political campaign. Of course, when these were introduced there were only a couple of TV channels—TV1 and TV2. Most people would watch them, and they would watch intently as those opening and closing addresses were broadcast. Now the reality is that there are many, many more channels, and the result has been that when those opening and closing broadcasts are aired, most people simply change the channel and watch something else. The viewership of those opening and closing broadcasts has not been great. If the intention is to ensure that voters are informed when they make their decisions at the ballot box, it simply is not meeting it, and therefore removing that requirement is a very sensible thing.

It is also sensible to allow parties to use their allocations to pay for advertising on the internet. As a result of technology convergence, of course, many people are now watching their television on the internet. Parties should be able to purchase advertising during, for example, live streaming of television content and other forms of internet advertising. That is just keeping up with technology, so I welcome those provisions.

But I do have some questions. I note that the bill removes the current requirement for broadcasters to submit returns of all election programmes broadcast. I have some concern about this. Although I recognise the practical difficulty in encouraging internet content providers to provide such a breakdown, one of the historical things that this requirement has highlighted is where a party has overspent its allocation. If we go back to 2005, when the National Party claimed that it did not know that GST was supposed to be included in its expenditure, that was actually highlighted by the broadcasters’ returns, which showed that the National Party had significantly overspent its broadcasting allocation and was therefore in breach of the law. That would not have been known had these returns from the broadcasters not been required.

My question is: if we are not going to have the expense returns—which, it seems to me, are no longer practical to have—will there be a requirement in the expense returns for the political parties to specify in some detail what advertising has been purchased with their broadcasting allocation? It seems to me that simply saying that they purchased a package of broadcast time that is worth X dollars does not actually provide the level of detail that will allow the public to determine whether or not the allocation has been appropriately spent or overspent. Will that return require a level of detail that will ensure that there is transparency and that all political parties are actually complying with the law? As I said, going back to the 2005 election, it was those returns from the broadcasters that allowed the public to identify that one of the political parties had significantly overspent its allocation.

The second clause that I want to turn my attention to—if I can just find it—is the clause that deals with candidate advertising. At the moment, candidates can broadcast an advertisement that is only for themselves and, effectively, does not mention their party or encourage their voters to vote for their party. It is purely about them winning a constituency seat and cannot be a party political broadcast or a party advertisement, but it can be an advertisement for the candidate. If we look at new section 70(3)(e), inserted by clause 4, basically, it allows a broadcaster to broadcast a candidate’s advertisement “for a fee that may, but need not, be paid from money allocated to a party or group of related parties”. What this is doing, if I am correct, is it is allowing candidates to use a share of their party’s broadcast allocation for a candidate campaign, and that will then need to be declared as a donation to that candidate.

Candidates at the moment are restricted to expenditure of just over $25,000—I know that the limit is adjusted for each campaign. They are restricted to being able to spend that much money on their campaign, and that includes their broadcasting. At the moment, if they pay for broadcasting and they pay for it out of their own personal campaign expenses, it is deemed to be their expense and they would have to find the money for that from their donations or from their personal contributions to the campaign. If it is paid for out of their party’s broadcast allocation, and therefore has to be treated as a donation, does that not, effectively, lower the overall spending limit for that party?

At the moment, the party will have its party allocation of what it is allowed to spend of its own money. It will have each individual candidate’s expenditure limits, and then it will have what is currently the broadcast allocation on top of that. The way this new section seems to be worded, if a party spends some of the broadcast allocation on the candidate and thereby treats it as a donation to the candidate, it is actually reducing the overall amount that that party can spend in total. Some clarity around that would, I think, be useful, because that does not seem to be particularly clear.

The criteria that the Electoral Commission uses when determining the allocation of funding to each political party include things like support at by-elections, support at opinion polls, and support at previous general elections. Those are all quantifiable and easy measures to identify, but the one that is a little bit more subjective is in new section 78(2)(d), inserted by clause 4, which says that the commission would consider in making this allocation “any relationships that exist between a party and any other party;”.

That is a very subjective thing, and I wonder what sorts of relationships the commission would take into account. For example, there are coalition governing arrangements between parties on the governing side, or, in the absence of coalition arrangements, there are often cooperation arrangements between governing parties, and there are now some cooperation arrangements on this side of the House. Would those be the types of agreements that would be taken into consideration when determining the allocation? Because it seems to me that it would probably not be appropriate. On the other hand, if parties were going to campaign on a joint ticket, for example, then that might be something the commission would take into account.

Therefore, I guess I would like to see some clarity around what the arrangements are that the commission would take into account, and what the arrangements are that would clearly fall outside of that. It seems to me that the clause is relatively broadly worded at the moment, and that could allow the commission to take into account matters that the Parliament did not intend for it to take into account, and that is simply because we have allowed that with a fairly broad wording of the bill. So I am looking forward to the contributions that the Minister might want to make on that. Those are the main, I guess, questions that I have at this point on this particular bill.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First is opposed to this bill as a whole because we think that the existing provisions for opening and closing addresses are perfectly satisfactory and need not be changed. But I am not going to repeat my second reading speech on that, because that is not necessary. The point I want to make here is that if this change is going to go ahead then it needs to be satisfactorily and properly considered, and it was not.

It was not, because it was a rushed bill inserted into the system, really as a result of the introduction of the Electoral Amendment Bill. It had not been considered at that time. The Minister decided to try to insert it, and it has ended up as a separate bill. I agree with the Law Society in particular, which made a submission on the Electoral Amendment Bill saying that the whole thing has not been given proper consideration or, in particular, enough time for consideration. This particular bill demonstrates the results when things are not properly considered and poor decisions are made.

I want to refer to one area in particular. That is the fact that the bill re-enacts the existing provisions relating to the allocations to political parties. That is actually a critical consideration. It is all very well to eliminate the opening and closing addresses on the State-owned broadcasting facilities, but if the criteria for the allocation of funding are also not addressed then that is a job that is not completely done. So just re-enacting that without the agreement of all the parties, despite New Zealand First writing to the Associate Minister of Justice and requesting that that be done—the Minister just blasted ahead anyway, and all of the other parties other than New Zealand First think that it should just go ahead. I can understand why, because they see themselves as being somewhat advantaged by it, whereas I think New Zealand First and other small parties are disadvantaged by it.

The reasons I give are these—and if you look at the criteria you can actually see why. These criteria desperately need review because things have changed in the many, many years that have passed since this was enacted. In fact, this particular bill is a significant change, which by itself should result in a review of those criteria. Those criteria are archaic, outdated, and desperately need review.

These are the criteria for allocating the funding as between parties: “(a) the number of persons who voted at the … preceding general election …”—we think that is absolutely fine, because you can see what the results of the preceding general election were and know which parties got what support. But then in “(b) “the number of persons who voted at any by-election … since the … preceding general election …”—well, a by-election could happen within a few months of the preceding general election, and it may be nearly 3 years before the following general election takes place, so I do not see that that is particularly relevant. That needs to be reconsidered.

The third one is the number of members of Parliament a political party had immediately before the end of the last Parliament—also something easy to ascertain, and it is a fair consideration. Then there is this strange provision for any relationships that exist between one political party and another—any relationships. I heard what Chris Bishop had to say about that yesterday. He said that they should be taken into account and pointed to the one that currently exists between Labour and the Greens. Is that actually going to mean that either of those political parties will get less? I think they would jump up and down if that was to be the case, and so they should. So why is that there? It desperately needs to be reviewed.

The next one is other indications of public support, especially opinion polls. Well, you get a whole range of conflicting opinion polls, and they are notoriously inaccurate. It is not a consideration that should be taken into account, in our view. That desperately needs to be reviewed. So you can see that this bill is not being properly dealt with. It is not properly considered. This particular issue needs to be reviewed, and I want to ask the Minister why that review was not undertaken.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora, Mr Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this Committee stage debate of the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill. I particularly want to focus on Part 1, clause 4, inserting new Part 6, “Electoral broadcasting”, and to specifically focus on the definition of “election programme”. Just for those who are listening today, an election programme is defined as a programme that: “(a) encourages or persuades, or appears to encourage or persuade, voters to vote for a party or the election of a constituency candidate; or (b) encourages or persuades, or appears to encourage or persuade, voters not to vote for a party or the election of a constituency candidate;”.

I want to highlight that definition within the context of a recent Court of Appeal decision. That decision relates to a video entitled “Planet Key”. The song was performed by Darren Watson, and then the video was put together by Jeremy Jones. In 2014 that particular video was not allowed to be broadcast because the Electoral Commission made a determination that it breached the Electoral Act. Subsequently, Watson and Jones went to the High Court, and the High Court made a determination that, in fact, there was a breach of their freedom of artistic expression, and in October 2016 that was then upheld by the Court of Appeal.

The reason I bring it up is that we have to make sure, when we are considering this piece of legislation, that that particular court case is recognised by this House. What the court case actually said was that Watson and Jones were simply expressing their own political views as artists. They were not a political party and did not have a vested interest in the outcome. I think it is really important that we acknowledge that, because not to acknowledge that actually undermines the integrity of this process and that definition. I want to particularly note it because I have seen in recent times that artists are starting to express themselves in the political domain more and more. I saw an article about Nick Smith and a particular artist who is making a piece about him. I just bring it up because in a modern, democratic society we should not stifle the expression of our artists, our columnists, and our commentators in actually having a say within the context of what is happening in our country.

I also want to take the opportunity to highlight new section 74, inserted by clause 4, which is about the public allocation of $3.605 million that will be used in the forthcoming general election to enable political parties to advertise as they see fit. Historically, we have used party political broadcasts on TV and on radio, but what this piece of legislation does is enable parties to determine how they use that money—whether they advertise on the internet or whether they advertise in other mediums, not just specifically free-to-air TV or our public radio system. After this legislation goes through, parties will have the right to determine how they spend the money that they are allocated.

