Wednesday, 12 April 2017

WEDNESDAY, 12 APRIL 2017

WEDNESDAY, 12 APRIL 2017

Mr Deputy Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Building and Construction Industry—Building Activity and Auckland Housing Supply

1. ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Finance: How is the construction sector contributing to New Zealand’s economic growth?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): In both Auckland and across New Zealand we are in the middle of our largest ever construction boom, and housing growth is a very big part of that story. Activity in the construction sector rose 1.8 percent last quarter and was up 10.5 percent for the year to December 2016. This annual rise in construction activity was the highest since 2004. Confidence in the construction industry remains strong, with a net 23 percent positive rating for commercial construction and a net 25 percent positive rating for residential construction. All signs indicate a heightened level of construction activity for some time into the future.

Alastair Scott: How is this heightened level of construction activity flowing through into consents and real estate listings?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Residential building consents posted their biggest monthly gain in 8 months in February. New housing permits jumped 14 percent, dwelling consents also rose 14 percent, and annual new house consents gained 9.1 percent in the year. There is also promising news for home buyers across New Zealand. Real estate listings for March were up 10 percent on the year before, and Real Estate Institute of New Zealand data showed Auckland’s median price was down 5 percent from 6 months ago and unchanged from 9 months ago. While we should not yet read too much into these figures, I again would underline that potential house buyers should think carefully about their price and interest rate expectations.

David Seymour: In what possible world would growth in the construction sector not be related to growth in consents in new house listings?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think that is exactly my point. The level of construction activity and ongoing levels of consent activity indicate a very large construction pipeline under way not just in Auckland, but across the country.

Grant Robertson: What is the latest advice he has on the shortfall of houses in Auckland? Is it closer to 30,000, 40,000, or 50,000?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It all depends on, for example, the number of people per dwelling and the level of activity in terms of construction, and it does change quite dramatically. For example, we have 2,770 apartments due to be completed this year, and a record-breaking 3,840 next year—that is according to Colliers. So people can debate all they like about shortages, but the reality is that the supply response is very strong.

Alastair Scott: How is the Government supporting councils to facilitate residential developments?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Government is continuing to support local councils to deliver the infrastructure required to service new residential developments, including through the $1 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund, where assessments are currently being made in terms of projects that would qualify for support. Additional Government measures to speed up medium-term housing supply include fast-tracking the Auckland Unitary Plan, the new national policy statement on urban capacity, and the proposed urban development authorities legislation. That will ensure that the current record construction boom will continue.

Alastair Scott: What effect is access to credit having on new residential developments?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is a very fair question. Banks and other lenders are experiencing strong demand for property development financing currently. Banks continue to manage their exposure across the sector. The Reserve Bank is expecting that current levels of bank funding will be sufficient to maintain construction activity at the present rate for some time. That level of construction is, of course, illustrated by a number of things, including the record 132 cranes operating across our main centres in construction sites. In Auckland alone, there are 72 cranes—

Phil Twyford: Where are the houses? Forget the cranes—can’t live in a crane.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —working on residential and commercial projects, and, I think, Mr Twyford, you will find that the houses are under the cranes.

Police, Minister—Confidence

2. RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in his Minister of Police; if so, why?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): Yes, because she is a competent Minister, assisting the Police in implementing a half-billion-dollar investment in the New Zealand Police, with over 1,100 new staff over the next 4 years, including 880 uniformed staff and, I note, a 19 percent increase scheduled for police numbers in Northland.

Ron Mark: Tell the House: when the Minister of Police asked for funding on 21 December that would “change the trajectory of rising crime”, why did he not accept that proposal and fund it? Did he not have confidence that she could deliver it?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: It could have been the middle of the night. He’d need to wait for the morning.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not remember precisely what time that proposal was put forward, but it would not have made any difference to how it was treated, because the Government, as always, weighs up the—

Ron Mark: Point of order. Just to help the Prime Minister, I did not—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! You have not been called yet.

Ron Mark: Oh. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ron Mark.

Ron Mark: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Just to help the Prime Minister, I did not, in my question, ask the time. That was one of his colleagues who shouted that out. I asked why did he—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order, and the Prime Minister had not finished answering the question. If the Prime Minister has got anything further to add, he may.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: All Ministers are enthusiastic about the amount of resource they think should be applied in their portfolio. It has to be balanced up with others, but, in this case, Cabinet did agree to the, I think, biggest ever expansion in police numbers and capacity but, more importantly, also to tight performance requirements that the police need to meet to ensure that we have safer communities.

Ron Mark: When the Police presented three options, one of which was to change the trajectory of rising crime and deliver to the nation a 10 percent reduction in serious crime—a proposal that asked for 1,430 extra staff—why did he not have the confidence to give those resources to his police Minister and to the Police?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: As the discussion developed we came to the view that the Police could achieve that kind of objective with a few hundred fewer staff, and the Minister of Police ensured that it is now subject to tight performance criteria, which, I would have to say, the Police did not initially propose but did, ultimately, agree to, to assure that the half-billion-dollar investment is used effectively for safer communities.

Ron Mark: Why did he—the Prime Minister—allow the police Minister to dismiss the needs of 271 communities and towns by ignoring their requests for 24/7 police coverage from their police stations?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: The package significantly extends the 24/7 coverage by the police, as announced this morning. I think a very significant proportion of the population will now live within 25 kilometres of 24-hour police coverage.

Ron Mark: With alarming levels of criminal activity in Northland now, a drug pandemic, and renegade youths in this country, why did you not have the confidence in the Minister of Police to approve the 1,430 extra staff that the Police asked for?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I understand it, the Commissioner of Police announced, I think, yesterday that Northland will get 66 more police. I might say to the member that the police would be the first people to tell him that it is not just police that are a solution to some of the deeply embedded social problems in Northland, and, in fact, there is any number of different initiatives being taken by the community up there. I would hope the member would support those initiatives, as well as the increase in police, rather than continuing to regard them all as hopeless.

Housing, Wellington—Supply, Affordability, and State Housing

3. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that the Wellington housing shortage is a “problem of success”?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): Yes, I do, and, as I said to the member when he asked almost exactly the same question a month ago, I stand by my full statement, which went on to say that the demand for Wellington rental housing was “certainly concerning for people who are looking for accommodation”. I also said that I think this is pretty well understood by the council and that it is working towards enabling more housing. I hope the developments here are not going to be opposed by the Labour Party, as they have been in Auckland.

Andrew Little: What does he say to the Wellington families living in garages and motels because he knocked down the State houses and did not rebuild?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Part of the reason there is a major change in the way we run State housing is precisely because of the problems in the Hutt Valley—that is, old stock that is unsuitable for being occupied, and slow response times for rebuilding it. That is why we are changing the system, but we are being held up in Auckland by the Labour Party opposing the Point England development, which would enable hundreds more social houses to be built.

Andrew Little: Putting aside the fact that building a house 5 years ago is not much different to building a house today, what does he say to the young families in Wellington struggling to pay the rent, let alone save for a house—people like Frances from Lower Hutt, who wrote to me to say: “Prices are out of reach, and my husband and I both work 50 hours a week.”?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: In respect of the individual families, we would need to make sure that they are receiving all the assistance they are eligible for, because we do spend $1.3 billion a year on accommodation supplement, and that family may or may not be eligible. If rents are rising, they are eligible for more support. Fortunately, the Wellington City Council recognises more houses are needed, because Wellington is now growing for the first time in a long time, and I hope that Labour will not oppose the developments in the way it is opposing new developments in Auckland.

Andrew Little: Has he been to the Hutt Valley and looked at all the land that has sat empty for years under his mismanagement of Housing New Zealand, while local families cannot afford an affordable place to live?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I know the Hutt Valley reasonably well. I have seen some of the empty sections that the member is referring to, and I have also seen the large stock of old, out-of-date Housing Corporation State houses, which are the product of the previous, lazy Government changing nothing. We are setting out to change it in the same way as we have got large-scale redevelopment going on in Auckland, but, as I have said to the member, I am quite sure that as soon as we start developing in the Hutt Valley, Labour will start opposing it.

Andrew Little: Given his knowledge of, and concern about, the empty spaces littered across the Hutt Valley, will he immediately build on that land a combination of good, affordable starter homes for young families to buy and State houses for Kiwis in need; if not, why not?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am advised that those plans are under way, and I would hope that the Labour Party will not organise community opposition to the developments, as it has done in Auckland for Three Kings, which it forced to the Environment Court, with a several-year delay. And now in this House it is going to vote against the Point England bill, which will allow hundreds of new social houses.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was very clearly about Wellington. That large, extended rant at the end of the Prime Minister’s answer had nothing to do with the question that was asked.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, of course, I am the judge of whether it is a large, extended rant, and I do not believe that making a comparison with a contemporary housing estate in a similar way is such.

Andrew Little: What about the current situation is it that the Prime Minister just does not get? There is a housing crisis now, families are struggling to make ends meet now, families are living in garages and motels now—is it not time to stop playing silly buggers and to get houses built now?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: As the Minister of Finance pointed out a bit earlier, we have got the largest construction boom New Zealand has seen for decades, and, in fact, some of the complaints now are that costs are escalating reasonably quickly and labour is hard to find. So New Zealand is building houses pretty much as fast as it can, except in Point England, where the Labour Party is opposing a large-scale development, and in Three Kings, where it is organising the community opposition to a large-scale development. That is why it has no credibility on this issue.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Question No. 4—[Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! You may think you will get away with a whole lot because you have got the relief teacher, but you will not.

Freshwater Management—Farming Practices and Water Quality

4. CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Does he agree with the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor that some of the country’s waterways have gone beyond a tipping point?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): Yes. There are water bodies like Lake Forsyth in Canterbury and Lake Whangapē in the Waikato that have reached a tipping point, which makes their restoration very challenging, but none has crossed that point during this Government’s term. I was advised in 2008 that three significant water bodies had a risk of crossing tipping points in the next decade: Lake Rotoiti in the Bay of Plenty, the Wainono Lagoon in South Canterbury, and the Waituna Lagoon in Southland. This Government’s successful interventions in all three of those have resulted in that risk being averted and in marked improvements in the water quality being achieved.

Catherine Delahunty: Is the current intensive farming model exacerbating poor water quality?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is not as simplistic as Professor Gluckman’s report concludes—that, simply, intensification automatically results in water quality deterioration. For instance, well-designed water storage schemes like those that have occurred with the central plains can actually result in water quality improvements and increased agricultural production.

Catherine Delahunty: Does he think it is reasonable to continue to allow agricultural intensification when Sir Peter’s report shows that the effects of farming now will still be felt in 100 years or more, meaning future generations are left to foot the bill and fix the problem of dirty water?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member is, firstly, incorrect in simply concentrating on agriculture. The member shows a blind spot in that the report shows our most polluted areas are actually in urban environments, and that is where this Government’s approach is that both urban and rural New Zealanders need to lift their game around water quality.

Catherine Delahunty: As the Minister for the Environment will he advocate on behalf of Aotearoa’s waterways and ensure their protection by calling for the Government to move away from its intensive farming model?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: This Government has introduced the first national policy statement and limits on nutrients and on ammonia, and has seen over 18 catchments—there were none when we became the Government—having limits on intensification. But where we differ from the Green Party is that a complete freeze on the growth of agriculture is not a sensible approach to this issue, and there are many water development schemes that can deliver both water quality improvements and jobs for rural communities.

Catherine Delahunty: Will he act urgently so that other rivers are not pushed beyond their tipping point, by putting a moratorium on new dairy conversions; advocating for higher value, not higher volume, in agriculture; and putting rivers first, not last?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The fact that this Government has increased the level of funding for freshwater clean-ups sixfold and committed $450 million; the fact that lakes like Lake Rotoiti, which deteriorated significantly under the last Government, have improved enormously under this Government; and the fact that we can look at sensible water storage programmes—whether it be the Central Plains scheme or whether it be the Lee scheme in my own area—show that this Government is capable of delivering improved water quality as well as increased primary production exports.

Catherine Delahunty: What new measures will he take on the issue of nitrates and the impact of cow numbers and dairy conversions, if any, as a result of this new report?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We are the first Government to nationally put in place limits on nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates—

Hon David Parker: You haven’t. You haven’t.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, the member says we have not. When Mr Parker was in Government there was not a single catchment in New Zealand in which you required a resource consent for intensification. That is now true for 18 catchments in New Zealand. We are publicly consulting on specific tighter limits on nitrates. I also point out that our Government is putting in place national regulations for getting stock out of our rivers and lakes—something the previous Government never did and something that they voted against in Parliament last week.

Hon David Parker: I seek leave to table the Lake Taupō nutrient limit, which pre-dated this Government and was put in place under a prior Government by Judge Skelton, co-financed by the Labour Party budget of $70 million.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, the member seems to have made his point in seeking to table, so I see no point in putting the leave.

Catherine Delahunty: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. There is a point of order—I am just calling a point of order from Catherine Delahunty.

Catherine Delahunty: The Minister gave a very full answer but did not address what new measures he would take as a result of the report. That was my question—not what the Government is doing or says it is doing but what it is going to do as a result of this new report.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member may ask the question again.

Catherine Delahunty: Thank you. What new measures will he take on the issue of nitrates and the impact of cow numbers and dairy conversions, if any, as a result of this new report?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Government is currently consulting on its clean water paper, which specifically tightens the limits around nitrates and also provides for the first national regulations on ensuring that we get our stock out of our rivers and lakes.

Police Resourcing—Numbers and Regional Deployment

5. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Police: What updates can she give about what regions the new 880 police will go to?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister of Police): Today the police commissioner announced where the 880 new sworn police staff, who are part of our $503 million Safer Communities package, will be deployed. As we have been saying since the announcement in February, all 12 police districts will be getting more police. I can now confirm that all districts will be getting anywhere between a 7 percent and 19 percent increase in the number of police. On top of this, 20 regional police bases will go 24/7, resulting in 200,000 extra New Zealanders being covered by a 24/7 police presence.

Lindsay Tisch: How many new police will each new region be getting?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: All regions will be getting at least 24 new police. For example, that member will be pleased that Waikato will be getting 101 new cops. Northland will be getting 66, which is a 19 percent increase. The Bay of Plenty will be getting 69, Canterbury 70, Auckland City 72, and Waitematā 73, as an example, and another 80 will be deployed to deal with organised crime around the country.

Maureen Pugh: Which police bases are going 24/7?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: One of our key Safer Communities commitments is to ensure that 95 percent of New Zealanders are within 25 kilometres of a patrolling police base 24 hours a day. To reach this commitment the police commissioner has announced that 20 regional areas will now have a police presence 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and they include—the member will be pleased—Motueka, Kaitāia, Matamata, Wairoa, Rolleston, Taumarunui, Te Kūiti, Thames, Balclutha, Stratford, Alexandra, and many more.

Heron Report—Allegations

6. Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) to the Minister supporting Greater Christchurch Regeneration: Will he be initiating further examinations of the alleged potential conflicts of interest suggested in paragraph 3.40 of the Heron Report; if not, why not?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister supporting Greater Christchurch Regeneration): The allegations mentioned in paragraph 3.40 of Mr Heron’s report came late in his investigations by the two gentlemen who have now been referred to the Serious Fraud Office. However, all allegations are taken seriously, and the Chief Executive of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, as the successor agency to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA), is currently looking into the matters raised in paragraph 3.40 of Mr Heron’s report. Should he discover anything of note or concern, then he would report back to the State Services Commissioner, who would have the responsibility to enact a further, more detailed investigation. I consider, at this point, that that is an appropriate course of action.

Dr Megan Woods: What are the specific allegations about the additional three former CERA employees who Andrew Kibblewhite today revealed are being investigated, and do the allegations relate to property transactions?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: There are no specific allegations made that I have seen. There were allegations raised by the two gentlemen who have now been referred to the Serious Fraud Office, and when Mr Kibblewhite has completed his investigation, I expect he would report them to me.

Dr Megan Woods: Does he accept that these allegations and the referral to the Serious Fraud Office came about only because of an investigation by the media; if so, why were they not picked up and investigated further until the media reported on them?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: That is a very good question. Throughout the life of CERA, there were several agencies monitoring its performance. From the very outset, I engaged with the Auditor-General’s office to ensure that there was oversight of large amounts of public money in an environment that was hurriedly put together. I note that, through those years, CERA was in front of select committees on numerous occasions, and, quite clearly, had there been any widespread public concern about activities—in other words, systemic problems in the organisation—I am sure that members would have brought it up at those reviews.

Dr Megan Woods: Will he then give an assurance that these individuals, now six in total, are the only CERA and/or Ōtākaro employees who may have engaged in activities that may constitute a conflict of interest or fraud; if not, why not?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Given the many “mays” that were in that question, I would have to say it borders on the hypothetical. The reality is that there are investigations taking place because two gentlemen now referred to the Serious Fraud Office, in the later stages of the investigation they were under, spun around and pointed the finger at others. They will be investigated.

Dr Megan Woods: Has he read the Press editorial today that said that Cantabrians had been badly let down; if so, is this not justification enough to ensure that this is not the tip of the iceberg and launch a wide-ranging investigation?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I want to confirm for the House that it is many years since I read any editorial published in the Press.

Electricity Market, Taranaki - King Country—Prices and Government Response

7. FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: If she will not initiate an inquiry into retail electricity prices, does she at least agree with the PWC report which recommends completely changing The Lines Company pricing model in the Taranaki/King Country?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I am aware that there have been issues with the pricing methodology that The Lines Company has in place. In fact, as the member will be aware, the Commerce Committee has considered petitions on the matter. The Lines Company makes its own decisions on pricing within the regulatory framework administered by the Commerce Commission; however, I can also advise the member that the Electricity Authority is currently reviewing aspects of The Line Company’s pricing, specifically the related load control practices, the incentives it places on customers, and the outcomes it influences. The review is due to be completed in May or June of this year. It will be publicly released, and I will be sure to get the member a copy.

Fletcher Tabuteau: Why have the Minister and her Government done nothing in their 9-year reign to help the people of Taranaki - King Country who have literally lost their lives, lost their dignity, and lost their livelihoods under the current pricing model?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well, I do not think we would ever call ourselves so regal that we would have to have a “reign”, but I would refer the member to the Commerce Committee, of which his colleague Ria Bond was a member, which in 2015, when looking at this very issue, said in a unanimous report “We found no evidence that the pricing model is incorrect or being incorrectly applied by TLC.”—being, of course, The Lines Company. “We are satisfied that TLC’s pricing methodology is legal, and in many circumstances has delivered savings to consumers. Furthermore, we are satisfied that the Electricity Authority and the Commerce Commission have thoroughly and fairly investigated all the complaints they have received about the company.” So to say that we have done nothing is quite wrong. In fact, Parliament has taken this issue very seriously.

Fletcher Tabuteau: When she is told “My family and I live and sleep in our lounge during the winter. We’re too afraid to turn the heater on in case our lines charges double in the next year.”, why has she not acted previously, or does she think that her Government has no role to play in these people’s lives?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I think the member should review what I just told him in answer to his previous supplementary question. In fact, Parliament has acted. In fact, I was a member of the Commerce Committee, as was his colleague Ria Bond. We listened to those submissions very carefully. I would also remind him that board of The Lines Company are the people who actually instigated the PricewaterhouseCoopers report to which he is referring.

Fletcher Tabuteau: When she was told “We’ve had to shut down accommodation in the district as tourists turn on the heaters because it’s cold, which sends the cost of electricity supply to our businesses through the roof in the following year.”, did she not think the Government should have intervened at least 9 years ago, or is this Government not interested in regional New Zealand business?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I think the member really does need to actually go back and listen to what I have already told him, and to go back to the excellent report from the Commerce Committee, which is the response to the 2014/0001 petition, and, actually, also consider that the Electricity Authority is already considering this very matter, as it should do under the law—because unlike that member, I think we should always follow the law.

Fletcher Tabuteau: What assurances can the Minister give that this large and critical region of New Zealand, where farmers, homeowners, fixed-income earners, and elderly, and even our small-to-medium enterprises have been ignored by the Minister and her predecessors? What assurances will she give that these people will actually have the support of her Government in the 5 months that it has left in office?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: No one is ignoring that excellent region of New Zealand, from which so many of my family hails.

Mental Health Services—Staffing, Government Initiatives, and Demand

8. IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister of Health: Can he confirm that the number of registered nurses working in mental health and addiction services has increased from 3,583 to 4,206 over the last 5 years—an increase of 17 percent?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Yes, I can. The number of registered nurses working in mental health and addiction services has increased at a higher rate than for any other level of nursing. This includes an increase of 23 percent for nurses in addiction services, 22 percent in community mental health, and those working in hospital-based mental health services have increased by 12 percent. There is always more we can do, and the Government continues to work on improving mental health services. Having a dedicated workforce is an important part of our wider plan.

Ian McKelvie: What other steps is the Government taking to address mental health issues, including the suicide rate?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The suicide rate remains too high, particularly the rates for young Māori and Pasifika people. Today I am releasing the draft Suicide Prevention Strategy that goes out for consultation. This strategy will provide an opportunity for individuals and organisations to give feedback to help guide suicide prevention activities. Health services, particularly mental health services, and Government agencies cannot do this work alone. That is why the draft strategy acknowledges the need for input and engagement right across New Zealand society. Although the overall rate has improved in recent years, there is more to do.

Dr David Clark: Can he confirm that the number of people accessing mental health services has increased over the same time period by 26.5 percent—far greater than the increase in the number of registered nurses—and, as a result of a lack of safe staffing and funding, that, among other incidents, a mental health nurse in Hillmorton Hospital was beaten to the ground last year by an acutely psychotic patient and was off work for 5 weeks?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, what I can confirm is that assaults are way too high for our mental health workers, and, unfortunately, it is a risk of working in what is a very difficult field. Funding in mental health has grown faster than population growth and inflation, but, of course—

Dr David Clark: Not as fast as need is growing.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: —just listen for a second, Dr Clark—we have faced a massively increasing demand. We are treating 164,000 people per year. That is up from 96,000 people per year a decade ago. That is a huge increase of 68,000 people, but we are focusing on making sure that people get the services that they need, and we are doing that.

Schools, Funding—Criteria and Use of Data

9. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her statement regarding the school funding review that “we will not be interested in how we stigmatise children, rather what we are trying to do is get the right resource to the right kid at the right time in the right places”?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. As it appears that the Opposition is simply recycling questions it asked a year ago, I give the answer that I consistently give and provided to this House over a year ago, on 16 March 2016: “I have been consistent in stating that I do not believe that stigmatising children either through their school decile or individually leads to good educational outcomes, …”

Chris Hipkins: Which does she think will create the greatest stigma for schools and children: a socio-economic decile ranking, as we have now, or a release of a detailed breakdown of the number of pupils with parents who have been in prison or rely on a benefit, the number of children who have male caregivers who are not their father, or the number of children who have been the subject of Child, Youth and Family (CYF) notifications, all of which would be obtainable under the Official Information Act?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I know not of the second part of the member’s question in relation to the primary question that was asked. There is no intention to release individual data of the kind the member is speaking of. What I do know is that the current decile system does indeed stigmatise schools.

Chris Hipkins: Are all of the criteria I just mentioned proposed for inclusion in the new profiling exercise the Government is intending to do as a replacement for school decile funding?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The Government has made no decision as to what it might do in terms of supporting students who are at risk of underachievement due to disadvantage.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not ask whether the Government had made decisions. The Minister has put a proposal out in public. I asked whether the criteria that I had listed were included in that proposal.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member may ask the question again.

Chris Hipkins: Were all of the criteria that I just listed in my prior supplementary question included in the proposed system that the Government is looking at to replace decile funding?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: No criteria have been proposed.

Chris Hipkins: Does this Cabinet paper that she released late last year include on page 10 a list of the possible criteria that might be included in the new funding system, including the proportion of time spent supported by benefits since birth, the father’s offending and sentencing history, and all of the other criteria, including CYF notifications?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I would invite the member to table that paper, which has indeed been online since November last year. What it does is traverse the integrated data infrastructure (IDI) that has been publicly available as part of Statistics New Zealand’s work. They are not criteria; they are an index of possible risk. [Interruption] Oh!

Chris Hipkins: If that data is compiled on a school-by-school basis, how will the Government prevent that data from being released and, therefore, stigmatising the schools and children in a far worse way than the decile funding system does?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The IDI is not compiled school by school; it provides a backdrop to the data that we draw from for social investment. To quell the anxiety that the member is expressing, in Budget 2016 we decided as a Government to provide a targeted operations grant to schools based on one factor, long-term benefit-dependent homes. That was an anonymised set of data. It was provided to schools without identifying who the children were. In fact, the Ministry of Education has no knowledge of who specifically the children were, and 99.4 percent of schools received a share of that funding. No stigmatising has gone on. Schools are operating. They have the extra funding. No child has been identified.

Chris Hipkins: If that data is not going to be compiled on a school-by-school basis, how will the Government allocate funding to schools based on those criteria?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: When the Government has made a decision, then the member will know.

Crown Minerals Act—Application

10. GARETH HUGHES (Green) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: Does she agree with Dr Russel Norman, who said that section 101B(1)(c) of the Crown Minerals Act 1991, known as the Anadarko Amendment, was “put in place by the Government to protect the interest of big oil and to stifle dissent”?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Surprisingly, no. It is about keeping people safe and balancing the right to protest with the petroleum operators’ right to carry out their lawful and permitted work. I certainly do not agree with any tactics that put people’s lives at risk. Health and safety is something that this Government takes very seriously.

Gareth Hughes: If the “Anadarko Amendment” is all about protecting people’s safety, why does it apply only to the oil and mining industries, and is this simply a case of one law for us and one law for oil?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well, of course there is no such thing as an Anadarko amendment; that is simply a figment of that member’s imagination. If, however, he wants to say that there should be the rule of law and it should be complied with, then yes, I agree with that one.

Gareth Hughes: Can the Minister confirm that that 2013 amendment, used to charge Dr Norman, was passed under urgency with no consultation and received no New Zealand Bill of Rights Act check, and that polls at the time showed 79 percent of Kiwis wanted to see it withdrawn or sent back to committee?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The matter was a matter for Parliament. Parliament made the law, and the law is something that needs to be upheld.

Gareth Hughes: Has the Royal New Zealand Navy ever been used to detain oil drilling protesters; if so, is it right for the State to be used as the private security of the oil industry?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: That would be an entirely hypothetical question, because, of course, the State is not used as a private security company for anybody.

Gareth Hughes: Given that her department and the Government have opened up the Māui’s dolphin sanctuary for oil drilling, give tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to the oil industry, and are now threatening to lock up oil protesters, is it not time that this country had a separation of oil and State?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Many points for a dramatic turn of phrase, but, really, the State does not lock people up. That is a matter for the courts, and the courts actually look at—these matters are put before them, and, of course, in relation to Mr Norman, I make no comment, because I do not interfere in the courts’ business.

Question No. 4 to Minister

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): I seek leave of the House to table the Environment Court decision of 7 July 2011 putting the nutrient limits in place in Lake Taupō.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is put for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

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

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You did not let me get to my leave application in respect of the earlier decision of Judge Skelton that was under appeal in the decision that has just been tabled.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: So I take it that that is advice rather than a point of order?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, no—I seek leave to table the first ever nutrient limit on a New Zealand catchment for nitrate limits, which was the decision of Judge Skelton in the Taupō catchment, accompanied by $70 million in funding from the then Labour Government.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK. I believe the document has been adequately described. Leave is put for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Freshwater Management—Farming Practices, Water Quality, and Advice

11. Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) to the Minister for the Environment: Does he believe his Government’s failure to properly control increases in farm intensity close to waterways has caused much of the river degradation identified in Professor Sir Peter Gluckman’s report on New Zealand’s fresh water?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): No, for three reasons. Firstly, Professor Gluckman’s report makes plain that this degradation of waterways has occurred over a time frame of many decades, going back to early land clearance a century ago. Secondly, this Government is the first to put in place legal limits on intensification, through the national policy statement (NPS) that has now seen regional councils put limits in 18 catchments. Thirdly, the pace of intensification has actually slowed under this Government. There was a 33 percent increase in the size of the dairy herd between 1999 and 2008. Since then, the increase over the next 9 years was half that, or 17 percent—that is, today’s growth is substantially smaller and of course there is far tighter regulation of that intensification.

Hon David Parker: Well then, does he believe the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment who just last year said: “[There is a] clear link between expanding dairy farming and increasing stress on water quality. Even with best practice mitigation, the large-scale conversion of more land to dairy farming will generally result in more degraded fresh water.”?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes, and I would ask the question as to why that member, when a Minister, when there was a 33 percent increase in the dairy herd, did absolutely nothing and why this Government has had a very aggressive programme of tightening the regulation on improvements in water quality.

Hon David Parker: Did he warn his Cabinet colleagues of the dangers to our rivers of allowing cow numbers to increase from 5½ million in 2008 to 6½ million now, and why did they ignore him?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Because Cabinet does not actually determine stock numbers. We determine environmental rules, and this Cabinet has done more in setting environmental rules around water quality than any Government in New Zealand’s history.

Todd Muller: What support is there for the Government’s freshwater programme in today’s report from Sir Peter Gluckman?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: This science report supports the Government programme in three respects. Firstly, it puts to bed the criticisms of the Government’s swimmability standard and negates the extravagant claims about risk that were applied to those rules. Secondly, it makes plain that the Government’s timetable of 90 percent of rivers and lakes being swimmable by 2040 is realistic, given the time frames of New Zealand’s hydrological systems. Thirdly, it confirms that the Government’s measures of nationally regulating for stock out of waterways, as confirmed by the passage last week of the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill, actually is the next logical and important step for improving water quality.

Todd Muller: What advice has he received on the average levels of E. coli, measured in waterways adjacent to indigenous forests, exotic forest farmland, and urban land uses, and what do these say about New Zealand’s water quality challenges?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The average E. coli level in waterways adjacent to indigenous forests is 20 E. coli per 100 mls, in exotic forestry it is 67, in pastoral farming areas it has an average of 190, but in urban areas in New Zealand it has an average of 440. This reinforces that to constantly target farmers and ignore the greater level of pollution in urban waterways is allowing politics and not science to colour our response, and that both urban and rural New Zealand need to lift our game if we are to take better care of our waterways.

Hon David Parker: Given that the OECD, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and now Chief Science Advisor, Sir Peter Gluckman, all say our rivers are still getting more polluted, why cannot he just fess up and admit that after 8 years he has failed New Zealand?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Because the member misquotes exactly the professor and Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor. I directly quote from the report: “The Government’s interventions for clean-up programmes are progressing well and showing real results. The levels of phosphorous over the last 8 years have actually improved, and it is the issue with nitrates that is the greatest challenge.”, and that is actually the area where the Government is tightening both the national rules and, at long last, has some limits in those catchments that are sensitive.

Hon David Parker: Does he now accept that he was wrong to spike the Judge Sheppard NPS, which would have stopped increases in farming intensity being a permitted activity, given that his weak substitute has allowed an extra million cows and more farmers to treat our rivers as drains?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I will draw the honourable member’s attention—the size of the dairy herd in New Zealand under the last Labour-Green Government increased by 33 percent over 9 years. In the 9 years of this Government, the level of dairy herd has grown by 17 percent, roughly half, and that is partly because this Government has actually put rules in place, whereas in Labour’s 9 years it did absolutely zippo about water quality.

Hon David Parker: Does he accept the relationship between the high number of freshwater invertebrate species now considered nationally vulnerable or endangered and his policy on their protection, which is also spineless?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I would point out to the member that in the clean water document the Government launched just a couple of weeks ago, we for the first time are going to require that the macroinvertebrate community index—the measurement of the species that live in our water—is actually going to be a compulsory requirement in the national policy statement on freshwater. I would draw to the member’s attention that in their 9 years, they did not even bother to put any national environment standard or any national policy statement in place.

Community and Voluntary Sector—Community and Voluntary Group Funding

12. MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector: What recent announcements has he made about community and voluntary group funding in New Zealand?

Hon ALFRED NGARO (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Today I announced that $12.5 million of grant funding is now available for NGOs looking for funding that will have an impact in their local community, up and down the country.

Matt Doocey: What are some examples of the benefits that this funding can provide?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: The funding is unique in that it is decided on and distributed by local distribution committees. That means that we have locals deciding on what matters most to them and what will have the most impact on their own communities. Last year 4,223 organisations received funding for a range of community projects, such as the running or operational costs of organisations that provide community based social services; community development costs such as training, planning, evaluation, and facilitation fees; and community projects or even costs that encourage participation in communities, promote community leadership, and promote social, economic, and cultural equity.

Questions to Members

Adherence to Standing Orders

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is the right of members to ask questions to other members who are responsible for bills. Those questions are more tightly constrained by Speakers’ rulings but are also very much constrained by the Standing Orders. When a question is put, it has to deal specifically with matters that relate to the House. The first question could not possibly relate to the House, because the question on the bill has not at this point been put to the House. If you go through the rest of these questions, there are many occasions where they fall short of the Standing Orders, but I would particularly suggest that question No. 5 is a very deliberate breach of Standing Order 380(1)(c). I think that while we would not at all want to impede people asking questions of someone who is responsible for a bill, we would like to see that adherence to the Standing Orders. The other point I would make is that it is somewhat ironic that we are unlikely to get to this bill today, because of the time we are going to spend on members’ questions.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): With regard to the Leader of the House’s first point about a question, in fact, the bill has been through a certain number of stages, and the question is about indications of support, not the votes in the House. The other point about question No. 5 and the reference that I presume the Minister is referring to—calling it “communist”—and referencing Standing Order 380(1)(c),“discreditable references to the House or any member of Parliament or any offensive or unparliamentary expression.”, is that whereas many people might disagree with the notion of communism, it is actually a valid political viewpoint.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The last part of his point of order was not really a point of order, but I rule that—I am just quoting the Standing Orders—a question to a member must relate to business before the House of which he or she has charge. There is no requirement that a motion has to have been moved in respect of the business before questions may be asked about it, and the question asks for an opinion or a policy in respect of a bill—that is a matter for the MP—that they are in charge of.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That is an interesting ruling, but there is also a Standing Order that makes it quite clear that you cannot pre-empt a decision of the House. So a question that asks for what support there is for the bill, in the context of the question being allowed in the House, clearly invites the member to pre-empt the business of the House, and that is in breach of the Standing Orders.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): The Standing Order that the Minister refers to extends to all business before the House and not specifically questions to members. If the Minister wants that question to be the standard for question time, that would also preclude Government members from asking patsy questions about the likely decisions of the House with regard to Government bills.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): That is completely unreasonable for you to be asked to rule on that, because the Government does not ask itself questions about bills; it asks itself questions about policy. That is the point of having a question time. This, of course, is a situation where a member is being asked to pre-empt the House’s decision by trying to coerce a degree of support from his own scant knowledge of how the vote is likely to go.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. I appreciate the advice from all sides of the House, and speaking of pre-emption, this exact word content has been asked on a number of other occasions with respect to members’ bills—questions to members. The question is in order, and I will call on Ria Bond to ask it.

Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill—Support

1. RIA BOND (NZ First) to the Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill: What indications of support has he received for the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill?

CLAYTON MITCHELL (Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill): That is a great question. Without gazing into the Minister’s crystal ball that he referred to, I have to say that we have had overwhelming support for this bill. In one online poll we had 84 percent of the participants in that poll supporting this bill going through the House. I have to say, that is a huge indication that people see this moving forward. Also, speaking to a number of broadcasters—other than Sky, of course—they also have support for this bill and would like to see it progress through the stages.

Ria Bond: Are there any other signs of support, aside from the public, for this bill?

CLAYTON MITCHELL: We were encouraged, initially, by comments made by Clare Curran in 2013 about the Labour Party’s position with regard to the bill and the regulations with regard to Sky Television, but we see yet again it has made another U-turn and has flip-flopped like a dead fish on board a fishing boat. We are waiting to see how the vote is cast this afternoon. [Interruption]

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! In respect of questions to members, there is only one supplementary question available to the member who asks the primary question.

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

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, sorry, the first point of order came from David Seymour.

David Seymour: I seek leave of the House to ask an additional supplementary question of the member.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is put for that purpose, is there any objection? Yes, there appears to be objection.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given that today is members’ day and the time of the House belongs to members and we are dealing with a member’s question, I would seek leave of the House for any member who wants to ask any question on any of the members’ questions today to be able to do so.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will just note that that particular member has used up quite a bit of the time already in respect of his points of order, which he would seem to be complaining about. I will put that leave in the spirit in which it was given. Is there any objection? There appears to be.

Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill—Purpose and Cost

2. RIA BOND (NZ First) to the Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill: Will the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill enable about 2.7 million taxpayers who do not have Sky, the ability to watch major domestic sporting events free and on live to air television?

CLAYTON MITCHELL (Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill): I am sure the Minister will know the answer to this already, after having gazed into his crystal ball. This is the very purpose of this bill and the intent of why we have brought this to the House. We absolutely stress that our bill focuses upon major sporting events held domestically, where ratepayers and taxpayers have contributed already. The exceptions are global events, such as the Olympics, the trans-Tasman finals, and Rugby World Cup matches involving New Zealand teams. If people like Mr Mallard want to watch wrestling in Kazakhstan, as he so evidently does, then I confirm that he will still need to pay for his Sky Sport subscription to carry on doing so.

David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your advice and clarification. You ruled earlier that there is one supplementary question on a question to a member. Are you now saying that that supplementary question can be asked by only the member who asked the primary question?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You got it.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question that I ask you is: is that a new ruling that you are now making? That is certainly not a ruling that has applied in the past. The Speaker has absolute discretion as to how many supplementary questions may be asked. Generally, the convention has been that the Speaker will allow only one supplementary question from the member asking the question. But, as far as I know, this is the first time that members on the other side of the House have sought to ask a supplementary question on a question to a member. There has certainly been no ruling by a Speaker in the past preventing that from happening.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, I may have—

David Seymour: Speaking to the point of order—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I do not need any further advice. I may have misled the House by referring to there being a ruling. However, it is a convention, and I am sticking to the convention. I invite Ria Bond to ask her supplementary question.

Ria Bond: How much will it cost?

CLAYTON MITCHELL: What a great question. Look, this is talking about regulation before we actually talk about the legislation, and it has got to go through the House so that we can actually have that discussion. But if you look at adopting what they have got in Australia, with its anti-siphoning laws, this will not cost New Zealand taxpayers a single cent more than what they are already contributing to Sport and Recreation, which is around about a billion dollars a year.

Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill—Ratepayers and Taxpayers

3. RIA BOND (NZ First) to the Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill: Is the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill fair on ratepayers and taxpayers?

CLAYTON MITCHELL (Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill): Another great question; they are coming in thick and fast.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You do not have to rate the question. Just give an answer to it.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: I will give it a 10—right. I alluded to that in my answer to the first question. Taxpayers and ratepayers in this country are spending around about a billion dollars a year already. So for them to not have to fork out an extra thousand dollars a year to subscribe to Sky to ensure that they can actually see those games of national significance live, they will be saving themselves a lot of money, and that will hugely benefit the ratepayers and taxpayers who are already paying. This will simply stop them being charged for a third time. We should not have to pay three times for our sports.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would ask you to reconsider your decision. I am going to ask for leave again, because it is quite clear that when you are dealing with a question that talks about games of national significance, that does not mean it is confined entirely to the views of one small party in the House. I get the sense from the questions that have been answered so far that Mr Mitchell might think he knows quite a bit about this. For those of us on this side who are floundering in the dark about the benefits of this bill being passed, I would seek leave for this House to allow those members who want to question this member on the games of national significance to do so.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No—[Interruption] Sorry, I do not need any further assistance, and I will not be putting leave for that question. It may well be in the Leader of the House’s best intentions to extend this part of the House’s business so that we do not get to the general debate, which I am sure he is just rehearsing his speech for.

Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill—Benefits

4. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill: What benefits are likely to come from the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill if enacted?