I want to highlight new section 80CA, inserted by clause 4. It is really interesting, because the allocation that parties will receive is not part of their party election expense—so parties do not have to write down in their party election expense, the public allocation that they are getting from the Electoral Commission, with one exception. Everyone should be aware of this. That exception is when some of that money is used by the party on individual candidates. Those individual candidates must include that in their returns—in their disclosure of candidate’s donations and also in the return of candidate’s election expenses. I think it is really important to highlight that. The party does not have to include it, but if the party uses some of that allocation specifically to highlight, for example, new candidates—parties may want to say to the public “Look who we’ve got on our team.”—that individual candidate must comply with the regulations and must put that in the return.

I am going to do a favour to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Mark Mitchell, by helping to answer a question that my colleague Chris Hipkins asked. It is about the relationship between the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill. What the Electoral Amendment Bill does in clause 98B is insert new section 206IA, which is entitled “Return of party’s allocation expenses”. The parties must provide to the Electoral Commission a return of expenses—that is, the amount of the party’s allocation and all accounts sent by the party to the Electoral Commission—and it must include an auditor’s report.

It is quite clear why these are called cognate pieces of legislation, because they are inextricably related to one another. As a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, I know—when you read through the commentary, this legislation was unanimously passed. It seems that other parties now have issues with these particular pieces of legislation, but the reason that we have expeditiously, I will call it, taken both of these bills through the House is that we want them to be available for the 2017 general election. We all know now that that is on 23 September.

I want to make another contribution when we are looking at the Electoral Amendment Bill, because these pieces of legislation have only catered to 12 of 28 recommendations. In fact, 16 other recommendations that the Justice and Electoral Committee unanimously made to the House have not been catered for. There is one in particular that I want to highlight in my next contribution. Thank you.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (Associate Minister of Justice): Can I acknowledge the last speaker, Louisa Wall, who did wrap some clarity around the issue that was raised by Mr Hipkins. Can I acknowledge the Justice and Electoral Committee, which worked on this legislation, and also acknowledge the comments made about having the legislation back in the House quickly so that it can be passed before our next election period.

This is an important piece of legislation in terms of continuing to allow the general public to have confidence in the transparency and accountability around our elections. So can I just acknowledge and thank the member for her comments.

I just want to also address very quickly, though, one point that Mr Hipkins did raise around the broadcasting of returns and why the return in relation to internet broadcasting was removed. There is a very simple explanation for that. It is just purely inoperable because of the nature of internet advertising. That is why it was removed. Expense returns are still sufficiently detailed to permit detailed scrutiny by the Electoral Commission. So those returns still catch the detail required by the commission.

In relation to the digital convergence paper that Clare Curran raised, all that work has been brought forward on that paper. The intention is that the work on that will then become a bill, but there are still items that have to be considered. That is an ongoing piece of work, but the work that has been done in relation to that digital convergence paper, of course, will go into the pending bill.

Another point that I want to address and raise was the one around on-the-day enrolment. The select committee did consider this. It spent a fair bit of time discussing it. I just want to refer back to some of the comments that were made by the select committee, and that was that the commission advised it that because of the numbers potentially involved, it would not be confident that it could validate election day special vote enrolment applications with integrity, without delaying the actual official count. The commission instead recommended that the question of whether election day special vote enrolment applications could be included in an official count should be considered for the 2020 election, in light of the lessons learnt in 2017. I think we will come back and revisit that, but it will be for the election in 2020.

The majority of the committee did consider that the focus of the commission should be to enrol electors early—to encourage people to get enrolled early, before election day rather than later—and also to protect the integrity of the roll by allowing time for it to be scrutinised, which I think is very, very important also. Thank you.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you for this opportunity. I rise to take a call on the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill.

I want to first congratulate the Minister in the chair, the Hon Mark Mitchell. It is fantastic to look across and see you there. You will get some hard questions, certainly, on the next bill, but I want to just congratulate you.

Carmel Sepuloni: I doubt that he is talking on the next bill.

PEENI HENARE: That is true, and he did make some points in his contribution that actually relate to the next bill, and we will get there very shortly.

But on this particular bill, I do want to start by saying that I was fortunate enough to sit on the Justice and Electoral Committee to hear some of the submissions earlier in the process of the review. I want to say that we support this bill because it does make positive steps, moving forward. But when we look at these kinds of bills, there are always points where I think more definition is needed, just for clarity, just to make sure that people do not accidently get ankle-tapped by small things that could have been made a bit better in the bill.

I want to raise the point that Mr O’Rourke talked about on new sections 78(2)(d) and 78(2)(e), “Criteria for allocating money to party”, in clause 4. In paragraph (e) in particular it says: “any other indications of public support for that party, such as the results of public opinion polls and the number of persons who are members of that party;”. I do not know how many times I have seen poll results or heard poll results and thought to myself: “I fall in that demographic.” I would talk to a wide range of my friends and associates and wonder to myself “They never got a phone call. They were never polled. I’ve never been polled on a particular issue.”—some of those are around Te Reo Māori, or whatever it might be—and I have always wondered how they come up with these formulas, where these numbers come from, and how we can justify making a decision based on a very small section of the community. That is a bit of a concern to me, and I want to make sure that when the criteria for allocating money to a party is considered, we are considering sound formula, we are considering sound process, in the determination of allocating that money.

Polls—they come and go, and quite often they are wrong. We saw that in the Trump election. One minute it was clear that Mr Trump was not going to win, and all experts said that he was not going to. They still expected to see a Clinton triumph. Well, the polls were proven wrong. So that is just to the point around the polls—new section 78(2)(e).

In new section 78(2)(d) it says: “any relationships that exist between a party and any other party;”. We know that on the political landscape, and, in particular, leading up to election day or during an election year, a lot of things happen. The Internet Mana party happened, and I wonder just how specific that particular part of the bill needs to be, because it is pretty vague—“any relationships that exist between a party and any other party;”. I think that is pretty vague, and I would like to see, perhaps, some sharpening up there, just for some clearer definition or, certainly, an explanation from the Minister on why it is like that. I would like to hear that.

As I look across the Chamber I see Mr Jono Naylor over there. We are talking about broadcasting and how—

Hon Annette King: He looks very happy.

PEENI HENARE: Yes, he does look relieved, actually, and he will be, on 23 September. People do not watch TV. People do not listen to the radio. People are actually on the internet; people are on Facebook. Mr Naylor’s most successful advertisement—I guess you could call it—in his time here was actually his speech on Te Reo Māori that he shared on Facebook. It went to over a million viewers—over a million viewers—probably because of the topic as opposed to the speaker. But Te Reo Māori was his topic, and the point of that is that even though we are saying that TV is not your traditional platform, radio is not your traditional platform, just to say “the internet” is actually very broad—very wide. So the internet—I want to be specific and say Facebook. That member can put something up there and get that much exposure for nothing—for absolutely nothing—in terms of dollars. It was a bit of time and it was a bit of effort but that was about it, yet you can get that much exposure. So I wonder, when we are considering allocating and spending public funds, when you have got all of these platforms on the internet available to people at, some could argue, no cost—others would argue, well, they do cost something.

But as my colleague, Mr Hipkins, pointed out, what is a package of advertising? What does that look like? Facebook and my example of Mr Naylor is one of those questions I have. The internet—wow, that is pretty broad, pretty big, and pretty vague. I would like to see some sort of sharpening in the focus of that, because although I do applaud our efforts in moving in that direction to broadcast messages widely and to more people, we have just got to make sure that when it comes to the internet and the discussion of the use of the internet and advertising, we are clear on what does cost and what does not cost, and how those might be measured up in your allocation and in your returns. I am not an expert in this field, but I wonder whether the Minister would like to just provide some clarity around that for myself.

In conclusion to this part, I just want to say they are steps in the right direction. To the Minister in the chair’s point, only half, I think, or not quite half—that seems to be a common message from this Government, that it is happy to be around halfway—of the recommendations are being considered, and we will have some questions, in particular for the next bill that is up for debate. Thank you.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Mr Chair, ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. The Green Party supports this bill. We have supported it at all stages. We want to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee, which heard it, and the submitters. It is an interesting question because you could consider those opening and closing broadcasts to be a little bit of a relic of history—a relic of the TV age. But I am a little sad, if I am honest, because although they may be a relic, we have so few opportunities for long-form political discourse in the public sphere. There are very few opportunities, and, in fact, even debates now are condensed into these little sound bites. So, sure, maybe they were a relic, but maybe there are some lessons from other ages.

But there was a unanimous opinion, I believe, amongst the parties that we have to get with the times, particularly with taxpayers’ money. This replacing of Part 6 of the Broadcasting Act comes from the review of the 2014 election. If only the Government would actually pick up on some of the other electoral recommendations we have heard very clearly, such as the coat-tailing clause, and there are a whole bunch of other things that are not in the Government’s electoral interest, so it is not doing them.

In this case there are two reasons why I think it is in the Government’s interest. The first is it gets a great big wad of cash to go spend on digital ads, which we know it is very keen to do. The second is—and I was mulling, you know, that it must have been such a problem for the National Party. In the last opening and closing broadcast it had 31 minutes to fill—how do you fill 31 minutes when you are not acting on housing, when you are not acting on climate change, and when your key message is: “I’m relaxed about the state of the country, there’s nothing to see here.”? How did you fill 31 minutes? So I sympathise with the National Party with the conundrum it faces. Poor old ACT only had 3 minutes. National had to fill 31 minutes with not acting, so I can understand the challenge it was in.

We also know we have got a problem, which the select committee report identifies, around the wider rules when it comes to broadcasts. I think it was pretty tragic what happened when it came to that “Planet Key” video. I believe in freedom of speech for New Zealanders. I think elections are an important time for people to get involved and have a say, and it is disappointing that some parts of electoral law seem to be shutting that down. I note that in the report there is going to be action post the 2017 election. But I hope that, again, in the interests of working together in unanimity we can actually address this. Ultimately what we want to see is a public debate on issues, not using the law to stop it.