CLAYTON MITCHELL (Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill): There are huge benefits to New Zealanders, particularly around sports making up a huge part of our culture. If we consider the importance that we have put on, for example, Māori Television, we have spent $55 million a year on that because we absolutely hold in high regard our culture, and that certainly goes some way to addressing our cultural issue with sports and engagement with people.

Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill—Commentary

5. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill: Does he believe that the bill is “communist”, as a member of Parliament has charged?

CLAYTON MITCHELL (Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill): This question has certainly raised some suspicion from one member on the other side. But I think those members saying such ridiculous things should stop reading Tintin comics and conspiracy theory novels. If this was in any way true, then they would be calling Australia, the UK, and Canada communist countries too, because all those countries have anti-siphoning laws and regulations that allow their people to see games of national significance live and free to air.

Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill—Impact

6. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill: Will the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill empty stadiums of paying patrons and deny sporting codes revenue?

CLAYTON MITCHELL (Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill): I would love to give you a short answer. The short answer is no, but I am going to extend on that a little bit further. [Interruption] You are just so insightful. International experience in respect of stadium attendances is the reverse. I am just saying that the streaming of Adele, for example, did not stop people—even though they could see Adele live on TV, they still went to those concerts. In terms of participation and viewing the games of national significance, people feel more encouraged to in fact attend at the stadium so that they can see their players live, and up close and personal. That is the evidence.

Darroch Ball: Can the member address the question of revenue in regard to this bill?

CLAYTON MITCHELL: I have seen reports of some codes complaining that if this bill went through the House, they would lose revenue. In response, we could point to Sky’s falling subscriber base, which means the good old days are fast going. The fact is that free-to-air broadcasters have access to 3.6 million New Zealanders, who are paying their taxes, versus 860,000 for Sky subscribers. You only have to do the maths to work out that it is better to go and put those games on live and free to air.

Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill—Declined Sky and Vodafone Merger

7. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill: What are the implications of the Commerce Commission’s recent refusal of the Sky-Vodafone merger on the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill?

CLAYTON MITCHELL (Member in charge of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill): That is a good question. Two weeks ago Sky lodged an appeal against the Commerce Commission’s rejection of the Vodafone New Zealand purchase. This is ironic because a substantive reason cited by the Commerce Commission for rejecting this proposed merger was that Sky Sport gave Sky-Vodafone an unfair competitive advantage. Enabling this bill to go through the House would in some way go towards remedying that problem.

Youth Employment Training and Education Bill—Benefits

8. CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First) to the Member in charge of the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill: Who will potentially benefit from the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill?

DARROCH BALL (Member in charge of the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill): If the bill passes, those youth aged 15 to 17 who are eligible to apply to the employment programme run by the New Zealand Defence Force and funded by the Ministry of Social Development will benefit. By taking just a fraction of the future costs and proactively investing and getting these youth employed and skilled within a controlled environment, it makes both social and economic long-term sense for this country.

Clayton Mitchell: What is the Youth Employment Training and Education (YETE) Bill aiming to achieve?

DARROCH BALL: The YETE Bill aims to provide an employment option for those increasing number of youth who are unemployed and disengaged. Currently, there are 91,000 youths who are not in employment, education, or training and who run the risk of incurring high social and fiscal costs to themselves and the country. This bill aims to invest in the front end and give these kids a fair chance.

Youth Employment Training and Education Bill—Funding

9. CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First) to the Member in charge of the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill: How will the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill be funded?

DARROCH BALL (Member in charge of the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill): If the bill is passed, the Youth Employment Training and Education (YETE) programme will be funded by the Ministry of Social Development and run by the New Zealand Defence Force. This is similar to how the current, highly successful Limited Service Volunteer scheme is currently funded and run.

Clayton Mitchell: What are the potential financial costs of the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill?

DARROCH BALL: Currently, those youth who are disengaged from society and are part of the young people not in education, employment, or training rates are costing the country millions of dollars a year through lost earnings, mental health, justice, and social services costs. The YETE programme aims to take just a fraction of those long-term costs and invest it in the front end to get these young people engaged in employment.

Youth Employment Training and Education Bill—Outcomes

10. CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First) to the Member in charge of the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill: What are the potential outcomes for young people who participate in the work scheme introduced by the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill?

DARROCH BALL (Member in charge of the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill): If the bill passes, young people who complete the 3-year contract will leave with a minimum NCEA level 2 in numeracy and literacy, trade training, car and trailer licences, and first aid qualifications, as well as life skills instilled in them in the army environment. They will be work ready at 18.

Clayton Mitchell: What existing successful schemes is the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill based on?

DARROCH BALL: The Limited Service Volunteer (LSV) scheme is a highly successful army-run, 6-week course for young people and has proven to change young people’s lives and get them off State dependence. The Youth Employment Training and Education programme is based on the LSV programme but is wider in scope; introduces trade training, skills training, and education; and is a 3-year residential programme.

Urgent Debates Declined

Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority—Inquiry into Conflicts of Interest

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Dr Megan Woods seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the report and referral to the Serious Fraud Office following a State Services Commission - initiated inquiry by Michael Heron QC into allegations of conflicts of interest and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, and I have received supplementary information in respect of this application. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. As the member notes in her application, any application of impropriety relating to the conduct of public sector employees is a serious one.

In light of the fundings of the report, the State Services Commission has referred the matter to the Serious Fraud Office to consider whether any of the activity is of a potentially criminal nature that requires further investigation. The matter is now with the Serious Fraud Office for investigation. The House is not prevented from debating matters that are under investigation, but it is not likely to assist the administration of justice to do so. While this matter may receive further attention from the House in the future, I do not consider it appropriate to set aside the business of the House today to debate a matter that has just become the subject of a criminal investigation, and the application is therefore declined.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. “We don’t know how lucky we are.” Of course, that is what Jacinda Ardern supporters were thinking last week when Andrew Little was in the dock—“We don’t know how lucky we are, mate.” That is what they were thinking. What a photo opportunity from hell that was for Andrew Little. And then also thinking about John Clarke and his famous words that we also should not forget: “If it weren’t for your gumboots, where would you be?”. Well, in my particular case, in Edgecumbe yesterday I would be standing in half a metre of silt or floodwaters indeed over my Red Band gumboots. My heart goes out all of those people who are affected by the Edgecumbe event, and now it has been broadened out to the Bay of Plenty.

But, importantly, the reason I am going to talk about not only John Clarke but Murray Ball this afternoon is that these two gentlemen are iconic rural people who have connected urban communities. They have brought humour into the households of New Zealand. They have brought humour with their cartoons and the film. When you think about those characters in Footrot Flats—who was it: Wal, Dog, Horse, and Major the pigdog—that gave the ability for everyone to connect to rural communities and have a good old laugh. And we have lost that now.

What we see this afternoon are questions of attack from the Opposition on water quality. Of course, they do not even want to acknowledge what farmers have done in a short period of time. Let us take them back for a step in time. Over the last 10 years or so, farmers have excluded livestock from rivers, water tributaries, streams, and lakes, to the tune of about 26,000 kilometres. Last time I looked, that gets you from here to London, and part of the way back as well. A lot of these fences are now riparian planted. They have nutrient budgets. They are very mindful of the fact that they need to do more. We are now having a discussion with other lowland farmers about moving the dial for them, and we know there is a bit of cost involved. We know that it will require 56,000 kilometres of fencing to occur. We know there are productivity benefits as well as environmental ones.

Farmers are environmentalists. They want to leave the land in a better state than when they came on to it, for their children and their grandchildren. We do not hear that this afternoon in any of the questions from the Labour Party or Green Party members. It is just full-on attack. They would prefer to have a moratorium: no more dairy cows anywhere in New Zealand—in fact, go and kill half of them. You just move farmers into the dole queue. We feed 40 million people. We export to 130 countries around the world. We should be proud of that. We should be proud of the fact that we produce premium food, and we need to do more in terms of environmental sustainability.

But what we do not hear from the other side of the House is that our farmers are doing their utmost, and we want to support them through this. But it is so easy for our Opposition members to have the blame game. It is so easy to cherry-pick Sir Peter Gluckman’s report and say that it is all farming. Well, the reality is that it is to do with urbanisation and it is to do with industry growth. It is pointless looking over your shoulder. It is about moving collectively forward as one.

Iain Lees-Galloway: What a lazy Minister.

Hon NATHAN GUY: And what would Iain Lees-Galloway know in Palmerston North? What would he know? He would never back any farmers in his community. He will never acknowledge the fact that the Manawatū River is being cleaned up under this Government, and the great work that Nick Smith is doing.

Also I want to talk about something that was significant last night, and it focuses in on environmental sustainability. It is to do with our fish stocks. Here is a book that was launched last night: Roughy on the Rise. This orange roughy fishery collapsed in the 1980s and 1990s. Now with science, and third-party accreditation through the marine stewardship certification, we can take a premium product to market. I acknowledge our farmers, I acknowledge our fishers and foresters—they do a fantastic job.

JACINDA ARDERN (Deputy Leader—Labour): Can I just start by saying that John Clarke, given the opportunity, would have done a fine impression of Nathan Guy—an absolutely fine impression. I want to acknowledge John Clarke and I want to acknowledge Murray Ball. They were the epitome of the Kiwi psyche. But I also want to acknowledge them as progressives—as progressives. They reflected back to the New Zealand public the very epitome of the Kiwi psyche, they were our conscience, and I think they were absolutely brilliant at pointing out our national pride and our national shame. When it comes to the two of them, we collectively did not know how lucky we were.

Surely, in politics, the measure of political leadership is your ability to deal with the hard stuff. That is the true measure. And question time today was a reflection of the inability of this Government to deal with the hard stuff. Now, I have actually heard it once said that the true measure of leadership is the ability to confront the anxiety of the people of the time. That is the measure of a leader: the ability to confront the anxiety of the people of the time.

What are the anxieties of the New Zealand people right now? Well, they are not too dissimilar from what we see in the international environment. We saw that when it comes to financial insecurity, that is what captured the American people. Financial insecurity was what captured people in the UK. We have a choice, as politicians, to capture that anxiety and answer it either with a measure of hope or with a measure of disillusionment and hate.

We have a choice here in New Zealand around that as well, because the anxiety of our time is captured by issues like housing. If you take the effect of housing on a person’s life, it affects everything, whether it is your sense of security of place, whether or not it is your disposable income, whether or not it is your ability to send your kids consistently to one school. We have the lowest homeownership rates in New Zealand since 1951.

Dr David Clark: Since when?

JACINDA ARDERN: Since 1951. In 8 years the cost of renting in Auckland has gone up by 40 percent, and one in seven houses are sold to speculators. This is the anxiety of the New Zealand people of our time. But it is not just that. Environmental insecurity—the degradation of our environment, from our waters to our drinking water, to our climate—is also the anxiety of our time. What has this Government done to acknowledge either one of those anxieties? It has kicked the can down the road. It will not even acknowledge that housing is a problem, let alone environmental degradation.

But I want to add another anxiety—a hard one, a difficult one, which the Government has not even acknowledged yet, let alone made gains on. Yesterday the Waitangi Tribunal released its finding that the Crown has breached its Treaty obligations by failing to address high and disproportionate reoffending rates of Māori. It went further—it said that it created a devastating situation for Māori and for the nation. That is more than collective anxiety; that is our collective shame. That is our collective shame. The Government set a key performance indicator around reducing reoffending. Not only has it failed to meet that, it has failed to acknowledge the drivers of the imprisonment rate, let alone the reoffending rate.

I want to go back to those precursors, because I know the Māori Party, in coalition with the Government, has not. It has not gone back and adequately addressed the economic precursors to this situation. But there is another precursor: since the 1950s, a hundred thousand children have been removed from their families.

Meka Whaitiri: How many?

JACINDA ARDERN: A hundred thousand. And that has disproportionately affected Māori children. There is no denying it. We know what the effects of that have been. They have been manifested in our justice system. You cannot visit a prison without having a prison warden tell you the number of individuals in that prison who have been in Child, Youth and Family care. It is an obvious connection that we need to make.

Now, we cannot change history, but we can face up to it. If we had true leadership in this House, we would have an inquiry into State care. We would start addressing our national shame. We would confront it head on. We would learn from the lessons of yesterday and make sure that such would never again happen to the children of tomorrow, and that starts with the children whom we are now imprisoning because of the trauma that they have experienced in the past. That would be leadership.

Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Trade): It has been a difficult couple of weeks for New Zealand and New Zealanders with the passing of two men who brought great enjoyment to so many—Murray Ball and John Clarke. I would like to recognise that for many of us, when we were young, we grew up hearing their stories and learning much more about what it was like to have the life of New Zealanders in our rural areas.

We also have people in Edgecumbe who are facing very difficult times following weather events and flooding there. They know that this House stands behind them and beside them, just as the Government is doing everything that we can to support them. At the same time as that, we now see that there is more bad weather coming to the Bay of Plenty, and we have a Bay of Plenty - wide emergency having been declared. I hear from home, being Rotorua, that at the moment the lakes are very high and the streams, equally, are high, but it is a strong, resilient community; we are all very, very well prepared.

It is a sad day for the House, because yesterday in a speech we heard that we are losing one of our own. David Cunliffe has decided after many years of hard service that he too, like so many New Zealanders, has given up on the Labour Party. As I look through the many leaders that it has had—Goff: he is gone.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Like John Key gave up on the National Party, right?

Hon TODD McCLAY: Shearer: he is gone. Cunliffe is gone, and Little is pretty much gone. Largely, if we look deeper, we have got Jacinda Ardern, and that previous speech was one of the best speeches I have heard from a member of this House, reminiscent of somebody who is more popular than their leader. Largely, the members doth protest too much about their current leader, the highlight of whose career was being listened to by thousands of New Zealanders last week in the dock. That may well happen again.

This country is in very good shape, in terms of the economy, the positiveness of New Zealanders, and the leadership that we have shown. I hear members opposite talk about the former Prime Minister John Key. You can hear a very large degree of envy in their voices, because they wish that Phil Goff, David Shearer, and Cunliffe could have stayed, oh, just for a little bit longer through all of those 8 years. The reason the Government is in such good shape and the country is in such good shape is, fundamentally, economic management.

Dr David Clark: 9 long years.

Hon TODD McCLAY: We have had 9 long years of a Government that is focused on the things that are important to New Zealanders, 9 long years of the Government being re-elected, and 9 long years of that member talking about 9 long years. But, really, when you go out and talk to the public, they are not looking at how long that period has been. They are focused on what is important: that there are more jobs today than there have been in 9 long years, more people employed and in work today than there were over 9 long years, and so much more opportunity for the country.

A couple of weeks ago the Prime Minister launched New Zealand’s trade strategy, a refresh of the direction New Zealand will take when it comes to the importance of trade over the next 10 to 15 years. Called Trade Agenda 2030: Securing our place in the world, it is an ambitious target of what the Government wants to achieve. I want to thank all members of this House who have played a part over the last period of time in the importance of trade. It sets out an ambitious target of 90 percent of New Zealand’s goods trade being covered by free-trade agreements by 2030, up from 53 percent today. If successive New Zealand Governments will not be ambitious on behalf of New Zealand and New Zealand exporters, then nobody will, because nobody owes us anything in the world.

A very important part of achieving this is focusing on non-tariff barriers, issues that businesses raise all of the time. We have applied $90 million of new money to target this to achieve much more. We have announced that we will establish an all-of-Government approach to dealing with non-tariff barriers, today and going into the future. As part of that we have announced a clearing house for non-tariff barriers. This will mean that those who have difficulty and challenges with them will be able to approach the Government through a portal, and it will be the Government’s job, through our agencies, to deal with those to make sure the right people are looking after the challenge, to respond within a 48-hour period, and then to focus on the things that are important for New Zealand businesses. We are establishing a flying squad to make sure, when something happens somewhere in the world that has the possibility of having an impact upon New Zealand exporters as far as non-tariff barriers are concerned, that the funding is there with the people who are experienced to go out and deal with that very quickly.

The final bit of this is recognising that exports are not just about the parts of the economy they have been before—a focus on digital services, on investment, and on services themselves. Again, I welcome the support we have received.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Well, it is interesting sitting here today and listening to the Prime Minister’s answers around decisions made by his Government in policing. I think what is starting to unravel now is that the Prime Minister got it totally wrong when he fired Judith Collins from the police portfolio. Not only did he appoint Paula Bennett to become the Minister of Police, something she is clearly not doing very well at, at all, but his caucus also made her the Deputy Prime Minister. They did what we often see in the Civil Service: they promoted her completely above—completely above—her level of competence and skill. And why do we say this? Why did we say that “Inspector Clouseau” is now the Minister of Police, and that Paula Bennett is a disaster? Well, let us go to the 2 February announcement where the Government talked about their great announcement to increase police staffing by 1,125.

Here it is: “ ‘We’re making a commitment that people in cities, the regions and rural areas will have officers they can call on 24/7,’ Mrs Bennett says. ‘Our commitment is that 95 per cent of New Zealanders will be within 25 kilometres of patrolling police day and night.’ ” Yeah—95 percent of rural New Zealanders, on the back of these announcements, are within 25 kilometres of a patrolling police officer? You have got to be joking. Go to Pongaroa, as I did last weekend. Go to Ākitio. Go to Porangahau. Go to Flat Point. Go anywhere outside of the bubbly little metropolises, be it Auckland or Wellington, and ask rural New Zealanders whether 95 percent of them are within 25 kilometres of a patrolling policeman. What an absolute joke.

These numbers announced today prove a couple of things. One, the promise made by the Minister on 2 February has fallen flat. It is good for her in Auckland, great for her in a leafy lane, and all of the rest of the National Party caucus, who all live in Auckland, but here is a newsflash for Mr Guy, who stood up and gave such a raving, rousing speech in defence of rural New Zealand: rural New Zealanders are way outside of that. What, 40 kilometres, 60 kilometres—how far from a closed police station in Pahīatua is Pongaroa? Well, maybe the member for the Wairarapa should get in his car and drive out there occasionally, and then he would know.

The other promises around policing—let us have a look at 9 February. On 9 February—this shows how out of touch the Minister is—we asked her how many of the police were going to be allocated into rural New Zealand. She did not have an answer. “Oh, it’s the responsibility of the commissioner.” She ducked and dived the question. We pointed out that between 2008 and 2016 there were 215 burglaries in Taihape, for which there were only three arrests—35 cars stolen for three arrests. The last arrest has been in 2013. How many police officers is Taihape going to get? We still do not know. And now we have an announcement saying: “Oh, they are going to keep some police stations open 24/7.” What they do not say is that there are 271 that are not; 271 police stations will not be operating 24/7—271 police stations from which people in rural New Zealand will not get a patrolling officer.

Are we meant to hail and applaud this Government for its wonderful initiative that it has announced on increasing police numbers? Well, let us have a look at what the Police asked for. The Police gave the Government three options. The first was prevention, to change the trajectory of rising crime. That is not our comment. That is the Commissioner of Police’s comment—rising crime—that blows into the ether those members’ assertions that crime is going down. That was prevention to change it. It gave the Government another option: targeted crime response—this is the dollar-down one, is it not? And then there was an option for meeting demand pressures—this is just going to keep your nose above water, but you are treading water like fury. Which one did the Government go for? Did it go for the best option for New Zealanders, for the safety and security of rural New Zealanders? No, it did not. It went for the el cheapo model. Did it approve the 1,450 officers that Police actually asked for? No, it did not. It gave it the dumbed down, cheapo model, which will do absolutely nothing for the people in Northland, the Wairarapa, Hawke’s Bay, Bay of Plenty, or any other rural province you care to look at.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. This afternoon’s debate, in terms of the speakers who have spoken so far, really manifests the difference between those of us here on the Government benches and those in Opposition. The anger and the pessimism that are just coming off in waves from the Opposition are not what New Zealanders are interested in. They do want people who are ambitious and aspirational, positive and optimistic, constructive and productive on their behalf, and who are focused all the time on refresh and refresh.

Ron Mark: Why is the member leaving?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The member keeps asking why I am leaving. It is because I do not see this role as a sinecure for life because I cannot get another job. I see this as an opportunity to make a difference. I have been privileged to be the Minister of Education, and I am working right up to the time that I will stand down, and I stand down at a time of my choosing. I do so on behalf of a Government with a strong caucus full of potential, any one of whom can willingly and ably fill the footsteps of someone such as me.

I want to take the opportunity of this general debate to talk about this small, smart, sassy nation of Aotearoa New Zealand. This Government absolutely believes in the possibilities of this country and has invested in those being realised. In terms of the economy, we know that for the past 8 years this Government, year on year, has built the strength in this economy, which realises the expectation of New Zealanders, which backs small-business people to be successful, which backs employers to employ more people, and which sees New Zealanders keeping more of their hard-earned cash and understanding that that which they entrust to us the Government in tax is going to be spent as prudently as possibly.

It is in the interests of this fabulous nation that all of us work. The previous speaker on this side of the House, Todd McClay, as Minister of Trade supported the Prime Minister to announce Trade Agenda 2030, which is all about how we continue to trade successfully overseas. We have to trade in order to afford the First World economic aspects we want for ourselves. We have to have relationships with export markets all round the world. To do that successfully, we need to make sure that we have New Zealanders capable of understanding the particular interests of those counties. We are outward-looking, unlike the Opposition, which is very inward-looking and very downward-looking. We have our eyes raised to the horizon and beyond, and we know the potential.

As Minister of Education I completely understand that a great education is the cornerstone of young people being able to realise their own aspirations and their own dreams. That is why we have been prepared to be publicly accountable. As we have said, we want all 18-year-olds—as many as possible; at minimum, 85 percent—achieving our minimum qualification. It is why we put in place vocational pathways, so that our young people can be participants in this export-led economy. It is why the Opposition member over there celebrates the increase in Pasifika students having more qualifications than they have ever had before. It is a pity that the member over there, Ron Mark, does not celebrate the number of Māori who are doing better than they ever have before. The member instead wants to wring his hands and make character attacks on Ministers who work extremely hard to support communities, whether in terms of law and order, their safety and security, the increase in policing, the expansion of ultra-fast broadband and ICT to make sure that we are a connected country, the freshness of our water, or the backing of our primary resource space. This Government understands that it is not a binary proposition where either we have farming or we have clean water; we are devoted to both.

We completely understand that it is the skills and qualifications of young New Zealanders that will secure our future. That is why, as Minister of Education, with the complete backing of this ambitious Government, we have invested in every young person being as successful as they possibly can be. That is why the provisional results for 2016—here we will take a pause because we will give you a chance to be celebratory—show that over 85 percent of our 18-year-olds will have the minimum qualification. So the Opposition can go on and on about what is wrong and what it would not do; we are all about what we will do, what we have done, and what we will continue to promise this country.

JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): We need to talk about the weather. So far, in 2017, it has been wild. Last week Cyclone Debbie tore through the North Island, and today another cyclone is tearing down upon us. There have always been cyclones, of course, in New Zealand, but two in the space of a week is not normal. Of course, 2017 has not been a normal year, has it? While we were having the worst summer imaginable here in Wellington, the farmers of Hawke’s Bay did not see rain for months. In Christchurch it was so dry that when the Port Hills caught fire the images looked more like an Australian bushfire. They were not the only wildfires this summer, were they? There were wildfires around Queenstown, Marlborough, Coromandel, and Hawke’s Bay.

And then came the floods. In Northland they went from being parched to being inundated inside of a month. Shops in New Lynn have been flooded twice already this year. In March the people of Coromandel found themselves completely cut off from the rest of the country by floodwater. Then, of course, last week was ex-tropical Cyclone Debbie. The people of Edgecumbe felt it the most, and they are still not home and there is more trouble on the way today.

We asked the Prime Minister last Tuesday whether he thought that, just possibly, climate change might be causing all of this wild weather, and do you know what he said? I am going to quote him: “I don’t think it matters too much.”—he said—“We don’t spend time trying to connect the two.” That is a remarkable thing to say. I cannot think of any other catastrophe in New Zealand when the Prime Minister has decided that he did not need to know what the cause was. Think about that. When somebody has cancer, you do not ignore the cigarettes. When there has been a car accident, you do not ignore the smell of alcohol on the driver’s breath. When the people of Havelock North start getting sick, you do not ignore what is in that water. But that is exactly what the Prime Minister is proposing here.

The thing is, the causes of this weather do matter. They matter to the people of Edgecumbe. They matter to the people of the Coromandel, Northland, Hawke’s Bay, and Canterbury. They matter to the homeowners in Christchurch who faced down wildfires for 2 whole days.

Climate change is causing more floods, more fires, and more droughts, and we need a Government that is ready to help ordinary New Zealanders to prepare for what is coming. We need a Government that is actually willing to admit that there is a problem. We need a Government that will admit that sea levels are rising. We need a Government that will admit that storms are happening more frequently and that they are getting worse, that droughts are longer and deeper, and that climate change is actually a problem. And we need a Government that is willing to step up and actually do something about it—not talk; do something about it. Greenhouse gas emissions in this country have risen 19 percent since this Government came to office. We need a Government that can recognise that solving climate change is actually a change for the better.

Right now this Government is acting like an addict—an addict who cannot admit that they have a problem with climate change—and we cannot afford to wait for it to hit rock bottom before things change. It is time to change the Government, and change is coming.

MELISSA LEE (National): My turn came a little bit more suddenly than I was anticipating. When I first came into this House as a member of Parliament, it was back in 2008 at the end of a 9-year Labour Government. It was back when a stadium full of New Zealanders headed overseas for what we called a “brighter future”. Well, things have changed much since then, and the economy under National has been growing ahead of our global friends, despite the natural disasters that the learned colleague from the Green side has been talking about. Despite conflicts and strife abroad, we have worked for New Zealand families and pushed New Zealand on the world’s stage, and have seen our country get to the forefront of trade and industry across the globe. As a result, we no longer have planeloads of our best and brightest leaving our shores and leaving our country. They are staying because this is the country that is providing the brighter future for them.

Look at the amazing trade relations we have with countries around the world, and the excellent free-trade agreements we have signed with our partners to further both our nation’s capacity and economic growth. With recent visits by the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who agreed to update the China - New Zealand free-trade agreement in a way that benefits both our countries, the memorandum of cooperation that allows for exports of chilled meats to enter China will be a huge benefit to our beef and lamb industries, as the Chinese population looks for better food alternatives and better access to a greater variety of world-class products from overseas, and we are willing to provide that. We are also improving our relations by opening a high commission in Sri Lanka to increase access to business as well as establishing an embassy in Dublin, symbolising the growing relationship that New Zealand has with our trade and international partners across the globe and across cultures.

This Government’s books have again exceeded forecasts, with a $1.4 billion surplus for the 8 months to February, due to better tax revenue, lower expenditure, and the Government’s strong economic management in the face of adversity from earthquakes, floods, and other unforeseeable disasters. Our regions are growing as well. If we look at some of the numbers, it is quite astonishing. The Bay of Plenty, which has the largest ports, obtained a massive 7.7 percent increase in GDP. Auckland, our largest city, has grown 6 percent.

I would be a bit remiss if I do not mention a recent trip overseas, via the Inter-Parliamentary Union, to the European Parliament and the United Kingdom at the end of last month with two of my colleagues. I see one of them sitting across the Chamber—Tracey Martin. A notable part of the visit was meeting with the Scottish National Party MP Angus MacNeil, chair of the International Trade Committee, and also with a member of the Labour Party, Hilary Benn, who was chair of the Exiting the European Union Committee and son of a man whom many of those opposite might recognise—Mr Tony Benn.

Meeting with these members, in Opposition to the current United Kingdom Government obviously, was enlightening because their support for New Zealand was spectacular. Our engagement as an international trade partner and as a global citizen was fantastic. The same was true also in the European Union with members of Parliament whom we met in Brussels. They were full of praise for New Zealand and our way of life and our way of doing things. I thank members Tracey Martin and the Hon Annette King, who were champions for the virtues of the great free-trading nation that we are. It was a wonderful trip.

I do not have a lot of time left but I just want to mention that New Zealanders and our servicemen are still looked upon fondly with reverence by the people of Belgium to whom so many of our youth sacrificed to keep their nation free a century ago, during World War 1. In visiting gravesites in Tyne Cot, Ypres, Messines, and St Quentin, we came to a brand new burial site of unknown New Zealand soldiers brought there to rest only a few days earlier. I had the distinct privilege of laying a very small scroll there for the Grey Lynn Returned Services Club, who gave it to me to do that. In Ieper, where they hold The Last Post ceremony under the Menin Gate, it was a privilege to read the ode For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon of behalf of New Zealanders, veterans and widows, and active service personnel. As Anzac Day approaches, I just want to say that I will remember all of them, and I hope that other members in this House do too.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): New Zealanders are rightly proud of the rating that we get from Transparency International. We are usually around No. 1 or 2 for lack of corruption and transparency in our country. That is why it was so concerning to read the report into the alleged conflicts of interest at the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) that was released yesterday. We congratulate the State Services Commissioner on commissioning this report and we welcome its finding.

This is a Government that has shown over the last 8 and a bit years that it has been willing to govern by virtue of facilitation payments. We saw it in the Saudi sheep deal, and now, disturbingly, in this report we see allegations that members who were employed by a public entity were lining their own pockets through their public knowledge. This is not something we are used to seeing in this country, nor is it something that we should tolerate. We were used to shades of black and white in our Public Service in terms of the standards that we expected of them. The shades of grey that we are seeing creeping in are simply not acceptable. What we are seeing here is not something that any Government should be willing to tolerate. It is time that the Minister who is responsible, Gerry Brownlee, took some leadership and took some responsibility.

Only today—the day after this report was published—we found that it was not just the three individuals who were originally brought into question and the two who have been referred to the Serious Fraud Office for further investigation, but today we learnt from Andrew Kibblewhite that there are three further individuals who were employees of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority who are subject of another inquiry. What is the investigation going to entail? It is going to take a look at the shopping list of names that has been supplied to it. There is no political will from this Government to get to the root of what kind of culture was operating within CERA when at least five employees saw that it was acceptable to set up private interests that would directly profit off their public sector jobs. That is not what happens in this country. What was the culture that was operating within CERA that allowed this to exist?

Even more concerning is that there were internal investigations done of these very issues that the Heron report looked at. Did it find that any wrongdoing was done? No, it did not. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet was not able to get to the root of what was happening inside this organisation. We need to have a systemic look at what was going on, because it is not good enough.

The two individuals who have been referred for further investigation by the Serious Fraud Office were so well-thought-of within the organisation that when the new entity came to replace the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, Ōtākaro Ltd, their employment was transferred. Their employment was transferred because they were seen as doing such a sterling job—these men who have allegedly set up a private company to profit off their public knowledge. This is not good enough. This is not the standard that any politician in this House should tolerate from our public sector.

The Minister needs to take some responsibility and ensure that Cantabrians can have faith in the integrity of their rebuild. We look around our city and we see delayed anchor projects. We see the Crown has not done its bit on getting our central city back up and running. On this side, we see that within the very entity that was responsible for getting those projects off the ground, there were individuals who were, potentially, more concerned with making private profit than getting our city back on its feet. Gerry Brownlee, as the Minister supporting Greater Christchurch Regeneration, must take responsibility for this.

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): This morning I had the great privilege of returning to my electorate in Hamilton to attend a very poignant ceremony that was held at Hamilton West School. I was given the privilege of both delivering an address and helping to unveil a plaque honouring 26 former pupils of that school who were killed in World War I. Members of the public may not be aware that it is fairly rare to be able to return to one’s electorate on a sitting day, so I would particularly like to thank the very benevolent senior Government whip who made it possible for me to do so.

I was impressed by the children and the school and the real interest that they showed in the stories that some older people told about people from that school who had gone to war. I just want to acknowledge, as we approach Anzac Day, that this year we are commemorating the centenary of some of the most tragic and horrific losses that occurred at the Western Front. I know that on Anzac Day, yet again, New Zealanders will turn up in great numbers to honour those who fought, particularly those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

Members of Parliament usually enjoy each other’s maiden speeches and their valedictory addresses, even if we seldom appreciate much of what our opponents contribute between those two significant events. In recent weeks we have had outstanding addresses, first from the Rt Hon John Key—

Fletcher Tabuteau: Case in point.

TIM MACINDOE: Thank you, Professor Tabuteau. I always particularly enjoy your contributions, memorable as they are. We have had a very, very fine contribution from the Rt Hon John Key, full of his trademark self-deprecating humour, some very entertaining anecdotes, but also really interesting and incisive comments on some of the dramatic events that he had to deal with during his 8 and a bit years as Prime Minister of this country, such as the Canterbury earthquakes, the global financial crisis, the Pike River tragedy, and many other challenges.

Last night we farewelled another gifted orator from this House, a former Minister in the Clark Government and, at the time of the last general election, the Leader of the Opposition: the Hon David Cunliffe. I just want to say that both of those men have served this country well. It has clearly been a great honour for them to hold those offices. I thank them and their families for the support that they have given during that time, and I wish them both well for the next stages of their careers. I also want to acknowledge my very good friend the Hon Hekia Parata, who has this afternoon given her final speech as the Minister of Education. Her passion, vigour, energy, and, most importantly, achievements have been outstanding, and I place on record my considerable admiration and gratitude to her.

I have always been a very proud member of this Government. We have governed through very tough times; there is no doubt of that. The global financial crisis and the recession that New Zealand was already in when we came into office really knocked New Zealanders around. But we are now back in surplus. Jobs are growing at an exciting rate. We are back up and running with one of the best growth rates in the Western World—in the OECD. That has not come about by accident; it has come about by hard work by all New Zealanders and good policy and leadership from a focused Government. We must not put that at risk by succumbing now to demands for all sorts of spending promises without ensuring that we continue to manage the way that the economy is able to continue to grow.

That is why this afternoon National Government speakers have been talking about the importance of trade, because our trading arrangements are absolutely crucial to our future prosperity. That is why the Prime Minister recently set out the National-led Government’s commitment to forging and improving trade ties and further investment to achieve that under the new trade strategy, Trade Agenda 2030. We have set an ambitious trading goal of having free-trade agreements cover 90 percent of New Zealand’s goods exports by 2030, which will be up from 53 percent today. It is a major challenge, and it is one I am firmly behind.

In the remaining time that I have, could I just say how concerned we all are at the reports of yet another devastating cyclone bearing down on the upper North Island, and particularly on the Bay of Plenty. Our sympathy, as the Minister for Primary Industries mentioned earlier, is particularly with the people of Edgecumbe, who have suffered so much, but all of the people in the wider Bay of Plenty and central North Island region. Could I finally take this opportunity to wish you, Mr Assistant Speaker, all members of this House, our families, and all the many staff who work so well to support us in this Chamber a very happy Easter. It is a very important and blessed time of the year, and we all, I think, are ready for a break. I wish all the families the very best, and may the Easter bunny find us.

MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā, and thank you to the previous speaker, Tim Macindoe, who wished us all a happy Easter. I am certainly looking forward to getting more than a few hours on Sunday home with the whānau, as I am sure almost everybody else in the House is. One thing I have learnt from being in Parliament, as an apprentice MP for the last 2 years, is that the people of this House come because they share a united passion: a united passion to make New Zealand the best country—or to enhance our beautiful country, in fact, and make it the best country possible by working in their individual electorates and in the House. We may differ on how we get there, but there is one thing for certain: every member of this House comes to this House to do the best job possible for their people, for their whānau, and for this nation.

It is with this in mind that I want to just set the record straight on a few things, and I call it the myth-busting 4 minutes with Marama Fox. Let us start with the myth that no one owns the water. Let us just go straight to that one, shall we, because I tell you now: as soon as you allocate the water, someone owns it, all right. In fact, that enhances the value of their property. It makes the value of a farm greater if you have a greater allocation of water, and when you sell your farm you can, in fact, sell your water allocation separately. So no one owns the water? Well, in fact, yes they do.

If we go down further: no benefit will come from having a royal commission of inquiry into institutional abuse of children in this nation. Well, that has to be the biggest myth of them all. We need to lift the plaster off the scab and reveal what has been hidden in this nation that makes us one of the fifth-worst abusers of our children. It is endemic across our society; it does not belong to any one people or any one particular socio-economic group. In fact, it belongs to all of us. It is a societal problem, and until we reveal exactly the depth and breadth of the problem of sexual abuse of our children in this country, then we will never overcome it if we continue to hide it. That is myth No. 2.

In the 2 minutes I have remaining—I had better hurry up—myth No. 3: building a whole lot of houses will solve the housing crisis. Well, there is some truth to that, but not if they are not affordable. We do not need another 11,000 million-dollar homes; we need another 20,000 $300,000 homes. We need another 20,000-odd just in one place; homes big enough to house families. I tell you what an affordable home in Auckland in the middle of a development gives you: it gives you two bedrooms in a townhouse—upstairs, downstairs—without a car-park and just a carport at low spec. If you are a family of five or more, three or more, or four or more in this country and you try to get an affordable home in Auckland, you had better just give that wish up and try to find a way to buy the house you are currently renting, because it is already out of control. So there is another one.

Here is another myth: the myth that Te Ture Whenua Maori Act reforms will erode Treaty of Waitangi rights. That is a myth. The Treaty of Waitangi is central to the application of laws affecting Māori land. That the Māori land records will be handed over to Land Information New Zealand (LINZ)—another myth that shall not be further perpetuated amongst the lips of the members, because now I have told them that it is a myth. I am hoping that they will have some faith in me as a member, because I have actually read the bill. The Māori land records will not reside with LINZ; they will reside with the Māori Land Service.

Here is another myth: that the bill denies Māori the right to appeal the Māori Land Service decisions. That is a myth. You have every right to go to the Māori Land Court.

Here is another myth: Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill strips the Māori Land Court of its powers. It does not; the mana of the Māori Land Court will be strengthened. In fact, it will be given powers to adjudicate over things that, currently, you have to go to the High Court for. If I had it my way, do you know what? I would have kōti rangatahi, kōti matariki, kōti whenua Māori, and kōti Māori united together to become the kōti Māori in this whenua.

And with my last remaining 10 seconds, here is the last myth. The last myth that people hold to is that a vote for the Māori Party is a vote for National. I tell you now, a vote for Māori is a vote of faith in ourselves that we can be the change makers in this nation.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak about the electricity sector in New Zealand at the moment. I start by highlighting the fact that this Government has certainly shown no tender, loving care for the people of Taranaki - King Country. People are trying to live their lives and run their businesses under a regime that is dictatorial and impenetrable. This is a company whose spokesperson told stakeholders not to worry about a certain complainant as they would die soon. This typifies this company.

Actually, earlier on in the day the Minister was technically correct when she earlier referenced an inquiry by the Commerce Committee. It is true—it simply found no laws were broken in the undertaking of that business. Minister, do you not think that when people are literally dying, when they are getting sick and showing symptoms that arise from cold and damp homes—more than any other part of the country—that it would be appropriate for this Government to intervene, even that one? When councillors and mayors cry out for help, trying to tell that National Government that their businesses are dying and that their region is being strangled, did she not think that perhaps, in this instance, the free market was not working—that a region and its people needed their Government to show some leadership and take charge.

The Lines Company has accepted the report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, and soon we will have some transparency, which I respect and agree with. But with a weak and under-resourced Commerce Commission, which the Minister kept referencing in her replies to questions today—we have a weak Commerce Commission, and she cannot and would not give assurances to the people and the businesses of Taranaki - King Country that they will actually be better off under this new pricing methodology. She certainly did not give any assurances that that Government would be looking out for those people.

New Zealand First wants everyone in their homes today to know that their residential power prices have exploded 148 percent since National’s so-called reforms—reforms that were sold to Kiwis under the pretence that the market could do it better and make it cheaper for them. National has created a retail electricity market mess. Those members opposite need to know that electricity used to be about 11c per unit. Now it is about 29c per unit, on average. Minister, Kiwi homes are paying 148 percent more for their power today than they did when the reforms started. Let us be honest about it. That bears absolutely no relationship to general price increases. That bears absolutely no relationship to inflation. Power prices have in fact galloped a whopping 69 percent ahead of inflation over this period.