All in all we support this and look forward to it. At the last election it was the choice of either the All Blacks or the opening broadcast. I know which I would choose, even though I am a political tragic—of course I would choose the All Blacks. New Zealanders will not face that choice any more, but I think they will still be searching and using online tools. I want to congratulate the work of the likes of RockEnrol and other people doing civic advocacy so that people can access that information. The information is going to be there. People are going to have to do a little digging, and it is incumbent on parties and politicians to provide good, transparent information on their policies and platform and vision, and that is exactly what the Green Party will be doing. Kia ora.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I am happy to take a call on this bill here and to say, as my other colleagues have said, that the Labour Party supports this bill. I also want to acknowledge the Minister in the chair, Mark Mitchell, in the role that he has received—I hope that you are not going to be like some of your other colleagues who just lose themselves and forget where they came from. Be yourself.

This bill arises as a result of an inquiry that was undertaken by the Justice and Electoral Committee into the 2014 general election. I was surprised, though—and saddened—that in 2014 the major political debates were aired at the same time that the All Blacks games were on.

I have to say that, yes, things are changing in the media, but the reality is that there is a generation of New Zealanders who depend on TV programming and who depend on receiving the New Zealand Herald, or whatever the main paper is in their local area, for their political news. My dad, whom we had to force to retire for his own sake, for his health, at 78-years-old relies on TV. I suspect that that is where Mr Denis O’Rourke was coming from—it is that generation. For political news, my dad relies on TV ONE—TV3 he flicks through, but generally it is TV ONE. He has got a Facebook page that he does not know how to operate, so it is my sister who helps him to get on to the links on his Facebook page and see the comments from his family from all over the world. He is illiterate when it comes to that media.

I suspect that there is also a cohort of New Zealanders interested in politics who rely on the TV and want to receive that news, but who are illiterate when it comes to social media. I raise that for the Committee because, despite our believing that this is the right thing and despite it is also being welcomed by TV ONE and Radio New Zealand, I think it is important that we continue to have a discussion and debate about how to convey and communicate our political message to the rest of the population.

It is no accident that we have a million people who do not participate in the electoral process. There is a reason for that. I know that the young people—my 16-year-old son will pick up the phone, anybody’s phone, and soon he is communicating with friends. Whether it is Facebook or Chatbox—a social box there that they are talking through—or some game, they just do it fast. They are also up to date with a lot of information—he is asking questions about some of the antics that go on in this House. That generation will continue, as the world changes and develops, to get that information from various sources, but we still have this other generation that relies on one or two sources for its news and information. That is important.

I understand there were only seven submitters, and three of them gave oral submissions. I accept the argument that the select committee was faced with trying to get these changes in order in time for the 2017 general election, but I want to insist to this Committee that we do not collapse that process. It is a critical process. It is a process that I have, on occasion—as others, I am sure, have—held up to the international community, saying that we have one of the best select committee processes, one where our communities participate in helping us make better, high-quality decisions. Those are just a couple of points that I want to raise.

I now understand from my colleague Louisa Wall about the allocation of expense returns, and that for broadcasters this bill is now changed so that they do not have to submit returns, but it still falls on parties to make those returns and to ensure that those returns are full and complete. That was one question I had, which I believe has been answered by Louisa Wall.

Other than that, there are the offences under Part 6 of the Broadcasting Act. The Electoral Commission reports to the Police when it believes an offence has been committed. I am not quite sure, as I am not a member of that committee, whether it is just the Electoral Commission—[Bell rung] Mr Chair?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Su’a William Sio. Just one point—we are not on the Electoral Act; we are on the first one—

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: Yes, but I am referring to the Electoral Commission’s broadcasting report, page 3, where it says—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, that is fine, but prior to that you just mentioned “under the Electoral Act”—so carry on.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: Thank you. The question I am asking myself—as I was not a member of the committee, I did not hear any submissions—is whether it is just the Electoral Commission that has the right to report to the Police when it believes an offence has been committed, or whether that right is also available to any member of the general public. I assume that it is, but it does not stipulate directly that that is so here, so I am hopeful that the Minister in the chair might be able to answer that. Thank you for listening.

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

Ayes 105

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 29; Green Party 13; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

Bills

Electoral Amendment Bill

In Committee

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We now move to the Electoral Amendment Bill. At the beginning of the debate on the previous bill, leave was sought for this to be taken as one question. Leave was granted that all the provisions of this bill be taken as one question.

Parts 1 and 2, schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): As members of the Justice and Electoral Committee, we have debated and deliberated both the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill and also this, the Electoral Amendment Bill. What I specifically wanted to read into the Hansard and what I wanted the Minister in the chair, the Hon Mark Mitchell, to confirm is this from our select committee report. I am going to read it: “Māori Electoral Option We note that the bill does not respond to the Inquiry’s recommendation that the Government enable electors of Māori descent to change roll type once each electoral cycle, by providing for the Māori Electoral Option to take place every three years. We consider that implementing this recommendation would increase the ability of Māori to participate meaningfully in the election process. We received confirmation from the Minister of Justice that the Government would look at this issue for inclusion in a subsequent bill, intended to occur before the 2020 general election. We would like to see this issue progressed in time for the 2020 election.”

I want to have some confirmation from the Minister of that fact, because, as I noted earlier, there were 28 recommendations, and this bill actually encapsulates 12 of those. We have worked, I think, collaboratively to ensure that the necessary changes have been implemented for the 2017 general election, and I think the committee has taken its responsibility quite seriously in terms of working with the Electoral Commission and ensuring that all New Zealanders actually actively participate in our democratic process.

I want to take the opportunity to highlight one change that this bill will promote, and that is allowing electoral officials to use an online electronic roll look-up and roll mark-off function in voting places to enable real-time checking of voters’ enrolment status in polling places. The reason I highlight that is that we were told today in the select committee that over the last two elections early voting, which opens 2 weeks before election day, has gone from 14 percent in 2011 to just under 30 percent in 2014, and it is anticipated to reach 50 percent this year. That is actually incredibly significant.

I want to pick up the comments of the Minister in the Chair earlier about our recommendation as a committee to allow enrolment on election day and embedding this practice so that in the subsequent piece of legislation we do allow enrolment on election day. For 27,000 New Zealanders who chose to vote on election day and were not enrolled, their vote actually was not counted, was not part of the democratic process to determine who the ruling party is, and therefore who the Prime Minister of our country is, and also who the representative whom they want to represent them here in this House is.

All of us are here because of the mandate of the people whom we are here to serve, and I think quite genuinely that we do have some challenges to the democratic process. We were told today that we have 90 percent enrolment, but, in fact, we have got a huge problem at the moment with young voters—young people aged between 18 and 24. There are nearly 40,000 of those young people who are not enrolled. So, you know, if we do not address these issues, then in the future I think we are undermining the integrity of the process that enables us to speak in this House, to actually represent the needs and aspirations and interests of our constituents.

There are a number of things that this bill is trying to achieve that we obviously agree with, but I thought it was incumbent on me to particularly speak to those two points, because they are issues that I think are fundamental to the integrity of our electoral system going forward. Any new and innovative ways we can have to encourage people to, firstly, enrol, because that is the first challenge, and then, secondly, to actively participate by voting—it is incumbent upon us to do as much as we can.

We were told that in terms of e-voting and the use of modern technology—so this is enabling people to vote over the internet or to vote via text message—no jurisdiction in the world has currently got a regime that is safe enough for us to be able to move into that mode of engagement with our citizens. But it is something that the Electoral Commission has on its work programme. It definitely spoke about it today, but I do not think we are at the point where we can, for example, enable that. And I can understand why, because if we have not got a secure platform, then actually that does undermine the integrity of the system. It means that people will not have confidence in the integrity and administration of the Electoral Commission.

But I do want to take the opportunity to actually commend the Electoral Commission for the work that it does. Last year it had to deal with a by-election and also a referendum that tried to engage with the entire country. I know in the first referendum there was about a 46 percent turnout and in the second there was a 67 percent turnout. It used that process to try to enrol New Zealanders, and I think that is the challenge yet again: how can we ensure that all eligible citizens of our country are enrolled, and what we can do to encourage their participation, given the general election on 23 September this year? Thank you.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will continue to support this bill. It really does not do a great deal, to be honest, but what it does do is worth having, so we will support it. The bill is actually more notable for what it does not do than for what it does. It implements only 12 out of 28 recommendations made by the Justice and Electoral Committee and does not implement a number of things sought by the Electoral Commission either. I want to mention only two of them and to ask the Minister in the chair, Mark Mitchell, some questions about them.

The first is about the adequacy of the legislative provisions for dealing with emergencies. As we speak, there are still some very serious fires happening in Christchurch. They have occurred recently in other parts of the country as well. What if election day had been today or yesterday? I think there would be people in parts of Christchurch who would not really have had an opportunity to vote. I know that the current legislation does have some provisions about that, but the Electoral Commission raises concerns about it, says that we need to review it, and points to the seriousness of this. Today we have a good example, with those fires, of why it is serious and why it is urgent.

So my question to the Minister is: why has so little been done about that, and why has the Government not brought forward provisions in this legislation, in this bill, to address those very serious issues? I think the Government is just being lazy. It knows it needs to do this; it has not. It has chosen not to do it because it cannot be bothered, and it has a responsibility to do it. I want to know why it has not been done. After all, it has been nearly 3 years since the last election. That is quite a long period of time, and we have had a number of emergencies since then.

Take Kaikōura, for example, the earthquake there last year—only a few months ago. What would have happened to the people there if soon after that earthquake there had been an election or a by-election? Again, I am saying that these provisions need review. It is not that there is no provision there; it is that they are outdated and they definitely need to be changed. The Electoral Commission has said so, and New Zealand First is saying so. Why has it not been done?