There have been winners. Of course there have been winners in this arrangement, but they have not been our Kiwi consumers, farmers, or small business. Most especially they have not been our Kiwi exporters, who could use a real competitive advantage right now—not the spin from the National Government about 90 percent full-time equivalents. It is rubbish.

Wholesale power prices are incredibly low right now, but power prices are so high for Kiwis in their homes and in their businesses. Someone is gouging the industry, and we want to know who that is, Minister. For the last year or so the Electricity Authority has been running rampant, scaring regional New Zealand with its idiotic theories on distribution pricing charges. It has been shown and proven that the Electricity Authority’s proposed price increases will lead to thousands of job losses, and we have now heard that Kiwi businesses have been scared off and have decided not to invest in their businesses in our country because they do not know the lay of the land.

Let us be clear. New Zealand First will take action. The electricity industry must take heed of this message today. New Zealanders had better be paying substantially less for their electricity, because we will hold it to account. Thank you.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): I would just like to pick up where Fletcher Tabuteau left off, with the Electricity Authority. The Far North, in fact, is going to be hit particularly hard. There is one business I know in Kaitāia that employs some 300 staff. Its power bill looks set to go from $400,000 a year to $900,000 a year. That business will totally compromise the town of Kaitāia if it disappears.

The district health board does not know what is going to hit it, in terms of the price rises. I rang the CEO of the Northland District Health Board a week or so ago to ask him how the Electricity Authority proposal is going to affect them. He actually did not know anything about it, and he was really concerned, because, as we know, district health boards are struggling for funds and their budgets are completely compromised. This will quite possibly tip the Northland District Health Board over the edge.

As I listen to the speeches of the members opposite, I sit here and marvel at their ability to talk about—well, basically, to bounce from cloud to cloud to cloud and not recognise the real problems that are going on in New Zealand. We just need to look at the housing crisis that has been going for a long time. It is ongoing. People cannot afford those affordable houses. The supply just is not there. There are still people living in cars. There are still people who are struggling to rent. There are people being put up in motels. That is a real crisis that this Government just fails to address.

Then we look at issues such as water quality. There are some rivers around the country where I am scared that if I walk through them in my jandals, my jandals will dissolve. There is a creek up north, on our land, that is completely bound by native forest, but I have noticed over the last few years that there is a lot of algae growing on the rocks. It is very, very significant. I asked an expert why he thought that was. I thought that maybe it is pollution or nutrient run-off, which I thought was a bit strange, since the creek is totally bush-bound. He said: “Well, how many eels have you been catching lately?”. I said: “Well, there’s not many, actually.” He said: “That’ll be the problem. The eel life, the animal life, in the creek is dying off, so there’s nothing there to eat the algae on the rocks.” That is a concern for me and our creek up in the North.

One of the biggest bungles, though, that the Government has made over the last few years has been in Corrections. Yesterday the Waitangi Tribunal produced the report into the lack of progress about the reoffending of Māori prisoners. First of all, we need to look at why Māori disproportionately go into prison in the first place. Over 50 percent of our prison population is Māori. People say: “Well, it is because Māori commit too much crime.” We just need to look at The Hui programme on Sunday and at what has happened to those men. Marama Fox touched on it earlier. There needs to be an inquiry into abuse in State care.

That programme, The Hui, shows why there are a number of Māori in prison. Their families have been dysfunctional. We can go into the long history of why many Māori families live in dysfunction. But then there is the abuse that occurred. They were taken out of their families. They were meant to be put in the safe care of the State, and what happened was that the abuse was, in many cases, a lot worse than the abuse they were taken out of.

Too many men, too many boys, and too many young women have been abused in State care and abused in their dysfunctional families. That means that they are more likely to grow up with mental health issues and with alcohol and drug abuse issues. None of those issues are ever really meaningfully addressed in prisons. So we are throwing people in prison at a great rate of knots. There are over 10,000 people in prisons now. They go there, apparently there are rehabilitation programmes, but the Corrections annual report itself says that many of those programmes produce results that are less than statistically significant.

So rehabilitation is not working. These people are not getting the support, the counselling, that they need to address those core issues that caused their offending in the first place. So they do go on to have alcohol problems, drug problems, and that exacerbates their offending. If it is never addressed, when they come out of prison it is only a matter of time before they commit another crime and go back into prison. This Government has not done nearly enough to address that.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 22 March.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Members, when we were debating the first reading of the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill, Clayton Mitchell was speaking and has 30 seconds remaining if he wishes.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I thought I had 40 seconds, but I will take the 30. As this draws to a close, I have to say it feels like a battle that we may well have lost, when it goes to the vote very shortly, but it is not by far. It is certainly not a war that is over. New Zealand First will absolutely continue to fight to ensure that we get the broadcasting of games of national significance live and free to air. As we get close to this election, on 23 September, we will be telling the people of New Zealand exactly where these people, the lobbyists, sit—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 26

Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 95

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Land Transport (Vehicle User Safety) Amendment Bill

First Reading

JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): I move, That the Land Transport (Vehicle User Safety) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to consider the bill. I am going to channel Assistant Speaker Mallard’s advice to backbenchers and give a first-reading speech without reading a speech written word for word.

This bill is an unashamed and genuine attempt to deal with and assist local members from my electorate and around Auckland with an issue that motorists in Auckland and other parts of New Zealand deal with on a regular basis, and that is the issue of window washers. Window washers are well known to many individuals who use the roads and sit at traffic lights on a regular basis. Window washers, both in Auckland—

Iain Lees-Galloway: Is that hand movement deliberate?

JAMI-LEE ROSS: Yes, thank you, Mr Lees-Galloway. The issue of window washers is not just a safety issue; it is also a law and order issue. It is a safety issue because the window washers at intersections are not just putting themselves at risk—and they do so by running in and out of traffic—they actually cause quite a nuisance at intersections to those who use vehicles. They also can be relatively intimidating for those who are—[Interruption] Excuse me, Mr Tabuteau?

Fletcher Tabuteau: You don’t think that might be an existing offence?

JAMI-LEE ROSS: Well, I will get to that, Mr Tabuteau. I will get to that, Mr Tabuteau, if you just listen. The issue of window washers is that they cause intimidation and they cause a nuisance at intersections. The Auckland Council and many councils around the country get, literally, hundreds of complaints on a regular basis about the issue of window washers. As local members of Parliament, we meet regularly with New Zealand Police and we meet regularly with business associations in the Auckland area, and this is a consistent complaint that I have been receiving as a member of Parliament.

Investigating the issue around window washers, it is obvious that Auckland Council has a by-law around them, and other councils around the country have by-laws around window washers too. It usually fits within the nuisance provisions that councils have in their schemes of by-laws. The trouble with by-laws is that they are enforceable only if it is easy and effective for a local authority to enforce them. The trouble with window washers, and the trouble with the safety and nuisance issues that they create, is that dealing with window washers and enforcing the by-law requires a local authority to take a prosecution through the District Court. That is time-consuming, and that is very costly to the ratepayer. For a local authority’s individual staff member to attempt to gain a name and address from a window washer—that also poses safety issues for the staff members of the local authority.

New Zealand Police—in Auckland, particularly—has been actively involved in dealing with window washers. The New Zealand Police district commanders in the three Auckland districts have written to the Auckland Council in previous years, giving their support for the Auckland Council’s desire for an infringement regime to be established for window washers. The Auckland Council is firmly of the view that an infringement regime would be a far better way for it to deal with window washers. It would be far better for it because it would not require the council to go through the court system for prosecutions, and it would also mean that New Zealand Police would be able to tackle window washing effectively.

You may ask why New Zealand Police is quite involved with dealing with window washers. Window washers are on council roads, typically, and it is an issue that is a nuisance issue, which, typically, a council deals with. But the reason why New Zealand Police has spoken directly to me, as a local member of Parliament—and they talk consistently with the Auckland Council about window washers—is the ongoing, detrimental effects that window washers can have and the wider issues around them.

If one goes and researches and searches for news articles around window washing, one can come up with many, many examples of where window washers have caused other issues and other problems around the area where they are window washing. If I can read out some articles for the House: “Driver attacked by window washers” is a Radio New Zealand article, based in Greenlane. “Window washers attack schoolchildren in Auckland” is an example of a news article from Epsom. An article from Whangarei says: “ ‘I’m terrified of them’—fear in Whangarei over window washers”. An individual has said: “I’m feeling intimidated—actually, I’m terrified of them and generally try to avoid these intersections where possible.” In Rotorua—Mr Tabuteau might like this—“A police chief has labelled intersection window washers ‘criminals and drugs addicts’ who are prone to ‘irrational and aggressive’ behaviour.” In Christchurch we have: “Police are becoming increasingly worried by the behaviour of the windscreen washers and want the Christchurch City Council to give them authority to seize their equipment and prosecute them under the council’s public places bylaw.”

I readily accept that this is not the biggest crime of the century, but it is something that the likes of the Auckland Council and other councils around the country are dealing with on a regular basis. The Auckland Council tells me that, in 2015, it received 335 complaints around window washing. In 2016 the council received 413 complaints around window washing. When we have examples of people who are engaging in this activity going on to harass motorists, going on to intimidate motorists, when we have school children being attacked as well—and school children who are being harassed by individuals engaging in this—and we see other offences escalating out of that activity, then we have to ask ourselves whether this is something we should be assisting the councils with.

The council has firmly said to me, as a local MP—and it will say to anyone, I am sure, who is willing to listen—that a more effective method for dealing with window washers would be by way of an infringement notice. We already have an existing regime around land transport, through the Land Transport Act, where there is an infringement regime in place. A suggestion that was made to me was that a fine of $150, which fits in well with these types of offences under the Land Transport Act, would be an effective way to deal with this.

Now, I do not expect that police are going to be sitting at every intersection, watching for window washers; they are not going to do that. But New Zealand Police has a genuine concern that the activity of window washers, particularly where it involves youth gangs, can lead to other unsociable activities and can lead to other issues in an area. The police are of the view that if they have a tool in their tool box that they can use to move window washers on from an intersection, there will be a reduction in violence around intersections, there will be a reduction in antisocial behaviour, and there will be a reduction in complaints and the potential safety hazards that are around window washers—for themselves, when they run in and out of traffic, and for the motorists who are there who, from time to time, can find it quite intimidating. The police are firmly of the view that if they can tackle issues in the hot spots where they arise, that can be an effective method for dealing with them.

Not every intersection in the country has a problem—I accept that. But there are hot spots in Auckland and other parts of the country where window washing has been excessive and has led to problems. When we are getting hundreds of complaints, when we are getting many, many individuals concerned for their safety and feeling intimidated, and when local authorities are spending, literally, tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, clogging up court time through the District Court by taking prosecutions, a more simple and effective option—by giving police the tool available to them to issue infringement notices under the Land Transport Act—would, I believe, be a more effective tool.

I just want to touch—as I have got a few minutes remaining—on gang involvement. One of the concerns that I have had expressed to me very strongly is that this is not just individuals wanting to earn a few bucks here and there every hour; there is a strong presence of gangs involved in this particular activity as well, where gangs have been using the activity of window washing for recruitment and initiation. Where gangs are getting involved and where there is an escalation of antisocial behaviour out of an activity, I think that we can help the council and help Aucklanders more effectively with this issue.

It will also help other areas too. As I mentioned with these news articles, Christchurch, Rotorua, and Nelson are all experiencing problems around window washers from time to time. I am advised by the Auckland Council that the typical fine for a window washer prosecution is $200 to $400; however, the cost that the council incurs is up to $5,000. It currently has 61 offenders that are being prosecuted and dealt with by the courts, but there are approximately 170 cases being prepared and submitted for prosecution as well. This is not a one-off thing that happens from time to time, and it is not just a small issue that occurs; it is a genuine safety and law and order issue that I am trying to deal with as a local MP.

I want to say thanks to New Zealand Police for its advice on issues around this. I want to say thanks to Grant Barnes, Councillor Dick Quax, and former councillor Calum Penrose for their advice from the Auckland Council around this as well. I think this is a simple and effective option to assist with a road safety and law and order issue. We can assist councils around the country by passing this amendment bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call Stuart Nash, I just want to place something on the record. I have, over a period of time, been relatively hard on members who have read their speeches. I think members should note that we have just had an introduction speech on a first reading, from a member who was clearly well prepared and had a number of notes, but did not read his speech at all. I think it is a very good example not only to other members but also to senior colleagues on both sides of the House.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): Labour will be supporting the Land Transport (Vehicle User Safety) Amendment Bill because I think it is a pragmatic solution to an identified issue. Let me relay just a couple of stories. First of all, I remember when this started, actually. When I used to live in Auckland, on the corner of Pitt Street and—I cannot remember; there is a really big intersection there. It started off with one muscly guy who used to wear a bandana, washed a whole lot of windows, and people would sort of smile at him and give him a couple of coins. I am sure he made a whole lot of money. He did this for about a year, and then it caught on and spread like wildfire.

By the time I had left Auckland—I worked down at the Auckland University of Technology’s south campus—window washers had become a real pest, to the point where you would see everyone pull up to an intersection and put on their windscreen wipers just to make sure that they were not annoyed. So I understand what Jami-Lee Ross is saying, and I understand the problem that we have got. But the interesting thing about how this bill is drafted is that it is very—how do I say this—sort of National Government in the way that it reads. First of all, it talks about how the purpose of this bill is to provide for greater safety of road users. It does not talk about the guys who are running back and forth and washing the windows themselves—do not worry about them, they are not important; it is the people in the Audis and the big cars.

The other thing that is important is that, in fact, we have got to address the issues that lead to people washing windows, as opposed to window washers themselves. I actually see window washing, or the people—usually young kids, because they are not that old, often—out there washing windows as symptomatic of something that is wrong in our communities. If we took the extreme definition of innovation and entrepreneurship, I suppose what they are doing—let us leave the whole gang problem aside—is they are getting out there, they are earning a bit of money, and they are washing windows. The problem is the way in which they are doing it has become intimidatory, and it has moved away from sort of “OK, here’s a couple of young men making some pocket money.”, to a number of people perceiving that this is actually antisocial, this is bad, and it makes them feel unsafe.

When we talk about unsafe—it is interesting, when Rudy Giuliani took over as the Mayor of New York it was talked about as the “ungovernable city”. Crime was rife and it was in a really bad shape. The first thing that Rudy Giuliani did was he got rid of all the window washers. There was a perception that there were thousands of these window washers around New York; as it turned out there were only about 450 of them. They got rid of all the window washers and immediately—well, according to Rudy Giuliani himself, so this might be a little bit of massaging history—this was the first step in reclaiming New York back, and the perception was that the city had become a whole lot safer.

Again, I am assuming that maybe the tactics used by New York window washers were a little bit more aggressive than maybe the ones used in New Zealand, but the point I am making is that if people in their cars are actually feeling unsafe, or if they are feeling intimidated in any way, shape, or form, and if the police feel as if there is not a decent mechanism to deal with it, then we do have an issue. I think that this bill does address this issue in a way that we will certainly support to the select committee, and unless there is a compelling reason that we hear in the select committee, I cannot see why we would not support it all the way through. The reason I say that this is a pragmatic solution is, again, that the member outlined the process that police currently have to go through in order to get a prosecution. It is enormous cost, and our courts, as they are, are reasonably clogged, so you end up spending $4,000 to get $200 back, which just does not seem like a good use of resource.

The interesting thing is that we have another issue that is very, very similar, and, in fact, an exact same recommendation on how to deal with this was put forward, but it was rejected. If you can indulge me for a minute, we have a billion dollars per annum worth of retail crime. It is the same process: you get a shoplifter, the police have to bring them in, they have got to put them before the courts, and charge them under the Crimes Act. You may get a $200 or $300 fine, but it costs $2,000 or $3,000. The Retailers Association suggested an infringement notice with the same sort of thing: you fine them $100 or $200—just enough to make sure that it is a deterrent, but not enough to make sure that these pile up and they end up in jail for non-payment of fines.

The Government actually said: “No, no, no, they are well catered for at the moment, there’s not an issue here—we’re not going to implement these recommendations.” I find that a little strange, because what we need to do in this day and age of stretched police resources, of clogged courts, is actually look for pragmatic solutions to the issues that we find in our communities. This is a pragmatic solution that Jami-Lee Ross has brought forward, working with the police. The retail crime infringement notice is exactly the same. In fact, you could change the title of this bill to have it as the “Crimes Act Amendment Bill” and have also the same wording and the same outcome.

So what I would just ask that Government for is, please, a little bit of consistency when we are looking at dealing with low levels of crime, because the last thing we want to do is penalise those who really cannot afford it, in a way that ensures they end up in jail. The reason I say they end up in jail is that they end up with a $200 fine or a $100 fine, they cannot afford that, they are out there again, and they end up with another $200 or $100 fine. Onwards and onwards they end up with $2,000 or $3,000, and the only way they end up paying that back or paying it back to society is going into jail. Mike Williams talks about this—Mike Williams, the ex-president of the New Zealand Labour Party, now the herd of the Howard League for Penal Reform—

Chris Bishop: Good guy.

STUART NASH: Good guy. He said: “How many people in Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison in Hawke’s Bay have their driver’s licence? None.” The reason they are in jail is that it started with a small fine and it ended up in jail. What we do need to do here—

Jonathan Young: But this is giving small fines.

STUART NASH: Yes, no, I agree. I agree, Mr Young. What we do need to do here is make sure that we send the right signal, that it starts out as a warning: “Chap, you keep doing this,”—you know, a young window washer—“you’ll end up with a fine, or maybe a second warning. You’ll end up with a fine. That’s the promise. Then the third time, a fine.” What I would not want to see here is really punitive action where, as soon as someone is walking across the road with a squeegee, they end up with a $200 fine, then another $200 fine. From all we know, that will lead to someone going into jail because they cannot afford to pay their fine.

So this is a pragmatic response. We do support it, but we would just ask—I guess we will hear this at the select committee—that the police are advised to take a pragmatic approach to this, in a way that deals with the situation without creating another one. So, as mentioned, Labour will support the Land Transport (Vehicle User Safety) Amendment Bill, and I thank the member for bringing this to the House.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Thank you for the comments of Stuart Nash, the previous member who spoke. Can I just commend Jami-Lee Ross, who has brought this bill to the House. I think it is a well-thought-through bill, and I think there has obviously been consultation with councils, which face this problem for citizens, and also consultation with the New Zealand Police to try to find a way through that is going to enhance public safety and also ensure that we have safety on our roads.

Like Stuart Nash, who spoke just previously, we can all remember when this new work phenomena happened. In some regards, you tip your hat at people who have got some initiative and some incentive and who get out there and work, but it has got to be done in appropriate sorts of ways, and I do think that there is some discretion enabled through this proposed piece of legislation that could work. I remember when I lived in west Auckland, by the corner of Lincoln Road and Central Park Drive—

Hon Alfred Ngaro: Yes, that’s right—I know where it is.

JONATHAN YOUNG: —Alfred Ngaro knows that bit of territory; it is his home base—and the first window washer I ever saw was a man who was like a street busker or like a street juggler. He was hugely entertaining, and people felt, when they flipped him a coin for washing the window, that they were getting great value for money.

But what we hear today is that now this has become such a common thing, and people who see this as far less like being a street busker—a profession—can turn up in great numbers and it can be quite intimidatory. In fact, I have read some accounts where one woman in Whangarei who did not want to have her window washed had a squeegee bottle thrown at her, and then somebody came running across the road and threw another bottle and dented her car. That sort of behaviour is completely unlawful. It is not what we want to see on New Zealand streets, in our towns, or on our roads, let alone the hazard that that can create not just for a vehicle for a driver but for general driving through our streets.

So I think what Jami-Lee Ross has also identified is that councils want to address this problem because there is an increasing concern about public safety and the safe movement of vehicles around intersections, and in order for them to create a by-law to say that you cannot do it, they can enforce that by-law only by taking a person to court, and there is a huge expense in that. If somebody fronts up, is taken to court, and says “Yes, I’m guilty. I did it.”, the average cost is at least $600. But if they do not turn up to that court hearing, and then there becomes a necessity for proof of identity and a rehearing, that cost can triple, and what you have in terms of a legislative deterrent to stop this behaviour becomes an incredible expense. So putting this misdemeanour, or this breaking of a by-law, into an infringement notice enables police in their discretion and in their judgment to be able, in a sense, to bring through an instant fine.

There will be times, no doubt, when, as Stuart Nash said, there will be warnings. We know that the police have diversionary schemes to stop the accumulation of fine debt by trying to bring in compliant behaviour through working with, particularly, young people, and I think the results speak for themselves. We have seen some great results in that sort of approach. But, as Jami-Lee Ross, the sponsor of this bill, has said, it is an excellent tool in the tool kit for New Zealand Police and also for councils.

I think it is a very good piece of drafted legislation, and I am glad to hear that Labour will support this bill. It has good elements of common sense that work for every part of the community. I commend this bill to the House, and I congratulate the member.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a call on this, the first reading of the Land Transport (Vehicle User Safety) Amendment Bill, which the Green Party will not be supporting. This bill, which seeks to create an infringement offence under the Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004, is an attempt to prohibit people from washing vehicles on roads when done in a manner that may be considered unsafe or intimidating or may cause a nuisance or cause obstruction to vehicles. It is creating a fine for this of between $150 and $1,000, and I really do think the House should consider whether this is another attack on the poor.

I think we need to ask ourselves why people are doing this work. Is it because it seems like a fun job that will help them live their lives in the way that they want, or is it because people are desperate, they actually really need extra money, the social supports for them to be able to live in dignity and live decent lives are not there, and they are being driven to these measures, which, at times, must be pretty dangerous? But here we are with a piece of legislation that is looking at fining those people who have been driven to do this. They are mostly young people but not exclusively young at all.

It does seem an approach that is quite consistent with this Government’s approach to things generally, which is to completely ignore the root cause of any problem.

Catherine Delahunty: There is no cause, Jan.

JAN LOGIE: There is no cause—

Catherine Delahunty: No, they’re just bad people.

JAN LOGIE: —no root cause. They are just silly, bad people, and the way to fix this problem is to create a law and fine them. It is not to think about supporting councils to bring people in their community together, sit down, and find out what the root cause might be, or think about how you can support people to find other options to be able to get by and live with dignity. No, that is not the solution. That is not where those members go. Where they go is to a piece of legislation that will create law that applies to everyone in the country, creates fines, and puts people who are in need at more risk.

I do think it is worth pointing out that this bill could be said to be potentially unnecessary because several councils have already passed by-laws prohibiting people from window washing on the road. Christchurch City Council, as an example, gave the police the authority to prosecute window washers and, according to media reports, that resulted in an instant reduction in the number of window washers. In Auckland, where at least the reporting has been, there have been quite a few stories in the media about public concern and some attacks. It is worth noting again that when there are attacks, that is illegal behaviour, and that behaviour in itself is criminal and can be prosecuted. We are not talking about those attacks; we are talking about people washing the windows. Actually, the council itself has said that it does not believe that taking a punitive regulatory approach will resolve the matter. We have been told that this is the solution to that problem when the council, which is on the ground and knows the situation the best, is saying that it does not think this is the right approach to be taking.

Another problem with this bill is that it allows the Minister to have a rather broad, sweeping power. The amendment to the Land Transport Act would allow the Minister to make rules that prohibit people from being a nuisance to other road users, which potentially could allow the Minister to unilaterally impose rules controlling almost any so-called antisocial behaviour on the road and even protesting. I know some people will listen to that and think “Oh, those Greens. They always jump to the most extreme kind of possibility.”, but we have just seen the Anadarko provision used against those protesters who were trying to protect our future out on the sea. Sometimes when we are suspicious, I do not think that it is without cause, so the Greens are opposing this legislation.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill, and I would like to begin by commending the member Jami-Lee Ross, in whose name the bill has been brought to the House. I think it is an example of what the members’ ballot should be used for. It should be used by members of Parliament who are not members of Cabinet to bring to the House issues that have been raised in their electorates so that they might be resolved. That is the members’ ballot at its best, that is what this bill does, and so I commend Jami-Lee Ross for bringing this bill to the House.

The issue that is being addressed is perhaps a bit more multifaceted than might first meet the eye, and I can tell you this on behalf of many residents of the Epsom electorate and particularly in Greenlane. Like Jami-Lee Ross, I serve an electorate where window washing is a problem not just directly but also indirectly. The direct problems are quite easy to understand: we have people doing something that is technically not legal but very, very difficult for the authorities, including the police, to enforce. Without the infringement notice regime that this bill produces, people must be taken through the courts at great expense of time and money and it really does not serve as a useful deterrent when the people doing this stuff know that the police have such a large cost imposed upon them when they try to enforce the law. Having an infringement notice regime, contrary to what the Green Party member just told the House, is actually something that the Auckland Council has been asking for. This is not something councils are opposed to; this is something that councils have explicitly asked for. And, alongside them, it is something that the police have asked for in order that the law around window washing can be properly enforced.

But the next issue is: why would we want to stop window washing? Many of us might have a charitable view towards mostly younger people who take their initiative, get out, and make some money. I actually share that view that you have got to admire a certain amount of entrepreneurial streak in the people who are doing the window washing. The difficulty is that it ends up being abusive. One of the principals of the schools in my electorate was abused and had her car attacked with a squeegee mop broom when she refused to have her window washed because she did not want it done, and she may not have had change and she may not have had the money. That is one of a large number of complaints that have built into a chorus of people from around Greenlane worried about this.

But, secondly, there are the indirect impacts, which are that window washing has become a centre for other crimes. There are two large intersections in Auckland that are close to a train station that does not have security gates: one of them in Mount Wellington and one of them at Greenlane. Both of those areas have come to be areas of considerable crime.

Denis O’Rourke: This bill won’t change that.

DAVID SEYMOUR: I have had small children from Remuera Intermediate School and Cornwall Park District School get bashed up, have their phones taken, and their bikes taken—

Denis O’Rourke: Nothing to do with this bill.

DAVID SEYMOUR: And if you talk to the local police, which is what a good local MP should do—unlike that barracking member in the corner who would never represent an electorate because no electorate would have him—they will tell you that all of these things are interlinked and that the window washing is a centre for crimes and violence of other types around the areas where it happens.

So I commend this bill. I think potentially there should be some changes as it goes on. We should be very wary of unintended consequences—the Greens have a point about that. I think we should consider the possibility that we should also fine the people who pay window washers, for two reasons. One is that they are the other half of the transaction and also because it gives them a reason to say no. They can say: “No, this is illegal, this is fineable. I’m not going to pay.” But, with those possible additions, in my view this is an excellent bill. I look forward to voting for it through all stages, I commend it to the House, and I congratulate Jami-Lee Ross on bringing such a useful contribution to members’ day. Thank you.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will vote against this bill because it is unnecessary and it is going to be ineffective. I want to refer, first of all, to the purpose of the bill. Clause 3 states it is “to provide for greater safety of road users by prohibiting the washing of vehicles in a matter that may be unsafe,”—may be unsafe—“that may intimidate or cause a nuisance to any person, or may cause an obstruction to vehicles.” So let us examine that purpose against what is actually in the bill.

I will make this point straightaway. Even though this is going to be just an infringement offence, they can be appealed and those appeals will cost money, and those appeals will result in a waste of police time—not local authority officers’ time but police time. So if the parties opposite think they are going to be saving police time and saving expense, they are going to be utterly wrong about that. First of all, the term “safety of road users” is not really the purpose of this bill at all because there is no actual evidence of any harm to drivers of motor vehicles as a result of this activity—none at all—because it typically happens at traffic lights where the vehicle is stationary.

Then there is the term “prohibiting the washing of vehicles in a manner that may be unsafe,”. So there would immediately be a good defence, because, of course, the washing of a window is not itself unsafe, so the prosecutor would have to prove the term “a manner that may be unsafe,” and that would not be easy. It is not enough to just prove that a vehicle’s windscreen was washed while stopped at traffic lights; there would have to be actual proof of unsafeness, and that is not going to be easy to do in any appeal. It is made worse by the term “may be unsafe”, because that means there would have to be a subjective test to show unsafeness in the particular circumstances of the case, and the drafter of this bill seems to have overlooked that. In addition to that, of course, washing vehicles’ windscreens actually does improve driver visibility, so even if the way the windscreen was washed could somehow be shown to be unsafe, you still have to balance that against the fact that there is an advantage for safety in clean windscreens.

Then I move on to the term “may intimidate”. Although I acknowledge that some women may feel intimidated, this bill will not help that because again the word “may” requires a subjective test to prove intimidation in the particular circumstances of the case. It will require a lot more than a woman just feeling uneasy if approached to have her windscreen washed. Then I move on to the words “may cause a nuisance”. Again, we have the same problem with “may” requiring the application of a subjective test. It would need proof of real and serious disadvantage; not just inconvenience to a driver. I move on to the words “may cause an obstruction to vehicles.” The same problem arises again: a subjective test that would require proof that there was an obstruction to a vehicle, which would not be easy to do when vehicles are typically stopped at traffic lights for these activities.

So for all those reasons this is simply not a suitable matter for an infringement offence. Compare it with a speeding offence where the fact of speeding is enough by itself, or compare it with a parking offence where the simple fact of exceeding a time limit is in itself enough—it is not like that. You would require a lot of other evidence of a lot of other things, which I have already referred to. So practicality and enforceability are going to be real problems. Do we really want police chasing youth all over the place to catch them for activities that are usually harmless—I would say that 95 percent or more of the time they are actually harmless. Those people will not have the money to pay the fines anyway—unless, of course, they do more window washing—and the infringement will not really be enforceable.

So it is not a bill that we can support, and I would ask this question of Jami-Lee Ross: is this his best contribution to the improvement of the New Zealand criminal justice system? Is that the best he can do when there are so many serious crimes to attend to in this country and when we could much better spend the parliamentary time being spent on this bill and also spend much better the police time that will be involved in the attempted enforcement of this useless and ineffective bill?

MELISSA LEE (National): It is a pleasure to rise in support of my colleague Jami-Lee Ross’ bill, the Land Transport (Vehicle User Safety) Amendment Bill. Before I actually get on with the substance of the bill—in support of it—I just want to comment on Mr O’Rourke’s contribution. I do know that Mr O’Rourke is an owner of classic cars, and I know that he loves driving them. I sort of wonder what his reaction would be to members of the public who are in fact windscreen washers, who actually put unsavoury products in those bottles to wash his car when he is driving down the street. Obviously, he is not a small man, and maybe he did actually comment that some women might get intimidated. I do know of men who have actually been intimidated by these window washers and the unsavoury language that was thrown about, and when they did not pay the money that they were apparently meant to pay for the window washing, the window washers in fact threw things at them.

I mean, I personally am not a small woman—I am not a scaredy-cat type of person—but I have rocked up to the intersection where these kids are. I feel really uncomfortable winding down the window to say no, because they are often spitting, throwing things, and yelling abuse at people who will not pay and refuse to have the windows washed.

I think that in the major cities, usually, where we have a repeated problem of this illegal activity, it is sometimes actually dangerous. I think it was Mr Seymour who talked about the abuse at Greenlane corner as well. It is happening not just at Greenlane or in Auckland; I know it is happening up and down the country. At the moment, councils across New Zealand are not able to deal with this issue because they feel that the by-laws they have are toothless to actually stop these people from doing what they are doing. As Mr Seymour said, often when they come to do the window washing, it is not just the window-washing activity that they partake in; often there are actually other illegal activities that happen when they are gathered. Across the country, as I said, police and councils are backing this reform in this area. They are backing the great work of Mr Ross. They are backing the rights of citizens and locals to all feel safe in their communities.

I remember that a long time ago in Auckland, at Spaghetti Junction, there used to be a man who twirled his squeegee. He was really talented at it. I think he was one of the most popular and famous window washers—right—but he was not abusive and he did not get in the way of traffic when a hive of activity was happening during peak-hour traffic. But now young kids have actually seen the light. They gather at these busy intersections, and often, when traffic lights change, they do not move out of the way. They get in the way of traffic, and accidents sometimes do in fact happen. I am sure that some of these children have also been hurt. So they should not be there. They are creating trouble right around New Zealand.

Some local newspapers in our community, and community message boards such as Neighbourly, have actually talked about this issue. There is a problem here that we can actually fix with this member’s bill. It is a local issue and it has become part of the country’s issue. I believe that this bill goes a long way towards actually helping to solve the problem. I commend the member Jami-Lee Ross for thinking of putting this up as his member’s bill, and I look forward to perhaps hearing submissions in our select committee process. I commend the bill to the House.

SUE MORONEY (Labour): I rise to support the Land Transport (Vehicle User Safety) Amendment Bill in the name of Jami-Lee Ross, and I wish to congratulate the member on having his bill drawn from the ballot. It is certainly a great opportunity to talk about road safety. But I do want to give some advice to the member: really, if he does want to do something serious about reducing the road toll, which has now increased 3 years in a row—and, sadly, this year is looking like it is going to continue that dreadful trend—then perhaps just dealing with the issue of people who are window washing at intersections is probably not the most pressing thing to do about road safety at the moment. I do not think that there has been any fatality that has been caused in this area or serious injury, but, none the less, it is probably a reasonably useful little measure to address.

However, if the Government was serious about turning around its dreadful performance on the road toll, then it would be looking at more serious issues to address that, and it would be doing it rather more urgently. It would not be leaving it up to members’ bills to address vehicle safety and road safety; rather, the Government would be addressing issues like the driver-licensing fraud, which under its watch has been running rampant. If there is a real road safety issue in this country, the fact that we cannot rely on our driver-licensing regime to be robust and to ensure that it is free of corruption—I think that is a major issue that the Government should be looking at.

I also think that if this Government was serious about addressing road safety, it would be looking at proactive ways of reducing the amount of freight going by larger and larger trucks, under this Government, all the time on our roads. We know that when it comes to road safety about 20 percent of the fatalities every year involve a truck on our roads. Of course, the more trucks that we put on our roads and the larger we allow them to become, as this Government has—and when we get those juggernauts that are on roads that are not really designed for those very big trucks to be on—of course the next thing that is going to happen is that our road toll is going to go up, as it has been doing.

I want to put on record the other serious issue that this bill raises that the Government will not address—that is, ensuring that people have decent jobs; decent jobs with decent job security. What I know about these window washers—it is largely young men who are involved in this enterprise—is that they are not doing it because it is their wish and their dream and their hope to be a car window washer at an intersection; they do it because they are desperate to make a living. They are desperate to earn a living, and it is becoming harder and harder to do that under this Government.

These fit young men who are proving that they have the wherewithal and the entrepreneurial drive to get out there and do something are not these people who Bill English says are hopeless. They are not these people who would rather stay in bed. They are not these people who Bill English and his Government are trying to convince the rest of the nation are just losers and drug addled and staying at home. These are young men prepared to get out there and earn a buck, and they are prepared to work hard for it. Yes, that is probably not the appropriate way to do it, but they are running out of options because that lazy Government opposite, which has run out of ideas, will not provide decent, secure jobs for these young men.

So, Mr Ross, the challenge I want to put to you is twofold. First of all, do something serious about the road toll, and, secondly, do something real about providing real jobs for New Zealanders so that we do not have to turn into one of those countries where people are on the side of the road at intersections risking life and limb, actually, themselves in order to make a decent living. That is not the sort of New Zealand that I want to see, it is not the New Zealand we used to have, and it is not the New Zealand that you will see under a Labour-led Government.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): I rise to speak in support of this bill and to provide a Whangarei context, which has received some commentary here today. Late last year, the issue of Whangarei window washers came to national attention and I received a lot of communication from local constituents. I addressed this issue in an interview where I outlined my position, which has not changed. I commend their endeavour, but I am concerned for their safety. They must stop.

Local people were writing to me last year on this issue, and I responded by lobbying the New Zealand Transport Agency, which manages the local highways. Unfortunately, the window washers continued over summer, and the situation became worse and not better. At one point, I personally observed four groups of four youths, 16 in total, on either side of the traffic islands at the Kamo Road and State Highway 1 intersection, and I was certain one of them would be hurt. I could also see that some drivers were feeling intimidated, and so I did as we have been advised and personally laid a complaint with the police.

The issue of intersection window washers is a national problem, and the Government is supporting this member’s bill to regulate against them. This is a first step, but there is another side to this story. I believe we should also look to provide a solution for these young people, who are clearly able and wanting to work—good on them for getting out there and doing something—so now let us make them safe and offer an alternative.

In Northland there are currently many overseas orchard workers in and around Kerikeri doing seasonal work under the Recognised Seasonal Employer programme. Imagine if we could offer the window washers transport to and from Whangarei and a good day’s pay for a good day’s work on the orchard. I have proposed this to a senior Whangarei Work and Income executive, and he and I have arranged to personally go down to the intersections and meet with the young people and have this discussion. Let us see whether we can work together as a community to harness these young people’s initiative and help them into safe, supported, and sustainable alternatives.

This, then, is the tension: we are encouraging of young people’s endeavours, but they must be safe. We want them to be safe, and this is the first priority. Equally, innocent drivers must also be safe. Motor vehicle versus pedestrian accidents often cause injuries to those in the motor vehicles, either directly or as they seek to avoid pedestrians.

The second issue is intimidation, which does have some subjectivity around it. Some drivers do not feel affronted as the window washers approach and engage, but others do, and declining to allow or pay for the activity does not change the sense of intimidation. I have been written to by many constituents, especially women, who do feel intimidated by the window washers, and this needs to be acted on. The Summary Offences Act provides some guidance on the issue of intimidation, including the clause about a person who “stops, confronts, or accosts that other person in any public place.” Clearly, this will apply to window washers, and it needs to stop.

Enforcement against window washers has been problematic. Some councils do have by-laws, which can be prosecuted against, and much can be learnt from their experience. Certainly, evidence from Auckland Council suggests that the current prosecution regime for window washers has court costs that are substantive and it involves months of delay.

In the overall context of issues this Parliament needs to address, window washers may seem trivial. However, I am of the view that if we do trivialise this issue, one day someone will indeed be killed, and that would be a tragedy. I come back, then, to the actions arising. We need to stop this practice now. At the same time, we need to harness the endeavour and initiative that these young people are showing and look to provide safe and sustainable alternatives.

So I congratulate very much the member Jami-Lee Ross on this bill. It is a pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, kia ora anō ki Te Whare. I have been listening carefully to the speeches, and I would like to applaud Jan Logie and Denis O’Rourke. I also found it really positive what Shane Reti just said about going and engaging and creating opportunities for young people seeking work. Those are constructive responses. The rest of this is a depressing load of rubbish. Actually, the one thing that those of us in our privileged bubble do not want to see is what is happening in our streets. I have lived for 63 years, and I have never seen so much poverty on the streets, and I am glad it is visible. We need to face it. We do not need to be intimidated by it, but we have plenty of laws. If we need the law because someone is being threatening or intimidating, or is about to commit or has committed an assault, there are plenty of ways of dealing with that. That is not the problem. The law is not the problem. The problem is that inequality is being acted out before our very eyes, and some people are finding that—for the 90 percent of the window washers who are not violent and intimidating—uncomfortable.

Yes, it is uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to see so many people so desperate that they are down at the intersections washing our windows for money. We look into their eyes and we go: “There but for the grace of God go I.” Actually, they are us and our children. They are not a different species. To create more fines and more punishments when we need to be looking for solutions is not what this House should be for. We are not here to reflect intimidation or to increase punishment. We are here to try to build a country where people are able to participate with some kind of dignity and equity. Part of this bill is a bit of a filler. It is a bit of, like: “What is the least important issue on the streets? Let’s deal with that, rather than something that is substantive and more controversial.” But part of it is also maintaining the idea there is a “them”, and “they” are a dangerous horde out there that must be controlled, and let us not talk about the causes of people who are forced into washing our windows for enough money to get through the day, because then we have to talk about how many people are actually living on the edge. This is the edge, on the intersections.

This bill is not about road safety. It has got nothing to do with road safety. It is to do with punishment, when we already have plenty of laws to take care of people who are threatening, violent, or intimidatory. There are plenty of ways of arresting people if their behaviour goes over the line in a public space. So we are just going to add another one specifically focusing on a group of marginalised workers who have no rights or protections, who are trying to make a buck to get through the day. That is why I applaud Dr Shane Reti for actually going down and engaging with these people and trying to find a solution, but I do not applaud the National Party or anyone else for supporting this bill, because I think it is ugly. I think it is another way in which we inside our privileged bubble can go “Oh, well, you know, they’re the bad guys.”, without any empathy or imagination about what it might be like.

I drive in Auckland every week. Sometimes I have money in the car and sometimes I do not, but I look at the faces of these people who are at the edge. They are not saving up for their holiday with their family in New Caledonia. They are trying to get through the day. They have nothing else but the street. We need to face the street and do something a whole lot more constructive with the people who have to live on our streets and scrape a living out of washing windows for people who can afford things that they have not seen for a very long time, like a nice car. So I am proud that we are opposing this bill. I am disappointed that we are even talking about it, because there are so many more important things. There are also so many more things we need to do to make sure that we have full employment and respect for all the people who are at the bottom of a heap that has been created not by nature but by an economic system dedicated to structural unemployment and political inequality. So, happily, we say no. This is not good enough and it is not the solution. Kia ora tātou.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): Can I say thanks to the House for considering this member’s bill. Thanks to my side, the National Party MPs, for supporting this, and also to David Seymour. I asked David Seymour and Shane Reti particularly to speak on this bill, because they brought their experience as local MPs who have had constituents come to them, as have I, about this particular issue. There are real and genuine concerns around this activity in their electorates, and I thank them for their contributions. Can I thank Stuart Nash for his words and his support, as well. I discussed this with Stuart Nash some weeks ago. I think Stuart Nash made some comments about a pragmatic solution to an issue, and I view this bill as exactly that. It is taking an issue that councils around the country are dealing with at the moment—and it is not just Auckland; there are councils up and down the country that have dealt with this issue, but it is predominantly in Auckland—but they are dealing with it in a way that is not effective, a way where they have to take prosecutions, clog up the courts’ time to deal with an issue, and go through a system that can take many, many weeks, as well.

The Police have asked for a tool to be able to deal with it. Police have a strategy or a way in which they work where they believe in prevention first. Prevention first—that is very much their approach to this issue. Quite frankly, they do not care that much about someone on the side of the road washing a windscreen, but they do care about the other issues that can escalate out of that. I want to read an extract from a letter the Police wrote to the Auckland Council about this: “The window washing of vehicles stopped at traffic lights and intersections, particularly key intersections in central and south Auckland, has become a significant issue for motorists and a constant source of complaint. The practice breaches the council’s public safety and nuisance by-law, and is fundamentally unsafe, intimidating, and causes a nuisance to drivers and obstruction to traffic.”

When Catherine Delahunty says this is a load of rubbish, I would like her to say that to the parents of the schoolchildren in Greenlane who were attacked by window washers. I do not think they believe this is a load of rubbish. I would like her to say that to the police constables and inspectors and sergeants who view, on a regular basis, gang activity in this area, where they say that window washing and the problems associated with it—including disorder, vehicle crime, assaults, and wilful damage, and these related activities—are distressing to police. That is what this is about. It is about dealing with the problem before it becomes a bigger issue, and I know that councils and police are concerned that we do have these wider issues taking place.

I accept that the wording of the bill has been raised a couple of times—Mr O’Rourke raised the wording. I have taken the wording of the Auckland Council by-law and inserted it into the bill. If the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee can come up with better wording, then I am all for that. I look forward to that committee hearing submissions on the bill and coming up with better wording, if there is better wording out there.

I do want to say to Mr O’Rourke, though, when he says this is unnecessary, that there will be, I suspect, many, many people making submissions on this who will say that having an effective tool for the police is necessary. But he asked the question: is this my best contribution? I am happy to say no, it is not my best contribution to criminal justice; my best contribution to criminal justice is being part of a National-led Government that is seeing more police on the streets, that has done more to support victims of crime, that has done more to reform bail laws, and that has done more to tackle gangs. That is my best contribution to criminal justice: being part of a wider team that is doing a lot of good work.

As a local electorate MP, as someone who was elected by 70,000 people to serve them as their representative, when they come to me with an issue that they are concerned about and when our local police have constantly raised this with me as a local MP, I have a method where I can attempt to support them. A member’s bill is a way to do that, and that is why I have brought this forward. Melissa Lee said: “The council and the police are backing the great work of Mr Ross.” Actually, Melissa, you are a bit wrong; I am supporting the great work that the local council and the police are doing. I think we should be tackling this and giving police the tool box.

I am disappointed New Zealand First is not supporting this. It is supposed to be—it views itself as the party of law and order—

Hon Member: Out of touch.

JAMI-LEE ROSS: No, I do not think it is out of touch. I think it is just opposing it for the sake of opposing it. But there is real concern out there, and if we can help police and help councils, we should be doing that. Thank you to the House for its consideration.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Land Transport (Vehicle User Safety) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 93

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 28

Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

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Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill

First Reading

STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I move, That the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider the bill. This bill has a simple premise: consumers want and deserve to know where their food comes from. The purpose of this bill is to enshrine in law consumers’ right to know the country from which the food they are purchasing originated so that they can make informed purchasing decisions. The purpose is for a simple mandatory labelling system in New Zealand that provides accurate information about the country of origin of single-component foods.

Single-component foods means food or food products, either packaged or unpackaged, that contain only one fruit, vegetable, meat, seafood, nut, grain, seed, or oil, although these may contain water, sugar or its substitutes, salt, or other ingredients used for preserving, colouring, and flavouring. This is a very simple, very straightforward country-of-origin labelling (COOL) bill. Country of origin means the country in which food is grown, harvested, or produced. Examples would include mangoes, beans, zucchinis, capsicum, loose Australian tomatoes, canned Italian tomatoes, frozen berries from China, nuts from the Middle East or the USA—or Canadian or Australian—bulk flour, oats, canola oil, pork, and prawns from Thailand or Australia. The list goes on and consumers want to know.

This bill will deliver choice to consumers on single-component foods such as these. Mandatory country-of-origin labelling will guarantee accurate and consistent labels, consistently applied across all food outlets and levelling the playing field rather than the variably applied voluntary system. The bill makes the standard to ensure that unscrupulous or sloppy operators do not provide consumers false or misleading information.

Ministry of Justice legal advice concludes that the bill appears to be consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The analysis pointed out that mandatory country-of-origin labelling avoids consumers assuming in the absence of such information that such food has been produced in New Zealand. It went on to say, in consideration of section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act: “This will allow consumers to make more informed purchasing decisions, which is a sufficiently important objective. The Bill extends to food products the current regime of country of manufacture labelling applying to clothing and footwear for sale. That Consumer Information Standard (Country of Origin) Regulations 1992 set out specific rules that require all new clothing or footwear for sale in New Zealand to be labelled with information that clearly states the country where the items were made or produced.”

The analysis also says: “We are satisfied that the potential limits on freedom of expression in the Bill are justified in terms of s 5 of the Bill of Rights Act as they are rationally and proportionately connected to this objective. A mandatory regime of country of origin labelling avoids retailers and manufacturers using country of origin labels as a marketing tool, displaying labels only when it is in their interests to do so and is consistent with 47 other countries (including most of New Zealand’s trading partners) that have mandatory regimes.” I note that Australian consumers have enjoyed mandatory country-of-origin labelling for a considerable time. In 2005—12 years ago—New Zealand opted out of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code that made COOL mandatory, but now, in 2017, it is well recognised that it time to give New Zealand consumers the choice they want and deserve.

In 2014 Russell McVeagh reported that a recent consumer survey found that 35 percent of New Zealanders then always or often considered a New Zealand made product first, and more than 50 percent were prepared to pay a bit more for it. In this case, they will not have to pay very much at all for it. Also in 2014, the seafood industry in a document entitled Country of origin labelling and the New Zealand seafood industry showed that most New Zealanders said they would support COOL—or country-of-origin labelling. Fifty-three percent wanted more on their labels and 42 percent wanted more country-of-origin labelling and manufacturer information.

Recently Consumer New Zealand and Horticulture New Zealand Inc. reported a poll of more than a thousand people. They found that now 71 percent of those polled wanted mandatory country-of-origin labelling and only 9 percent were opposed to it—just 9 percent were opposed. In 2007 the Green Party had a 39,000-strong petition calling for mandatory country-of-origin labelling. In another capacity, before I was here, while attending the then New Zealand Food Safety Authority’s consumer forum I recall that that very, very diverse representation of New Zealand consumers all wanted mandatory country-of-origin labelling. Clearly, they still do.

Consumer New Zealand and Horticulture New Zealand’s 2017 poll showed that seven out of 10 Kiwis want mandatory country-of-origin labelling. They say 65 percent of shoppers look for labelling information on fresh fruit, but less than a third always find it. Just 32 percent always find labelling information when they are looking for it and even fewer—just 29 percent—find it when looking at vegetables. New Zealanders deserve to know where their food comes from and they want to. They want to know. They want food they can trust. They want labels they can trust.

The New Zealand Pork Industry Board (NZPork) reports that imported pork now accounts for 60 percent of New Zealanders’ consumption of pig meat. That would be a great surprise to many New Zealanders. We do not see labels “Pork—product of Canada”, “Pork—product of Australia”, or “Pork—product of China” or wherever. We are lucky if we see some that say “Product of New Zealand”. But consumers deserve and want to know where their food comes from. NZPork’s research shows that New Zealanders expect that the meat they would buy in New Zealand is from animals born and raised here. If not, they expect to be told. We also know that New Zealanders increasingly want to be sure that meat is produced from animals whose welfare is looked after, yet imported pork does not have to meet New Zealand welfare standards.

Voluntary labelling, as partly used by the two main supermarket chains here, is not good enough, with hundreds of single-component foods not labelled and many misleading examples of country-of-origin labelling. Those are the voluntary users of country-of-origin labelling. Most other food retailers are not using it. I had an example of country-of-origin labelling on some capsicum that were labelled “Product of New Zealand or Australia or Holland”. It did not say which one. That was in one of these main channels that have been using voluntary labelling.

The need for accurate food labelling that assists consumers to make informed purchasing decisions is recognised by all major national and international food standards setting agencies, including the New Zealand Food Safety Authority, as it was back then, Food Standards Australia New Zealand, with our trans-Tasman arrangement, and the joint food and agriculture organisation, the World Health Organization’s Codex Alimentarius Commission. So way back then, the New Zealand Food Safety Authority had recognised it, along with Food Standards Australia New Zealand and Codex.

This is a very simple bill for single-ingredient foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, meat, nuts, oils, and grains to be country-of-origin labelled. I am calling on all parties in the House to support it.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): A number of firsts are going to occur in the Parliament this afternoon. First of all, I want to congratulate the member Steffan Browning on having the luck to draw a bill out of the ballot. But there are three other firsts involved. That is the best speech I have ever heard the member make in this House. The second one is that I did not ever think I would leave here agreeing with Steffan Browning. He is going to leave here before me with a bit of luck—but I am not sure about that either. The next first is that he got through his speech without mentioning Roundup, and I think that is pretty amazing, so I want to congratulate him on that as well. There is another one, which I will get on to shortly.

I think it is very interesting that the member has drawn a bill that I think, sentimentally, many people in New Zealand agree with. He outlined that in the course of his speech a moment or two ago. The National Government is going to support the first reading. There are a number of reasons for us supporting the first reading. I will get on to some of the challenges that we have with that in a little while.

First of all, I want to talk about a little bit of the background to this. The Primary Production Committee is, I guess, a pretty collegial select committee. We talk about a lot of issues outside of business hours, I suppose, for want of a better word, although the poor clerk has to listen to us quite often. This is an issue that we often talk about because one or two of the members of this Parliament managed to raise it in respect of almost everything we discuss in that select committee, and the previous member is one of those. It is an issue that I think is of interest to New Zealanders. It is of interest to a large number of our commercial grower entities. I think it is something that we will get to as we move through the select committee discussions on this bill.

I was rather intrigued with the title—the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. One could compile quite a Committee stage speech on the title, I would imagine, and no doubt someone will. It is an interesting name, and I am sure that may well get simplified in the course of this process. As Mr Browning pointed out, the bill sets out the requirements to label the country of origin of single-component foods. The interesting thing about single-component foods is that they can have additives in them, but they are additives that are basically concerned with preserving the foods and enabling those foods to be sold in a safe manner. The types of things I am talking about are salt, water, sugar, and a number of other things like that.

Making it a single-component food really plays right into the primary productive sector in New Zealand of meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, grains, nuts, flour, oils, etc.—all things that we grow very well in New Zealand. Many of those items are also imported into New Zealand. The two dominant supermarket chains in New Zealand currently have their own versions of country-of-origin labelling in place. Many other organisations around New Zealand do use a country-of-origin designation in the course of what they do.

It is an issue that I think is of great interest to us. It is an issue that is already used by a large number of entities and a large number of countries around the world. In New Zealand, of course, we have many of the meat companies branding their meat with the New Zealand brand. We have the dairy industry doing the same thing. The wine industry is very strongly orientated towards New Zealand—no doubt Stuart Smith will talk about that when he gets an opportunity to speak on this bill in a few moments’ time. I guess the most famous one worldwide is Scotch whisky. You can buy Scotch whisky made in other parts of the world but it is always Scotch whisky wherever it is made, provided they can get a licence to make it. That is the sort of thing that country-of-origin labelling has been used for.

This issue is often confused with the food safety issue. When Jo Goodhew gets up to speak shortly, I am sure she will have a view on that. It most certainly is not a food safety issue. I think it is an issue of interest for people and it gives people comfort to know where their food comes from. I suppose the most startling experience I have had of that is when you go to a supermarket in a place like Singapore, or even Taiwan for that matter, and you see products priced almost by country of origin. Whilst I do not think for a minute that is a trade barrier, it certainly is an advantage to some countries to have their country’s brand very firmly on the food. Country-of-origin labelling will have an impact on price; there is no doubt about that. It will have an impact on what people choose to pick off the supermarket shelf or the shelf of whatever place they choose to buy their food, but it is pretty common around the world and it is certainly very influential in many parts of the world.

The next issue I want to get on to is trade. I touched on that a moment ago. I do not think there is any way we could conceive that country-of-origin labelling is any form of trade barrier. I think that the select committee will no doubt have significant discussion on that issue, and I am sure there will be submissions on that issue to the select committee on this bill. I do not think it can be conceived as that, and it is practised in so many parts of the world that I think it is logical that it will form part of the natural process of food production and the sale of food.

I want to talk for a minute about cost, and this is the interesting thing about members’ bills when they are drawn, of course, that the Government—or Government departments—has not done a lot of research on the cost or the ramifications of the potential implementation of the conditions of these bills, so there is a lot of work to be done on this, and the select committee will obviously ask for some of this information as well. There are quite a few things that you could look at and think there might be costs involved.

The other issue that I think is really important is how you designate what qualifies to be labelled and what does not. How do you label a cabbage, for example, if it is sitting at your road gate? If you have got to package it, straight away it is adding to the cost of that cabbage. I know that is a little, frivolous issue but, none the less, we have struck that with a lot of the legislation in the food sector in New Zealand, and so we end up putting cost on the little producer and the little retail business that we otherwise might not have. That will be some work for the select committee to get through the process too.

The other area is the one of enforcement. Inevitably, there are significant costs of enforcement in anything we do in New Zealand, and there will be some costs of enforcement in this case too. I do not suppose you would ever need to go to a country-of-origin labelling process if everyone was honest, but not everyone is honest, so definitely there will be some enforcement issues. I think the other challenge for the industry will be how the labelling works and whether it needs to be consistent, and I am sure it will. Those are the sorts of things that are pretty interesting and challenging for both the Government that has to implement this legislation, if it gets through the third reading, and, certainly, the select committee as we move along.

I want to spend a moment talking about an area that provides much of the food for New Zealand and just have some empathy for the Bay of Plenty, and Edgecumbe particularly. I think that area provides a lot of food for New Zealand, and it currently has had some significant flooding issues. I, of course, come from an area—the Manawatū—that frequently floods as well. Of course, our best food-producing areas in New Zealand are all low flood plains. In fact, right round the world, wherever you look in the world, actually, the best food-producing areas are low and generally river or flood plains—always vulnerable and at risk.

That is a pretty brief summation of where I think we are at with this bill. I do want to congratulate the member on drawing a bill. He has a bit of luck from time to time. I was going to say my glass is full of Roundup, but it is not; it is only half full. But congratulations, Steffan, and I think you have done pretty well with that. The National Government will be supporting this bill in its first reading, and I look forward to the discussions we have in that select committee when the time comes. Thank you.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am very pleased to rise and speak in support of this bill at its first reading, and can I also add my congratulations to Steffan Browning for bringing this bill to the House. I am really pleased that the Government will be supporting this bill and, as a fellow member of the Primary Production Committee, I am looking forward to our committee giving close consideration and examination to this bill.

In its essence, common sense, I guess, would say that this is a good bill. I guess it is one of those bills where you think: “Hey, yes, this is a good bill.” The subject matter, and also the research, has shown that Kiwis want to know where their food comes from, and they want to make an informed choice when they do make those shopping decisions or decisions as to what food they want to buy for their whānau and for their households. So I guess whilst this is about mandatory food labelling, these sorts of campaigns are not new. It is really, in a sense, about promoting New Zealand and buying Kiwi made. Those campaigns go back over a century, in terms of supporting growth and development in our regions and supporting jobs.

Indeed, Buy Kiwi Made is a campaign by Business New Zealand that still runs today. I guess this is just a subpart of that, but it is ensuring that there is mandatory labelling for our Kiwi consumers so that we do know where the origins of food are. I guess many shoppers every day, right at this moment, are in the supermarkets, at the fresh fruit aisles, making their selections—and, sure, there may be California oranges that have been voluntarily labelled by the retailer or by the supermarket as coming from the USA, but then there might be mandarins next door that are not, or, if it is the case, it may be undetectable for the actual shopper. It is those sorts of activities that go on in that retail sector that have really raised concerns, over many years, from your regular consumers and shoppers out there. And what is wrong with them knowing where their particular food, fruit, and vegetable products come from? This is a very commendable piece of legislation.

Here we are as a proud exporting nation, as mentioned by the Minister for Primary Industries today. We are a proud exporting nation, from the produce of our land and the bounty of our sea, and we want to put New Zealand all over our products, because our products are renowned worldwide as being of high quality, coming from pristine oceans and bountiful harvests. That is the branding, that is the provenance, also, of the origin of our high-quality produce that we want to sell to the world. It is somewhat ironic that here we are wanting to promote New Zealand internationally to our international markets and how proud we are of the products that we have to sell, whether it is wine, fruit, vegetables, primary produce—fish, seafood—and yet there is no requirement that our own consumers here in Aotearoa New Zealand have that information freely available to them.

I am looking forward, as I have mentioned, to giving further scrutiny to this bill. I like the fact that it is focused on single-product categories. Yes, we can get into technical arguments around ingredients and components and multi-components and value-added products and the like. We are keeping it simple. It is very clearly understandable. Fish, veges, seafood, meats, single-product categories, all of which—like McKelvie Rangitīkei lamb, Big Glory Bay king salmon and the like, and greenshell mussels. They are all wonderful produce, and I look forward to ensuring that we can promote that further through this bill. Kia ora tātou.

Hon JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata): I am delighted to take a call on the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. Congratulations, Steffan Browning. I am pleased this has been drawn out of the ballot, and I understand New Zealanders’ desire to know where their food comes from. But I want to cover off a few things here today, and I think it is really important that we continue to remember that this bill is about choice, so that consumers can easily find out where the product they are buying comes from. There has been a lot of demand for that and a lot of discussion around that for quite some time, but there are also some misapprehensions around that.

First of all, we thought that voluntary labelling and the fact that 80 percent of the retail food market—that being Progressive Enterprises and Foodstuffs—were doing it voluntarily would get us across the line and have enough New Zealanders knowing what they wanted to know. As it turned out, that proved to be not quite enough.

I want to say that there are two reasons that people think this is going to be good for New Zealand. First of all, New Zealand producers of food think this is going to give them a competitive advantage. If they pretend they do not, that is wrong. They think that New Zealanders want to buy New Zealand products, and largely they do. But New Zealand products, or any products—fresh fruit and vegetables—are price sensitive as well.

I myself was thinking the other day, when I saw a particular fruit—I think it was lemons—in the supermarket, and I wanted a lemon for my gin and tonic, that in fact I did not think the difference in taste was important enough for me to buy the product that was twice the price, just because it came from somewhere in New Zealand. So I am sorry but I bought a lemon from overseas. However, I did have the choice, and that is what we are saying New Zealanders should have now—that is the choice.

The second problem we have is that New Zealanders believe that this will give them a choice that will assure them of food safety—wrong, wrong, wrong. It will not. There are many other mechanisms to assure New Zealanders of food safety, and they do not always work. We saw, a few years ago, New Zealanders getting sick from New Zealand produced vegetables. We saw, a couple of years ago, New Zealanders getting sick with hepatitis A from eating frozen berries. At the time, 95 percent of New Zealand’s frozen berries in supermarkets were labelled with country of origin. That was done voluntarily. It did not stop anybody getting sick though, did it?

I want to cover off another couple of things. The survey showed us that a good representation of New Zealanders want this. I believe it was Horticulture New Zealand and Consumer New Zealand that put together a good survey that gave us a clear steer, and that has helped us to make up our minds that this is a good way to go.

However, in the select committee we need to make sure that this bill is simple and it is as cost-effective for the producers as is possible. The reason I say that is if we look across the Ditch to Australia, where they have a country-of-origin labelling scheme that is anything but, the last thing we want to do is go down the path that they have. All the Australians have decided to do is label what percentage of the product is Australian-made. If it is 50 percent Australian-made, that is what the label says. If it is 50 percent a New Zealand product, it does not say that.

They are not getting anything on their label other than how much of it is Australian-made and that, to me, is a fraud. Personally, I think it is also a barrier to trade. So that will be an interesting one to watch over the years to come, and it has just been very recently introduced.

If we look across the country, the people supporting this are shoppers, in the main. It is New Zealand producers of the single-ingredient products. It is rural New Zealand, largely. But there is some sensitivity around the companies that will have to do the labelling, and about how easily their product will be labelled. We know that if it is in a packet, labelling it is a whole lot easier than if it is an apple rolling around and we have to make sure that every single one of them has got a sticker on it.

However, I think these things are not insurmountable. It is my view that what we are doing here today is putting in place a process, through a select committee, where the bill can be carefully looked at. We can minimise the costs to the producers. We can give New Zealanders the information they want, but they must remember that when they are choosing food there are other ways that they can be more assured of its safety—looking at its best-before date, making sure they store it appropriately, and preparing it properly for eating. That will be much more about food safety; this is about choice and knowing what you are buying. Thank you.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am very pleased to rise and take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in this first reading of the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. I was watching the previous bill unfolding when Mr Mallard was in the chair, and I saw him make a point of advising members that they should not be reading their speeches. That being the case, I was not going to prepare very much. Seeing that your perhaps-slightly-more-tolerant self is in the chair now, I wonder whether that might not have been the best idea. However, having listened to speeches from the Government side, I am glad that I did not, because I have kind of changed tack with where I was going on this.

The first thing I want to do is congratulate Mr Browning on having his bill drawn and on bringing it to the House at this most appropriate time. I have got a lot of time for Steffan Browning, whom I am on the Primary Production Committee with. I think he is one of the few remaining true Greens in a party that is drifting more and more to the political left and becoming less environmental in focus. It seems that the old-time environmentalists are moving on and a new generation is coming in, so it would be very nice for this bill to pass through the House, pass into law, and become perhaps something of a legacy for Steffan Browning as, we could say, a “true Green”.

We were talking about this yesterday with a number of colleagues and were wondering whether the bill would, in fact, have the support to pass in the House assuming that National would not be supporting it. When we got a whisper that National was going to support the bill at first reading, being a suspicious-minded character, I started to wonder why. A couple of the things that have been said during Mr McKelvie’s speech, and also during Jo Goodhew’s speech, have given me cause to suspect that I know what is going to happen with this.

The first thing I want to say is that I want to refute the claims that both the affable chairman and the former Minister have made regarding food safety. This is absolutely a food safety issue. You can dress it up as choice if you like, and choice is part of it, but that choice is about food safety. Ian McKelvie said that knowing where food has come from serves as a comforter for some people. Well, yes, they have the comfort of knowing that the food they are buying is safe because it is from somewhere that can be trusted. Personally, I do not knowingly buy food that comes from some countries in the world, because I do not trust their standards or I do not particularly like their welfare standards that they apply to animals, and so forth. We all know that there are countries in the world that use chemicals and procedures and so forth in food production that we simply would not allow here.

My suspicious mind carried on down that track. When Jo Goodhew mentioned the Australian model and the select committee and that we have to make sure that the bill is simple and cost effective, I was pretty much confirmed in my thinking that National has decided to support this bill so that it can water it down and turn it into something that it was not meant to be.

From my point of view—from New Zealand First’s point of view—Steffan’s bill probably does not actually go far enough. We would like all food to be labelled, and we would like technology to be made use of so that there are QR codes and so forth on packaging that can tell the entire history of a food, be it manufactured food or processed food. There are possibilities now, with online information, where a consumer can have access to all the background information about a food—where it is processed, what the ingredients are, and so forth. It does not all have to be written on the label; there are ways in which that information can be accessed.

We would, of course, like to see this country-of-origin food bill extended very much in scope not simply to include fresh produce and single-food products but to cover off everything else as well. But I think it is very important that, here and now, we flag a concern that this bill is going to reach the select committee and then perhaps go through a watering-down process, pretty much as the National Government did with ACT’s three-strikes bill, which would have been quite good had it gone through in the format that was originally proposed. It ended up being some sort of wishy-washy shadow that then enabled the National Government to say that it had addressed the issue. I suspect very much that that is going to be the case here. The Government is going to say that it supported this bill, that it became law, and “Look, we have addressed country-of-origin labelling.”, and, in fact, we are going to end up we something that does not actually provide the consumer with the information, the choice, and the reassurance that they deserve and that they need. But we will see.

I look forward to this bill going through the Primary Production Committee. I look forward to the submissions. I very much hope that I am wrong about the possibility of the bill being watered down, but we shall see. On that note, I congratulate the member again, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Can I begin by congratulating my colleague Steffan Browning, who is one of my constituents. He is from the great electorate of Kaikōura, and lives in Marlborough—is based in Marlborough. But I think, Steffan—who has decided not to run at the next election—it is a really fitting note for you to go out on, to have a bill in your name drawn. This far out from the election, it will go quite a long way through the process, hopefully, before you leave. I know that you are very passionate about these issues.

It is a great pleasure to be able to speak in favour of this bill. I support the bill not only because National is supporting it; I support it because I believe in it myself. I think it is a fantastic piece of potential legislation. I look forward to taking it to the select committee, where there will no doubt be some debate, but it is certainly not the aim for it to be a watering-down. No doubt we will have to ensure that the thing works, and that is what the whole process of the select committee is for. I think that you will no doubt have a lot of input there, Steffan. I am looking forward to it. We might even knock Mr Prosser into shape and get him sorted out as well at the same time, but—

Tim Macindoe: You’re in for the long haul there.

STUART SMITH: Yeah. Well, I think—

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

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

STUART SMITH: As I was saying just before dinner, the wine industry is a great case in point where country-of-origin labelling is used, in a mandatory sense, in almost every market in the world where wine is sold. Despite what many think, it has not had any impact on local producers when export products go into those other markets. In fact, I would argue that having that opportunity and that choice is really just giving the consumer the information they need to make a decision—not necessarily to be parochial about their own home-grown products, but merely to make a decision based on their own tastes.

I think a lot of this goes back to—it is in our DNA, really. We grew up and evolved growing our own food and having a link to it. In villages, the groups got together—perhaps not all the individuals who were involved in growing the food, but they had a very close connection to it. Now we have evolved, through the industrial age, to where most of us have little or nothing to do with the production of the food that we eat. Very seldom, if ever, do we set foot on a farm, an orchard, or, indeed, into a vegetable patch of the commercial variety from where our food comes. I think it really just comes right back to that innate feeling that we have: we want to know where our food comes from. We want to make those decisions based on those views. I think it is really important that this bill comes forward and deals with that.

As I said earlier, there will be some things that we will maybe want the rough edges taken off of, but that is in the spirit of this bill. It will be only to enhance the bill and make it better than it would have been otherwise. I do not believe it is anything to do with a trade barrier at all. In terms of cost, I know officials will always find reasons why things could not and should not be done, but in actual fact this is what consumers want. Everybody agrees with that. I do not think there is any issue there at all.

I note that the promoter of the bill, Steffan Browning, said it is a simple bill, and that may well be right when compared with many of the other bills that come before this House that are very, very complicated. But it gets right to the heart of the matter of what needs to be done and what needs to be covered for consumers’ rights. It is only for single-variety foods, and that is for a really sensible reason, I think. To go to the next step, you then get into really complicated territory. I think the member really recognised that early on and thought “You know, after all, politics is the art of the possible, isn’t it, so let’s get this bill through the House and see how it works, and then think about other things later on down the track.”, and I commend the member for that.

I remember the last time I spoke to Horticulture New Zealand’s chief executive, Mike Chapman, who was very keen to tell me about the results of the poll that they did, and I think that was alluded to by previous speakers. I think industries like that will be very delighted to see this bill before the House.

I would like to circle back and just say, once again, good on Steffan Browning for having the luck to have this pulled out of the ballot. It is also a great swansong for the member. It is with that that I would like to commend this bill to the House.

Michael Wood: Mr Deputy Speaker.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon Damien O’Connor.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): Age before beauty—sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have to congratulate Steffan Browning, I guess, on having persistence, determination, and a little bit of luck. He has in the House a bill and an issue that he has been passionate about for a long time.

Labour will support the bill, as acknowledged by our earlier speaker, Rino Tirikatene. Labour in Government had a request from the Greens to support country-of-origin labelling and we turned it down at that time because it included a whole lot of issues that were actually complications around trade negotiations at that point and Labour could not support that. But since 2011, Labour has always advocated for country-of-origin labelling simply because it is sensible, and National—I have to acknowledge its wisdom, even though it comes very rarely and very late—has decided to support the bill because there is an issue of choice.

Although the previous Minister for Food Safety, Jo Goodhew, got up and said that this is nothing to do with food safety, I would disagree. What it is about is consumers’ knowledge and about letting them make the calls. At the heart of that issue is the one of where food is produced and the integrity and credibility of the systems that produce that food.

In New Zealand we have just passed the Food Act and we have very, very high standards. In fact, some would say that they are a bit excessive and over the top, particularly for the small producer. But we have very high standards, and I think New Zealanders—rightfully—can trust the systems that we have, and people who buy our food around the world should be able to trust the systems of food production in New Zealand.

I am not going to pick on countries, but I can tell you it is not the same elsewhere in the world. Whether it is horse meat in the EU, whether it is kangaroo meat in Australia, or whether it is melamine in China, we have got numerous examples of where there have been systems that have not delivered to the consumer the food that they believed they were buying. So it might not always be a food safety issue. I am sure eating good quality kangaroo meat is not unsafe, but it is not what the consumer purchased, and if you buy a product from New Zealand, then you should know that it has been produced in the best-possible way by the best-possible people.

We, in fact, have no other option. We are no longer the lowest-cost producers of food in the world. We were quite proud of that. We are no longer the lowest-cost producers. We have got high land values. We have got technology creeping in. We have got wages that actually should be a little bit higher, I would have to say, but they are certainly higher than many of our competitors, and that is how it should be. They are not going to go down, and they should not. So the cost of production will continue to climb.

We have to be the Rolex watch producers of protein in the world. People have to be prepared to pay a premium for our products, and when we do not have a country-of-origin labelling system in our domestic market, people offshore say: “What are you doing? How could it be so ridiculous that you claim to be the best in the world, yet you’re not proud to stamp and brand your own products in your own country?”.

You know, this is not new. In fact, we currently have no country-of-origin labelling, because we have an exemption from Food Standards Australia New Zealand—an exemption so that we do not have to have compulsory country-of-origin labelling. This will just be bringing us into line with Australia. There are technical issues to ensure that what we put in place will indeed work for consumers and work for producers, and I am sure that the select committee will go through that very, very carefully.

Horticulture New Zealand and Consumer New Zealand—they all support this. They know we need it. Canada had country-of-origin labelling in 1990, the United States had it in 2002, and Australia, the European Union, India, China, Japan, and Russia have all got it, and yet a country that prides itself on safe food production does not have country-of-origin labelling.

The National Government and the National Ministers for Food Safety have rejected the calls, time and time again, for us to put it in place. Well, Steffan Browning has snookered the Government, and good on you, Steffan. It is absolutely snookered between public opinion—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member, but his time has long expired.

Hon Damien O’Connor: I didn’t have a bell.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You had a bell at 1 minute.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Did I have a bell? My apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): Before I start, I think it is a bit ironic that Mr O’Connor is putting blame on National Ministers of food safety and primary industries for not supporting this bill given that, in his opening statement, he said that successive Labour Ministers never supported it.

I just wanted to speak in support of this bill and acknowledge Steffan Browning for bringing it to the House, because I know one thing for sure: he has been a passionate supporter of this ever since I have been in Parliament, which is, obviously, a relatively little period of time compared with him. Sitting on the Primary Production Committee with him, there have been a number of opportunities, through bills and through presentations that have come before the committee, where he has continuously and relentlessly raised this issue with our sector representatives.

Actually, I think the most meaningful one of late was on wine country-of-origin labelling, which our committee looked at, probably about 6 or 7 months ago. There were quite a few submitters on that bill who raised the issue that he is pushing here today. I think it is a good thing. Obviously, I do not have the same level of trade background that Stuart and other speakers in the House have got, but I think that looking at all the information around it—and looking at the presenters who were before us on the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Amendment Bill, about 6 or 7 months ago, who were confident that this was not going to be an inhibitor to our trading relationships—gives me the confidence to support this bill. Indeed, it is what gives our party confidence in supporting this bill.

One of the things that I think the select committee process gives an opportunity to tease out is the nuances associated with that. Obviously, there are a number of trade agreement refreshes that are going on at the moment, and new agreements, and, indeed, a number of existing agreements that we have with other countries. I am sure—and I have no doubt given the amount of proactive engagement we get from sector leads and ministry officials within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade—that if there will be any unforeseen consequences on trading relationships as result of this, that they will certainly be aired through the select committee process, which is why I think we have a high level of confidence in supporting it to the select committee.

There are probably not too many bills that progress through the parliamentary process and get past the select committee without having some form of alteration made to them. Obviously, there are a few rough edges—as has been pointed out by some people on our side in previous speeches—that will need to be ironed out, but that is no different to any other piece of legislation that goes through a select committee. I know that Steffan Browning is a pragmatic member and that he will be very accommodating to the views that are put forward by ministry officials and other sector representatives along those lines—as he always is.

I want to pick up on a point that Damien O’Connor raised as well in his opening statements, and that is around the need—and, indeed, the requirement—and, actually, the realistic nature of consumers in the 21st century being more curious and being more informed and requiring more information about the produce that they are purchasing for themselves and their families. If you look at China, probably, as an example at an international level, and the high degree of curiosity and rigour that it puts around doing its due diligence on products that it is feeding its children through infant formula. I think there is certainly an obligation on consumers to remain—vigilant is not the right word, but I suppose it is a good way to describe not just always not resting on your laurels when you are purchasing products from, well, New Zealand, and also from other countries, and just make sure that you are aware of the produce and that which goes into making those products.

I think one of the things that this bill does is it does not take away from that, and it does not put country-of-origin labelling into the food safety category, but what it does is just reinforce the view that consumers are curious and they are inherently more interested in what goes into making up their products. On that level, I think Steffan raised something that is, obviously, demanded by consumers in this day and age. It is a real pleasure to be able to support it, and I want to congratulate Steffan because I know this is one the handful of issues that he has been quite passionate about over his time in Parliament, and, no doubt—

Ian McKelvie: Along with Roundup.

TODD BARCLAY: Roundup up is probably not going to be featured in this, but, nevertheless, I have no hesitation that it will be raised in the Primary Production Committee tomorrow. I just want to congratulate him on getting the bill to this point. Thank you.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): The Labour Party is very enthusiastic about this bill, as you can tell. I am very pleased to stand and speak in favour of the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. I am pleased to reaffirm the support from the Labour Party for this bill. I am very happy to congratulate Steffan Browning on putting forward a bill that is very simple and achieves, I think, a very good objective. I am acknowledging of the National Party, which has shown willingness to progress this bill in line with those principles. And I am very pleased indeed to stand as the Labour Party’s consumer affairs spokesperson in support of this bill as well.

This is a concept that the Labour Party has supported for a long time. It has been on our policy book since 2011. Sometimes good things do take time, and we are quite open to other parties picking up good ideas and marching in concert with them. This bill is a good bill because it is about giving our consumers real choice. The thing about real choice in any sphere—this is a matter of common sense and it is also a basic foundation of economic theory as well—is that you cannot have real choice unless you have good information, otherwise how are you making a choice?

In respect of this issue, we can think about a couple of barrels of apples at the supermarket. You can choose whether you want the green ones or the red ones. As a consumer you can perceive that information and make your choice. You can make a choice based on the taste that you know comes with the different varieties and that kind of thing. But how do you make a choice about the country of origin unless you are provided with that information at the point of purchase? The fact is that you simply cannot.

This bill very simply attempts to deal with that issue, and it says in the purpose of the bill that it is about providing a “simple, mandatory labelling system in New Zealand that provides consumers with accurate information about the country of origin of single component foods to enable them to make informed food purchasing decisions.” A couple of important things within that—of course, there is the reference to single-component food. We could, of course, go wider with this issue if we wished to, as a House. But I think Mr Browning has quite correctly said “Let’s start with something that is relatively simple.”, which is single-component food; not things that have multiple components where you can have difficulties and issues in terms of identifying where those different components have come from. I think that is a simple and pragmatic basis to go from.

There are a couple of other reasons I think that we should be moving forward in support of this bill. One is that a lot of industry players are already there. In fact, there is an increasing movement towards providing consumers with this kind of information. Why is that? It is because, I think, a lot of producers and a lot of distributors want their consumers to be able to make good choices. If you are looking at it from the perspective of New Zealand producers, I can only see this being a good thing, because while this bill does not push on anyone that they have to buy New Zealand products, it gives them that information. And I think there are a lot of New Zealanders out there who, if they are given good information and the option of choosing between similar products from New Zealand and from offshore, will look at the New Zealand option very, very seriously indeed.

At the moment the information is really poor. I think about some supermarkets you go to, where there are not good practices, and you get these ridiculous signs that say “Product of either Australia or New Zealand.”, or some such. What information does that give people? I am sort of thinking about that in the political context. It would be like the equivalent of if we woke up on the morning of 24 September and the press said that we have elected either a Labour-led or a National-led Government. Or, in the case of Epsom, we have elected either Paul Goldsmith or David Seymour. Imagine the panic that would sow in the National Party ranks. People want clear information. That is all that this is about.

The bill is supported by Consumer New Zealand. It has moved on this issue over the years. It is also supported by Horticulture New Zealand. It notes in its research that 70 percent of New Zealanders are very, very supportive of this concept. I think one that we can say is there are some issues we want to look at in select committee. There are questions around enforcement and penalties, costs—I do not think the costs are going to be a big issue; increasingly, we have got good technology and good distribution networks that, I think, can absorb the costs pretty well, but that needs to be looked at—the types of display that would be sufficient, and also the definition of different types of food. I know when the Labour Party went down the track of looking at GST exemption on different types of foods, it can open up some questions. But that is something that we can explore sensibly in select committee.