The second issue is this—and it is the one that has been raised by some other people. It has been raised also by the Electoral Commission. It is the increasing vulnerability to security risks of the technology underpinning New Zealand’s electoral system. We all know that Russia, during the United States’ presidential election, was accused of, and almost0 certainly did, hack into the American electoral system and, possibly, compromised it. Whether it did or not does not matter. The fact that these things can happen, and are happening, around the world demonstrates again that this is a serious risk for elections here in New Zealand.

Again, I ask the Government, with the Electoral Commission having highlighted that years ago now, and with 3 years having passed since the last election, why has the Government not done a review of that so that it can assure New Zealanders that the New Zealand electoral system and its vulnerability in terms of technology supporting those elections—why has that not been reviewed? Why is the Government not now in a position to assure New Zealanders that we would be safe from some of the disadvantages that occur from the hacking and other skulduggery that occurs, both, possibly, from within New Zealand and from outside it. The only actions that I can identify are in the upcoming intelligence legislation, but that is really not targeted to this particular issue, and I want to ask the Government why it has not done more about that by now.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I have got only two, relatively brief, contributions to make on the Electoral Amendment Bill, and the first relates tangentially to an issue that my colleague Louisa Wall raised, and that is enrolling to vote on election day. I accept that there is divided opinion in the House over whether somebody who is not on the electoral roll should be able to enrol on the day. I personally believe that people should be allowed to enrol on the day. If they are voting early, they can enrol when they vote. There does not seem to me to be any logical sense now to then say: “But not if you enrol on election day itself.”

But the question that I have got is actually around the dormant roll. Even for members who might be opposed to somebody enrolling from scratch on the day, I ask whether somebody who is on the dormant roll—so they have been on the roll, but, for whatever reason, they have fallen off the roll. So it could be that their EasyVote pack was sent out to them, and then it bounced back because they have shifted address. Why could they not enrol on the day, because in many cases that is simply going to be a question of updating their contact details?

So it is not that they were not on the roll; it is that they were on the roll and have been taken off, and they may not even be aware that they have been taken off the roll because their contact details simply were not up to date. Why could we not allow for them to update their contact details and vote on the day? These are not people who are enrolling for the first time; these are people who often inadvertently simply find themselves off the roll. I wonder whether there is some appetite to at least consider that issue, if not the issue of enrolment—

Hon David Parker: Three flats in 3 years.

CHRIS HIPKINS: That is right. I mean, people are moving around a lot at the moment, particularly people in certain areas, and, therefore, allowing them to update their details and vote on the day is not bringing somebody new on to the roll; it is simply reinstating somebody who has been taken off.

The second issue that I want to query as to whether it is going to be addressed in the other amendments being considered is the issue of selfies taken in the polling booth. With the changes to early voting to create the bubble, I guess, around early voting, it therefore brings up the issue around voters who want to take selfies. We have got a youth engagement issue when it comes to general elections: they do not show up and they do not vote. Actually, I have got no problem with them taking a selfie when they are voting, and thereby promoting the fact that they are voting, if that, therefore, encourages other people to get out there and vote. It seems to me a little bit antiquated for us to say that selfies in a polling booth are not allowed. I guess there must be a safeguard that a person’s selfie has to be just a selfie and it cannot be of somebody else casting their vote, because that interferes with their privacy.

Kris Faafoi: That’s a photo.

CHRIS HIPKINS: That is a photo, not a selfie—yes. But if someone wants to take a selfie of themselves voting and use that to promote the fact that they have voted, and thereby encourage other people to vote as well, surely that is a good thing.

Therefore, with these new restrictions placed around early voting, I hope that that will not discourage the selfie behaviour, because, actually, those who voted early last time were able to do things—like selfies—that they could not have done if they had voted on the day, because of a loophole in the law. So by creating this new bubble around the advance voting polling places, I hope we are not going to inadvertently discourage a behaviour that is actually something we should be encouraging, which is to encourage people to do their civic—

Hon David Parker: It shouldn’t say “Vote National” on their photo link.

CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, if they want to say whom they have voted for on the day, I actually think that is OK, and I know that that is going to be more contentious. But, certainly, at least saying that they have voted is something that we should encourage, and if it is not being considered as part of this bill, I know that there is another tranche of changes being considered, and I wonder whether it could be considered as part of that.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Mine will be a very brief contribution because Mr Hipkins stole most of what I wanted to say. But I want to make three comments. The first of those is to just come back to the question of enrolment on the day. I apologise, because I was not on the Justice and Electoral Committee and so I did not hear the debate there and I do not know whether the Minister in the chair, the Associate Minister of Justice, has made any remarks on this. But I do think Mr Hipkins’ point bears emphasis, which is that now, because of the growth in advance voting, where you can enrol—when you go to advance vote, you can actually do your enrolment and cast your vote—there is no logical difference now between doing that and doing exactly the same thing on what happens to be polling day.

I understand that the Electoral Commission believes that nearly half of voters will advance vote at this coming election. That is great. We are giving people a lot more opportunity to exercise their democratic right. But we are now setting up two contradictory systems: one if you show up to cast your advance vote, and one if you show up to cast your vote on election day. I just do not think there is any logic any more to that at all.

I imagine that this clause probably owes its history to when it was much harder to process somebody who enrolled on election day. It was a pen and paper type of system, and you had to find a point at which you drew a line and said: “No, we’ve got an electoral roll that’s going to be printed on this day.” But we allow special votes. We allow people to enrol right up until the day before. That is great, that is terrific, and I support that. But now we are—in this legislation and in what we have done previously—effectively, setting up a contradictory system that differentiates between people who cast an advance vote and people who cast a vote on the day. I think that is anachronistic.

I think the time has come to simply say that we want people to participate in our elections. We desperately need more people to believe in democracy, for the reasons that Denis O’Rourke was talking about before. When we look around the world, people’s faith in democracy has been so diminished that they end up following political leaders whom many of us in this House would be deeply, deeply concerned about, and concerned about the things that they stand for. We need to make it as easy as possible, and it is within our reach now to allow people to participate by enrolling on the day that they vote. Fifty percent of people are going to have that opportunity and another 50 percent are not. That is contradictory and that is wrong in my view.

The other matter is also the question of social media, which was going to be the other point that I was going to raise as well. My view is that the taking of photographs and the exercise of voting is a good thing as long as it does not breach—and Mr Parker, I know, has a concern he has just articulated about it; giving away who you voted for and acting as a promotion of who you voted for. But the act of voting is incredible exciting for some people when it is their first time. Last time I cast my—

Iain Lees-Galloway: Not even just the first time.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, not just the first time either, that is right. Mr Lees-Galloway likes a selfie at any moment, and in the polling booth would just be another occasion for him to take a selfie—shaving, breakfast, whatever it is, he will have a selfie.

Particularly for young people casting their first vote, it is an exciting thing. I cast my vote at the last election as an advance vote at Victoria University, and the excitement that people had for their first vote was huge. They wanted to take that selfie of themselves, even holding the ballot paper and putting their finger over where they had made the mark—whatever it was. That is great—we should support that. It makes people feel good that they are part of the democratic process; we should not make up a rule that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to them. So I think that that is overly restrictive, and I do think that we should use social media generally better to help people understand the electoral process.

This brings me to my last point, which is not Labour Party policy—but I am going to make it, because I get the opportunity to say it right now—

Iain Lees-Galloway: Sit down, sit down!

GRANT ROBERTSON: Ring the bell!

Jono Naylor: They’re all feeling very nervous now, Grant.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Ha, ha! I want to see the next round of the Justice and Electoral Committee election review after 2017 look much more seriously at online voting. We have to do it. I know and I understand the risks. It is why I am not saying we should do it right now, today, but if everyone in this Chamber trusts doing their banking online, and most of us do, then we should trust the ability to vote online. If we want to increase participation by a wide range of people in our society in voting, we will take seriously the challenge of making online voting a secure and real option at an election in New Zealand some time very soon.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): It is not often in this House that you get the opportunity to repeat a recent speech without being accused of repetition, but on this occasion I am able to do so, because, having given my speech, we were then told that we were debating a different bill—

Jono Naylor: It’s OK, we all heard it.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Ha, ha! Actually, I have made that sort of mistake before when it has been my mistake, but on this occasion it was not. Of course, the Minister in the chair, Mark Mitchell, because it turned out that we were debating the broadcasting bill rather than the electoral bill, did not have to respond to my comments, and I think the Minister should.

Jono Naylor: He already did, under the other bill.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Ha, ha! I do not think that we should be maintaining two separate lists of New Zealanders whom we have information about, when we could actually have one. Virtually everyone in New Zealand who is eligible to vote has an IRD number, and we know that, overseas, the Inland Revenue roll is the basis for their electoral roll. We know that superannuitants have an IRD number, we know that everyone in work has an IRD number, we know that everyone who is a beneficiary has an IRD number, and everyone who has a student loan has an IRD number. We have almost a complete set of the people in New Zealand who are eligible to vote.

There are some problems in there. There are some people who have an IRD number who are not eligible to vote, so you have to sort that through. There are a couple of ways you could do that. You could work out whether it is actually an important enough number to worry about. It might actually be so infinitesimally small that you just ignore it and just change the law to let those people vote anyway, because it is not going to change the outcome, or you could actually just require a simple declaration when you vote that says “… and I am a resident, or citizen, or have been in New Zealand for more than 1 year”, which I think are the criteria to vote. If someone voted fraudulently in that situation, it would be just like any other fraudulent vote. No doubt, if there was an election outcome that came down to one vote, people would be scrutinising whether there were possibly some invalid votes, as already happens when you have got a close election and people are challenging whether people were enrolled in the right electorate or whether their vote was spoilt in some way as to mean that it ought not to have been counted.