In conclusion, I can reaffirm that Labour is very keen to see this bill progress, certainly to select committee and, I think, probably beyond that. It is simply about providing Kiwi consumers with the information that they need to make good choices. I do not see any strong arguments against that. I commend Mr Browning on putting forward the bill, and commend it to other colleagues in the House. Thank you.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am pleased to take this call on the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill in the name of our Green colleague Steffan Browning. I think it is always a very proud moment when you can have a bill drawn from the ballot. There is great luck in that, but I think it is also a great moment to be able to, obviously, pursue an area of interest, and I know from the few times that I have sat in the Primary Production Committee that the member is very passionate about that sector. I am sure that the chair of the committee would have many comments to say on that. Again, I acknowledge the member for his bill. As has already been noted by this side of the House, the National Government is supporting this bill to a select committee.

From my side, I would not see this as one of the most pressing issues in the country, and I say that only from a constituency point of view. This is not something I get a lot of queries about, but the paradox within that is, I am sure, actually, a number of my constituents would welcome this. It is one of those elements that they probably do not even think about.

I think it is in the purposes of the bill where Mr Browning talks about the fact that people will assume, in many ways, if it is not labelled that it is already a New Zealand product. So at the heart of this bill is a question of knowledge. I am mentioning that because this is about knowledge, not safety, and I think that is a relatively important element to draw out. Others may have done so in the debate, and we would welcome hearing from the member. But, ultimately, what this bill is seeking to do is to provide a little bit more knowledge for New Zealand consumers to better understand where the product they are about to eat comes from.

It is not fundamentally a safety issue, and I think it is probably important for people at home to understand this. The safety of food is already covered by existing legislation. I think it was in 2014 that a food safety Act—or an update, effectively—was passed, and I think again, for those at home and perhaps for the House, there should be that understanding that the safety of our food, regardless of country of origin, is already checked, mandated, and controlled via Governmental legislation. So what this is going to do is, yes, provide a little bit more opportunity to understand where, effectively, our food comes from.

Importantly, this is about single-component foods. You are allowed—sorry, I will just quickly make a distinction. By “single-component”, we are obviously thinking of the likes of fish and meat and fruit. It does not preclude it if, I think, some—I assume—basic preservatives like salt or the like are put in. That does not exclude it, but we are talking very basic products here. But, as with the previous speaker, Michael Wood, I think it needs the select committee to take a bit of time to tease out some of these issues.

In my initial looking over of the bill, there is a little bit of concern—and it is only on my own side—about the level of fines that would be imposed. I would be particularly interested to see how they marry up against other sorts of enforcement activities, particularly in this space. I do think we need to look at any cost that this might have on consumers indirectly, because in the first instance it will be the importer—the likes of a supermarket, for example—that will wear the cost.

Importantly, of course, a number of our supermarkets already have a voluntary system where they are marking out the country of origin, so in some ways that is probably an argument that this will not be a hefty cost, because it is already happening. I suppose it then becomes an issue for some of the smaller producers—how is that going to look? The other element, too, will be simply: how is this going to be displayed? I suspect it is not going to be a massive issue, and I think of fruit in the supermarket. It is not unusual, and almost annoying, I have to say, that almost every piece of fruit has to be navigated with a little sticker. It might be fine on a banana; rather frustrating when it is an apple. But, actually, how is that going to look? Again, how is it going to be mandated? What is going to be the consistent approach there? I think that is why, certainly from this side of the House, we are happy to see the bill progress.

We assume—with the support of the House it will get through—there will be a chance for the select committee to, importantly, hear from the various groups. I come to the conclusion of my little contribution tonight, encouraging those groups that have an interest here to come and speak to the committee to allow it to further formulate—I was going to say “better formulate”, but that is a little bit presumptuous—the bill. I have every confidence that the member responsible for the bill will welcome that opportunity.

I think, finally, we will just need a little bit of guidance, which will probably come from the officials in the first instance, around our World Trade Organization obligations to make sure we are in a good space there. But, again, I commend the member for bringing the bill to the House.

STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am delighted that National has indicated it has had a change of heart and will support this bill through to a select committee. This is going to be exceptionally well appreciated by many New Zealanders, going on the back of when Labour came on in 2011, and I think of the comment back then by Sue Kedgley, who said that there were 9 years of campaigning to get to that point. As I noted in my earlier speech, there has been a consistently greater level of desire to have country-of-origin labelling, and now to have most parties in the House agreeing to this is fantastic.

New Zealanders do have a right to know where their food comes from and to make an informed choice when they buy. They do want the option of choosing locally produced food when they do their weekly shop, and we now have this opportunity to make that a reality. At the select committee it sounds like we all are—and I certainly am—looking forward to hearing from submitters their different angles and positions and how far they want us to go with this.

I would like to thank the likes of Horticulture New Zealand. It has got 5,500 members and it is clearly very, very supportive of this bill. Consumer New Zealand, a very respected consumer organisation with a very large membership, is right behind this bill. New Zealand pork is a classic example of a sector that is currently heavily influenced—60 percent of pork consumed in New Zealand is imported, and yet that pork, as far as I know, is never labelled with the country of origin. So that will make a great move for New Zealand pork. TomatoesNZ is supportive and is part of the campaigning on these sorts of issues, and it would also be benefited. The Soil & Health Association of New Zealand has lobbied long—in fact, I was with it before I was here, lobbying on this issue. The New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women, the E tū union—they are all supporters, so you can see it has got a wide, wide level of support. Sue Kedgley, in 2007, had a 39,000-strong petition.

But tonight I do want to once again thank the parties supporting this bill: the Māori Party, New Zealand First, Labour, and National. People will be very, very happy.

Tim Macindoe: What about the Greens?

STEFFAN BROWNING: The Greens are definitely supporting this. They have done so for ever—ha, ha! The Greens have supported this for ever.

I would like to also put out a thought about the people of Edgecumbe and, obviously, other areas of New Zealand tonight and over the next few days around flooding. The chair of the Primary Production Committee, Ian McKelvie, brought that up earlier, and how accurate he was in saying that most food produced in New Zealand that will be affected by this, or lots of it, is on those low lands, those flood plains. We do need to consider those producers. Quite often people in the urban areas just do not appreciate how hard it is to produce food and get good returns. This bill, thankfully, will give New Zealanders the choice to support those New Zealand producers, who do so often have to battle the elements.

There are a number of issues that have been brought up by colleagues in the House here, including labelling and whether it is a food safety issue. I can say that, in my view, it is in part a food safety issue, so I would hate to miss out the word. But as I round up this speech—

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

STEFFAN BROWNING: —just to give a little bit of Roundup to my friends over there. Roundup will come into it with some of the imported food, too. So I look forward to the select committee process and I thank everyone again for the level of support that I have heard tonight. I look forward to the select committee process. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 120

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; United Future 1.

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Primary Production Committee.

Bills

Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I move, That the Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Science Committee to consider the bill. I do not want to gloat about it, but this is the second of my three members’ bills that are before Parliament at this very moment, and it is actually not about luck; it is entirely skill-based, of course.

Tim Macindoe: Manipulation of the biscuit tin.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Yes, it is. It is based on the merit of the member’s bill that is in the ballot. It is interesting though, tonight, the range of members’ bills that we have seen, and I think the standard of debate has greatly improved this evening compared with some other evenings. So I commend the Government members to continue along that path.

The point of this bill is to replace the code of conduct that is in section 387 of the Education Act and replace it with a new code of ethics—that is, to restore the primacy of a code of ethics for the teaching profession, which is something that I think everyone in this House would understand and feel very strongly about. This bill has been in the ballot for some time. It was drawn on a Thursday, and the very next day—literally, the day after—the Education Council released the draft of the code that it is required to prepare, called Our Code, Our Standards. I cannot claim credit and say that having the member’s bill drawn on Thursday drove the Education Council to produce its draft code on the Friday, but the timing—the coincidence—was extraordinary.

The Education Council code has been very well received, and I want to commend the council, not just for the framing of the code but also for the way that it is engaging, and the people who need to be the most highly regarded in that are, of course, our teachers. This bill runs parallel to that code but, more importantly, it also futureproofs it, and I will come back to that point later.

There has been quite a lot of debate about the way we engage with teachers, the regard we have, and I suppose the confidence we have in them to be a self-regulating profession. In my view, we should view teachers from a high-status, high-trust basis, and that has not always been the case in the last few years. In fact, the lack of that respect for teachers really was part of the driver for the creation of this bill.

Teachers have made it very clear that they do not want a punitive code of conduct. They have the same values-based thinking as our medical practitioners in terms of errors being part of a constant improvement movement, rather than punitive, but they also made it very clear that they wanted an aspirational code of ethics. The draft code that the Education Council has released has satisfied the legislative mandate that it has been given without it being punitive, and I think that is something that has been very carefully considered by it. That is not something that it could just rush into; it needed to balance that up very carefully.

At the moment the Minister of Education appoints 100 percent of the members of the Education Council, so while praising the current council for the work that it has done, there is, sadly, no guarantee that a future Minister—in fact, we are going to have a new Minister within a matter of weeks—might not make appointments to the Education Council that have a completely different frame of thinking and who actually might say that the punitive approach is the way to keep teachers on their mettle and to sharpen their act. You know, we have heard that sort of language before, and it is not the language I support.

So this is really looking to the future and saying that it is bad that this bill was not drawn months ago, but it is actually good that we can now look at the framing of this bill alongside the draft code that the Education Council has put out and ask how we make sure that the huge support that that draft code has engendered is the basis of future documents. So that is really the basis of this. That is why this bill, despite the draft code being put out, is still relevant.

I suppose all of us have had instances—particularly those who are electorate MPs—where a school or teachers have got into difficulty, and often members of the public have very strong views about what should happen there. Of course we must hold teachers accountable. Of course we have to value their educational judgment. But, as I said before, the high-status, high-trust model is one that has worked for many years for us and has given us a teaching profession that is internationally well regarded.

I hope that the majority of members in this House—as they did with Steffan Browning’s bill just prior to this—are able to support this bill to go to a committee. I would love this bill to be considered alongside the debate that is taking place on the draft education code, Our Code, Our Standards, so that we can look at what teachers, particularly, have said, what the education sector as a whole has said, and what the Education Council says needs improving—if anything—in the legislative framework, so that we can all be confident as a Parliament that we are giving our education sector the best possible frame to work in. That is the way to drive high-quality education, that is the way to drive confidence in our education profession, and that is the way to get the best-possible outcomes for our students throughout the country.

I have just about completed drafting another bill, and because it is nearly the end of April, we have not got long to go before the election. I would like to increase my chances of getting another bill drawn by now sitting down and making sure that we have a number of bills drawn from the ballot in the near future.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): This is a bill that goes backwards and it seeks to reverse two key changes that were made by the Education Amendment Act in early 2015. It proposes to change the name of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, or EDUCANZ, to the Teaching Council of Aotearoa and also to revert to a teachers’ code of ethics rather than a code of conduct.

The National-led Government has made a consistent effort to modernise our education system. We are determined to give education providers, parents, and families more options so that our young New Zealanders are able to succeed in an increasingly complex digital and global world. So that is our consistent effort, and our focus is students and we are determined to make sure that students can achieve. So that is our focus and that is our aim.

It is against this background that the National-led Government has made numerous changes, basically to make sure that our education system is modernised. This includes the current Education (Update) Amendment Bill, which we will consider further tomorrow morning. In early 2015 we passed the Education Amendment Act and also changed the New Zealand Teachers Council to Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. We did this for some good reasons. Firstly, the New Zealand Teachers Council was not well positioned to do a good job. The Education Workforce Advisory Group and a subsequent review committee both found that the previous New Zealand Teachers Council was not “structured, governed, and positioned … [to] effectively set and enforce clear standards for entry, progression and professional accountability with the full support of the profession.”

A ministerial advisory group commissioned to provide recommendations on the reforms of the New Zealand Teachers Council did recommend that the name of the new professional body should be the Teaching Council of New Zealand. However, we believed that it was important to have a significantly different name, because we would like to walk out of the shadow of a body that did not perform, and we would like to have a fresh start. So this is the first point.

Secondly, teaching and learning involves not only teachers but also educators and teaching leaders and also students—most importantly, students. So students have to be our focus. It is our responsibility to make sure that students do achieve, and the name of Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand reflects that kind of thinking.

Thirdly, the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand reflects the bicultural nature of our teaching. That is another important point.

The name proposed in this bill was actually used in 1996 by a voluntary, independent, and teacher-run body, but that body lasted for just 2 years. It failed for all sorts of reasons. Most importantly, it did not see the differences among all the education providers. So it is not a good idea to associate a new professional body with a failed body. The name can also be misleading, because it does not reflect our efforts to focus on students’ achievement in the modern environment.

With regard to the code of conduct provisions, the old code of ethics was problematic and the new code of conduct is necessary. This is based on the findings of three separate expert advisory groups, including the 2010 Education Workforce Advisory Group, the 2012 ministerial inquiry into the employment of a convicted sex offender in the education sector, and the 2012 report about the review of the New Zealand Teachers Council. All three reports pointed out the problems with this code of ethics. The code of ethics was not comprehensive, was not binding, was unable to resolve the issue of the employment of convicted sex offenders, and it was also hard to use by employers to make assessments of professional conduct. So for all these reasons it was necessary to replace the code of ethics with a new, upgraded code of conduct.

We do need to learn the lesson and move on. As I said earlier, we are focusing on students and their achievement. We all know that quality teaching and learning is particularly important in raising the achievements of our students, but to have that quality of learning and teaching, we need to have strong trust in the profession by the general public, by the families, and by the students—the learners. So how do we do that? A code of conduct, in that sense, is essential.

As we know now, the member’s bill is now redundant because we now have a draft code of conduct and also what we call professional standards. That draft code has gone through a range of thorough professional consultation—a lot of very thorough consultation in the sector, including teachers, education providers, and also leaders. It is currently out for public consultation. So, in a sense, this bill itself is indeed redundant. It is important to note that the draft code did not come from nowhere, but builds on the existing 2003 teachers’ code of ethics. It is an upgraded and updated code of conduct. So this is not a new set of new standards; these are just based on the existing standards and they make sure that we make it more updated and modernised.

I need to emphasise that this bill demonstrates that Labour has run out of ideas. It is simply recycling failed bills. That is what it is doing. Instead, the National-led Government has been making a consistent effort to modernise our education system. We have made so many changes—the communities of online learning, or COOLs, and a code, which we are talking about now. There are so many changes, and we are now simply trying to make sure that our education system, after so many years, can finally catch up with the changes in the world.

For that reason I would like to thank our very capable Minister of Education, the Hon Hekia Parata. She has been working tirelessly in the education sector and meeting so much resistance from the Opposition. Yet we are pushing forward and we are pleased to see—

Simon O’Connor: A great leap forward.

Dr JIAN YANG: Yes, a great leap forward. We are very pleased to say that we are indeed delivering and achieving, and we are very confident that New Zealanders will see a very different, very modernised, and very, very advanced education system in New Zealand, and all the public and all the parents will cheer for us. Thank you.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): There is not a single person in the country who would be reassured to know that the previous speaker, Jian Yang, is the chairperson of the Education and Science Committee, who demonstrates very clearly for the House the perils of reading the research team’s notes without making any effort to understand what they actually say or the issue that is being debated. Perhaps if he had, he would understand the contradiction that is inherent in saying that the code of ethics was rubbish, that it was inadequate, and then saying that the new code of conduct is based on that code of ethics—contradicting himself all the way through. He might then also know that the students and other education workers whom he has spoken about are not regulated by this professional body. Why should it be named after them when it is designed exclusively to regulate the teaching profession? Why would it not have a name that reflects the fact that it regulates the teaching profession?

I think the member should perhaps have taken a little bit of time to read the bill that he is commenting on and to do a little bit of background research, and then perhaps he would not sound like he has such a lack of knowledge. [Interruption] But I am pleased to see that the two amigos over there have stopped their plotting long enough to pay a little bit of attention to the debate. They can get back to plotting about how they get rid of Bill English a little bit later on, but for now, I am pleased that they are engaged in this particular debate in the House.

The Labour Party believes in a high-status, high-trust teaching profession, something the National Party has a great deal of difficulty coming to terms with. The teaching profession told us through the course of the hearings on that particular legislation, the Education Amendment Act 2015, that the code of conduct was seen as punitive. It was seen as taking away teachers’ voice, teachers’ control over their own profession, and the code of ethics was seen as aspirational and something that they would like to sign up to and be part of. I want to say that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand has done a pretty good job of sidestepping the legislative mandate that it was provided by the Government and actually taking a broader view. Note that it does not use the phrase “code of conduct” in the discussion document it has released, because it is obviously just as uncomfortable about the change from a code of ethics to a code of conduct as the teaching profession is, as well it should be, because the education council—it should be called the “Teaching Council”—is supposed to be the regulatory professional body for the teaching profession, and the teaching profession should have ownership over it.

This bill by my colleague Ruth Dyson is an excellent bill. I could not have written it better if I had written it myself. This excellent piece of legislation will give the teaching profession some certainty that a future council appointed by the Minister of Education—note that under the current arrangements the Minister appoints all of the members of the council, so at any moment she, or whoever the new Minister is, could sack the council and appoint a different council that could impose a much more punitive code of conduct on the teaching profession, which would not support it. This bill will ensure that that does not happen. It would give back to the teaching profession and the teaching community some ownership over the teaching profession and the way it is regulated.

We heard a lot from the profession itself during the hearings. As I said, the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), which represents primary and intermediate teachers throughout the country, was concerned that the introduction of the code of conduct could gag the freedom of teachers and principals to critique poor policy. We know that that is something that the current Government would dearly love to do, because it hates it when teachers and principals stand up and point out all of the flaws in the policy that it is implementing. When they stand up and they point out that the changes that are being implemented by this Government are not good for kids’ education, the Government hates it. It does not want to have teachers being able to do that, so it would love to gag the teaching profession. I think that is a legitimate concern by the NZEI that would be overcome by this bill by my colleague Ruth Dyson.

The Post Primary Teachers’ Association pointed out that teachers have a strong sense of ownership over the code of ethics, something that would be taken away from them if the code of conduct was implemented in the way the Government wants it to be implemented. I want to say again that I congratulate the council for effectively sidestepping the directive that was given to it by the current Government and adopting a code—note, not a code of conduct but a code—that is much more aspirational and wider than that. Teachers want to have high professional standards, they want to have high ethical standards, and this code of conduct as envisaged by the National Government is unnecessarily restrictive and demeaning. I think that this bill, which takes a much more aspirational approach, a much more empowering approach, an approach that puts much more trust and confidence in the professionalism of teachers, would be an enormous step in the right direction.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): I rise in opposition to this bill for two reasons. Firstly, it will achieve absolutely nothing. It is absolute jiggery-pokery, and if this is all the Labour Party can suggest in terms of reformation of the education sector, then we know we are on the right track. Secondly, this member’s bill rehashes a Labour Party Supplementary Order Paper 22 to the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) from 2014, which was before the House. We opposed it then and we are opposing it again now. The ironic thing is that the Labour Party put forward a member’s bill that is actually redundant because of what has happened since Ruth Dyson put the bill in the biscuit tin. She had the opportunity to pull it out and save herself some embarrassment. She decided not to, let it sit in there and linger, collecting crumbs, and then what she did when she saw that the professional code of ethics was released was she did not say: “Oh, right, maybe I am on the wrong track. Maybe the profession is actually right behind this. They are right behind this, and they support the approach that the Government is taking.” So she kept it in there, and the Labour Party once again embarrassed itself.

I think the name proposed by Ms Dyson was previously used in 1996 by an independent voluntary teacher-run professional body. The ironic thing about that is the organisation folded after 2 years due to lack of support from the teachers themselves. Why would the Labour Party, which claims to be a supporter of the teaching body, put forward something that is not even supported by the teachers’ bodies themselves? I think the funny thing about this is that the Labour Party, which used to be the party for the teachers, the party for education—that is long gone. Under Hekia Parata’s superb leadership in the education sector, bringing together a ministerial cross-sector forum, reforming the Education Act, conducting a fundamental review of education funding, initiating in her first couple of weeks as Minister of Education the ministerial inquiry into sex offenders in schools—that was one of the toughest things that this Government has done, in the first couple of weeks of the second term of Government, to take on quite a controversial issue and deliver a result. The inquiry by former Ombudsman Mel Smith and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Education Review Office and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs Dr Judith Aitken ultimately recommended that the first thing that the Government should do is implement a code of conduct. Well, we have done that.

This is what this bill sets out to try to cross right through and it has no fundamental value-add to what this Government has done over the last 6 years. Ruth Dyson clearly has not paid any attention to what her sector’s requests are in this space. She clearly has not paid any attention whatsoever to what has happened in the education sector under the leadership of the Hon Hekia Parata. The bill adds no substance. It is absolute jiggery-pokery. Labour knew that this bill became completely redundant as soon as the draft code of conduct was released, but refused to withdraw it, wasting Parliament’s time and wasting taxpayers’ dollars.

It is ironic, given we are doing a funding review of the education sector at the moment, which aspires to have a clearer line of sight of the value of taxpayers’ dollars in education. The Labour Party opposes that. It opposes this. It opposes what we have done in the code of conduct. Quite apart from the politics and setting aside that this is a National Government initiative, what this bill does, actually, is it is a complete and utter insult to very highly respected people in the sector. Mel Smith, former Ombudsman, recommended this as part of his review of the ministerial inquiry into sex offenders in schools. Dr Judith Aitken, former CEO of the Education Review Office, and Dr Graham Stoop, who is the former CEO of the Education Review Office and current CEO of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand—they are all recommending the steps the Government is taking.

What Ruth Dyson fails to understand is that this is not about politics. This is about, fundamentally, experts in the sector recommending some changes that will help enhance the sector and help protect the teaching profession and vulnerable children, but what she does is try to take a pot-shot at the Government and a pot-shot at the Minister of Education. This bill is an utter disgrace and an utter waste of taxpayers’ dollars. That is why I oppose this bill.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora koutou katoa o tēnei pō. I am really pleased to support this bill. If you listen to the last speaker, Todd Barclay, it is a little bit like a parallel universe—the “Age of Aquarius”, the “summer of love”—whereby the teaching profession has actually had a great run with Hekia Parata. It has all been just beautiful! The flower children of the Government have embraced the teaching profession! It has been, you know, hand in hand through a field of daisies!

Unfortunately, I have been here the whole time, I have sat through all these bills, and I have listened to every submission on them. I support this bill because the conversation about the status of teachers is really important. We are now in a low-trust environment between the education profession and the Government. So when the Government put up Education Amendment Bill (No 2), I think it was, it talked about changing “ethics” to “conduct”. In that low-trust environment, broken by the debacle of national standards, the absurdity of charter schools, and a number of other under-funding initiatives that have destroyed trust, there was no appetite from the teaching profession to see a change that would lead from being recognised as professionals with ethics to being people who need to be controlled by a code of conduct.

Despite the fact that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) has a greater relationship with the sector than the Government does and has created a draft code without mentioning the word “conduct”—because it knows, even though the Government has not grasped this concept, that that was offensive—it would be good to get this bill to the select committee to have the conversation about the status of the teaching profession.

Ironically, one of EDUCANZ’s new functions is to lift the status of the profession while, at the very same moment, the Government, by saying that the profession needs a controlling code of conduct and not a code of ethics, has undermined what was already a fragile and shaky relationship. So it is a bit like the partner who is in denial that there is any problem: “Oh, no, we’ve got a great relationship. Everything’s fantastic.” Meanwhile the house is falling apart. Meanwhile the other partner is struggling to have a voice.

In this bill, we have a chance to have that voice discuss what it wants, and far from being something that Ruth Dyson made up, it is actually what the teaching profession wants to talk about, because there is a difference between ethics and behaviour. Conduct relates to behaviour; ethics relates to standards and relates to professionalism. The teaching profession, much like the medical profession, is highly involved in very, very ethical decisions every single day, about working with young people and about using their professional judgment around developing the minds of the future of this country. So those ethics were what that code of ethics was about. That was a recognition of the status of the profession.

One way that we lift the status of the profession, which is the supposed function of EDUCANZ, is to recognise that that is what it is and that this workforce—these public servants—should never be shut down, because educators are the critics and conscience of society. Not only at university but in every situation, we need our educators to be free to say what they think, particularly about education but, in fact, about anything—any social issue in society—because educators are the practitioners who reflect. This code of ethics bill is about recognising the reflective nature of the practitioners who operate at that level. So I am sorry, but the previous speaker from the Government is just completely wrong about this.

One of the other reasons I am really passionate about the code of ethics is that it creates an obligation under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the commitment to Māori as tangata whenua. That, for the Green Party, is a pretty critical thing as well, and so we are pleased to see that this is highlighted in Ruth Dyson’s bill, as she has also highlighted the issue about not silencing people as the critics and conscience of society.

So we do not need punitive measures; we need a debate about how to lift the status of the most vital profession that works with our young people every day, and so the Green Party would like to see this go forward. We are pleased to support the bill, and we feel sorry that the “summer of love” fantasy does not really exist between the sector and Government, but when there is a change of Government, at least we will get to reality and we can start improving things from there. So bring it on. Thank you very much.

Hon JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata): My head is reeling. It has been a very long time since I have heard this side of the House described as the “summer of love” territory. But anyway, the purpose of this particular bill has been aptly described by a previous speaker, the chair of the Education and Science Committee, as “going backwards”. I would have to say that it is not even “back to the future”; it is simply going straight ahead backwards.

The changes that the member wishes to bring into play in this bill simply only make sense to me if the member has been listening to only one particular group.

Tracey Martin: Oh, here we go. Let’s pick on the teachers.

Hon JO GOODHEW: It is not the schools that I know Tracey Martin visits on a regular basis. She is very good at visiting schools. She has good connections into schools.

Tracey Martin: Oh, don’t be too nice, Jo!

Hon JO GOODHEW: This is a compliment, Ms Martin, and you should take it as such. You are one of the good ones who talks to schools, not to just the union. In fact, that is what happens on this side of the House. We visit schools. So let me tell you what schools have been saying to me lately and what conversations we have been having. Because there is one thing that comes through every single time, and it is the child at the centre of it and the child’s education. It is not all about what we call their professional body. In fact, they have not raised it at all. What they wanted to know was that there would be teachers on that body, and there are, irrespective of who appoints them.

The Education Council came before the select committee just recently, and, yes, as the previous member on her feet from the Green Party, Catherine Delahunty, said, they are charged with lifting the status of the profession—but the profession lets itself down so jolly often that that certainly has not helped. When I go into schools, the school teachers and principals want to talk to me about children and behaviour that is challenging the teaching profession, because they are really tough to deal with. They want to talk to me about the communities of learning (COLs), and I would like to mention the COLs to the House. We have got to an amazing milestone, with more than half a million students operating in schools, where we have got a phenomenal number—1,100 teachers and principals appointed to new positions in communities of learning. It is not a small amount of money we are investing in improving the education of the children at the centre of this.

To me, it reminds me of a musical we did at school where one of the songs was called “What’s in a Name?” It was Dracula Spectacula, I have to say. Here we are debating the very name of this organisation. When it comes to a code, we have heard from the Education Council that there has been huge collaboration in the way the code has been put together. The sector has been very engaged in it. Actually, the sector obviously gets it. It is not in what you call it; it is what is in it. It is what is in the education. It is what is in the profession that means that it delivers status to itself. That, I think, is what we should be thinking about.

The conversations that are happening on that side of the House are clearly very different to what we are listening to. A conversation with the union will be a very different conversation from a conversation with school principals and with school teachers. Getting into the schools and asking not what is the matter with them but what matters to them—and what they tell me is that the children are at the centre of what matters to them. It is not the name of something. They want to know that the teaching profession is valued—I get that—and great teachers are the best assets we can have in our children’s lives, other than amazing parents. So put the two together and children will succeed. But we need to, as a Government, be doing all we can to make sure there are more and more and more great teachers in our schools, and fantastic principals, and that they are sharing their skills around so that there are more and more fantastic schools delivering for our students. Thank you.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise to my feet on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill, and I do so because—and I just want to say that I think the speaker who sat down just before is a loss to Cabinet. I think that it is unfair that Jo Goodhew was dismissed. That lady managed to get to her feet and speak about a subject she does not have a lot of knowledge about, with great enthusiasm. And that is what you want in a politician—honestly. There are a lot of them over there who do not know anything about education who do constantly try to add some value, but Ms Goodhew at least rose and gave it some panache. So I think that woman is a loss, and the National Party should reconsider its list on the Opposition side of the House after 23 September.

This document is the code of ethics we are discussing. This document is the code of conduct. I may be the only person in the whole of the place who has actually got both of them and read both of them at the same time.

Todd Muller: At the same time!

TRACEY MARTIN: Because I am a woman, and a woman can do many things at the same time, Mr Muller. The reason why it is important, Ms Goodhew, is the difference between—these are not names; these are descriptions. This document is a code of ethics. This says you are a professional, ethical person, and these are the ethics by which we will judge you. This document is a code of conduct. “Conduct” is how you behave, and we will dictate to you how you will behave. I think it is really interesting that this is a profession that is overwhelmingly staffed by women and we have removed the fact that they are professionals with ethics and have decided that we are going to tell them how to behave. I think it smacks of the paternalism of the National Party. It is very, very interesting that this profession, which is overwhelmingly female, has been told by this Government: “We don’t trust you to be ethical; we’re going to tell you how to behave.”

Then we start to get into what is actually in this document. The Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand has done a sterling job of avoiding what the Government has asked it to do. I hope that through this conversation, the council are not all dismissed by the Minister of Education, who has the power to dismiss them tomorrow. She has the power to dismiss them tomorrow if she believes they have intentionally gone out of their way and made this code of conduct too close to ethics.

But I will tell you this: inside this code, we can see Hekia Parata’s hand and the hand of this Government. People will know exactly what I am talking about here. One of the indicators that you are not fulfilling the code of conduct that this Government says you must fulfil is refusing to pronounce their names correctly or learn how to—including the important names that they whakapapa to, such as their whānau, hapū, iwi, tapu, marae, waka, or maunga. This is the Government that took away Te Kotahitanga. This is the Government that has allowed the resource teachers of Māori to almost disappear. There are no supports for the delivery of Te Reo Māori among our teaching staff in our mainstream English-medium schools. If this is not fulfilled, the teacher could be dismissed. This is how prescriptive this document is. This is why it is an issue.

If we are going to expand and improve on the code of ethics, then expand and improve on the code of ethics. Do not start putting little pieces here and there that put a chilling effect on our educators. The first thing every dictator does is start to attack the educators. This Government has acted more and more like a dictator over the last 9 years. This bill should go forward. Hopefully, it might get to the Education and Science Committee and then, maybe, if we remove one of the National Party members, we can actually have an even conversation about what we will do in education.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise to speak against the Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill. Tracey Martin, it is very important to get people’s names right. I am Todd Muller, not Todd Müller. It is really important to get this stuff right.

I just want to ask the question: where on earth did this come from? I can imagine the Labour Party war room—the education war room. Chris Hipkins is the chair, we have got Ruth Dyson there, we have got Sue Moroney and the others, and they are reflecting on how they can put a chink in the National Party armour.

Todd Barclay: The A-team!

TODD MULLER: Yes, the A-team—the education A-team.

“How can we put a chink in the education armour of the National Government?”

“I know! We’ll attack national standards.”

“Oh, no, that’s not going to work, because that’s actually very popular if you ask any parent, if you ask the kids.”

I had a conversation about this just last week. It is actually a popular policy.

“Oh, no, we can’t deal with that one.”

“I know! Let’s attack communities of learning.”

“Oh, no, 1,400 schools have signed up to that.”

That was probably updated by Sue; she would have popped that into the war room conversation.

“A total of 1,400 schools and half a million students are involved now. Oh, we can’t use that as the attack line.”

“What about the Education Amendment Bill?”

“Oh, well, we’ll have a go on that.”

But yet again, the way the Government spoke to that legislation so comprehensively yesterday and talked about how it will fundamentally change the education sector moving forward, they realised that they do not have an opportunity to hit us with that. And so Ruth Dyson says: “I have an idea. I know what can really put the Government on its heels. Why don’t we change the name of the Education Council back to the Teaching Council?”. “Brilliant,” says Chris Hipkins. “Absolutely brilliant. Let’s put that up as a member’s bill. Based on Ruth’s luck, that might actually get picked.”

So here we are. So emboldened by that, she decided to add a bit of depth to it—

Todd Barclay: A bit of spice.

TODD MULLER: Yes, a bit of spice. She looked to revert to a teachers’ code of ethics as opposed to the code of conduct. To echo the deputy chair of the Education and Science Committee, is that the best you have got? When you are trying to find an angle as an Opposition MP, to be able to articulate a different vision in terms of the education provision in this country, if that is the best you have got, to be able to stand up and say: “Mr Speaker, I want a change of name back to the Teachers Council. We do not want the Education Council of Aotearoa. Let’s change the name back to the Teachers Council.”—with respect, that is not the level of contribution—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I apologise for interrupting, but I am going to ask the member sitting beside the member currently speaking to stop interjecting in a way that draws the Chair into the debate. He may be pretending to be nice but he sounds sarcastic.

TODD MULLER: That is so unlike him. Let us turn more deliberately to the components of this particular member’s bill, which has had so much thought go into it.

We have already heard from so many of the speakers on this side that this Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand was actually a carefully considered name. It was chosen to represent a more refocused organisation that would, arguably, take some of the best of what was there previously and put it together with a refreshed mandate to talk to the whole sector and its particular interests, not just the teachers. That was well received. A number of stakeholders were involved in that, and it was well received.

So when you look at that, you say: “Why on earth are we wasting parliamentary time to have a conversation about reverting back to a model that was proven to be a failure, that had so many negative consequences, that has been adopted as being successful over the last few months and genuinely reflects the ambitions of the broader sector and not just a single component in it?”.

And, of course, the second component, which we have already heard and which was even acknowledged by Ruth Dyson as largely redundant, is that we already have this document out in the sector for consultation. Yet again we have to waste the Parliament’s time reflecting on a particular view that it would be useful to go back to yesteryear and create a model that has already been so comprehensively thrown out. This is a waste of time. I do hope that the House will see sense and reject it when we vote on it shortly.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to support this member’s bill , which is about restoring a code of ethics for the teaching profession. There are several reasons why the Greens are supporting the Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill. One of them is that it is a chance for this House to start rebuilding some trust with the teaching profession in this country, trust that has been so comprehensively undermined by the actions of this Government , first in overriding the core principle of education—that learning should be to the needs of the child—by introducing the concept of national standards, which, basically, eliminated the individual needs of every student from the focus of the classroom; also, in terms of the introduction of the charter schools, and now the further privatisation and almost eradication of decent education in the communities of learning venture.

We heard from a previous speaker, Jo Goodhew, who said that they moved to a code of conduct because teachers have let themselves down so jolly badly. She is suggesting that we have only been listening to unions. It is true that I have not been listening to Hekia Parata when it comes to good educational guidance, and I have not been listening to people in the Koru lounge. However, we in the Green Party have been listening to the hundreds of teachers from schools all around this country who came to the Education and Science Committee when the bill that got rid of the code of ethics came before Parliament, who said they did not want that change. That is where this bill came from: it came from listening to teachers. It is completely disingenuous to say that unions are pushing that line in opposition to teachers. That is simply just not true.

We have also heard from members on that side who said that we want to go backwards to old thinking around ethics and that the new modern thinking is the code of conduct. Well, actually, that is just rubbish. The new modern thinking is saying that good decision-making happens within safe frameworks. The more an institution is bound by strict rules—and this is regardless of what the institution is—then the more room there is for error and the less judgment is developed. We need our teachers to be working in environments where they develop judgment, because there are no rights and wrongs in good teaching. There is relationship and there is development, and moving to a code of conduct moves us away from the framework that will support safe practice.

I do support the previous comments made by Tracey Martin , noting the fact that it is a profession that is mostly women and that this Government—which has been characterised, I think fairly, as paternalistic—is moving towards telling women how to behave, rather than trusting them to have their own ethics. I do think that there is a significant point in that. She gave the example that in the code of conduct there is very specific provision about practice around Te Tiriti obligations, whereas the code of ethics has in it a set of principles that include a commitment to learners, whānau, society, and the profession, and confirms obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and a commitment to Māori as tangata whenua.

Anyone, I would suggest, as Pākehā, who is engaged with Te Tiriti knows that you cannot lock that down in your learning into a sense of right or wrong. It absolutely is something that has to be developed in relationship and partnership with mana whenua. When you move away from ethics and from creating a framework for developing that understanding, you lose that relationship and you lose the opportunity for growing understanding, and you end up, more likely, with resentment and poor practice. We are pleased to support this bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Peseta—no, sorry, the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, the Hon Trevor Mallard. I am going to take a short call on this bill. We have heard a lot of debate tonight around semantics, around words, around the purpose of education. For me, the education system is about our kids, those who are in the learning institution. It should be centred on their well-being, their learning, and their development. It should not be centred on semantics, code of conduct, ethics, and the like.

It is about trust and integrity, and that is what our teaching profession actually stands for. I would say a substantial majority of those teachers who are out there live up to those expectations that the New Zealand public has of them to deliver teaching services day in and day out. This bill does not do that. The two things this bill sets out to do is to turn back the clock on the name around the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, and it also wants to revert to a code of ethics versus a code of conduct.

Can I just talk, firstly, on that first change around the change of name? It is the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand because it is about the bicultural nature of the system. But it is also about education, not just teachers. Education incorporates all those who contribute to the system—just as there is a medical association that is not the doctors’ association; just as there are professional bodies that do not focus on just one part of a system. So I think it is appropriately named now, and I do not think we need to revert back to the previous name, which this bill is advocating for.

In terms of codes of ethics and codes of conduct, well, we have been down the code of ethics route, and it has proved to come up short. But what we want to and what we can expect from our teachers is that they behave—we have talked about behaviour tonight—that their conduct, that the ethics that we expect of them as parents and as New Zealanders are second to none, because, as one speaker has already said, apart from parenting, I think teaching is one of the most important roles in our society. That is why we need stringent codes of conduct. That is why we need high standards in how they behave, not just to each other but to the kids whom they are teaching on a day-to-day basis. So it is important to get that code of conduct right, and that is why it is out for consultation right now. I think we are going to get a good level of feedback, not just from teachers but from all those in the teaching profession—it is a profession. Those standards are high, and we expect the feedback to reflect the views of the whole profession, not just teachers.

I am not going to get into union bashing or saying who listens to whom. I think we should listen to anyone and everyone in our society who has an opinion to offer about how the education system should run.

When you look at codes of conduct in other professions, we know that they are in place in the nursing profession, they are in place in real estate, and there are various other codes that deal with midwives, police—and there is nothing wrong with having a code of conduct in the education space. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. We can argue here black and blue about whether it should be a code of ethics or code of conduct. For me, it is about having high expectations around their behaviour and around their integrity in terms of the education profession. So it is there in other professions, and I think it should also be here in New Zealand.

We also know that there is a code of conduct in education systems that we look to, very similar systems like in Australia, the UK, and Canada, for example. So why can we not have that here? I put it to you. I think we are heading in the right direction in terms of the education reforms that the Hon Hekia Parata has put in place, and I think this bill is a step backwards. That is why, certainly, I will not support this bill.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I just note the member Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga’s more considered contribution to this debate than that of his colleagues—it was appreciated. His colleagues demonstrated arrogance and a disregard and a lack of understanding of the proposal in this bill that I find really frustrating. It does not take long to read a member’s bill. They are very rarely large or complex. We do not have the advantage of Government departments or agencies to write them; we write them ourselves.

One of the members, Todd Muller, suggested that my bill was a waste of time. This is the member who supported his colleagues writing outstanding contributions to the parliamentary process such as allowing airport companies to advertise lost books from the cafe at the airport in different ways, or Matt Doocey’s bill, which gave companies the right to ask their shareholders by letter or email whether they wanted a hard copy of the annual report. That is the rubbish that those members supported to waste the time of Parliament, and they have the arrogance and the audacity to say that this bill is a waste of time. At least the member who just resumed his seat acknowledged the integrity and the professionalism of teachers. That is actually what this bill is about.

National has got a track record in regard to its relations with teachers. I remember when the National Government removed the registration of teachers. What did it do at the same time? It introduced a mandatory registration for vets. That is what that Government did. You do not have to be registered to be a teacher, but you do have to be registered to be a vet. How does that show respect towards a profession?

Hon Simon Bridges: Teachers don’t operate on children, to be fair.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Come and join this side if you are so supportive of our debate, the Hon Simon Bridges. You would be welcome, briefly.

Todd Muller also demonstrated his ignorance of the process that the Education Council is going through. I should not pick on just him—Todd Barclay and other National contributors did it as well, including, sadly, the chair of the Education and Science Committee.

My bill was put in the ballot as a response to the punitive measures introduced by the Minister of Education, coupled with her disregard for teachers and the recognition of their profession in the name of their regulatory body, formerly known as the Teachers Council. It is not something you need to die in a ditch for, but if those members had the courage of their convictions and the confidence of the quality of their debate, they would test that at a committee. They would support this bill to go to a committee, and say: “Let’s hear from the public. Let’s hear from the professionals. Let’s hear from parents and the broader education sector and see what their view is.” But they are not able to do that. They do not have any courage of their convictions. They just have poorly written research notes—probably written by Mr Bishop, actually, judging by the quality of them—that they just read out. There is no understanding—[Interruption] All right. Perhaps they were not that bad. I apologise for that insult to the researcher who did write the notes.

So the Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill recognises the value and the integrity of teachers as professionals. It goes to that high-regard, high-trust relationship that I talked about earlier. It is an aspirational code, an aspirational set of principles, rather than a punitive one. It has a commitment to learners, to families, to society, and to the profession.

The timing of this was that it was in the ballot until the day before the Education Council released its draft code. My bill came out first, and then the Education Council released its draft code. I am supportive of the code. I think it looks good. There is no guarantee that a future Minister will appoint to the council people who are as supportive of the profession as the current make-up of it allows. We could end up with a punitive regime for the code for teachers in the future. This bill would futureproof against that, and ensures that we retain the integrity of the profession and retain the confidence of the public.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 63

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

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Arbitration Amendment Bill

First Reading

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I move, That the Arbitration Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice and Electoral Committee to consider this bill. I hope that this bill is something that will meet somewhat less controversy in this House than some of the other matters that have been discussed here today. It is, in my view, a very, very good bill. This might be an unusual thing for the sponsoring member to say, but in doing so I want to give full credit to the people who drove the formulation of this bill.

I would like to first begin by thanking Deborah Hart, the executive director of the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand, and that institute’s president, John Walton, who have produced a memorandum, which I hope has been circulated around this House, in support of this measure. Many of the ideas and concepts in this bill did originate from that venerable institution.

I also want to single out Jeremy Johnson of Wynn Williams, who is the youngest fellow in the history of the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand, who helped with the drafting; the team in the office of the Minister of Justice, the Hon Amy Adams; Rosemary Colson, our researcher; and a colleague and dear friend of mine who ensured this bill was in the biscuit tin and who is currently recuperating in Ward 5 North in Wellington Hospital. I want to pay tribute to the team of medical professionals there who are assisting with his recovery. Without his assistance, the bill would not have been drawn from the institution that is the biscuit tin.

This bill, in terms of what it actually does—it does a couple of quite technical things, which I will try to explain in terms that the lay person, such as myself, can understand and appreciate. This bill does bring greater certainty to our arbitration regime in New Zealand. What is important is that we are seen to be in line with international standards to make New Zealand an attractive destination for arbitration, but to provide that greater clarity and certainty. In particular areas around confidentiality it introduces a rebuttable presumption of confidentiality, should an arbitration decision be appealed to a court.

Why is this important? Well, two parties who freely enter into a contract, which may contain a dispute resolution mechanism of arbitration—and it should be acknowledged that no party is obliged to undertake arbitration; it is a voluntary measure that parties enter into when they sign, usually, a commercial contract. Part of the appeal of the arbitration process is the privacy and confidentiality that it affords. This might be for the more obvious things that suggest themselves, so that companies do not have trade secrets—their market intelligence that they would prefer to keep private—exposed publicly, but actually for a wider reason. In some cases it is the very fact that there is a dispute between two firms that can be injurious and have a detrimental effect on the confidence in the company and perhaps even share prices—their ability to conduct their business. Sometimes the effect of that exposure is highly disproportionate to the substance of the matter that is actually being resolved in a dispute.

The particular case that I want to refer to in that regard is the 2014 High Court case of Danone v Fonterra, where the High Court, very sensibly, sent Danone back into arbitration in Singapore with Fonterra to deal with the dispute. But, in my view, it is problematic when the parties to arbitration, who have freely contracted to use that dispute resolution means, use the threat of the publicity that can happen if a case is then appealed to a court as a weapon in their negotiations.

This is intended to be a rebuttable presumption of confidentiality, meaning that if there is an overriding public interest in the matter that is being dealt with, the court can of course decide that they should be matters of public record and publicised as such. But, in general, there is a presumption that the confidentiality of the arbitration will continue on into the courts, should the case end up in the courts.

Secondly, this bill intends to make arbitrations more enforceable in the courts in New Zealand. We have had a couple of recent instances, and in particular I refer to the case of Carr v Gallaway Cook Allan. It is also a 2014 case, although that one was in the Supreme Court. It is Ewan Robert Carr and Brookside Farm Trust Limited v Gallaway Cook Allan [2014] NZSC 75 for members who might want to look up several hundred pages of deliberations, mainly highly technical in nature. But the key question here concerned the validity of an arbitration agreement with a clause allowing appeal on questions of law and fact. The Supreme Court found there that there is actually no legislative grounds allowing appeals on questions of fact. As a result, it ruled that the parties could not lawfully provide a contract allowing this. So this did introduce an element of uncertainty as to the enforceability of an arbitration agreement.

This bill does seek to remedy that issue by introducing several changes to the 1996 Act, which I believe will be positive. Tribunals undertaking arbitrations are currently able to rule on their own jurisdiction, and this bill will require that objections on jurisdictional issues are raised in a timely fashion, not after the case has already been decided if one party does not like the particular result. It also provides that when there are minor or procedural issues that these are dealt with, I think, in a more sensible fashion.

Finally, in terms of the provisions there are some very technical changes, but these are there around disputes between trusts where the trust deed, a contract, will effectively provide arbitration provisions. Around the world this is happening more frequently. So this is when disputes are not between, necessarily, companies or limited liability companies but perhaps between a trust and an NGO, or a trust and a company. So when there is an arbitration clause within a trust deed, that will be treated in the same way as an arbitration clause in a commercial contract.

Why is arbitration useful? Why do companies opt for that path of, I think, sensible, mature, cost effective, and speedy dispute resolution? It is for those reasons, because it is occasionally more cost effective, although not always; sometimes it is actually more expensive to go through an arbitration process. But there are huge positives not only for those who opt into them but actually for us as taxpayers in New Zealand. It keeps cases out of the courts that do not, frankly, need to be there. It is better that parties to a dispute can resolve their differences in a responsible adult fashion without clogging up our already very busy court system and preventing other cases getting in there.

Secondly, there is a public benefit in New Zealand for arbitration cases that come to this country. The Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand estimates the value of each arbitration to be around a million dollars. This is not just spend on expensive lawyers’ fees, although I know the lawyers in the House probably will be wringing their hands in glee—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry, I’m a bit late. I was intrigued.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. The lawyers in the House will be excited to learn that arbitrators and the legal counsel involved in those cases are often very well remunerated. But, actually, there will be spend in a wide range of services in the New Zealand economy from conference venues through to hotels and accommodation, taxis, food, and secretarial support. So a wide range of people stand to benefit from New Zealand bringing itself into line with jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Singapore, even Australia, our near neighbours, and the UK—those systems that are closest to ours, but also those systems that are known to be international centres of arbitration.

Arbitration is also very useful for New Zealand companies, and we are a trading nation. So you can imagine a New Zealand company trading in a third country that may not have the strong rule of law, may not have the justice system, and the lack of corruption that this country, thankfully, enjoys. If they are trading in a country where the courts cannot be relied upon to be fair it is very useful for New Zealand companies to be able to contract to go to arbitration should they end up in dispute. I think, actually, it is positive for this country. It does trade on our reputation as being fair-minded, having a strong rule of law, and being a just country with a low level of corruption.

I think this is a bill without drawbacks. I think there are obviously positives for the companies, the trusts, and the other organisations that want a contract for arbitration. There are also benefits for the taxpayers and savings in the court system, and for our economy should we become an international destination of arbitration. I commend this bill to the House and hope it will receive widespread support.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call Hon David Parker, earlier in the day I complimented Jami-Lee Ross on his ability to master his subject and to refer only to brief notes on a first reading speech. I want to add Paul Foster-Bell to those comments. I think the quality of the debate is improved by people who do not just mumble their way through a speech that someone else has written. I want to compliment the member.

Hon Simon Bridges: No pressure, David.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): No pressure at all—no pressure at all. The Labour Party is supporting this bill at its first reading, but I do want to address a number of issues that I would like the select committee to address. The first one, if I could deal with the issue that Paul Foster-Bell raised in respect of this issue, is that there should be a rebuttable presumption that court proceedings in respect of disputes arising out of arbitration proceedings should not be published. I am not sure about that. I heard Paul Foster-Bell’s arguments in favour of it, and I accept the proposition that you should not be able to hold over the threat of litigation as a negotiating technique, but, on the other hand, there is also a public interest in court decisions being published. That applies in every other area of law, and I would want the select committee to test whether that presumption should be overridden in respect of arbitration, and, if so, why.

The other example that is given about the need for confidentiality in order to preserve the feelings of people in respect of matters arising from trusts is another issue where there is scrutiny needed, because I can understand families not wanting to have publicity around disputes over large amounts of money in trusts. But, again, there is an argument that there is a public interest in those sorts of things being scrutinised. We live in a society where there is this increasing concentration of wealth amongst the 1 percent around the world and in New Zealand, and I am not sure that it is right that trusts, in respect of the financial interests of “1 percenters”, once they come into conflict, should escape the scrutiny of the public.

There are some interesting principles that lie behind theoretical limits to trusts. The rule against perpetuities, which is still in New Zealand law through proxy periods defined at law, stops people controlling the future for ever after their death by controlling the way in which their wealth is dealt with after their death. So there is a rule that says—the old rule at equity was that the length of a trust created by someone could be no longer than a life in being plus 21 years. A life in being plus 21 years was the length of life of a person alive at the date of the death of the person who created the trust plus 21 years. If you had a trust you could say “This trust shall last for the life of my last living descendant”—might be a grandchild—“plus 21 years.” If it was any longer than that, it was an illegal trust and the trust failed. The reason for that is that at equity the courts decided that it was not desirable that you have these dynasties that go on for ever on the basis of these concentrations of wealth where the person who made the original wealth could control the lives of their descendants through the way in which that wealth was dispensed under the trust that was created by the wealthy person in the first place.

In this world where we have got this move towards concentrations of wealth, which have been well described by Thomas Piketty and others, I think it is appropriate to ask ourselves the question: now that we have these concentrations of wealth, when these disputes arise amongst subsequent generations as to the division of these large amounts of wealth, maybe it is appropriate that we occasionally do see into these disputes so that we can get an idea as to how long these bundles of wealth are persisting in society, and whether we think these rules are fair. I am not sure where the correct line lies there, but it is another area that I would like to see the select committee consider.

In respect of the issue arising from the issue of Carr v Gallaway Cook Allan, I have to disclose an interest. Mr Carr was a client of mine for many years, in a very complex—very complex—series of disputes involving various parties, which were the preceding facts that led to the very complex set of affairs that arose, leading to Carr v Gallaway Cook Allan. It is a very sad case in a lot of ways, in that there was a very large award of damages in the end, which exceeded the insurance cover of the defendant firm and so caused hardship—quite considerable hardship—to some of the defendants in that case. I think that the amendment that is proposed to the Arbitration Act, arising out of the jurisdictional issues that were raised too late in that case, is something that I agree with. The member’s amendment, in that regard, has my support, because I think if you are going to raise objection to an arbitrator’s jurisdiction, you should do so early. You should not leave it until later in the process.

I think that is probably all I have got to say at that stage on this bill. Can I thank Paul Foster-Bell for bringing it. Can I also thank the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand for its note. I did think that its advice in respect of moving to trust disputes involving descendants, such as grandchildren, being able to be resolved through arbitration, rather than through the courts, did raise some of those questions for me as to whether that was the right step, but I would not have had that question or that insight if it had not been for the information provided by it. The restrictions on reporting I have covered.

The final thing is the reference to a challenge to jurisdiction arising out of the Singapore case, referred to as Astro v Lippo. That was a lengthy and expensive arbitration of issues arising in the telecommunications industry, and the amendments that are proposed here are to close the potential loophole in the New Zealand Act, which was exposed by that decision in respect of either Singapore or Hong Kong—I am not sure which. So that seems a sensible provision in this bill too.

It is a pretty technical bill. There are some issues that I think we should delve into as a matter of first principle, as to whether we should have further confidentially around some of these trust arrangements. I am not completely convinced that we should remove this current requirement that some disputes, in respect of grandchildren of trusts, should be dealt with through the courts rather than through arbitration. I quite like the openness of court processes in respect of these large amounts of wealth and the attempt to control that wealth beyond death.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sarah Dowie.

Clayton Mitchell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just think it is an appropriate time to commend the earlier speaker for his lack of notes and the eloquent way in which he spoke on this bill. I think it is just another indication of the calibre—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume his seat. If the member interrupts another member with a point of order of that type again, he will get half an hour off.

Hon David Parker: He didn’t interrupt anyone.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I had called Sarah Dowie.

Hon David Parker: She hadn’t started.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! David Parker will now be quiet. I indicated—I called Sarah Dowie. She had the floor, and, therefore, she was interrupted by the point of order. The member should know that. Sarah Dowie—I will let the member start again.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would refer to an earlier point of order by a gentleman who sits behind me at question time, who has previously said to the Speaker that an interjection during the time before people start a contribution is not interrupting their contribution at question time. That honourable member was the Hon Trevor Mallard, and I wonder whether the same thing applies during speeches at this time rather than question time.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I think the member knows that that sort of consistency is the last refuge of fools. I call Sarah Dowie.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): I rise in support of the Arbitration Amendment Bill in this first reading, brought to the House by Mr Paul Foster-Bell. I want to start by congratulating the member. While this is a technical bill, it is a well-thought-out bill, and one that will certainly strengthen our systems and procedures around arbitration. I also want to congratulate him, given that he is going to leave our ranks come election 2017. He has already had one member’s bill pulled from the ballot, debated in this House, and passed, and now he has a second. I thank him for that, and I thank him for the thought around this bill.

I am a fan of arbitration. I think that alternative dispute resolution has a real place in our legal system. I think that mediation and arbitration are valuable tools in the legal tool box. While arbitration is still very formal in nature, it does significantly reduce cost, it is effective—definitely time effective—and it certainly reduces the pressure on our court system if people who have commercial disputes or disputes regarding trust deeds decide to opt into them. I pick up on the point of Mr Foster-Bell that not only is it an effective way forward to resolving disputes, but certainly, given our reputation internationally as one of the least corrupt places in the world, that we do abide by the rule of law. It is a good thing for our reputation to have strengthened arbitration laws, to have them consistent with international law, and to have them available when there are parties in a dispute that are international so that they can choose New Zealand as a place to arbitrate their disputes. That $1 million that was provided as revenue to arbitration is certainly significant, and one that we should be capitalising on.

Again, I say that this is a nuanced bill, but it is certainly one that will strengthen arbitration in New Zealand moving forward. I do like the idea that this plans to change the confidentiality rules. Obviously, arbitration in itself—the negotiations are confidential. We do that so that parties go to dispute resolution and feel safe in the room, so that they can get to the nub of the issue and discuss their issues robustly, and so that they can come to the table in a bona fide way.

I actually disagree with the member opposite, Mr Parker, in that I think that if you are going to dispute resolution to negotiate an outcome in good faith, then you should not be allowed to use that confidentiality as a weapon in the future, should you appeal some procedural matter. I think that the confidentiality that is set out in this bill—the presumption of it—strengthens the tool of arbitration and gives it extra weight as a method forward to resolve disputes. So we will look into that issue as a committee moving forward, but, certainly, I think that it is a very good change that Mr Foster-Bell has mooted, and one that will strengthen the tool box around arbitration. Obviously, the court, under this bill, would reserve the right to waive that confidentiality if it was in the public interest to release certain details of a case. So I think that covers Mr Parker’s concerns. But, again, I say that we, as a committee, will look into that issue moving forward.

Certainly, the last thing that the bill does is strengthen the enforceability of arbitration awards, which is particularly good, given that in the past there have been appeals on procedural issues that are meaningless. It is only fair that awards should be enforceable, and, again, that adds strength to the objective of arbitration moving forward.

So I think this is a good bill. I commend the member for bringing it to the House. Again, I think that arbitration has a valid place in our justice system and should be supported.

BARRY COATES (Green): I rise with regard to this member’s bill, the Arbitration Amendment Bill. This bill seeks changes to New Zealand’s arbitration procedures. Arbitration is an alternative form of dispute settlement, and the Green Party supports it on a number of grounds. It can reduce legal caseloads and reduce costs for participants, and it is often faster. It has its place in a number of areas apart from just commercial law, such as in family disputes and disputes between neighbours, maritime disputes, sports, employment, environment, domain names, and it is good to see the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand discussing arbitration to support climate action, for example, and even international conflict resolution. So we are in support of arbitration. It is an important tool.

We have some, should I say, concerns about issues of transparency. We understand that participants may want to avoid the glare of publicity for reasons that are often peculiar to a case—for example, for commercial reasons or for commercial confidentiality in trademarking. It could be for the reasons of family privacy—I think that is an important one for many families—and for emotionally sensitive issues. So there are some strong grounds for confidentiality. Like the previous Labour speaker, David Parker, we have some questions around confidentiality that we will look to address during the select committee process.

We think that the arbitration system in New Zealand has gained credibility through the appointment of experts, including former judges, through having a code of ethics and a right of appeal on legal grounds, and through having a complaints procedure. These are important safeguards to ensure that the arbitration system is working well.

So we regard this bill as being useful. It enables trusts to agree on arbitration in trust deeds, it sets a presumption of confidentiality and clarifies jurisdictional grounds, and it makes arbitrations more enforceable. We agree with those aims. Therefore, we support this bill, in accordance with the constructive approach that the Green Party always brings to members’ bills, and we commend Paul Foster-Bell for bringing in this bill.

I cannot help but conclude this speech in this debate without making one other comment on arbitration. Not all arbitration is supported by the Green Party. In particular, there is a form of investor-State dispute settlement as a form of arbitration, which is not directly the subject of this bill, but—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No.

BARRY COATES: —I feel that I cannot help but mention it. So we do not like investor-State dispute settlement as a form of arbitration applied to Government laws and regulations—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I think the member, even before he started his comments, pled guilty—one of us stands up at a time, all right?

BARRY COATES: Oh, yes. Sorry.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member pled guilty to going into irrelevancies, and unless he can absolutely relate his comments to the bill while talking about a system that he says is no part of this, I cannot quite see how he can do it. I will give him another chance, but it will be a brief one.

BARRY COATES: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I definitely would not want to talk about issues that are not in the scope of the bill, and I am very pleased that the bill does not address issues like investor-State dispute settlement. So—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume his seat.

JONO NAYLOR (National): Well, there has been a lot of talk this evening about eloquent speeches that people have made with very few notes, and I would just like to assure the House that this will not be one of them. There are a few notes in front of me and, certainly, eloquence on this topic is probably not what you are going to get from me.

However, I do at this point want to commend Paul Foster-Bell. As my colleague Sarah Dowie said earlier, it is pretty impressive to get a second member’s bill out of the ballot. The first one, of course, was his very successful Anzac Day licensing one, and I think that was a very good bill. This one, I am sure, is going to be a very good bill once it comes into force as well—which I am sure it will—having been through all stages of the parliamentary process. It is great to see already from the speeches that we have heard from the other side of the House that there is wide support for it.

I have to acknowledge that when I first saw this bill and saw that it proposed changes to the Arbitration Act 1996, I misread it and thought that the Arbitration Act was from 1966. As someone who was born in 1966, I could not understand why anyone would want to change anything that originated in 1966, but I realise now that this is, in fact, a 1996 Act that we are going to bring some changes to.

I think there are some really good points that have been made already tonight. I am particularly pleased to see that this bill is going to bring us more in line with other international practices of arbitration law. I think, generally, I would say that it is a good thing that we are aligned with international practice in law, although I have to say, having visited the Australian legislature in the last couple of weeks, there are some things that go on over there that I do not think we want to be aligned with, particularly when it comes to protection orders for women across states, and all that kind of stuff.

But, in this one, I think it is actually really important, when you do have disputes that cross international boundaries, that our laws are consistent with what you have in other countries. My ears pricked up a little, I have to say, when it was talked about that people may then make New Zealand their place of choice to bring arbitration. I thought that perhaps the Minister of Tourism might be interested. We could perhaps start an arbitration tourism venture. We are starting to see that happen already after Louisa Wall’s marriage equality bill, where people are travelling here to get married. Perhaps there is a tourism opportunity in the field of arbitration as well.

When it comes to this presumption of confidentiality—and I think it is interesting that this has been one of the things that has been talked about throughout this debate as we have gone on this evening. From my lay background it certainly seems particularly appropriate when relating to trusts. I will stand to be corrected—and I am sure I will be when the time comes at select committee or otherwise. When Mr Parker spoke, the immediate place that he went to when talking about trusts was talking about the very wealthy who might protect their wealth inside a trust and for generations to come. My mind always goes immediately, because of my background, to charitable trusts, and I would imagine that for a charitable trust, having confidentiality when involved in an arbitration could well be a useful thing, because if there is some sort of dispute that has yet to be settled, having their good name taken out there publicly may not be useful to them or to the people that they work for. So at this stage I support the idea of it being a presumption of confidentiality because that does, in fact, ensure that we can get things sorted clearly and, as my colleague Sarah Dowie said earlier, of course the proceedings of the arbitration would always be done in private as well.

So, as I said, it is a good bill brought forward by Mr Paul Foster-Bell. As promised, this has not been eloquent at all. I would normally say that I look forward to discussing this when it comes through to the select committee. I am not sure that on this particularly occasion I will be enjoying it. Law is not a field, as a general rule, that I enjoy getting stuck into, but the bill will be an important piece of legislation for what is an important part of our legal system, and I commend it to the House.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First generally supports arbitration as an alternative dispute resolution method because it does tend to reduce the caseload of the courts, it reduces delays, it is usually less expensive, and, mostly, it allows the parties to work out a solution of their own, with professional assistance, of course. But New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill because we doubt very much that it is appropriate to do the things that it sets out to do in relation to court proceedings concerning arbitrations.

We were told by the member who is promoting the bill that there are two issues addressed by it. The first is that the bill would actually introduce a new presumption of confidentiality in relation to proceedings concerning arbitrations, whereas, of course, as we know, court proceedings are usually public, and that principle is well-established in the legal system. We also understand, however, that parties are keen, often, about confidentiality because they do want to protect their intellectual property, or their sensitive business information, trade secrets, and so on, and they may well be afraid of reputational damage because of what happens during the proceedings. But we were not told very much by the member about why it is important for court proceedings to be public, so I think it is a bit one-sided in the way he presented his argument, for that reason. Second, we were told also that the court would have the discretion in this bill to set aside confidentiality in appropriate cases, but I doubt whether that would actually be enough, and I would like to hear a little bit more discussion about that particular point.

The second of the issues mentioned by the member concerns enforceability. The bill would have provisions that would prevent arbitrations from being set aside for procedural reasons, and we are told that there are clauses in contracts about confidentiality because that is what the parties want and they do that by contract. I accept that—no problem with that. But there are almost always good public interest reasons why proceedings about such arbitrations need to be public. That should still be the main rule, and that procedure should not be reversed.

Just turning to the main provisions in the bill, the first one actually concerns a rather narrow area concerning arbitration of trust disputes. We have all heard some quite interesting cases reported in newspapers about that, and you can understand why the parties concerned would prefer privacy about that. Also, they would be interested in the thing being dealt with promptly, and privacy, of course, is something that the parties themselves usually want—not necessarily always, but usually. But we in New Zealand First are very uncertain about this whole area because it appears to us that the proposals in the bill go too far in that they would tend to oust the jurisdiction of a court. We are very concerned about that—very concerned, indeed—because that is a very important principle in our legal system and we think that it needs to be preserved.

The other main amendment concerns the restriction on reporting of court proceedings to arbitrations—for example, about challenges to why an arbitrator would be appointed, or some other appeal on a question of law. But it is actually in the public interest that those things be public, so that the public is aware and there can be debate not just amongst the legal community but others as well. So we have grave concerns about that proposal, too.

On balance, we would not support the bill. It is highly technical. It has not come through a department with the benefit of its advice, or the Law Commission, and we think that a bill of this kind ought to do so. So, for those reasons, New Zealand First will be voting against it.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): One of the things that I have discovered on the Justice and Electoral Committee, which I am very privileged to serve on, is the very worthy contribution very often made on that committee by Mr Denis O’Rourke. Sadly, he did not join us in Australia a couple of weeks ago. It is a shame, actually, because I am sure he would have made a useful contribution. But I have to say that some of the remarks made just then are wrong, actually. Actually, it seems to me that if you listen to the tenor of his speech and if you listen to the points he was making, everything would lead one listening to think that he would support the bill rather than vote against it. So I think it is a shame that New Zealand First is voting against it, and there are a couple of reasons for that.

The first was that just at the very end of his speech he said: “Well, this hasn’t been through the Law Commission process or through the department, therefore we can’t vote for it.” Well, that seems to me to be a reason to vote for the bill. Often members’ bills come before the House and one of the things about drafting members’ bills is—I see members opposite, some of whom have had member’s bills drawn, particularly notable ones, with Ms Wall over there, including myself and other members—you do not have the—

Hon Simon Bridges: Yeah, not Faafoi.

CHRIS BISHOP: “Not Faafoi”, my colleague Simon says. Well, maybe Lady Luck of the biscuit tin has not smiled on my breakfast club friend over there.

Hon David Bennett: He’s seen a biscuit tin, all right—ha, ha!

CHRIS BISHOP: Anyway, the biscuit tin has treated to me OK so far—two in 2 years.

Hon Simon Bridges: Yeah, Chris likes the biscuit tin too.

CHRIS BISHOP: Anyway—sometimes a bit too much, on both sides. The thing is that often members’ bills come to the House without that background work.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! We are going to get back to the bill, are we?

CHRIS BISHOP: Yes. I am making the point that often bills come to the House for that work.

The second reason he advanced was a very concerning worry about confidentiality, because what this bill does—in, I have to say, a very poorly drafted sentence in the general policy statement in the explanatory note of the bill—is: “ensure arbitration clauses in trust deeds are given effect to extend the presumption of confidentiality in arbitration to a rebuttable presumption of confidentiality in related court proceedings”. Mr O’Rourke was very concerned about the erosion of confidentiality. I think that is fair enough. There is a legitimate debate to be had around that, and I think Mr Foster-Bell would be the first person to acknowledge that. You can have a legitimate debate about that, but the place for that debate is actually at the select committee where you get the legal experts.

I have got to say, on a bill like this, as a committee we are going to rely on not only the Ministry of Justice officials but also very worthy groups like the Law Society, and I suspect we will see a few Queen’s Counsel turning up. It is usually the Queen’s Counsel who end up doing the arbitration, and they will have very firm views, I suspect. We will be relying on their evidence as to whether or not that is the right approach, as outlined by Mr Foster-Bell. But that is a reason to vote for the bill at the first reading.

The other reason that I think New Zealand First should support the bill is that this brings New Zealand, I think, increasingly into line with foreign legislation. If you read the general policy statement in the explanatory note of the bill, it talks about how there has been a large increase in arbitration worldwide over the last few years, and New Zealand is increasingly out of step with the legislation. The Arbitration Act was passed in 1996. That is 21 years ago, and it is probably about time that we updated that Act. There is probably a case for a thorough-scale review. It is not something that can be done through a member’s bill, but what one can do is make small and incremental useful changes, and I think that is what this bill does.

So I would have expected a party such as New Zealand First, which often rails against how we are out of step with tax legislation and multinational trusts and things like that, to vote for a bill that increases New Zealand’s international linkages and brings New Zealand into line with other legislation, but New Zealand First is not going to vote for it and that is a shame.

I think the bill will pass. I am looking forward to examining it on the Justice and Electoral Committee. It is a very busy committee. We have got a lot of bills before it at the moment—

Paul Foster-Bell: Punishing.

CHRIS BISHOP: It is a punishing schedule of business, Mr Foster-Bell says. I do not know about punishing; we certainly have a lot of business and I think this will be a worthy addition to our schedule.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure as a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee to speak on this, the first reading of the Arbitration Amendment Bill. I would like to commend my colleague Paul Foster-Bell. It is a bill that meets a need and I want to acknowledge that, and certainly I want to acknowledge the information that we have received from John Walton, the President of the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand.

I also want to acknowledge that this whole area actually stems from the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law model law on international commercial arbitration of 1985. So it is actually called the 1985 model law, and it was amended in 2006, which added a more comprehensive approach to interim measures in support of arbitration. New Zealand became a signatory in 1996. It is interesting, the whole issue about model law, which is really about suggested patterns for lawmakers and Governments to consider adopting their own domestic legislation based on the framework. We are actually implementing an international instrument—so well done, Mr Foster-Bell.

I find it interesting, the whole discussion around arbitration versus court proceedings. I have googled, and arbitration is “a private dispute resolution mechanism”. So I think the reason you have highlighted specifically that it is about confidentiality is that it is a private process, and that process is undertaken by agreement by contract—which is actually why there are limited rights of appeal—as opposed to a court process, which we all know is public. The courts are usually governed by judges and juries, and there are rights of appeal. So those are essentially the differences.

I was fascinated to look at the Carr v Gallaway Cook Allan Supreme Court decision. Just as a bit of background, that Supreme Court decision was a dispute about a commercial property sale, and included within that particular arbitration agreement the right of appeal based on questions of law and fact, which, in fact, is not part of clause 5 of schedule 2 of the Arbitration Act 1996. Within that judgment—and I think it is really interesting to note, given that, actually, that seems to be the premise and context for this amendment—the Supreme Court identified three issues. The first was what constitutes an arbitration agreement terms of the Act; secondly, can the offending words in relation to appeals on question of fact be severed from the overall agreement to arbitrate; and, thirdly, if they cannot, should the award be set aside on policy grounds under article 34 of the model law in schedule 1 of the Arbitration Act—because that is, in fact, what happened. The agreement that was reached in the arbitration was set aside.

So I think this is a very important piece of legislation. Our select committee is incredibly busy, but I do not think that we are too busy to fit this piece of legislation into our schedule.

I also want to particularly highlight the issue between the court and arbitration as it relates to trust issues, and there have been issues lately where families have had to go through very public processes. As noted in some of the information that I have received, some of those family members—I do not think it was good for their family matters to be aired in such a public way.

That is what this particular bill seeks to do. It is to provide that mechanism of arbitration that allows families to have their disputes, but let us have disputes that are related to family matters in private and let them be confidential. Overall, we want an agreement that is binding on both parties, so that if people go through that process they cannot then go to court and, in fact, end up starting the entire process again.

So well done, Mr Foster-Bell. There are questions to be answered, but I am sure that the select committee has the capacity to answer those questions. I look forward to participating in the process and hearing from esteemed legal minds, because I am sure—as Chris Bishop has already highlighted—there will be much interest, particularly from certain sectors of our judicial system. Kia ora.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): It is my pleasure tonight to stand up as a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee to welcome the Arbitration Amendment Bill into the House in its first reading here tonight. I do look forward, as my colleagues have said, to further scrutiny of this bill at the select committee stage. Being not of a legal background, I too look forward to the input of our Law Society colleagues, of the Queen’s Counsel, and, mostly, of our advisors to the committee, because we will be relying on their expertise to guide us through this process. I acknowledge my colleague Paul Foster-Bell for bringing this member’s bill to the House, and I congratulate him on having it drawn from the ballot.

This bill is an alternative to dispute resolution, and, as we have heard tonight, there is quite a lot of focus placed on the issue of confidentiality, and this bill introduces the presumption of confidentiality. It is also vital to know, for the people involved in these dispute resolutions, that the arbitration process cannot be used as a lever, or a form of blackmail, even, to take cases further into the court system where the confidentiality is lost, and, therefore, intellectual property and private business information can become public in that forum. That can have a devastating effect on a business, particularly if it is publicly listed and its share price can be affected and deals can be cancelled—and that can be irrespective of the substance of the dispute.

There is another aspect to this bill, and it is that those arbitration decisions are more enforceable. The bill also allows for this process, because it is more timely, to free up our court system. Of course, when that saves time in the court system it in turn saves money for everyone involved. We need this process and confidentiality so that people approach it in a spirit of good faith.

There is also a strengthening in this bill of the enforceability of awards. At the moment courts can be reluctant to enforce awards if there are slight procedural matters that may not have been dealt to as well as they could be. Having a strengthening of that aspect is also beneficial to all parties involved.

One of the more important aspects of this bill is that it brings us into line with international arbitration and the procedures used. As a trading nation, this is particularly helpful to us because we are known throughout the world as an honest and respectful country to trade with, and, in order to maintain that reputation internationally, adjustments to our legal framework, just procedurally—and the Arbitration Act 1996 is the one that I am referring to—make good sense in bringing us into line with the rest of the world. We want to maintain that respected and honest reputation with our trading partners.

I have great pleasure in supporting this bill, as do most of my colleagues here in the House tonight, and I have pleasure in commending it to the House. Thank you.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Firstly, I want to thank all the members who have made a constructive and well-informed contribution in this debate—in particular, my colleagues on this side of the House, but also the Hon David Parker and Louisa Wall, and Barry Coates from the Green Party. There are some issues that we will obviously need to address in the select committee. As a proud member of Transparency International New Zealand I want to make sure that the extension of a rebuttable presumption of confidentiality does not impact on our proud reputation for transparency and lack of corruption in this country.

I think there will be an opportunity later, during the select committee process, to rebut some of the incorrect statements made by the member Denis O’Rourke. Given that this bill is seeking to enforce confidentiality throughout the whole process should the outcome of an arbitration go to an appeal—and these are private agreements. That was a very good point, I think, that Louisa Wall made. These are agreements made voluntarily between two parties. No one is being stifled in this regard, and the court will—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I apologise for the interrupting the member, but the time has come for me to leave the Chair.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9. a.m. (Thursday)

WEDNESDAY, 12 APRIL 2017

(continued on Thursday, 13 April 2017)

Intelligence and Security Committee

Membership

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I move, That under section 11 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 this House endorse Rt Hon Winston Peters as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, nominated by the Leader of the Opposition, with the agreement of the Prime Minister, under section 7(1)(d) of the Act. The Intelligence and Security Committee is a very important piece of the security architecture of New Zealand. It is a body where information that pertains to the best interests of all New Zealanders is able to be considered by, generally, senior politicians from this House.

It is important that in all of our security arrangements there is an exercise of civilian control, and in the matters that relate to this committee it is important that we have people sit on that committee who have a long experience or a significant responsibility for the delivery of the work of this Parliament on behalf of the voters of New Zealand.

The Rt Hon Winston Peters has a long history in this Parliament, huge experience of how to operate inside a democracy, and has, of course, at one point been a Deputy Prime Minister, as well as a Treasurer and a foreign Minister. His breadth of experience, from both that appreciation of democracy and understanding of the security needs of New Zealand, and his experience in this House, make him ideally suited to sit on this particular committee. I therefore commend the motion to the House.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): On behalf of the Labour Party, I absolutely endorse the nomination of the Rt Hon Winston Peters for this position. As the Hon Gerry Brownlee has already indicated, there is no one in this House with longer experience or, indeed, broader experience than the Rt Hon Winston Peters. I do not think that anyone in this House doubts his capability. We may disagree on minor matters at times, but I think all of us know him to be a man of integrity who will get the balance right between the security interests of the State and the rights of people not to be intruded upon unduly, and who will be discreet as is required. I have no hesitation in recording that—well, as nominated by the Leader of the Opposition.

One final point on that: the closer we get to proportionality on that committee—representing the face of this Parliament—the better. I think this is the right nomination, and we will be voting in favour of the motion.

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): The Green Party also supports the nomination of the Rt Hon Winston Peters as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. We believe that the nomination of Mr Peters by the Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Little, is the appropriate one to make in the circumstances. The Green Party has always had respect for the political experience of Mr Peters and the breadth of his knowledge acquired throughout his time in the House but also, particularly, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, which is directly relevant to this appointment.

The Green Party, in the course of the passage—if I may just recall the adoption of the Intelligence and Security Act, which I believe came into force on 28 March and had its passage through the House in recent months. It was quite recently that the Committee of the whole House was immersed in the whole issue of the structure of the intelligence and security apparatus of this country. The Green Party was very pleased that changes were made in the Committee to the legislation—as I think the Hon David Parker has alluded to—that resulted in the requirement that from now on, when nominating a person for membership of the committee, the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister must have “regard to security requirements and the proportional representation of political parties in the House of Representatives.”, at section 194(5). We were pleased that that was able to be adopted by the House.

I think this goes a long way to getting the right balance between the national security requirements of this country and the regard for different angles that the people of New Zealand, represented by the political parties in this House, bring to bear on the issue of national security and the relationship of that to human rights, not least the right to privacy in this country. So in that respect we regard the appointment of the Rt Hon Winston Peters as an appropriate step along the way to the proportional representation that is already enshrined in section 194(5), and we look forward to the fulfilment of that legislative requirement from now on in the future.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I want to, firstly, thank the leader of the Labour Party Andrew Little, the Leader of the House, the National Party, and the Prime Minister for the nomination of the Rt Hon Winston Peters and for their acceptance of that. I also thank the Green Party for its support, which it has just indicated here today.

There is an old saying in Māoridom that the kūmara does not tell you how sweet it is, so it is a good thing that I get the opportunity to tell you how sweet the kūmara is. The Rt Hon Winston Peters is, we believe, absolutely the correct appointment, for some of the reasons that have just been highlighted by the Hon David Parker. We are talking of his integrity, his discretion, his long service, and the fact that he is trusted. As the Hon Gerry Brownlee has just said, he has also served this Parliament and the New Zealand people well in the most senior of offices—be that as Treasurer, Deputy Prime Minister, or, on occasion during the coalition Government time in the 1990s, Acting Prime Minister—and has done so with aplomb and distinction. I guess the other thing we note in New Zealand First is that the Rt Hon Winston Peters is the only member of the Privy Council in the House, and we take great pride in that. He has also been recognised by being invited to speak in the House of Lords on at least two occasions that we know of.

Mr Peters will, I think, serve the interests of the Green Party and all other parties in this House very well. For those who might have thought that he would be very, very conservative and very strictly war hawkish—well, you have never seen that demonstrated by Mr Peters. In fact, Mr Peters’ endorsements of my views on the Iraq invasion back in 1993 and later, in the years 2000, and his adhering to those sometimes very controversial views on deployments into the Middle East, is, I think, something that gives comfort and satisfaction to other parties in the House—that he will be a very balanced mind and a person who will exercise experience and wisdom in adjudging security matters.

Once again I want to thank the Government very much for supporting his appointment. I thank the House for the endorsement, and assure it that Mr Peters is looking forward to the responsibilities and will perform with distinction, as he always does.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I have never heard a more solemn or subdued debate in this House, and I could barely hear the words of Gerry Brownlee, David Parker, Kennedy Graham, or Ron Mark through the chewing on dead rat that was stopping those words from getting out. Well, I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this motion. I cannot think of a worse person in this House who could be nominated to such an important committee as the Intelligence and Security Committee.