I do not understand why we spend all of this money every 3 years to create a separate list of New Zealanders when we have already got a list at the IRD. I have raised this on a number of occasions. I think this is a great area where we could actually improve the number of people who are eligible to vote, whilst saving money for the Government. I heard the Hon Michael Woodhouse say that there are problems with that, but the point has to be made that some of the best democracies in the world, including Scandinavian counties, approach it on that basis. I really think that it is worthy of consideration, both to save money and to have better rolls.

I think it is becoming more and more important that as people, effectively, abandon their letterboxes—people do not get much stuff through the letterbox now, and their addresses are electronic. I am not sure that we actually need to have a residential address tied to everyone. I might have that wrong, because maybe, given physical constituencies, we need accuracy on that in advance of election day, but maybe, again, there could be just a declaration that “I live in the electorate”. Or when you fill it in, you put your address in—“I live at”, you know, in my case, “95 London St, Dunedin”, and when I put it in, that qualifies me to vote there if I have got an IRD number. We need to actually think some of these things through again, because I think we overly complicate this.

I am a little bit suspicious, in this regard, of the trend that we do see from time to time—I think we have to say this, although I am certainly not suggesting that we have a corrupt system in New Zealand. It is true that most of the people who are itinerant or are moving between three or four flats are likely to be lower-income people than people who are stable at one home that they live in for the whole time. There is a socio-economic dimension to that that means that the rules presently work to the benefit of those who attract the most votes from people who are better off. And, of course—this is poll proven—we all know that to be true, that in New Zealand, disproportionately, those higher-income people vote for the National Party, or parties of the right, and, disproportionately, a larger number of the people who are at the lower to middle income groups vote for the Labour Party and parties of the left. We do not want a bias in the way in which we have electoral outcomes based on those sorts of facts, and so we need to take special care that the people who are most often disenfranchised and unable to vote—actually, for the health of our democracy, we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to vote.

In case the National Government was worried that that is going to change the outcomes of the elections, in Australia they have compulsory voting. They have a very high rate of voter turnout. It is actually something that I wonder whether other democracies are going to consider over the forthcoming years, and I do not think anyone on either side should be scared of that as an outcome, because as you see in Australia you still get the same flip-flop from Government to Government as electors tire of one side and want to change sides. So I do not think that benefits any one particular side, but I do think that the legitimacy of democracies in the Western World is being undermined by the decreasing rate of voter turnout.

I think that the cynicism with which politics is regarded, partly because of the disintegration of current media models and the parody that we sometimes also make so easy—the fodder that we give to those who would parody us is so much more easily exploited. Fashions change, and as a consequence I think that there is a parlous decline in public confidence in democracy around the world. I for one really believe that that old saying, that the only thing worse than a democracy is the alternative, is actually a backhanded way of saying that democracy is incredibly important.

In order to maintain public confidence in democracy, we have got to maintain the highest rates of participation in elections as possible, and we should consider all of the measures, whether it be compulsory voting or different ways that we ensure that higher proportions of the population are enrolled. All of these things should be explored so that we can maintain public confidence in New Zealand’s democracy.

We can be a world leader in this area. We are one of the oldest unbroken democracies in the world—150 years without being broken by civil disturbance or internal wars. We really, really should be holding on to what we have here, which is so precious. I think our system is absolutely wonderful in New Zealand. It lacks some of the checks and balances that you see in other countries like the United States, but its checks and balances have become so unwieldy its democracy does not work.

We on the other hand have such a simple system that is even more reliant on being cleaned out by elections if there is a ruling party that gets it wrong. So in some ways our unicameral system, with so much power in the executive attached to the party that gains power—I think that we really have to do our utmost to maximise both enrolment and voter turnout at elections.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Can I just agree with my colleague David Parker—I actually think that we have a wonderful electoral system too, but it can obviously be better. I would like to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for its work within this bill. I want to make my comments in context of some things that are particular to my electorate, because we had the most popular early voting booth in the country, in terms of raw numbers. So more people turned up to our early voting booth in Porirua than anywhere else in the country, which I think is a good thing.

It speaks to a good effort to get people on the roll. Obviously, people were keen to vote. My understanding was that just over 82 percent of people in the electorate voted, which I think would come as a surprise to a lot of people out there, given the nature of the electorate and the assumptions that may have been made. That is quite high, and the enrolment too in the electorate was also quite high at 94 percent. I think there is some wiggle room in there because I think some people, as Mr Parker said, may be transient and may no longer be at the addresses that they were—we certainly picked that up when we were out on the hustings, so we know there is work to do there.

But I just wanted to echo some of the comments, especially by my Wellington colleagues Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins. The first comment is around electronic voting. I think with Porirua—the city that is encompassed completely in my electorate—being the youngest city in the country we have to make sure that we encourage as many of those young people as possible to be interested in the political process.

They may not be enthused to go in and vote for their particular candidates on the particular day because they do not want to go to a polling booth, as we have traditionally done. But in the future, if they were enthused enough to take part in the political process and vote for whomever they like, having electronic voting—being able to vote via a laptop, via a device—I think, in the future, is something that this Parliament should seriously be looking at. Actually, I think it should seriously be further down the track than it already is because I think there is an opportunity for cynicism around politics to take hold in the country, especially with our younger voters.

It is up to us as politicians and candidates as to how we behave, and people will make judgments on that. They will make judgments not just by not voting but also by expressing their vote and also by having particular different ways of expressing their vote and a different way to going into a polling booth and voting on election day. I like having a paper ballot. That is the thing that I have grown up with. But that is not necessarily the way that it is going to be in the future. I am not young any more, but I think—

Peeni Henare: No.

KRIS FAAFOI: —thanks, Peeni—that we seriously need to have a look at electronic voting.

The second issue is the one that my colleague Chris Hipkins raised around selfies. I want to use that as another way to get into what we can and cannot do on election day. I do not want it to get to the stage where—I think that we have seen in Australia—you can literally run the gauntlet at polling booths and people are waving political banners in your face, but I think we have to be a little bit more open in this technological age of what we can and cannot do and what voters can and cannot do. Maybe it is fair that we restrict what political parties can do, but I think that to make sure that voting is normal and a good thing to do we should be a lot more open about what people can say and do with social media around the vote.

In essence, I think this is an improvement, but I still do not think we have quite cottoned on to where technology is and where people—and especially younger people—in New Zealand might be at in terms of participating in the democratic process. I think that once we do that—and, hopefully, it will not take too much longer; maybe in the 52nd Parliament we can address some of these issues—we will be able to be much closer to the voters and the voters will be much closer to us, and they will be able to send us a much more precise message at the polling booths on polling day.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for this opportunity. I mentioned in my previous contribution that I would be standing up to make a significant contribution on the Electoral Amendment Bill.

Jono Naylor: We’re waiting with bated breath.

PEENI HENARE: Excellent. I want to support the members of the House who have talked about electronic voting. I cannot express just how much I was disappointed when the Electoral Commission decided to not put that on a priority list, but I did have a think to myself around the Government’s supposedly awesome roll-out of broadband. I wonder how the voters in Mitimiti might walk into the polling booth at Mātihetihe School—you can look that one up—go to vote, and there is no internet connection. I just wonder how that might affect some of the advances in electronic voting, which I think is the way to engage not only the young people but also those of an older demographic.

One of the confusing things that I always hear about from my constituents who come into my office—sure, there is a confusion about the Māori roll and the general roll. What is even more confusing is how a Māori electorate covers so many general electorates. One of my constituents who lives in Epsom went in to vote and was told that there were no forms there for them to vote for their Māori member, and that they had to cast a special vote. I raise that case because I see in this amendment bill here that the ability to opt for the Māori roll is not a priority at this particular election. I would like to think that, come 2020, we will be able to make it an option at each election for those who wish to, to opt on—or opt off, for that matter—the Māori roll. I think that is a broader step in tidying up what I think are some confusing or grey areas for Māori voters. If we can do that, I think we will raise the number of Māori voters.

We have already heard how our democracy is in crisis when fewer people get out to vote. With this focus around the Māori electorate option for 2020, I wonder—just as a question to the Minister in the chair—in last year’s Budget, $5 million was set aside to increase Māori voter participation. I just want to ask: where is it? Is this it—we are going to propose, in an electoral amendment bill, to simply tidy up or allow for a more regular opportunity for Māori voters to opt on to or off the roll? How is that going to increase Māori participation in the democratic process and in voting here in Aotearoa New Zealand? Five million dollars—I have not seen a strategy. I have not seen a plan. I think the only recommendation I have seen or heard is that polling booths should be on a marae. You do not need to pay $5 million to get that kind of advice.

That is a broader challenge around Māori participation. I was disappointed that there were not many Māori who—actually, I do not think there were any, if I recall correctly—made a submission to the Justice and Electoral Committee. I will certainly be encouraging as many of my constituents as possible to make a contribution to the next bill.

That brings me to my next point. I wonder why it has taken a full parliamentary term to get to this point. We are making changes, some of them substantial changes, to our election process—which will take place in September of this year—once again in such a short time frame, and we expect voters to understand them. I am not saying that all voters are ignorant of the voting process, or that it will cause a state of confusion and wide chaos, but what I am saying is that we have had 3 years and have only just come to this point.

I was one of the early members on the Justice and Electoral Committee, and this legislation was the first piece of work that we entered into. That was over 2 years ago, and here we are now, with amendments that only look into 12 of the 28 recommendations—after 2 and a bit years! I do not know whether that is a process or whether that is a common occurrence when each election is reviewed, but I am a little bit disappointed that, leading into an election that is not too far away—on 23 September 2017—people are not more aware of this bill that we are proposing. They are not sure about where the future of voting lies.

Just as my final point, I want to touch on the comments made by the Hon David Parker around the IRD as a register of where our citizens are. I agree with that, and I want to marry that comment with the comment around technology, because the Justice and Electoral Committee, in its review, decided to have a look at RealMe and the process of registering for RealMe to be able to engage with Government websites with personal, authenticated identification. We all had a task in front of us to go and register a RealMe account.

Hon David Parker: Driver’s licence.

PEENI HENARE: That was harder than voting—that was harder than sitting your driver’s licence. It was not easy for people to go down and get RealMe identification. You can go online and you can start the process, but then you still have to go down to the post office to finish it, to authenticate it. For the members of the Justice and Electoral Committee, we all found barriers somewhere along that process. So I think that if we could marry the technology discussion with the point made by my colleague Mr Parker around the IRD number, we will kill two birds with one stone, perhaps.

I want to close here by saying that we do support this particular bill, but we are disappointed that only 12 of the 28 recommendations will be seen through.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (Associate Minister of Justice): I just want to take the time very quickly to address some of the issues that have been raised, but I would like to start by acknowledging the Hon David Parker and the comments that he made about vote of confidence and making sure that people want to engage and have confidence in our electoral system. I think it is really important that there is a commitment, and a commitment does exist in this House to carry on a programme of legislative updating. There is obviously clearly a commitment to do that next term, for 2020, as well. I think that quite a few of the issues that have been raised and discussed here in the Chamber this afternoon are ones that will find themselves on the agenda for any legislative update in 2020.

I just wanted to address the issues raised by Mr O’Rourke around the ability for other State actors to interfere in our electorate system. I think that it is a very good point that he raised, and it probably comes back to the points that have been talked about here today around online voting and the fact that there may be opportunities to interfere with a country’s electoral system, especially through an internet-based online voting type of system. I think we need to be very conscious of making sure that we have done all that we can so that if we ever go online the integrity of that system is 100 percent.

At the moment we have a paper-based system, so a lot of that risk is mitigated through the fact that we do actually operate primarily a paper-based system in our electoral system. The other thing that I will say is that the Electoral Commission is very aware of these types of threats and risks. It has got a very robust programme itself, in making sure that it identifies, mitigates, and manages those risks.

I wanted to come back to Mr Robertson’s comments around on-the-day registration. I think that there is recognition that we should be moving towards this, but the Electoral Commission was very clear about the fact that there is a risk in trying to protect and make sure that the integrity of that information and data that is collected on election day does not interfere with the process of actually counting the votes, thereby actually pushing the process out.

There is a good argument that can be made that this could be addressed before 2020, especially in light of the fact that we see there is a trend of people moving towards early voting. There was fair bit of discussion about selfies. I would have to say there is a fair bit of risk around that. Someone mentioned Mr Iain Lees-Galloway. He would try to photobomb anyone who was trying to take a selfie.

Iain Lees-Galloway: There’d certainly be a risk involved if I tried to take a selfie whilst I was shaving.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: There’s definitely a risk involved in that. The other point that I finally wanted to finish on was just the point around the IRD. I think that in the Hon David Parker’s speech he even highlighted some of the issues around this. That is, who would be eligible, who would not be eligible, and also I think there are probably some privacy issues that would have to be looked at in terms of an automatic enrolment—but I think it is a good point and one that I am sure would find itself on the agenda for the 2020 review.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Broadcasting (Election Programmes and Election Advertising) Amendment Bill without amendment, and the Electoral Amendment Bill without amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Appropriation (2015/16 Confirmation and Validation) Bill

First Reading

Hon David Bennett: I move that the Appropriation—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member should probably attempt to get the call before he starts speaking.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (Minister of Veterans’ Affairs) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Appropriation (2015/16 Confirmation and Validation) Bill be now read a first time.

Bill read a first time.

Bills

Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 15 February.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to speak on the second reading of the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill. Just to recap, this bill is about amending the Maritime Crimes Act. We are amending that Act to implement some obligations that we have entered into under international counter-terrorism treaties. Our Government has signed up to these international treaties, and to give effect to our obligations, or to be in compliance, I guess, with our obligations now, we have to incorporate that into domestic law.

These international treaties go all the way back to 1988 when these original treaties were devised. Since then there has been a development, I guess. There have been modern, contemporary threats, terrorist threats, that have arisen, unfortunately, around the world. So those treaties were amended in 2005 by some protocols that updated those treaties. We are now at the second reading, to be compliant and to make sure that New Zealand does its job.

Not having been on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, which considered this bill, I do want to commend the committee, because from what I have been observing, from the debate thus far, this has been a really good example of good parliamentary lawmaking process. What we have are international obligations, which New Zealand has signed up to, being incorporated into domestic law, and we have also seen the parliamentary process at work. I would like to commend the committee, which received 150 submissions on this particular piece of legislation. The vast majority of those submissions were opposed, either in whole or in part, to certain provisions in the legislation.

To the committee’s credit, and to the credit of the officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry of Justice, they gave proper consideration to those submissions and the issues that were raised, and some amendments have been made. Some amendments were made. It was a tricky job of drafting, because, in one sense, one of the main issues that were raised was around concerns that it would impact on proper legal protest activity. So it was a tricky drafting job of ensuring that we remain compliant with our international obligations in the international treaties, ensuring that the wording is consistent, but also addressing the concerns that were raised by submitters around, for instance, legitimate protest activity.

To the committee’s credit, it was able to navigate that narrow path and come up with some good wording to address the issue. For instance, an “avoidance of doubt” clause has been inserted so that it is very clear that legitimate protest activity is not considered an offence under this piece of legislation. So I do commend the work of the committee.

We are looking at four new offences that are being inserted into the Maritime Crimes Act. Those offences, just to touch on them again, are around maritime terrorism and the illicit trafficking by ship of weapons of mass destruction, and that certainly is a new crime—I guess a contemporary crime. There is also the delivery systems, the trafficking of the delivery systems and related materials that go into these weapons of mass destruction, and also the transportation of fugitives by ship.

These are new offences. They ensure that New Zealand is compliant with our international treaties, which we have signed up to. So that is a good thing. But it also ensures that these new offences now are inserted into our domestic law.

Just finally, and I will not take up too much further time of the House, but I do note that the bill itself—there were some other changes, amendments that had been made. One that Mr Faafoi might be pleased about is the fact that—and this has not been touched on in the debate thus far. It is new section 20, in clause 22—the application of this bill to Tokelau. We must not forget about Tokelau—we must not forget about Tokelau in the great Realm that is Aotearoa New Zealand. This bill applies all the way up into the Pacific and into all of the territorial waters. This legislation will apply to that vast expanse of ocean and even beyond our extraterritorial boundaries. That is how significant this piece of legislation is. So I do commend the work of the committee, and I look forward to the further progress of this bill through the House. Kia ora tātou.

JONO NAYLOR (National): I have to say that last evening I was in my office, I had some guests there, we were watching Parliament TV, and I saw that this bill was being discussed. I thought “Well, I’m glad I’m not down there talking about it.”, and now I find myself here today, speaking on this bill.

I just want to thank the member Rino Tirikatene for improving my knowledge of this particular subject matter, with that stunning contribution. I think the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee was commended probably five or six times by him in that presentation, so I will do it just the once. I think the committee has done a sterling job in bringing this matter forward—obviously having to sift through 150 different submissions and consider quite complex legislation. There were a lot of things to consider.

I think particularly the committee has included some clauses and made some changes to ensure that there is an avoidance of doubt clause, which is particularly good. The committee has now made sure that there is a requirement that, obviously, there is going to have to be a serious offence that has been detected before acting. I think this is all very sound, very good. In fact, I will commend the committee again because it is very, very deserving. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Contract and Commercial Law Bill

Second Reading

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): In order to make a Thursday afternoon more exciting, I call the Hon Christopher Finlayson.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General): I move, That the Contract and Commercial Law Bill be now read a second time. Mr Robertson and I do not agree on very much, but I think he and I would agree that this is a really exciting day for Parliament, because this is the first time—

Grant Robertson: I can confirm that.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —excellent—that we are going to be dealing with the second and third readings of a revision bill, which is what makes it so truly exciting.

What does this bill do? It enacts, in an up-to-date and accessible form, some of our most important contract and commercial legislation—and Mr O’Rourke, I see, has a sense of excitement, as well. It represents the near-completion of a major statute revision exercise. The bill is, as I said, the first on the Government’s triennial statute revision programme that was presented to Parliament in December 2014. The Law Commission has noted that the statute book of New Zealand is the most important part of our legal infrastructure and our statutes need to be user-friendly. The commission recommended revision as a tool to tidy and modernise the statute book, and the Legislation Act 2012 accepted that recommendation.

So what does this first revision bill do? It combines and revises six Acts containing general contract rules, and five commercial Acts containing contract rules that apply to transactions in special contexts, such as to the sale or carriage of goods in commercial settings. The oldest Acts—as Mr Faafoi knows—go back to 1908, and the most recent was enacted in 2002.

Part 5 of the Mercantile Law Act 1908 is about unpaid vendors of warehoused goods, and is hopelessly out of date. It was excluded because revising it could imply it is still relevant. The Government has subsequently reviewed this part, and the Customs and Excise Bill, introduced late last year, is going to repeal it. I see a huge sigh of relief on the part of my good friend Mr Robertson.

Contracts play a central role in our society. They are fundamental to property rights and obligations and to how those rights and obligations are lawfully structured and changed. The statutes being revised apply to commercial parties but also to dealings between people who are not necessarily in trade. Combining the contracts statutes with related commercial ones is going to make them more accessible, more consistent, and easier to update and reform in the future. It is very, very important that these rules are clearly expressed.

The bill addresses a number of minor inconsistencies, anomalies, and discrepancies, which are not unusual in Acts that have been enacted over the course of almost a century.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: This just brings back stage one Law for me.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: The future is before you. The bill reduces inconsistency and overlap across the statutes, arranges provisions in a logical order, and changes language, format, and punctuation to achieve a clear, consistent, gender-neutral—very important—and modern style of expression. It uses current drafting style and format to better express the spirit and the meaning of the law and it removes spent provisions. So—

Grant Robertson: What about Oxford commas?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Oxford commas and split infinitives are out. By combining these rules and making them easier to understand, the bill will allow people and businesses to easily find and follow the rules that affect them, and this is going to help reduce regulatory costs.