We know that security is important and perhaps now more important than at any other time, with the various geopolitical tensions that we face, whether they be off the coast of North Korea, in Syria, or wherever else. We know that terrorism is changing its shape and is becoming harder and harder to detect and prevent.

Darroch Ball: What would you know, David?

Ron Mark: Jumped-up little prick.

DAVID SEYMOUR: We know—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I will ask the member to sit down for a second. This is clearly controversial and painful for some members, but they must control their interjections to those that are appropriate. I am not looking at Mr Mark; I am looking at Mr Ball at the moment. You must not bring me into this debate.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you for your intervention, but I am not bothered by the squealing from New Zealand First—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member has now been here long enough to know that he does not comment on my rulings, and he will not if he wants to continue.

DAVID SEYMOUR: I apologise, Mr Assistant Speaker. What do we need in a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee? Well, I would say that such a member should be diligent, should be collegial, should be honest, and, ironically, should be prepared to put New Zealand first. And what do we see in the characteristics of Winston Peters? This is a guy who has been called diligent. Well, I prefer the words of somebody else whom we are about to debate, Simon Upton, who said of his time in Cabinet with Winston Peters: “There was something genuinely sad about watching him arrive at Cabinet meetings with his papers unread, still tightly secured by their green Cabinet Office ribbon.” That is the person going on the most important committee in New Zealand, according to this motion. I have watched the same thing in the Finance and Expenditure Committee in the last 2 years, when he shows up with his papers unread, asking questions that would be embarrassing if only anyone could understand what he was trying to say, far off topic, to the bemusement of the officials before the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

I said that a member of this committee should be collegial. The least collegial person in this House is someone who has been sacked from three different Cabinets by three different Prime Ministers. That is the opposite of collegiality. This committee requires someone who is honest, not somebody who has been censured by this House—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member has just reflected on the honesty of another member. He will withdraw and apologise.

DAVID SEYMOUR: I withdraw and apologise, but putting the interests—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Mr Seymour, you cannot withdraw and apologise and say “but”, all right? Just make it absolutely unequivocal and move on to another topic.

DAVID SEYMOUR: I withdraw and apologise. Now, the next thing that you might want in a member of this committee is the ability to put New Zealand first. Well, the fact of the matter is that Winston Peters is like one of those old lags in prison—somebody who cannot retire, who cannot go nowhere else, because he has got nowhere else to go. The Rt Hon John Key—he could retire, because he has got other options. He has got other things to do. In fact, most members of this House have that, but Winston Peters is somebody who has absolutely nothing else to offer the world and is scared to leave this House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member’s speech is concluded.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As an elected member, I have a right to speak in this House and time on the clock. Could you please explain—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat. I will give the member an explanation. His speech has been terminated for repeated breaches of the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings. He had been warned twice, and he breached on a third occasion. I think the member knows about the three-strikes law. He is probably lucky to still be here.

A party vote was called for on the question, That under section 11 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 this House endorse Rt Hon Winston Peters as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, nominated by the Leader of the Opposition, with the agreement of the Prime Minister, under section 7(1)(d) of the Act.

Ayes 120

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; United Future 1.

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Motion agreed to.

Appointments

Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I move, That this House recommend to the Governor-General that, pursuant to section 4 of the Environment Act 1986, Rt Hon Simon David Upton be appointed as Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Mr Upton will be well-known to many of the members in this House, having served for some 21 years prior to taking up a position in the role of a director of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—the OECD environmental director post—outside New Zealand. He has been back in the country for a number of years now, and has also been engaged in environmental advocacy, one would say.

Mr Upton’s team at the OECD was responsible to all of the member countries and was instrumental in putting together policies that would improve outcomes for the environment on a range of issues that included water, biodiversity, climate, and then the widespread use of agricultural chemicals. He played a key role in the OECD’s green growth strategy.

Mr Upton is a New Zealander who has had a long commitment to public service, and that, coupled with his obvious interest in better outcomes for our environment, means he is, I think, an ideal candidate. His previous portfolios as a Minister in a Government of New Zealand were in the areas of not only the environment but also research, biosecurity, health, and State services. So in Mr Upton we have a person who has broad experience of the government process in New Zealand and somewhat unique experience as a Minister in the field that he is now, hopefully, going to be confirmed as commissioner for, as well as having very vast international experience and understanding of how the rest of the world considers some of these matters. I have no hesitation at all in nominating—as this motion does—the Rt Hon Simon Upton for the position of New Zealand’s Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Officers of Parliament have to bring independence of political bias, and if there was any doubt that the Rt Hon Simon Upton had not left behind his political allegiance to the National Party, then we would not be supporting this motion—and, indeed, were that the case I do not think the Government would put him up as a nominee. I think that that does need to be stated, because when he was Minister his responsibilities as Minister of Health included some very controversial proposals to introduce user-pays charges into the hospital system that, on this side of the House, we are very opposed to.

He left this Parliament in 2001. He since then has not involved himself in domestic political affairs, and with his role as environment director of the OECD he has had contact with, I think, many people in this House on all sides. My own contact with him has had him as absolutely independent of any political bias in favour of the National Party or any other party in this House. And so on that basis the Labour Party reached the view that you can actually move on from this place and come back to roles that are associated with it without being in some way tainted by your earlier political career.

That hurdle, if you like, being overcome, we then were able to deal with whether the Rt Hon Simon Upton has the skills to do the job. On that there can be no doubt. And, indeed, I think there is actually some advantage to New Zealand in having someone who has been out of New Zealand coming back to New Zealand with the eyes of that international experience and actually judging whether we really are doing as well on some of these environmental issues as we would like to think we are. I suspect that the perspective that he will bring back, which—although he did not draft the OECD report on New Zealand’s environmental performance recently, he was responsible for it and came and explained to New Zealand what the OECD saw in respect of some of the issues where we are not doing so well, namely fresh water quality and greenhouse gas emissions.

I suspect the other thing he will want to get his head round when he gets back is actually the terrible rate at which we are losing soils in New Zealand to the sea—the rate of erosion in New Zealand, which is filling our estuaries with silt and has got to such a serious point in New Zealand that our inshore fisheries are not as healthy, because we have got so much turbidity in our close seas that the kelp beds are dying at depths where they used to live, and, therefore, the habitat and food for fish is less than it was. That is a measure of how much productive soil we are actually losing from our land, which is not good for our long-term agriculture, as well as being detrimental to the environment.

So I hope that he will be focusing on those three issues: land use, climate-changing emissions, and water quality. I really think that he will make a difference. I think he will be a fine Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. At the same time, he is actually carrying on a good tradition. We have actually been very well served by our recent—well, by all of our appointments to the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and I think Simon Upton will carry on in that vein.

As I have said, I think this international perspective is important. I know that there are some European countries that have had prior problems, for example, with nitrate levels in their waterways—notably, Switzerland—that have got on top of those problems, and I would like to think that with the wise advice from the new Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, we can do likewise.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, thank you. The Green Party is very pleased to support the nomination of the Rt Hon Simon Upton to be the new Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. He has been deeply immersed in environmental law and policy for many years, and I think his experience in this House as Minister for the Environment, Minister of Health, and also Minister of Research, Science and Technology will serve him well in this position. But it is particularly the depth of his involvement with the OECD, the breadth of his experience with policy initiatives to tackle the most challenging issues of our time—from climate change to land use and water quality; how you use things like economic instruments—and just his overview of and connection with New Zealand that means he can bring that international experience and that knowledge to this position of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

This role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is absolutely critical. When the office was set up it was called a watchdog, and it has been that, with the succession of commissioners—Helen Hughes, Dr Morgan Williams, and then Dr Jan Wright. They have provided invaluable advice to Parliament—independent advice—with a small staff, at the moment, of around 20 and a budget of about $3.3 million.

A number of critical reports from retiring Parliamentary Commissioner Dr Jan Wright have made a real difference. I would like to acknowledge her work and the depth of the reports on issues as diverse as the status of the longfin eel and its decline, land use and water quality, and the use of 1080 as a tool for predator control. I think the office has assessed in the last year that the success of its recommendations in being adopted by the Government was somewhere around 58 percent. You want an office that can review the evidence, base its recommendations on robust science, and actually have them presented to Parliament to inform parliamentarians and inform the Government on where policy should move. I think we have seen that with the current commissioner, and I am sure that the Rt Hon Simon Upton will continue that tradition.

One of the strengths of the current Parliamentary Commissioner has been the accessibility of her reports. They are clear, concise, and easy to read, and it is that accessibility and explaining of the science behind land use and water quality and the impact of nitrates on water quality that has engaged the media and enabled a lot more New Zealanders to understand the issues at stake here, which are affecting our extraordinary natural landscapes and environment, some of those challenges, and how the Government, communities, and local government are best to respond to those.

We are very pleased to support the Rt Hon Simon Upton in this new role. I am sure that he will bring robust analysis, his use of his quite deprecating sense of humour, and his wide range of policy experience to ensuring that the office remains a vital part of our environmental policy structure in New Zealand in providing independent and robust advice to this Parliament and to the Government. Thank you.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to say that New Zealand First has major issues with Mr Upton being appointed as the next Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. We made our views well known early on in the piece. I think, from our perspective, he fails at the first test, which is that the appointee should be politically neutral, and we do not share the confidence of other parties in the House that he is so. For our part, we see Mr Upton as being a retread. He was a National Party member of Parliament for 19 years, and a Cabinet Minister who, in the pantheon of Cabinet Ministers, is right up there with Dr Nick Smith. We see this, actually, as a bit of victory for Dr Nick Smith, in what will be the final conversion of the Bluegreens into the “Greenblues”, as the greenies within the National Party cement their hold on rural policy and rural environmental laws, which are slowly being rolled out upon them through such things as the Resource Management Act (RMA).

What we do not believe we need in this Parliament is a Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment who is a previous Young Nationals chairman. We fail to see why Mr Upton, a Rhodes scholar with degrees in English literature, music, law, and a Master’s degree in political philosophy, is suddenly qualified for this important role. The three previous commissioners have all been highly qualified scientists devoid of any political entanglements, unlike Mr Upton, who is donkey deep inside of the National Party’s old boys’ beltway network. We look at past commissioners, such as Dr Helen Hughes, a Fulbright scholar and an expert in botany; Dr Morgan Williams, a hugely respected ecologist with a Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries background; and then there was Dr Jan Wright, a physicist with a doctorate from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. To be fair, we have not always agreed with the commissioners, but these were all experts with no agenda. They shared two things: legitimacy and integrity.

Then you come to Mr Upton, who is regarded as the Dr Nick Smith of his day—an ideologue with little political nous, who was ever so accident-prone in whatever portfolio he touched. Mr Upton entered Parliament in 1981 as the MP for Waikato, aged 23. He left it 19 years later and did what red-blooded Kiwis all do: he went to France. At the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nothing he authored was very convincing, because he swapped one beltway for another cosmopolitan-type beltway. So what is Mr Upton’s track record? It is shameful. All other parties rolled over and allowed their tummies to be tickled, and we have the “Pepsi-Coke coalition” between National and Labour. Nothing is new here.

Mr Upton was responsible for messing up the Resource Management Act at the outset, including the removal of private property rights from the original 1989 Resource Management Bill. The RMA is unloved by many as being a bureaucratic Hydra, and Mr Upton was its midwife. Mr Upton, not content with stuffing up our planning system, set the groundwork for the Kyoto Protocol, which sees taxpayers paying close to a quarter of a billion dollars to achieve absolutely nothing.

He also broke up the legendary Department of Scientific and Industrial Research into competing Crown research institutes, and what an absolute disaster that has proven to be. Now we scrap over smaller and smaller pieces of research, with this Government actually then handing that funding over to the private sector, and we end up with the myrtle rust disaster that is now 1,000 kilometres off our shore and, who knows, it might even be here, because we have not put in place any sort of protocols about people moving on and off Raoul Island. We forget that he was one of the most useless Ministers of Health. He showed a cold heart over compensation for bad blood transfusions, and even was the person who introduced cash registers into hospitals.

New Zealand First has a serious problem with this propensity to employ old boys from the parliamentary beltway back into State appointments, with their political backgrounds. We need a commissioner whom we can have confidence in, and we have not got confidence in Mr Upton.

A party vote was called for on the question, That this House recommend to the Governor-General that, pursuant to section 4 of the Environment Act 1986, Rt Hon Simon David Upton be appointed as Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

Ayes 109

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Education (Update) Amendment Bill

In Committee

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): In accordance with the determination of the Business Committee, this debate will be conducted on a themed basis, not part by part. The themes are: principles and central management; communities of online learning; boards of trustees and management of schools; establishment of, and types of schools; and miscellaneous provisions.

There will be no debate on clauses 1 to 3, but clause 2 may be referred to in relation to the commencement of provisions as they are debated. The Chairperson will determine the length of the debate on each theme, so there will be no closure motions accepted. There is no limit on the number of calls per member, except for the fact that the normal arrangements apply, whereby members cannot have more than two calls at one time.

Clauses 4 to 37, 39 to 71, and schedule 1

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Members, we come to the first debate, on the principles and central management. This comprises clauses 4 to 37, 39 to 71, and schedule 1. Just to make it clear to members, this is about the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities. It is about enrolment, it is about cohort entry, and it is about exclusion. I would not expect any debate on topics other than those during this theme.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Thank you for the opportunity to be the first speaker in this debate on the Education (Update) Amendment Bill. Can I thank all members of the House for agreeing to trial this new approach to the Committee stage. I hope that this will result in a more logical debate and some better scrutiny of the legislation put before the House. I look forward to some interchange with the Minister during this debate as well.

The first contribution that I want to make is with regard to the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities and the setting out in the law of some objectives for our early childhood and compulsory education systems. Can I say from the outset that these are provisions being inserted into the Act that I welcome. I have some issues around how they are worded, but the idea of putting some clear objectives for our early childhood and schooling system into the Act is something that has been broadly welcomed by people within the education system. The idea that we would have a clearer statement of priorities is also something that I think the sector could come to embrace, depending on how that statement of priorities is established and how much consensus is built around that.

First up, in section 1A(2)(d) in new Part 1AA, inserted by clause 4, it states that the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities would be for a period of 5 years. So the first question that I have for the Government is why it chose the period of 5 years, because, actually, 5 years in the lifespan of our education system is very short. Children are in the compulsory part of the education system—the school part—for 13 years and they are normally in the early childhood part of the system for at least 2 years prior to that. So, all up, 15 years is sort of roughly what we would expect. Some children are in the system for much longer than that.

There is a real desire, I think, by people working in education to see a degree of consensus around priorities that lasts beyond a parliamentary term, a 3-year term, or even a 5-year term. So my first question for the Government is: why 5 years? Why not a longer-term horizon for this statement of National Education and Learning Priorities? I think there is a real craving from people who work in education to see a bit more stability in some of these things.

In terms of the objectives—and they are set out in new Part 1AA, section 1A(3)—it sets out the objectives for the early childhood and compulsory schooling sector. Again, I will be very clear that I think this is a welcome addition to the Act, having that clear statement that will guide future Governments in terms of the setting of priorities for the education system.

But the real question that I have for the Government is why it did not follow more closely the objectives set out in The New Zealand Curriculum. The curriculum has been broadly supported by all of the stakeholders in the education system—parents, employers, students, teachers, principals, school boards. There is a broad degree of support for our curriculum and the objectives contained within it, and yet the objectives in this Act are narrower than the ones in that curriculum.

In particular, I have put forward a Supplementary Order Paper—it is sitting on the Table now—that suggests some amendments to this section, around the objectives for the system. In particular, it inserts the notion of lifelong learning being one of the objectives of the system. We have got to get used to the idea now that people are going to come back into the education system throughout their life, and to the idea that a linear education—you start with early childhood, you go through school, and you do tertiary, and then you are off into the workforce or wherever, and that is that—is over now. People are going to constantly be coming back through the education system, including people who left the school system early on in the piece. They may be coming back into the school system, not necessarily into the tertiary education system, through their adult life, and we need to embrace that. So the principle of lifelong learning, I think, is something that we should be putting in there.

I have made a suggestion to change some of the wording of these clauses, to align with The New Zealand Curriculum. The curriculum does not just talk about participation in community life; it also talks about building a strong and just New Zealand, socially, culturally, economically, and environmentally. Those are in the curriculum now, and they are broadly supported. So why would we not take this opportunity to incorporate in the law something around which there is already a great degree of consensus?

I want to acknowledge the National Opposition, through the term of the last Labour Government, for its engagement in the development of The New Zealand Curriculum. I think one of the reasons that that remains an enduring document is that there was a bit more engagement on both sides of the House in its development, and there has been more support for it.

The last objective here for the system, in the first part, is preparedness for work. I have put forward a suggestion that would extend this significantly, into promoting the development of knowledge, values, and skills, to enable students to succeed in further education and to live full and satisfying lives, both personally and in the world of work.

I think it is important that we do not narrow down the focus of our education system to simply preparing children for the world of work. Actually, it is much more than that. It is about preparing people for life, including the unpaid work that people will do throughout their lives. I think that that is important. I would like to see those priorities changed to reflect the curriculum, and also to have a broader vision for our education system. So I guess I would be interested in the Minister’s comment on that.

Then I move to section 1A(4) in new Part 1AA, where it talks about the consultation requirements. At the moment, when issuing a statement of National Education and Learning Priorities, in the bill as drafted, the Minister only needs to consult with stakeholders whom he or she considers ought to be consulted. I do not think that is good enough for a primary piece of legislation. I actually think we need to be more specific than that. Members will find, on my Supplementary Order Paper, that I have spelt out in more detail some of the stakeholders who must be consulted in the development of this. Children must be there. The Children’s Commissioner gave a very passionate contribution to the select committee, saying that in the development of this bill and in these priorities, children have not been at the heart of that process. They have not had their voices heard enough, and we should go back and start again.

I think that we should ensure that children are consulted in the next part, in the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities. I think teachers, principals, school boards, early childhood educators, and parents should all be included. That is set out on my Supplementary Order Paper, and I would very much welcome the Government’s support for that.

I have a few other points to make on this statement, the first of which is that minor changes can be made without consultation, and yet there is a real lack of definition around what a minor change would be. I have put in some more definition in my amendments around what a minor change would be. I think it is important that the Minister of Education is able to make genuinely minor changes, such as updates in wording and the fixing of typos and stuff, but in the legislation it says that a minor change does not include something that constitutes “a withdrawal or replacement of the statement being changed.” That does not preclude the Minister from adding things to the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities as a minor change. I think adding new material makes it more than a minor change, and yet, under the definition of the legislation, that would be allowed. So I would welcome the Minister’s comment on further clarity around the consultation requirements, because I think that that will be very important.

Finally, I would like the Minister’s comments around how the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities is actually going to be developed, because, as I said in the very beginning of my contribution, I think there is an appetite within the education community for this, but there is also a great deal of trepidation, if you like, around how this might be developed and where it might go. Further down the bill, in the part that we are debating now, there is a provision that allows the Minister to set national performance measures. I think what a lot of people will be very concerned about is that those two things will become intricately linked and whatever is in the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities will actually be undermined by an unrelenting focus on simply the performance measures. We see that already in the focus on national standards and NCEA level 2, to the detriment of the wider objectives in The New Zealand Curriculum. So my question for the Minister is how the current Government would avoid that happening. If we are setting performance measures, how will it ensure that that does not undermine the broader objectives in the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities?

The final point that I will make—I have got only 40 seconds left in this contribution—is on how the current Government would go about achieving a greater degree of political consensus around this, because I see this as an opportunity to reach out across the aisle and get some greater stability in our National Education and Learning Priorities. That is a commitment that I would make: that if, after September, I am sitting where the Minister is sitting, I will actually be trying to get all of the parties in Parliament engaged in this discussion, because I think it is too important, actually, to not at least attempt to achieve a greater degree of political consensus around the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities. There will always be bits in that that we disagree on, but we can at least try to get a high-level agreement, like we did with the curriculum.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Mōrena koutou katoa. It is a great opportunity to talk about education, and we will be putting up quite a few Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) because it is also an opportunity missed in this bill. The opportunity was there to have a national conversation, but it did not happen. But we want to be pretty clear and pretty focused today about what is actually in the bill and how it should be changed.

I do have some questions on the initial theme around the principle issues around educational priorities, and I have got some very, very serious concerns, as has been mentioned already, that we were presented with by the Ombudsman and the Children’s Commissioner and the United Nations’ UNICEF organisation about this bill, on this core part—on this core theme—not having any child voice there. That is seen as backward and deleterious by the Education and Science Committee. It does not look good that we did not talk with children. In the Victorian era, children had no say over their education, but this is the 21st century and there are well-established, sophisticated, meaningful, quality opportunities to develop relationships with children and young people on education. I myself have been involved in those, which this bill, with its importance—we believe it is important; very important—did not do.

My question to the Minister in the chair, Hekia Parata, would be: when there were issues raised, why did we not stop and do something about them? The second question is around the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELPs)—there are a lot of things we would like to talk about today, but we will just start with them being based on something that allows students and parents to test the intent of them and, indeed, the intent of the rest of the Act. I have an SOP about clause 4 that talks about the United Nations conventions and the New Zealand Disability Strategy, because most other countries, if they are reviewing their fundamental piece of education legislation, will talk about this, and other countries have introduced a child rights approach based on the conventions that that country has signed up to.

I guess I would like to know why the Government was not prepared to at least put UNCROC, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, into the bill and why the Government was not prepared to at least put in the New Zealand Disability Strategy, which is a test, and given what we went through with the inquiry, there are a huge number of issues around disability and how it has been implemented to empower children with learning differences in schools. I would like to know why there is no mention in this part of the legislation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and why there is no mention of UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, because our children are in all of these categories. CEDAW, the Convention On The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women—the importance of gender in the education system. This country goes through these laborious international processes so that national domestic law can be informed by our overarching commitment, and education—one of the most important sectors in terms of laying out what we expect for our children and the future of the country—should have included those.

We will be talking more about other aspects of the learning priorities, but I just want to start by saying that this is an opportunity lost, and it was noted by submitters that we have failed to enshrine child rights. We have failed to enshrine them. This amendment of the Education Act was the perfect opportunity to do that.

We have other issues around the National Education and Learning Priorities. They are framed very much in terms of what will be instilled into the child. That is interesting framing—the idea that we are there to instil things into children. I think that it is probably well intentioned in that we want our children to share values that are important, and there are some good values in the National Education and Learning Priorities that I do not disagree with, but the way it is framed is that it is very much about the individual child.

The education system is a collective experience of socialisation and learning, and the more we focus on the individual child being instilled, without looking at the collective context of education, the more we go down a dead end. I feel as if, if we had had the national conversation, this is what would have come through, because parents, students, teachers, teachers’ organisations, and professionals are very much aware of the social aspect of education rather than the commodification, the idea that it is a consumer product that each child needs to either be instilled with or be satisfied with as a customer.

We also believe that the National Education and Learning Priorities could have some things added to them, and one of them, which I am also suggesting in SOP 301, is around the concept of equity, the concept that education systems that really succeed have a clear national learning priority of a system, not of a child—actually a system that is committed to the equity of all children, creating equity. The Finns, who are often lauded, for good reason—the goal of their education system, their national priority, is equity.

When equity is your goal, rather than achievement, however that is defined, the result is that the resources and the approaches are very much focused on making sure that every child gets what they need—not to be equal but to be equitable, because children have different needs. So, in the end, the individual child’s learning outcomes succeed better with equity as a goal than when it is about performance measures. That is just a profound opportunity lost as well in this bill—that equity does not get a look in. Yet the greatest challenge we face at the moment, not only in the education system but across our whole social framework, is inequality. This is why, in the National Educational and Learning Priorities, we would be very keen to see equity.

I have also put forward an SOP around adult and community education (ACE)—around adult and community learning—as a national education and learning priority. The ACE sector has said to us many times—I have sat on 8 years of panels where it has said to us: “If you are amending the Education Act, can you please put in something around the importance of lifelong learning?”. At the moment, this is about early childhood through the compulsory sector and the tertiary sector, but lifelong learning goes well beyond that. It would be well placed within the National Education and Learning Priorities. It takes it out of a small vision into a broader vision, because lifelong learning is actually the human experience. But it is not mentioned here.

That is why equity and adult and community education—intergenerational learning—is really, really important. It can take so many forms outside the formal learning structure, but we do not mention it in the Act—it is not referred to in this theme. The ACE community has really asked us to step up on this so many times. That is why in the NELPs—the National Education and Learning Priorities—it would be easy to just add this in. It is not going to hurt anybody and it is not going to undermine any of the other objectives the Government might have, but it will give the sector, which works often with second-time learners for whom the system did not work, the status and the value and the recognition and the opportunity to say that informal learning is incredibly important.

We have another SOP in this section, which I am aware will be controversial and probably unpopular, but I am really proud of it. It is the Greens’ policy that if we wish to instil—as the NELPs say—the importance of learning and valuing Te Reo, we actually need Te Reo to be there. It is not colours and numbers in your school and a few waiata—and I will talk about this later—we need Te Reo Māori to be a core part of the curriculum. It is time.

I applaud the Minister of Education for putting it in the National Education and Learning Priorities—both Te Tiriti and Te Reo—but we need to make sure that that is actually possible. Just to talk about it with no additional mechanism to actually move this whole debate to where it needs to be is another opportunity missed. Some young people from my rohe, some of the few who actually attended the select committee, Te Mata Rangatira—a wonderful group of rangatahi—came and they said: “We just want to learn Te Reo. We want to learn it at school. Our parents missed out, and we want to learn this as part of our core curriculum.”

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call Tracey Martin, there are a couple of points that I should make, just to make it absolutely clear about the way this debate works—that is, that all of the questions will be put at the end, including all of the amendments, all of the Supplementary Order Papers. The expectation is that people will speak to the amendments on the particular themes as we work our way through.

I will just put one other thing out there, which might be more hopeful than realistic, and that is that one of the hopes that we had was that people would not feel an obligation to use all of their 5 minutes—that they would ask their questions and they would sit down, or make their points and sit down—because they have an opportunity to get back up again to interrogate the Minister in the chair some more or to reinforce their points. So we get a bit more of an interchange.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, thank you very much for the clarification, Mr Chair. I think we appreciate that, and, particularly from the Opposition’s perspective, we are setting the stage, and then we definitely hope to interact with the Minister of Education more. I stand to talk about clauses 4 to 37 and 39 to 71. There are approximately 10 Supplementary Order Papers around those particular themes—those clauses that we are talking to today.

First of all, can I support some of the statements by my colleagues Chris Hipkins, from the Labour Party, and Catherine Delahunty, from the Green Party. This is an opportunity. The National Education and Learning Priorities are an opportunity—there is no doubt about it. I think that the opportunity is not lost. I think that, should this bill pass, it is how they are developed that creates the next opportunity. Mr Hipkins said that Parliament has an opportunity here to set a vision for New Zealand education that would go longer than 5 years. And I would reiterate Mr Hipkins’ question to the Minister: why 5 years? Where did 5 years come from? Because, as he quite rightly pointed out, the educational journey of our children is much longer than that.

We certainly understand the need to have flexibility and oversight. If something is going wrong, you cannot just leave a generation to suffer the consequences of that, and, obviously, they are always transitioning through. But it would be a wonderful thing, if this bill passes, if the conversation afterwards around the educational learning priorities was a much wider discussion. Let us actually participate together and set a vision for education; let us say “for 30 years” and have review dates set in place—markers that we all can agree on and all can participate in—and widen that conversation.

Education has become an incredibly contentious issue, and it is not fair on the children who are involved in it. So there is an opportunity here, I believe, to actually move this from the aggressive place that education has been in for some time into a place of collegiality—that is a word you hear only in education. It would be really nice to think that after this bill passes—because, obviously, the Government has the numbers—this will not be the end of a journey and that we will have an opportunity to participate.

I want to speak to just two of the 10 Supplementary Order Papers that are currently on the Table around these particular clauses. The first one I want to pick up on is Chris Hipkins’ Supplementary Order Paper 304, which is to try to align the National Education and Learning Priorities more closely to what is actually in The New Zealand Curriculum. The New Zealand Curriculum document was developed in a way that should be a blueprint for how the National Education and Learning Priorities could be developed. I would remark that inside that Supplementary Order Paper there is not the voice of business, and there should be. We could say that business people are on boards of trustees and business people are parents, but when they come as parents and when they come as board of trustees members, they come with that hat on. There is a place for industry inside the conversation around what we need from our educational facilities for our future, because all of us want—and we do not agree with the fit for purpose comments that were made last night by a member of the Government—our young people to be able to participate and feel involved and contributing to our society. That may not be in paid employment. There is a variety of skills that our country needs, and some of it does not get paid for. But we want all of our young people, all of our community, to feel that they are valued and have a place and can contribute.

In the list, under the amendment to insert new subsection (4A) into new section 1A, suggested in Supplementary Order Paper 304, I would just suggest that there is a gap there, around industry’s voice, to do with workforce planning and what is happening inside the world, really. The requirement of the skills, the vocational skills—the Minister quite rightly pointed out the vocational pathways that have been developed over the last few years. That has changed the New Zealand education system for the better. There is an opportunity now, certainly, to continue to evolve with the holistic education that tomorrow’s schools and the New Zealand education system should pride itself on, using the vocational pathways and the vocational skills to predict what the skills are—not the job requirements; the skills—for young people in New Zealand. We can develop those.

I also want to just touch on my Supplementary Order Paper 292. It is putting in a requirement—it would amend clause 4 with new section 1A(4)—that the Minister would need to “undertake a full and transparent nationwide consultation with the public of New Zealand”. So I suppose I am just going one step further with regard to the consultation and the development of the National Education and Learning Priorities to let us make it a countrywide conversation.

I also do not believe that just academics and those inside the sector have all the answers. We are somehow cocooned, often, inside this House and we look at things from an academic or a theoretical perspective, and I think that is one of the problems when we create legislation based only upon the advice of officials. They stay in a certain place they are at. One of the ways that officials describe things is that this is “high-level thinking”. We must know how that will translate down on the ground. So there are members of our society who should have a voice inside this vision for our country, and that is the purpose of Supplementary Order Paper 292. So it would be interesting to hear from the Minister: why the 5 years? Is there an opportunity, does she see an opportunity, to expand the consultation to not only those whom she or he deems—and remember we are setting up rules in this legislation for whoever is the Minister of Education.

This is definitely not personalised to the current Minister of Education. This is an opportunity, and any restrictions or rules or barriers or boundaries or parameters that we put in place will have to be followed by anybody who comes after the current Minister of Education, whether it be with a National-led Government, a New Zealand First - led Government, or a Labour-led Government. We know what we are doing, but we have an opportunity for real collegiality here, so it would be interesting, Minister—why 5 years? What is the Minister’s view on Supplementary Order Paper 292 and Supplementary Order Paper 304 at this stage? We know where the Opposition stands on these things, but it would it be interesting to get the Government’s perspective on those two alone at this stage. Kia ora.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I just wanted to take the opportunity to answer some common questions that have been raised by the first three speakers and, perhaps, to clarify the difference between the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELP) and the objectives.

First of all, the objectives are enduring, and NELP provides a medium-term set of priorities that are directed to achieving those objectives. In respect of whether issues of equity or commitment to lifelong learning should be made explicit, it is my view that the objectives speak to each of those themes but in different ways. So, in terms of equity, objective one focuses on helping each child and young person to achieve their educational aspirations and the best of their potential. Objective two already expects the education system to develop in each child their abilities, their attributes, their social skills, to form relationships and to participate in community life, and their resilience. Objective four is certainly about kids leaving the system prepared for the world of work, which is a very big part of adult life.

The question has also been asked by Mr Hipkins and Ms Delahunty and Ms Martin as to why the statement would remain in effect for 5 years. I do not think there is a perfect time line, but what we do know is that the current National Administration Guidelines (NAGs) and the National Education Guidelines (NEGs) have no time horizon. They go on and on. We wanted a 5-year period that was not matched to a political cycle. We wanted one that was sufficiently medium term and that responded to the sector’s own consistent aspiration for there to be greater predictability, certainty, and stability in what was being required of them at a high level, and that is why the 5 years has been settled upon.

Some members have also said: “Why doesn’t the NELP and why don’t the objectives simply follow the curriculum?”. The answer there is that the curriculum is separate and distinct, and there were actually quite significant concerns that we did not simply appropriate the curriculum into legislation but that we complemented it through the high-level statement. So it is not one or the other; it is how they speak and cross-reference each other to create a context within which the sector operates.

There have been concerns about consultation. What is set out in the bill is the minimum—it is the minimum. Members will know that, in the articulation of both the NEGs and the NAGs, no consultation has been required, and it has been up to different Ministers how much might have occurred. But, in the Act, we are saying that there is a minimum of consultation. In the time that we live in now, there is high expectation that consultation will occur, and Ms Martin questioned why there was no explicit provision for business, for instance. Well, we have now established a national cross-sector forum, which not only has business present but Pacific Island churches, iwi leader forums, mayors, and police district commanders. The forum meets three to four times a year, and then we have 40 regional cross-sector forums, so we have put in place actual mechanisms that do require consultation beyond simply education.

In terms of preparation of the legislation, officials are reflecting over a 2-year period of different kinds of consultation that we have had with the sector, and then specifically, through November and December of 2015, submissions—there were over 1,800 of those—were received from the sector and from the public. Those included submissions from children. Members were concerned about children’s voices. Well, first of all, we did get submissions on those. Second of all, every board of trustees is required to have a student voice on it. Thirdly, I actively invited all schools to consider running an inquiry approach to studying this legislation and to consider making submissions to the select committee, which, of course, the committee was free to do also.

JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Thank you so much for this opportunity to make a contribution on the Education (Update) Amendment Bill. I would like to make a contribution that focuses initially on clause 4, inserting new section 1A(4) in the Education Act 1989, which continues on from the honourable Minister of Education’s comments on consultation.

New section 1A(4) states that “Before issuing a statement under this section, the Minister must consult with those stakeholders in the early childhood and compulsory education sectors that he or she considers ought to be consulted.” One of the strongest, most persuasive submissions that the Education and Science Committee heard was from the Children’s Commissioner, Andrew Becroft, and what he told us was that children have not been consulted on this legislation. He stated: “The education system exists for children.” Submissions on this particular bill—he said that the most important stakeholders that this bill will affect are our children. Therefore, they should be consulted, and the best interests of our children should be taken into account.

He came with a submission that included this “STOP” sign. He told us that, as a select committee, we should stop with this bill, consult our children, and then come back to ensure that the voices of the children are heard. I heard what the honourable Minister Hekia Parata said—that there were one or two student representatives on boards—but there was no direct consultation with actual children, otherwise the Children’s Commissioner would have told us that the children’s voices had actually been consulted.

The Post Primary Teachers’ Association and many other submitters also told us that the children’s voices are not heard even within this. Kaylene Macnee and Main Road School also made submissions along these lines. One of the submitters, whose name is Joanna Fissenden, said that particular groups should be mandatory—before we go implementing changes to the Education Act, we should consult with particular groups, including children and young people, children with disabilities, Māori and Pasifika children, parents and whānau, and proprietors of State integrated schools. These folks were not consulted. But the point that I am trying to make is that the voices of our children are not even being heard before we go about making the largest changes to this legislation in over 30 years.

Some of the submitters also told us that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which we as a country have signed up to, is not even considered in this bill. The United Kingdom and the United States both include the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in their education legislation. We do not even do that in this particular bill. The joint submission from YouthLaw Aotearoa, IHC, and Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa told us that we should include a separate purpose statement in this bill that will provide all of us with useful guidance. We know that we have signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but late last year, the UN committee—pursuant to article 12 of the convention—made repeated calls for us to uphold the rights of our children, especially our children who are marginalised. It also named Māori and Pacific children amongst those.

When we do not include the rights of all children, we should really question what we are doing here in passing legislation in haste that does not actually address all of our children. I put it to the Minister that she has the Education Council. In my opinion, the Minister has not listened to the majority of the 216 submissions, because when we look at the legislation that we have in front of us and compare it with the form of the legislation before it went through the select committee, there are some changes, but very few changes.

I will give an example. When you look at what the Education Council recommended to the honourable Minister, it said that the Minister should include this: “to provide learning experiences which support children and young people to reach their potential and a system which aims to achieve equitable outcomes for all;”. The Minister just explained that we do not necessarily need to have equitable outcomes—or, indeed, all children—in the legislation, but why not? Why do we not ensure that there is an equitable outcome for all of our children? Why not?

This Government would have us believe that when it puts aside a measly $92 per student, per year, to follow the most at-risk kids, apparently that deals with equity and makes it so that all children across all of New Zealand should have equity of outcome. Inequality is an issue that has not been addressed under this Government. In fact, it has gotten worse. When we look at, say, students in areas like South Auckland, which I represent, we know that the majority of the schools in South Auckland are low decile—decile 1 to decile 3, in fact. The majority of Pacific students—close to 70 percent of Pacific students—attend decile 1 to decile 3 schools. To me, it is a bit of a farce that this Government would say that putting aside $92 per student, per year, is somehow going to make outcomes more equal for all students—$92 does not even buy the whole set of a uniform.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am just looking at the themes for the member. Equity funding is not part of this, so can you just concentrate on the theme.

JENNY SALESA: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I will move on to new section 1A(3), inserted by clause 4. It sets out the objectives of the education system. A lot of the submissions said that the achievement and learning of children and young people should be central in this particular bill.

The City of Manukau Education Trust in Auckland proposed that we should have a fourth objective. I do not see this fourth objective in the new bill. It recommended that we “work towards equity of outcomes across ethnicities, genders and socio-economic groups, at all levels of the system for education and learning.” This is not currently covered. The New Zealand Educational Institute stated in its submission that the objectives should also include equity. I heard the Minister say earlier on that equity is not included, but again I ask why not. Why is equity not included in the wording of the bill? It should be. Thank you.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I want to take an opportunity to address two issues that have come up, which I have responded to, but I just want to be really emphatic about this. The consultation period in preparation for this bill was 2 years. It involved forums and workshops, and provided opportunities for submissions and regional collaborations. It specifically involved my repeated invitation to schools to involve their young people in the process. May I say that the select committee was never precluded from inviting submissions from children.

Secondly, in terms of the international declarations and commitments that members have been commending, those are the overarching documents and commitments that our Government and all Governments observe. In terms of the rights of the child, which are the specific concerns that have been articulated, sections 3 and 8 in the principal legislation speak to the rights of all people to have education, and clearly that includes children.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Firstly, can I thank the Minister Hekia Parata for her answers to some of the earlier questions. I do want to go back to the Minister’s conversation around the lack of need to actually put in the word “equity”. I think she is referring to Catherine Delahunty’s Supplementary Order Paper 301, which Catherine Delahunty referred to in her earlier contribution. I accept what the Minister said with regard to the objective bullet points, and I thank her for it. However, it would be our view that in the bullet points she is talking to, “equity” is the recognition of difference as a different starting point, shall we say? I think the Minister has to address it right now with regard to decile funding. The original situation with regard to decile funding was to address different starting points with regard to resources. That is what I think Catherine Delahunty is attempting to address specifically in the particular objectives that the Minister drew out.

New Zealand First will be supporting that particular Supplementary Order Paper, Supplementary Order Paper 301, because, in our view, they are slightly different. It is around making sure that we have recognition, that there are different starting points, and that those starting points must be addressed to at least get our students to the same place before the objectives start to kick in. Possibly the Minister might just take that on for a second and consider that.

Perhaps I should declare a conflict of interest. I was one of the members of a board of trustees that participated in the consultation that took place for the 2-year period.

I would like to suggest that the Minister make public the consultation documents put together by her officials. That may actually fill a hole—that silence that always means somebody else is going to put a conversation into. When I participated in that consultation process, I observed that many things were off the table that have appeared inside this bill. They are in later clauses—for example, the ability to appoint a trustee to the board of trustees and make that person the presiding trustee or the chair. We will get on to that later because it is in a different section and a different Supplementary Order Paper.