The bill does not change the substance of the law. The only changes to the effect of the law that are permitted in a revision bill under section 31 of the Legislation Act are minor changes to clarify Parliament’s intent or reconcile inconsistencies, and these are set out in the second schedule. The explanatory note of the bill identifies general terms as required under the Legislation Act 2012—the minor inconsistencies, the anomalies, the discrepancies, and the omissions that were identified during the revision work—and schedule 3 contains a comparative table of the old and new provisions, and this is going to help people to update documents.

Before introduction, four lawyers appointed under the Legislation Act certified that the statutory revision powers had been appropriately applied and that the bill does not change the substantive law. The certifiers were a retired High Court judge, the then president of the Law Commission, the Solicitor-General, and the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. I presented their revision certificate to the House on the bill’s introduction, and an exposure draft of the bill was made available.

Exposure drafts are actually very good things and should be used more, so that people have more of an opportunity to come to grips with legislation before it is introduced, because I see that the former president of the Law Commission was saying something to a select committee today about the time for submissions. The problem is that you introduce a bill, it is sent off to a select committee, and having 4 or 5 weeks to come to grips with complex legislation may not be enough.

Some submitters expressed caution about changing statutory language that supports well-established judicial interpretation. Frankly, I think it is a theoretical risk, which needs to be balanced against the significant benefits already mentioned and the risks of leaving the legislation in an inconsistent and outdated form. There are some people who never want change to anything because they fear that precedents may be lost. Well, I just say to them, man up and get over it.

Hon David Parker: School ties and the like.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Ha, ha! Select committee scrutiny has provided another check on any inadvertent change to the law being carried forward. Parliament’s Standing Orders Committee noted in 2011 and 2014 that revision bills are limited to restating the existing law and clarifying its intent, so any substantive policy amendments at the select committee would be out of scope.

So, as I say, this is the first revision bill. I think the Justice and Electoral Committee did a really good job on it. It received only two submissions, but that was probably not unexpected, and, in view of the public consultation on the exposure draft, the submitters expressed a concern about the content of the bill. One considered the bill should be split into a contract bill and a commercial bill. The other supported having a contract bill, but thought that the sale of goods provisions and the carriage of goods provision should be in separate bills. But the committee rejected that, and I am pleased it did.

So I actually think it lays a good foundation for future reform. Some of this legislation is going to need to be updated in the reasonably near future, but it is all in one place and it can be looked at in a sensible and coherent manner, and we are really doing a good job as a Parliament on tidying up the statute book.

The committee, sensibly, recommended moving the only remaining substantive provision of the Wages Protection and Contractors’ Liens Act Repeal Act of 1987—

Chris Bishop: Oh, that’s a cracker.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —into the bill. That is going to make it easier to find and understand—I say to Mr Bishop—and the 1987 Act can be repealed.

Also, as part of the judicature modernisation work, section 90 of the Judicature Act 1908 is being transferred to the Contractual Remedies Act 1979, as new section 4A, and this will take effect on 1 March. The section provides that the equitable law rule on contractual stipulations such as time prevails over the common law rule. This affects remedies that are available when such stipulations are breached—for example, cancellation may be available at common law, but not under the law of equity. The committee could see a potential problem with the provision being inserted in the part of the bill that revises only the Contractual Remedies Act, and it noted this may confine the application of a rule in a way that would change the law. As this is certainly not the intention, the committee recommended that section 90 of the Judicature Act 1908, as revised, be added to the contract legislation in the bill as a separate new subpart.

What the Government is going to do now is consider the committee’s helpful comments that the revision bill process could be improved to allow for greater practical revision. The committee was unable to recommend that a reference in the bill to newspaper advertisements be changed to include online advertisements, as it was advised that this would have been outside the bill’s scope.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: The “Nuk Korako clause”.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: The “Nuk Korako clause”. But I am very grateful to the committee—I do not particularly understand that interjection, but I will take it as a benign interjection. I want to thank the committee for its careful and thorough work.

This is the first revision bill, as I said. I, frankly, would like to see a revision of all the legislation—and I am sure Mr Assistant Speaker would, as well—dealing with Parliament. There are 15 statutes that could be collapsed into one, but when you are looking at a practical revision, there is some work that would need to be done on that. I think we need a Parliament Act. The ACC Act is a dog’s breakfast. The Companies Act of 1993 is a mess. There is a lot of work that could be done to make—

Chris Bishop: Copyright.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: The Copyright Act, the Education Act 1989, and all the other ones—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): 1965.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: 1965. So there is a lot that can be done. Look, we disagree on a lot of things in this House, but tidying up the statute book, making it more user-friendly so that people do not have to go off to lawyers and pay exorbitant rates per hour to get an interpretation of something—I know I am speaking against the profession, but, frankly, I think it is a very good thing.

So I think my time is up and I will sit down.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I forgot the bells completely. Yes, the member’s time is up.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I just kept on talking when I looked up and saw the clock was on zero, so I knew I was probably out of time, but there were never any bells. I do not blame you, Mr Assistant Speaker, but there are others I cast an evil eye at.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Oh no, it was so interesting.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Can I agree with the Attorney-General that this is good legislation, and that it is timely to consolidate these various Acts of Parliament into one piece of legislation that makes it easier for people to follow, and to update some of the language.

I want to just talk about two issues, and I do so to emphasise the importance of the subject matter of the legislation. The Attorney-General has already made reference to the change that was made at the Justice and Electoral Committee that inserts a new Subpart 7 in Part 2 of the bill, which relates to stipulations as to time not necessarily being of the essence.

What this means, in practice, is that if we did not do this and you had agreed to buy a car, for example, tomorrow and you said “Oh, look, I’m going to come along and buy that car tomorrow.”—or someone might have an agreement to sell a car tomorrow. If you did not turn up tomorrow, on Friday, then it would be permissible for someone to rely upon—even though, at the time you entered the agreement, no one thought that it really mattered whether you picked the car up on the Wednesday or the Thursday or the Friday or the Saturday. If you did not have this provision, the person who was selling you the car could just say: “Oh, you didn’t turn up on the day; I sold it to someone else. Even though I’ve already agreed to sell it to you on the Friday, because you didn’t turn up on the Friday, I’m going to cancel the contract on the Friday and it’s all over.”

Well, that is unfair, if in the circumstance people actually really were not worried whether you were picking the car up on the Friday or the Saturday. So the law intervenes in that situation and says that for you to be able to bring a contract to an end on a particular day, time has to be of the essence. That ensures fairness, so that if I had an agreement to buy a car on the Friday and I did not turn up on the Friday, the person who was selling it to me would somehow have to either wait for a reasonable period of time or somehow make it clear that, to them, time was of the essence. Unless it was clear in my contract with the person selling the car to me that time was of the essence, they would actually have to give me a bit of notice before they could declare the whole thing over.

That provision is more important in respect of land transactions, where sometimes—more often—things do go wrong. The mortgage might not come through on the day because the signature that was put on it does not quite meet the bank’s rules, or it does not get a certificate from the solicitor to support all the documentation so it is not willing to advance the funds until that is all tied up, or you might be selling on the same day that you are buying and your sale does not go through quite as planned and therefore you are not in a position to get the money from the sale to pay for your purchase—that is an obvious example of where you should have a bit of time to fix things up, rather than just calling it off instantly. There are generally provisions that govern that in contracts for the sale of land, and, in respect of the general rule, if you do not have a provision in your contract, having this particular provision sitting in the Contractual Remedies Act probably fixes that anyway.

But the point that was made to the select committee was that we also needed to protect people in respect of the sale of goods, and arguably as it was in the Contractual Remedies Act, rather than of more general application. The preservation of this very old equitable rule going back to the 1800s, originating in the United Kingdom and no doubt applying in most of the Commonwealth jurisdictions and even the United States and other countries like us around the world—that particular rule would have been lost in respect of contracts for the sale of goods. That would have resulted in unfairness—unfairness on occasions when people are buying or selling goods. So it is for that reason that the committee has recommended that this particular provision be lifted out of the Contractual Remedies Act and actually be of more general effect, including in its application for the sale of goods.

The other thing I wanted to raise was something that does go to substance that is not fixed by this legislation. The Attorney-General said that he recognised that there are matters of substance that the Government would like to fix, and I think he was probably referring to matters that were slightly less substantial than this. But I still do not like a change that was made to the law in respect of reservation of title clauses, which was made some years ago. The issue was raised for me by the change that is made to the bill in respect of liens.

Liens over goods are pretty simple things. You know, when you have something that is left with you for repair—it might be a watch, it might be a vacuum cleaner, it might be a car—if the person does not ever turn up and pay for the repair that they gave the good to you for, you can exercise a lien. You can keep that good until they pay, and if they do not pay you can, through a mechanism that is set out in the law, sell it, and deduct what is owed to you for the repairs and refund the balance to them. That is a good self-help remedy for small business people who are repairing goods.

The equivalent in respect of people who are supplying goods, as opposed to repairing goods, was that until probably about 10 years ago—I do not know; something like that—you could actually, when you sold a good, if you were clear at the time you did it, say: “I’m not giving you title to the good that I’m supplying you until I’ve been paid.” They were called reservation of title clauses. They were reserving title to the seller of the good until they were paid. Those clauses were effective at law. They were sometimes called Romalpa clauses after the original English case that recognised those interests, and they were a very effective remedy for small businesses to protect themselves against not being paid.

These were very, very important for a small business that might sell—I do not know, it might supply their main line of product to one particular business, and if that business goes broke and does not pay them, it can make their business bankrupt. The banking industry managed to convince a prior Parliament in New Zealand that those were wrong—that those reservation of title clauses, which had been recognised in New Zealand for quite a while and in other jurisdictions around the world, should only ever be valid if you had registered a security interest under the Personal Property Securities Act, I think it is, in New Zealand. So if you had not registered in the Companies Office, or whoever it is that maintains that register—some arm of the Government—that interest in advance or at the same time as you provided those goods, you could not rely up on your retention of title clause.

The effect of that in practice has been that we have preferred the interests of large banks, because if title is then thought to have passed to that person who received those goods—even though they have not paid for them—they are then covered by the bank debenture. So the mortgage that the bank has over the business then gets the benefit of the value of those goods rather than the small business that provided those goods to the company or the person, even though they have not been paid. I think that is just unfair, and that is why I thought that the courts of equity in the UK and the New Zealand courts were right to actually say that if you supply a good with a reservation of title clause that is clearly part of your contract at the time the contract is formed—you cannot retrospectively do it; at the time the contract is formed—if you retain title and you are not paid, so long as that good has not been incorporated in a fixture, and obviously if it is a window and it is now in a house it is no longer a chattel, it is part of a fixture. There were disputes like that that were generally sorted out very practically, I think, in the event of a liquidation of a company or a bankruptcy of an individual.

But it was a self-help remedy for small businesses, and the effect of that change in the law in New Zealand was that we actually made it bigger for the big boys who have got the debenture over the company or the general chattel security over a business or an individual, and we, in effect, did the small businessman or the small businesswoman in the eye, because, despite the fact that they said “Well, you can’t get title to this until you’ve paid for it.”, we, effectively, ruled most of those instruments out by creating a bureaucratic process around them.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): I rise to take a very short call in support of the Contract and Commercial Law Bill, and I am sad to be taking a short call, because I was riding on the wave of excitement after the Hon Christopher Finlayson’s contribution about revision bills. I feel like a first-year politician speaking on a statutes amendment bill—it is so exciting. It is a truncated process about simplifying and making law more accessible to the layperson, making it more readable, and tidying up the law, but not making any policy changes. So it is fantastic when we can come together as a Parliament—

Chris Bishop: Pretty much sums it up.

SARAH DOWIE: —pretty much sums it up—and make things more efficient, and is that not why we are here?

With that, I just want to end with thanking the two submitters who took part in this process—Dr Barber and Rae Nield—who took the time to submit on this revision bill and talk about the process and about the merits of the proposed bill. It really is a special person who gets passionate about efficiency. It is a good thing. It is a very good thing. We should be doing more of it, as the Hon Christopher Finlayson said, and, as I understand, we have two more to go.

So that is great. It is fantastic. I am pleased to be on the select committee that will no doubt hear those bills—hopefully, fingers crossed—because we are passionate about efficiency, and with that I commend this bill to the House.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): It is with somewhat slightly less enthusiasm than the previous speaker, Sarah Dowie, that I rise to support the bill. I endorse the Attorney-General’s words, as he gave probably one of the best impressions of Rumpole of the Bailey that I have seen for many, many years. I do agree with the Attorney-General that, hopefully, the modernisation of language will indeed cut down the quantum of lawyers’ bills. I am told that the Attorney-General, in a past life, had an extremely high charge-out rate in respect of his eminent counsel.

Chris Bishop: Not as high as yours.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Oh no, no. I could never compete with the Attorney-General. But I want to make reference—just very briefly, as the Attorney-General did—to clause 339B(1), which, the Justice and Electoral Committee noted, refers to providing notice in the newspaper ads. Although this is arguably outdated, the committee, because of the restriction on the scope of the bill, was unable to amend it.

It reminds me of a similar provision that I think was placed in a statutes amendment bill, for efficiency: the infamous “Nuk Korako clause” in respect of newspaper advertising. The Attorney-General looks quizzically at me because he is not familiar with it, so I will elucidate briefly. The “Nuk Korako clause”, you may recall, was where the Christchurch Airport was unable to advertise online regarding lost luggage. Mr Korako had a sort of blinding shot of brilliance—we called him Halley’s Comet; it happens once every 75 years. Mr Korako had this sort of blinding flash of brilliance, and decided to put up a particular bill dealing with this issue—

Hon Member: 339B.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —clause 339B reminds me of it—and, subsequently, I think it was dealt with in a statutes amendment bill.

I wonder whether the Attorney-General, as we go through this, might turn his mind as to whether those sorts of issues could be dealt with in a similar revised fashion through a piece of legislation like this, so that we could not waste Parliament’s time. I think that the charge-out rate for this place per hour may be similar to the Attorney-General’s charge-out rate, but both are very, very expensive, I am told.

I do hope that this bill assists those people who are trying, as we all do—non-lawyers amongst us, myself included—to wade through legislation. And I hope Mr Korako may wish to take a call and reflect on how he could have dealt with his issues far more efficiently, perhaps, through a process like this.

DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am pleased to take a call just to reassure the House of the Greens’ continued support for this important piece of legislation. I had the undoubted privilege of sitting on the Justice and Electoral Committee, which toiled its way through this bill. My recall is that the decision that I should be responsible for this bill was made in my absence, which is a good reason to make sure one does not miss meetings, I believe.

The purpose of this revision bill, of course, is to make language more modern and accessible. The Greens as a modern and accessible political party is always going to support that aspiration. I have to say that the process of working through this was character building. My abiding memory of the select committee process is the undoubted enthusiasm for the task that our colleague Mr Bishop displayed. It was inspiring, his commitment to getting every word right. It is certainly something that will stay with me for a very long time.

In a more serious vein, some of us enjoyed this morning—“enjoyed”, I think, is a fair word—an exposition from none other than Sir Geoffrey Palmer about the importance of making sure that legislation coming through this House is technically correct. I think it was timely and it was interesting, and I think he is dead right. There is a place for ensuring—clearly, this is the place—that legislation is correct, technically accurate, and fit for purpose in every way, and I guess this process is in part contributing to that, to make sure that people can make sense of legislation.

Finally, I would just reflect also on the point made by Mr Cosgrove—the comment made by the committee that there might be a space to very gently expand the scope of revision bills—about a very dated reference to a requirement to advertise a particular matter in a newspaper, which is not really appropriate in the modern age. I mean, it is not a bad thing, but it is insufficient. So, arguably, there would be scope for something a little broader when revision bills are put up where there is broad and complete agreement between all parties that a particular minor change might be made to a bill. Perhaps we can look at that another day but for the moment we are happy to support this bill and to see it pass through the House.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I am not quite as deeply excited by this bill as the Attorney-General was, but I am pleased by it. I think it is a very worthwhile piece of legislation because it does consolidate and update 11 Acts, and it certainly needed to be done.

I would just like to say this: very early in my career, some decades ago now, I worked for the Public Trust Office in my first year as a lawyer. At that time it was spearheading the plain-English movement for the legal system. It was something that really did need to be done, because even lawyers did not understand some of the terminology that was being used and was insisted on and was found in statutes and contracts and in all sorts of other places. So that was a very valuable thing to happen, and I was excited and very enthusiastic about that. I was allowed to write plain English into documents, and that was great. It was a very good thing to happen, and it caught on like wildfire. In New Zealand we have now had plain English for some time as the way in which we treat the English language in legal instruments.

So I think that was a big leap forward. This is not quite such a big leap forward, I think, but it is still worthwhile. It is the first revision bill, and I wonder why it has taken so long. It was first introduced in December 2014—it seems to have taken ages to get back to the House. I also wonder why we are not seeing so many others of these revision bills coming back. I hope that the 3-year statute revision programme is going to be a bit more productive in the future, and if it is, I think New Zealand First will be happy to support that, as well.

I just wanted to say, concerning the Justice and Electoral Committee’s work, that I think it did treat this very seriously and did look through it well. I cannot say that I read every word of the bill.

Chris Bishop: Oh!

DENIS O’ROURKE: I cannot say that I did that, and I do not think anyone else could say that they did that either, but we did, in fact, consider it properly. We understood it, and I do think it is the sort of quality of legislation that, as we heard today, is perhaps not present in some other legislation. So for that reason alone, it is a very worthwhile bill.

But the committee did produce two changes, and one resulted in us being able to get rid of the Wages Protection and Contractors’ Liens Act Repeal Act, which was on its last legs and had just one provision left in it, and that is now in this legislation. It also added section 90 of the Judicature Act 1908, re-enacted as new Subpart 7 in Part 2 of the bill. So they were two amendments that were worthwhile, as well.

As I have said, New Zealand First is very keen on seeing these revision bills go ahead. We hope this will be only the beginning of many others. I know that there is a very long list of things to do. We do need to get on with it as a Parliament, because law does tend to get outdated, as I said. Way back in my early career, just that one move of introducing plain English had a big effect and was well worthwhile. So are these revision bills. I hope there are many more to come. New Zealand First will be voting in support.

BARRY COATES (Green): I rise to take a short call. We support this bill, as my colleague David Clendon has said. It is good that we are making law more accessible and readable. We are sending the right message about Parliament—that we are hip, we are modern, and we are really precise. “Hip” means that we are passionate about this revision bill dealing with inconsistencies, anomalies, discrepancies, and omissions—and all sorts of lawyers’ in-jokes—“modern” means we are introducing the term “information technology” into the 1908 Act on mercantile law, “precise” means we are correcting a mistake in the Contractual Mistakes Act 1977, and I am not even going to mention the Frustrated Contracts Act.

So I agree with my Green Party colleague David Clendon that this should be the start of a broader clean-up of our statutes. There is work going on in other committees to improve our legislation, which we fully support. Making simple, readable, and accessible law would be a great aim. Law for non-lawyers and laws that members of the public can actually understand—bring it on. Thank you.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Third Reading Bill

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General): I move, That the Contract and Commercial Law Bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

KRIS FAAFOI (Senior Whip—Labour): Given the progress that the House has made, I seek leave for the House to adjourn.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Is there anyone foolish enough to object to that? There is not.

The House adjourned at 5.49 p.m.