Just to be clear, New Zealand First will be supporting Supplementary Order Paper 292 and Chris Hipkins’ Supplementary Order Paper 304. Catherine Delahunty’s Supplementary Order Paper 301, on the inclusion of “and to focus on equity as a key goal for the education system”—I would suggest that there is no harm in including equity as a key goal of the education system, Minister. I believe it is something we all want to achieve. We want to make sure that every single one of our young people has the best opportunity, and I hear the Minister articulate that all the time. So “Why not?” would be the question, and I understand the Minister is pointing to the objectives, but perhaps we could go a bit further.

With regard to Catherine Delahunty’s Supplementary Order Paper 303, the Minister also addressed this, and we thank her for that. It is about that commitment of our education system to lifelong, intergenerational learning. It would appear somewhat odd, considering that all of us have had slogans during election years and have had continual—this piece of language, “lifelong learning”, is a continual statement inside all educational conversations, whether they be political or whether they be with NGOs, and so on and so forth. So New Zealand First will be supporting Supplementary Order Paper 303 merely to make it clear that there is no end to this, and the State does have a responsibility to make sure that all its citizens can continue to advance, can continue to upskill, and can continue to change.

Does that mean we go back to Moroccan cooking classes? No, I do not think it does, and, let us be clear, that was never funded by the State to start with. But what it does mean is that we have people continuing to evolve, and the State has a responsibility: if we do not want people to fall off the employment pathway, we need to keep them on the educational pathway. So we will also be supporting Supplementary Order Paper 303.

As I say, there is a minimum of 10 Supplementary Order Papers. I would like to talk about Supplementary Order Paper 302. Again, this is in the name of Catherine Delahunty, and I apologise to my colleague, but we cannot support this Supplementary Order Paper. We have a concern about capacity, actually, more than we have a concern about anything else, and we also take on board some of the Minister’s comments that she has made leading up to this point.

There is a Te Reo Māori curriculum, and it will be interesting once the National Education and Learning Priorities and the objectives all get fleshed out to see where the place of the Te Reo Māori curriculum for English-medium schools and Māori-medium schools is. Where is that? Where is that going to be placed in those educational learning priorities? The reality is that when things are placed in the learning priorities, there will need to be budgetary items downstream from that, and they will need to be funded by the State. That is a natural progression. So if the Te Reo Māori curriculum is finally given some higher status in the learning priorities alongside The New Zealand Curriculum, then budget will need to be attached to that.

So we would be interested in having downstream conversations about that, in terms of how that can be given greater status and how teachers of Māori can be better resourced to deliver support to mainstream English-medium teachers to do what they should be doing, which is interweaving Te Reo Māori through everyday classrooms. I know that we talked last night about the code of conduct being developed by the Education Council and how there must be support for our mainstream teaching staff to be able to pronounce children’s names. I do not meet many teachers—actually, I do not meet any teachers—who deliberately go out of their way to do that. Others may be able to speak to that, but I do not. But the teachers whom I do meet are those who are too frightened of getting it wrong and who want some support. While we cannot support Supplementary Order Paper 302, we do believe—we hope—that as the National Education and Learning Priorities get fleshed out, the Te Reo Māori curriculum will perhaps be elevated into those themes.

I will talk now about Supplementary Order Paper 293, and it is going to be the last one I am going to get to in this contribution. It is my Supplementary Order Paper, and it is around shifting the cohort entry age to being after the fifth birthday. I am struggling to understand, Minister, and I hope you can provide me with some enlightenment on why it is 4 years, 10 months. I mean, again, a void has been there. We were unable to get any explanation of that from the officials at the select committee. We have got a piece of paper where Treasury showed that there would be a predicted $11.3 million saving out of the early childhood education spend. We hesitate to think that that is the driver behind setting an age that is actually lowering the school entry age, Minister. We were not provided with any evidence that it was educationally better for students to actually go into school at 4 years, 10 months.

I recognise, and you and I both know, Minister, that cohort entry had been around for a long time. Boards of trustees have been able to do it. What this is about is it has actually made it so that cohort entry could be made for 4 years, 10 months. Previously, it had to be after the fifth birthday. It was never written anywhere, but children did not start school until after 5, and this now actually implements the truancy process, should those children then start to not attend school on a regular basis.

So if the Minister could just address that with the question of Supplementary Order Paper 293—would the Minister support making an amendment so that, for the cohort entry, all other things would remain the same except that the child must enter the cohort after their fifth birthday, not at the closest cohort entry at 2 months before their fifth birthday? Thank you.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I would really like to answer as comprehensively as possible the issue of equity that is being raised, quite properly, by members of the House, and that is to say that when the objectives provide for each and every child reaching his or her potential, that is the equitable outcome that we are focused on.

I agree with the member Ms Martin that children start at different points, but the whole point of this objective is that regardless of where children start from, there must be equitable outcomes for each and every one of them. That is further buttressed in the bill by the references to what boards will be required. It is in new schedule 6, which says that a board’s objectives in governing a school include that the board must ensure that the school is inclusive of, and caters for, students with differing needs. So, in different ways throughout the legislation, there is the explicit requirement to get each child what they need for them to be successful, and that is the definition of equity that I am looking for—that they get the best results possible for themselves.

On the matter of cohort entry, just recently raised by Ms Martin, first of all I want to repeat that this is completely voluntary. Schools are not required to adopt cohort entry, but for those schools that wish to, they must consult, and after consultation, they can introduce it.

Secondly, parents choosing to have cohort entry are not required to start their child at the age closest to their fifth birthday but before it. They can choose exactly what the member is commending—after 5, or closest to their child turning 6, but certainly before they turn 6. So nothing about cohort entry is compulsive or prescriptive, but the evidence that we have for new entrant teachers is that it is, in their view, more effective for kids to start with a group and begin their transition from early learning and progress through their first and second terms together.

The third point I would make is that New Zealand is alone in the countries we compare ourselves with, in having continuous entry. Thank you.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I too want to talk about cohort entry, and I have got a number of questions for the Minister in the chair on that. I just want to make one sort of concluding remark on consultation around the process. This folder that I have here, entitled “Education Act Review”, summarises, I think, some of the consultation that went on before the bill was introduced in the House, and I do want to acknowledge the process that the Minister and the ministry engaged with. I think people enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the Act. I think that where the concern arises is that there were a number of elements that drew together at the end of that consultation process that are not reflected in the bill, or regarding which the Government has taken a different view. I think that that is where you get the comment from people around the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities that “Even if there is consultation, we might not get what we want.” I think that is where some of the anxiety arises.

But moving on to cohort entry—I noted the Minister’s contribution around the fact that we are one of the outliers in the OECD in terms of having kids starting whenever their parents want after the age of 5. I want to question a bit more the educational research that underpins the Government’s decision to move to a cohort entry system, because the Education Review Office did a review of our existing transitions from early childhood education through to schooling, and it actually found that that was one of the strengths of the New Zealand system. Because kids are starting school individually, the schools are able to put together a more individualised, if you like, wraparound package for the kids when they start school. The Education Review Office actually found that, internationally, we are one of the best countries at doing that—at supporting that transition from early childhood education through to schooling. I guess what I would like to ask the Minister in that regard is: how are we going to ensure that we do not lose something that is internationally recognised now as a strength of our system, when we move to cohort entry?

The second part—these are all fairly rapid-fire questions on cohort entry—is the impact on early childhood education centres. The Early Childhood Council has estimated that $12 million will go out of the early childhood sector as a result of the cohort entry policy. I would be interested in what work the Minister has done around the impact on early childhood services and whether cohort entry will have an effect on the financial viability of any of them.

It was also noted by officials during the process that school is free but early childhood education is not, so therefore it creates a financial incentive for parents to enrol kids at school as soon as they can, rather than it being an educational incentive. What I would be interested in, from the Minister’s view, is how the Government will ensure that it is educational decision-making driving that decision rather than cost.

Around the 4-year-olds being allowed to enrol, I am interested in why the Government chose to allow the 4 years and 10 months rather than the first cohort after the fifth birthday. In response to the Minister’s comment around “Well, it’s not compulsory.”, the issue is that it is compulsory once they are enrolled. This is one of the changes that is being made—that is, once a 4-year-old, if they are 4 years and 10 months, is enrolled in school, it then becomes compulsory. I understand why this frustrates schools, because if a 5-year-old was enrolled, it was not compulsory for them to attend until they turned the age of 6, and this bill changes that quite a lot. So I guess the element of compulsion that comes in here is what we do in the situation where a 4-year-old starts school at 4 years and 10 months and then the parent decides: “Actually, maybe that was too soon. Maybe this isn’t quite the right decision for that child. Maybe we should be going back to an early childhood setting for a few months.” Where does that leave the parents? Because, at the moment, the change that this bill makes is that once a child starts school, that is it; it is compulsory for them to then attend.

The next part that I want to probe, I guess, is how to ensure that schools make decisions around cohort entry based on educational practice and the best transitions rather than what is going to be the most administratively efficient. This bill devolves that decision to the schools, but, actually, we want the schools, if they are going to have that autonomy around that—how do we make sure that they are making the decision for the right reasons rather than because it is the most administratively efficient?

The next question I have is around 6-year-olds, because cohort entry does not actually apply to 6-year-olds. If a child has not enrolled in a school up until their sixth birthday, they simply go to school the day after their sixth birthday, regardless of whether that is as part of a cohort or not. I am interested in why the Government chose to exclude those 6-year-olds from the cohort entry policy.

The final question that I have is around some advice that the ministry provided in its supplementary advice to the Education and Science Committee. The ministry talked about rejecting the alternative approach—some of which I have just canvassed—on page 3 of the supplementary questions we gave. It stated, and this is a direct quote: “These alternative approaches will result in additional fiscal costs for the Crown. More children would stay in ECE longer, resulting in additional ECE costs for the Government. There is no offsetting reduction in schooling costs,”. For me, that rang an alarm bell, because—I am open to cohort entry; I genuinely am open to cohort entry if there is a good educational reason for it—I just want to be sure that we are doing this in the best interests of the child’s education rather than because it is the most administratively efficient or generates the most cost savings.

I am happy to leave it at that. I mean, I think there are plenty of questions in there for the Minister to address at some point.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): I would just like to say that I really appreciate the process where we are having a direct dialogue and talking about these things together, because we do not get much opportunity.

Just briefly, on cohort entry, I was originally quite open to this idea as well, not for administrative efficiency but because of the social aspects of children joining a group when they start school and staying with that group and building up friendships, etc. But I just want to say that I am supporting Tracey Martin’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) because of the submissions. We did not hear, at the Education and Science Committee, from early childhood teachers or teachers in the year 1 and 2 classes of schools that this was a good idea. I was quite surprised. I thought maybe the schools would be in favour of it and that it was something that had currency, but we did not hear that. We actually had no one say to us that it is a great idea, that I can remember. All we heard from early childhood teachers and infant teachers—I am sure they are not called that any more—was that it was not such a good idea and that they did not think it was justified in educational terms. That did actually shift my thinking, so I am pleased to support the SOP.

The other aspect of it, I guess, that has perhaps not been covered is that I think the educational leaders of the country need to see the bottom line, because parents are under enormous pressure all the time to go to work. They need to survive. So any pressure that increases the idea that your children should be in school earlier than at 5 years, I do not think we should reinforce. I think that we should reinforce the idea that 5 years is the bare minimum for when kids are ready to go into the formal education system, because there is a big difference between Te Whāriki and being in year 1 at school. As a grandmother, I have just sort of lived through those changes with my mokopuna, and I can see there is a big difference between how you are at 4 years and 10 months and how you are after 5 years, and when you are ready. I just do not want us reinforcing that. So although I was initially open to it, I have come around to the view, after hearing the submitters, that it is not the right thing to do in this legislation.

On a couple of other points that the Minister of Education raised—and I really appreciate hearing from her about this—I think, however, we are missing the point around conventions not being in the Act. My SOP on the conventions issue and my SOP on adult and community education are there because I know that it is obvious to those who are familiar with the sector that this is implied, but the point about law is that it is not about implication; it is about the ability for people to use a law when things are not going so well for them. So if it is not spelt out, they cannot use the legislation. The reason that the disability sector and parents—particularly Education for All and all the groups that are advocating for children for whom the system is not working—wanted this in there is that they want the test. They really want to be able to go to the Education Act and say to a school that has actually excluded their child for reasons that become very, very fraught—and I am dealing with a number of those cases, and I know that the ministry is, and I know how tough it is for everybody—that section 8 actually is not enough, because there are behavioural dimensions in section 8 of the existing Act, which means that children can be excluded on behavioural grounds when they have major learning support needs. I have lived these issues, and our inquiry lived these issues. We need a test that is stronger than that in the law, so that the law can be used.

It is the same with adult and community education. I do not doubt for a minute that the Minister and others have a deep understanding of intergenerational lifelong learning. That is not the problem. The problem is that the sector asked us to put it into the law as a national objective so that when it comes to their negotiations around funding, their negotiations around their status, and for the opportunity to develop adult and community education, they could say it is in the law that it is a priority. So what we see is very different from what the people in the community, trying to work with the Education Act and trying to lift the status of their part of the Act, see. If it is not there for them, then it is not there.

So that is why I have been arguing very strongly that these issues are about not just what is implicit but what is explicit, and some of this debate is about that. That is where I would like to leave it for now. Thanks.

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe, e Te Heamana. I too want to speak to the National Education and Learning Priorities statement, in new Part 1AA inserted by clause 4, and, in particular, give voice to some of the submissions on new section 1A(3)(c)(iv) “the Treaty of Waitangi and te reo Māori.”, and also to speak to Supplementary Order Paper 302. The Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) felt that that line ought to be rephrased in line with the submission from the Education Council, which said that it should be rephrased to: “the Treaty of Waitangi … and having knowledge of tikanga and te reo Māori.” So that was the suggested change from them.

I also wanted to talk about the submission from Dr Mere Skerrett and Associate Professor Jenny Ritchie, who felt that it did not go far enough and that there should be—and I was really pleased to hear the Minister of Education say that these were minimum requirements. So we have the PPTA and the Education Council that want that minimum to be raised a bit higher. Dr Skerrett and Associate Professor Ritchie want to move it up to even another level, and they are saying that it ought to be rephrased as: “promote the learning of and through Te Reo”, so, in other words, let the Reo be the basis for implementing what it says in the bill as it stands here. So I stand in support of Supplementary Order Paper 302 in the name of Catherine Delahunty.

I want to acknowledge Tracey Martin’s contribution, in the sense of whether we have the capacity to implement that straight away. But my position is that we need to take note of the changing environment that we live in, and only recently Auckland University of Technology published on its website yet another survey it has done, with nearly 6,000 participants, which shows consistency with others that have been published: that there is a rising number of people who support this very thing—the teaching of Te Reo Māori as a core subject in the national curriculum up to year 10, in the case of this Supplementary Order Paper.

So in the spirit of the new nature of this debate, I am going to leave it there, and I hope to have a response. Kia ora.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): If I could just answer the further specific questions around the cohort entry age that have been asked—in particular, what kind of research has been done on this? The problem is that it has been very difficult to do research on it, because New Zealand is such an outlier. There is significant research on cohort entry and on groups travelling through, but comparable research—next to nothing.

Secondly, there was a further question around concern about ensuring that the smoother transitions from early childhood to new entrants are not compromised by cohort entry, which is a concern I share with Mr Hipkins. We have made it very clear that, as part of the operational effectiveness of the new communities of learning and kāhui ako, one of the explicit and specific expectations is to ensure that that happens between all early childhood education services and schools, rather than at the moment, where it happens around the country. So, yes, we share your concern.

To respond to Ms Delahunty, yesterday we in fact launched, on its 21st birthday, a refresh of Te Whāriki and of making sure that the curriculum objectives there are very much up to date with supporting young people and their transitions. So I think that is another indication of how serious we are as a Government to invest into that space.

Then, of course, a question was asked—I am not sure now which member it was now; I think it might have been Mr Hipkins—about what happens if a parent exercises the flexibility to send their child in an early cohort and then finds that that, actually, is just not working for their child, particularly since we are compelling them, once enrolled, to stay. The bill enables a flexible plan and a review for that particular age group. Speaking to the compulsion part, what we do know from evidence is that too many parents are starting their child in the continuous entry way by taking them in and out of school until they are 6, and that is extremely disruptive.

Finally, we are asked “What support is there for this?”, because there were not a lot of submitters at the Education and Science Committee. I can tell you there was significant support. First of all, the Advisory Group on Early Learning, which met right through to the middle of 2015, formally recommended that this should occur. When the ministry consulted, we received support—80 percent from teachers, 68 percent from boards, and 76 percent from parents. So there was widespread support, and I do not know whether Committee members would agree, but sometimes you will get more representation from those opposed than from those who do agree. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): It is my view that it is now reasonable to move to the next theme.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. There are still five other Supplementary Order Papers that have not been addressed in these clauses, because we have not had the opportunity to actually address them.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I say to the member that she has had four calls, during that time, to canvass the Supplementary Order Papers and the amendments that are on the Table. The Business Committee has made the determination that if the Chairperson at the time believes that the views have been put forward—and the Minister, in this case, has answered those questions posed to her—then it is reasonable to move to the next theme on the—[Interruption] No, look, I have explained the position. The members will sit. I have explained the position. This is a determination of the Business Committee that the Chairperson has the discretion as to whether we move to the next theme, and I am exercising that discretion.

Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): If you are relitigating what I have already ruled on, Ms Martin, then that is out of order. Is this a new point of order?

Tracey Martin: Yes, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Tracey Martin—a new point of order.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Mr Chairperson, if you are going to close off the conversation around these particular clauses, based on the Business Committee’s decisions, knowing that there are Supplementary Order Papers that have not been addressed, I would like to recall the Speaker. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The Speaker cannot be recalled, because this is a determination of the Business Committee, and the determination of the Business Committee is that when the Chairperson believes that there has been a reasonable debate and there has been a dialogue—and, in this case, the Minister has been posed questions and has answered those questions—we will move on to the next theme within the debate, and that is what I intend to do now. So there is no further debate.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. While I am not questioning the determination of the Business Committee in providing you with the ability to exercise discretion, if the discretion is based on the number of calls sought and had by members, I sought the call twice and was rejected from having the opportunity to take a call.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, it is not. I hear what the member is saying. It is not based on that at all. I keep a record of the calls. I am more interested—this is a themed debate. This is the first time we are doing a themed debate as opposed to a part-by-part debate, so I am interested in the dialogue that has gone on and in the debate and the speeches that have been made in terms of the content of what has happened within a particular theme. I am satisfied that it has been well canvassed, and I am also satisfied that the Minister has taken advantage of the opportunity to answer those questions posed of her. So we are now moving to the next theme. Members, we now move to the debate on communities of online learning, and this comprises clauses 38, 72, and 145(3).

Clauses 38, 72, and 145(3)

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Just with regard to Supplementary Order Paper 306, which is actually about clause 38, which is inside the previous sections there, it does deal with communities of online learning. There is a Supplementary Order Paper there in my name that makes some wording changes around new section 35ZJ(3).

That is because at the moment the way the bill reads is that the Minister may make grants to communities of online learning, and they may be made unconditionally. We find that interesting. That is in new section 35ZJ, inserted by clause 38. We find it very interesting that public money would be able to be granted by a Minister—any Minister—unconditionally, so there would be no conditions and no accountability on that money. Supplementary Order Paper 306 actually seeks to amend that wording so that there is accountability for any grant made by a Minister to a community of learning inside this piece of legislation.

If I can move on to Supplementary Order Paper 298, I ask the Minister whether she would take a call around what I have sought to do here, which is to delete from new section 78LD, inserted by clause 60, the words “and the Minister may also appoint that trustee as the presiding trustee.” New Zealand First has no objection at all with regard to the Minister’s capacity to, as an earlier intervention, appoint a trustee to a board of trustees. Many boards of trustees, particularly those that find it difficult to get to the School Trustees Association training, do need some support from an educational professional or somebody who understands the governance of schools.

But we ask Minister Parata why she feels the need to actually designate this person the presiding trustee—the chair. On a board of trustees the chair has no more power than anybody else. They merely coordinate the meeting. They are an equal trustee and have one vote, like anybody else on the board of trustees. The difference is that the chair of the board has two major roles. One is the relationship with the principal, and so we are interested in why the Minister would need the power to create the presiding trustee and thereby immediately affect that relationship with the principal. It gives us cause for concern, and the School Trustees Association also articulated this concern—that this could have a chilling effect on the relationship between the board of trustees and the principal.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the member. We are actually on theme 2, not theme 3. According to my advice, it is communities of online learning. So the boards of trustees that you are mentioning come into theme 3, specifically mentioned as boards of trustees and management of schools. So we are actually on theme 2—all right?

TRACEY MARTIN: Sorry, thank you. So we are talking clauses 38 to 72 and clause 145(3)—thank you very much, Mr Chair.

So let us switch over to a conversation with regard to Supplementary Order Paper 309. This is in the name of Catherine Delahunty. I would ask the Minister whether she could indicate whether the Government will support this Supplementary Order Paper. It would create a parental advocacy council. This is something that the Ombudsman supported. The Ombudsman supported it because, as the Minister will have heard and as those who have been on boards of trustees will know, particularly with discipline hearings, often there are situations where a child is excluded or expelled, and the only avenue of conversation that a parent has after that is actually with the Ombudsman. This can take a very long time—particularly currently, with the Ombudsman’s workload.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I will just interrupt the member again. This is communities of online learning, so what you are talking about there is outside the scope of the theme. When we are dealing with themes, it is a bit difficult to do it part by part. This is actually a themed debate. I will just ask the member to come back—it is about communities of online learning, and specifically covers, as I mentioned right at the beginning, clauses 38, 72, and 145(3).

TRACEY MARTIN: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. If you have a look at Supplementary Order Paper 309, it inserts a new clause 38A. So if we are discussing clauses 38, 72, and 145(3), this directly impacts this section, which is why I am speaking to it. I will leave it there, but it creates a new clause 38A inside this area of concern.

So if we want to talk about communities of learning, clause 38, let us do that. We have two Supplementary Order Papers on the Table, Supplementary Order Papers 295 and 296 in my name. These will amend new sections 35T and 35T(1), inserted by clause 38, to remove the opportunity for a body corporate to be created to actually run a community of online learning. While we certainly understand and support what is currently going on inside of New Zealand schools, which is the e-learning and the online content that is being delivered—it has been delivered for some time—one of the two reasons that have been given, and the Minister could comment further, for creating communities of online learning is that Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu is overloaded. It is well outside the parameters of what was originally intended for Te Kura, The Correspondence School, so the community of online learning has been suggested.

E-learning inside of mainstream face-to-face schools has also been taking place, but it has been taking place at a cost on the operations grants and/or transitioning teacher time. What the sector really needs is not to have to compete with bodies corporate, or private providers or online charters, as some might refer to them, as would be created under clause 38. What they need are the parameters by which inside the schooling sector, inside the education sector, they can formalise communities of online learning. You might put them through the communities of—what are they called now? COOLs, COLs—

Catherine Delahunty: COLs.

TRACEY MARTIN: So you might use those to create a community of online learning and put some funding around it. So what they are looking for is some structure. Interestingly enough, schools had some funding for their e-learning platforms up until around about 2010. Then this was removed, and they have had to use, as I said, operations grants and staffing time.

I do not have high expectations that the Minister will support my Supplementary Order Papers 295 and 296, but I would ask the Minister to address those three Supplementary Order Papers. What is the Government’s view on the creation of a parental advocacy council, which could also mediate between parents and schools rather than elevating to too high up into the Ministry of Education or to the Ombudsman, who is incredibly overloaded? I will also ask the Minister to comment on Supplementary Order Papers 295 and 296. Why not, with the first stage of communities of online learning, restrict those to being delivered only by registered schools, and Te Kura is a registered school underneath the criteria at the moment, and also by current tertiary providers that are State tertiary providers—e.g., New Zealand universities and polytechs—rather than opening it up to private providers at this stage? I would appreciate the Minister’s comments.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am just going to make a comment here on Supplementary Order Paper 309, which the member referred to, in the name of Catherine Delahunty. This is the parent advocacy council, inserting new Part 6. This comes under miscellaneous provisions, so is not a part of these themes that we are on at the moment.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very happy to take a call on communities of online learning. It is perhaps a far more controversial part of the bill than the earlier provisions that we were debating, although there was some controversy in those as well.

I want to canvass some of the concerns that have been raised about communities of online learning and put some of the questions to the Minister of Education about how the Government proposes to address them. The first point that I would note is that there are still a lot of questions to be answered about how communities of online learning—basically, online schools—would operate.

The regulatory framework as set by legislation for these schools is so much sketchier, compared with every other school in the country. Many of the other provisions that we are debating here over an education Act that spans hundreds of pages relate to changing provisions around existing schooling. There are hundreds and hundreds of pages of primary law that relate to how schools should operate, and now we are establishing a new category of school in this bill that has only a couple of pages relating to it.

The primary legislation relating to communities of online learning is very, very sketchy when compared with the legislation that governs the operation of other schools, so my first question to the Government is why was all the work on how these would operate not done before the legislation was brought to the House. It seems to me that the Parliament is being asked by the Government to “Just trust us that we will do this by regulation.”, when, actually, the House has not just trusted the Government to determine how other schools will operate. We have got primary legislation that governs that.

In terms of some of the specific concerns that were raised by submitters to the Education and Science Committee, the first really deals with people with disabilities and at-risk learners. There was a general concern raised by submitters that online learning would be seen as a dumping ground for the most difficult students and the most at-risk students in the education system—those who are behaviourally difficult to manage within schools, or whose additional learning needs makes them more challenging for a school to provide education for. So the first question to the Minister on this particular topic is to ask how the Government is going to ensure that that does not happen—that online learning provision is not seen as the de facto alternative for kids who do not necessarily easily fit the kind of standard mould of the school system. I think that that is a particularly important one.

The Ombudsman raised concerns about that, along with many of the disability groups, during the select committee process, and many submitters also noted that through the United Nations conventions that we have signed up to, we have signed up to an inclusive education system, and online learning providers will need to adhere to the principles of those international conventions. So how will the Government ensure that all of our commitments around equal opportunities in education and support for people with disabilities will be met by the online learning providers? Certainly, the primary law around that is less specific.

The next set of questions, really, is around the value of having kids attend a school, and the social interactions that come with that. If a child is sitting at home—or wherever they might be—engaging on a laptop, how will they be exposed to the types of social interactions that are actually an integral part of the educational process?

Education is about learning to read and write, do maths, and all of those other things. But if we go back to the debate we had in the last theme that we were addressing, when we talked about why we have a public education system and the things that we want kids to develop—we want them to have resilience, good interpersonal skills, and all of those things that we have now inserted into the legislation as being desirable—how will the Government ensure that the kids who are not in a school but who are engaging through an online provider are still getting that level of exposure to other people and to other kids, which is also an integral part of their educational journey? Actually, some of the kids who might be drawn naturally to online learning provision are often the kids who benefit most from being in an environment that sometimes takes them a little bit outside their comfort zone and forces them to interact with other kids, so I would hate to see them being shut out from the educational experiences there.

I think the third question I have for the Minister is around kids in isolated and rural communities, and how the Government will ensure that, again, this is not seen as the de facto option for those children. We have got a number of very, very small schools in New Zealand, and I can see the member opposite, Todd Barclay, nodding. He has got a number of them in his electorate.

Todd Barclay: 69.

CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes. But they are very small schools. Some of them have got only half a dozen kids at them, and they are the most expensive for the Government to operate. I know that this is something that successive Ministers of Education have looked at, and the conclusion they have reached is that, actually, we can continue to provide those very small schools and fund them because that is the way we ensure quality educational opportunities for those kids.

One of the anxieties that was raised during the process was that online learning could be seen as an alternative to the ongoing provision of very small educational providers—small schools—in rural and isolated areas. So I would like some reassurance from the current Government that it will not be seeing this as an alternative. In fact, how will it ensure that this does not become the alternative in those areas?

We were presented with some very good evidence at the select committee of the online learning experiences from overseas—the United States, in particular—where online charter schools have been in existence for significantly longer than anything equivalent to them on this side of the world. It highlighted some successes—there were some successes—but the failures were greater than the successes. That is not to say that we should not pick and up learn from the success stories, because there certainly were some, but we should also learn from the failures.

I was particularly interested in the research by Michael Barbour from Touro University, who gave a very detailed summary of the international studies that have been done on online learning provision, particularly in the United States. It found that when online learning is done badly, it is done very badly, and the effect on those children is huge. It found that—I have not got the numbers right in front of me, but in terms of their literacy progression, the kids who were doing bad online learning provision were behind by about 73 days, I think, or 78 days out of 180 days in their learning, and in maths, they were 180 days behind out of 180 days of their learning. In other words, their numeracy did not progress at all through online learning provision, and their literacy, relative to the expectations, was significantly below.

That was from the bad providers, but one of our jobs as parliamentarians is to ensure that we do not end up with bad providers as a result of this legislative change. So I am interested in knowing how the Government will ensure that that does not happen, because I think that that is important.

Then we come to the regulatory impact statement, in terms of what is driving this. The regulatory impact statement states “The Act discourages other providers from entering the market” and the Government uses that as the justification for changing this, and yet if we go back to why the original Education Act in New Zealand was passed, in 1877, the principle behind passing it was that the public has a right—a fundamental legal right—to a public education. It is not a market place; it is a right. So why the competition?

What is the driver behind wanting more competition in this space? If it is simply to modernise The Correspondence School, that is something that I can sign up to—no problem. I think the correspondence school legislation is absolutely in need of updating. The correspondence school legislation was passed in the days when the school used to post out workbooks, and they would be posted back. Now, of course, most of the correspondence school provision is online, and of course the law needs to be updated to reflect that.

I did correspondence. I did correspondence through my local school because that correspondence provision was an alternative—so you could have a wider range of subjects. The school did not have the resources to offer all the subjects, so I did history and French. My French was not very good—do not ask me to speak anything—but I did do history successfully through correspondence, because my school was unable to offer it. Now kids are doing that online at their local school. That is great.

If this is about extending the range of options available to schools in terms of online learning provisions so that the kids still get that social interaction with their peers and the pastoral care that comes with going to school, that is something that I can sign up to as well, because I think that that would be great. I think that schools are already doing some really good things in that space, with sharing teachers through online provision and so on. So I want to know what the driver is behind the legislative change, because there is already stuff that is happening.

It is not just about modernising The Correspondence School. This bill goes far wider than that, and there are real pitfalls in it.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I would like to address questions that have been asked both by Ms Martin and, just recently, by Mr Hipkins. The overriding interest in establishing in the legislation the provision for communities of online learning (COOLs) is not one thing or the other; it is not about either modernising Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu or providing for there to be more providers, but it is absolutely about being realistic about what the future looks like for our young people. That is why the Government has, for instance, invested so much to make sure that all schools are connected and that they do get 24/7 ultra-fast, high-quality data. But it also recognises that there are diverse providers of education, and we see that through our system now.

To speak to the specific questions, this is not because te kura is overloaded. Te kura welcomes the introduction of this legislation, and I will quote shortly from its submission. The legislation includes a two-stage approval process, with an Education Review Office review prior to full accreditation. An interventions regime will apply to COOLs to measure that they are delivering what they propose they are delivering. It includes an ability to set additional conditions.

Members have properly expressed concerns about whether this is going to be a place that is the only recourse for the mainstream system, which finds it difficult to deal with some kids. Again the answer to that is no. We have been very emphatic with the education system and we have seen that stand downs and exclusions and early-leaving exemptions have all trended down, because we are clear that we want to maintain the very high standard we have around inclusion. So no, that is not what is intended here. The same kinds of disciplines will be provided to communities of learning.

If I could refer members to clause 38 of the bill, they will see that prospective COOLs must satisfy criteria to be accredited by the Minister, and these will include providing a safe and secure learning environment, providing an appropriate curriculum and tuition standard, having the capacity to meet its pastoral care and student well-being responsibilities—and I want to emphasise that—and having equipment that is suitable for the curriculum and mode of online education delivery. The enrolling entity, be it a school or a COOL, will be responsible for a full learning programme of children.

So I just want to quickly quote te kura, whose board of trustees submitted that it was a myth that students do not develop social skills in online learning settings. The board noted that done well, online learning involves social interaction and team work, through both communications technologies and face-to-face activities. This Government—and the member invited me to give a commitment on behalf of this Government, although this legislation we intend to be enduring—is committed to ensuring that those safeguards and the full well-rounded education that New Zealanders are entitled to have will be required whether the medium is a face-to-face, full-time mainstream school or a community of online learning.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): I appreciate the explanations. Just to note that Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu, when it came to the select committee—the board supported the bill and the teaching staff opposed it. So that was a very interesting experience—that we did not actually hear from the teachers that this is what they wanted. The board might have supported it, but the teachers did not want it, and they are the practitioners. I found that very interesting.

On some of these points around pastoral care, we can write the words “pastoral care” into the bill, but the select committee, including the National members—none of us were particularly confident about what that meant. We did have a big discussion about pastoral care, and I am really still not convinced. Early childhood education, which has got home-based care, which is a slightly parallel situation—their oversight issues are ongoing. Their quality issues are highly debated. The need for review continues. I think that we are setting ourselves up here to talk about pastoral care, without really describing a sufficiently robust monitoring system. I did not hear about a sufficiently robust monitoring system.

On the issue of disability rights and the Ombudsman, the Ombudsman came and said to us that he hardly ever presented to a select committee, but the communities of online learning (COOLs) issue was of such concern to him that he felt it was necessary because of the risk to children with learning support needs being dumped into COOLs. And this is a fact, because it goes through my office every day. There are a number of children for whom the schools are insufficiently skilled, they do not understand inclusion, and they do not have the resources for those children—9-year-olds, 7-year-olds—who have been expelled or suspended or excluded, whatever you want to call it, from up to four schools. So if COOLs are available for primary schools—and remember that this is also for primary, not just secondary—his concern was that those children can be ticked off as not truant and not excluded, because they are in a COOL. But the reality is that for primary schoolchildren and for the early adolescents, who is going to make sure those kids are doing their thing at home? Who is going to be home with them, if the parents have to go to work?

One of the things that parents of children with high needs who have been excluded have said to me is that they will lose their jobs over this. They cannot work because their child is not in school. Primary school children need permanent 24-hour-a-day supervision. I just cannot get my head around it. Just to give one example of an older young person who came and talked to us about this—she was one of the few young people who came before the select committee, and I was there for all the submissions. She came with the Southern Health School. She said that the problem with COOLs is: “I would have grabbed that. I would have jumped at it.” She said: “I was deeply traumatised during my adolescence, and if someone had given a ‘get out of jail free’ card I would have gone: ‘No, I’m never going to a school ever again. I’m going to stay at home in my room.’ ”

She said: “My parents were so desperate and worried about my mental health that they would have agreed to that. It’s not in my interests, and it isn’t a good idea for me to be out of school all the time and online.” She said: “Living online is not living.”, and now, thanks to the assistance of the Southern Health School, she is able to go back into society and become a fully functioning member of society. She is studying in tertiary education. It is a real success story because the schools worked with her.

This is what we heard, over and over again, with COOLs—that there is nothing wrong with online learning. There is nothing wrong with blended learning. There is nothing wrong with a digital dimension to our lives, which are enriched so much by education. But when it is separated from the school situation and it is not part of that world, and when it is a privatised function for franchises to enrol people—and I also met with Gary Miron when he toured here, and he showed me the research. It is so patchy that you would expect this bill to be a lot more rigorous.

So on those issues, pastoral care, how do we actually ensure that children who have been excluded because they are supposedly the problem—schools will jump at that opportunity. Some of them are desperate about this. It costs them a lot more money to include, at the moment, especially if they have not got the skills. So that is why the Ombudsman really challenged us, and that is why I am challenging the Minister. How will we make sure that there cannot be the dumping of children with high needs into this environment? How will we? It is not here in the bill. Thanks very much.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): The member Ms Delahunty actually makes exactly the point of this. It is not one size fits all. So in the example the member just described, it clearly would not have been an option for her. But I can tell the member that I received emails from other people who said that if this option had been available when they were at school, they would have got their first-chance education, rather than now funding a second- or third-chance education.

The second point I would make is that it is not compulsory. It is a choice for parents. Whether to enrol in a community of online learning (COOL) is a choice for parents. Schools cannot direct children to a COOL. It is the parents who make that choice, and in making that choice, as they do now, they will be able to see what the requirements are for those particular communities of online learning. It is not the type of school; it is the quality of it and the fit of it for the particular students and their families.

As for, again, Ms Delahunty’s comment that it was the board of Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu that favoured this but not teachers, I am advised that the New Zealand Educational Institute teachers are completely in favour of it and have invited further discussion. So I guess it was other members of the teaching workforce at te kura. But I can comment to the member that I have found it impossible to get an absolute consensus on everything, from all teachers across New Zealand, so it does not surprise me that it is not possible to get consensus completely in one school.

Te kura already runs an early childhood programme, and so it has already demonstrated that it is possible to provide online learning. The member, quite properly, asks for reassurance about how we protect for these pastoral care issues. I am assuring the member that the regulations as I have outlined them in the bill will be rigorously applied. None of us have an interest in this not being successful.

Finally, I make the point that primary schoolchildren, by law, cannot be left at home alone under the age of 14 years. This would not attempt to contravene that law.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I will just pick up on some of the answers that the Minister in the chair, Hekia Parata, just gave—thank you very much—around 14-year-olds. That is absolutely right—no child can be left at home. When a sibling is at the age of 14, they are considered a responsible adult. I do not believe that members of this House believe that having a 14-year-old supervise a 5-year-old or a 6-year-old in online learning is appropriate. I do not believe it. If the Minister believes that is appropriate, then she can stand up and say so, but I do not believe that that is appropriate. And therein lies the question: why primary school children? Again, Minister, we have not been given a real reason, and that is all we are asking for.

What one can hear across this Chamber is a consensus that online learning is real, it is here, it is now, and it needs to be supported. It came out of the digital literacy inquiry that I sat on with Nikki Kaye. There is no argument here about online learning. It is about the private providers inside that environment, and again, Minister, all we need to know is: why open it up to private providers? We have the Network for Learning, which could be amended and could become a conduit for programmes that have been certified and approved. We have got the Virtual Learning Network and other things that came out that the sector had to create because there was not this capacity inside the sector. All that is being suggested is that we actually keep it inside the sector for now.

With regard to the comments around Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu, that was in the regulatory impact statement. That was one of the justifications for communities of online learning in the regulatory impact statement from her officials—that te kura was overloaded, because it is at 24,000, or something, students. I mean, 16,000 of them are over 16 years old—something like that. So they could actually be other learners. There is no need for them to be in te kura. This Government has put in many other opportunities for 16-year-old-plus learners to be inside an education system, and they could be 100 percent online through a tertiary institution, a polytech, or a university.

So what is this actually about? Let us keep it within the sector. That is all that the Opposition is suggesting. We are not arguing that this is not the future, we are not arguing the fact that—and those were the Minister’s words, out of the report she read: “Done well, this is a plus.” Absolutely. At Mahurangi College we have something like 17 students at year 13 currently Skyping out into other courses because we are a semi-rural school and we cannot provide art history or Greek or whatever. We want to widen the capacity that our students can study. We have no argument with the concept of online learning, but why primary school students, why 100 percent online learning for primary school students, and why open it up for private providers?

I want to touch on what Catherine Delahunty talked about, and it is the crisis of anxiety that is going on in our schools. The Minister will know, because I am sure she is talking to the sector and to the counsellors who are inside our school sector, that we have a crisis of anxiety—students who are too anxious to come to school. There is a huge variety of reasons for that, and often it is not that the school is the issue; it is what is going on at home. If we add to that their capacity to opt out of a face-to-face schooling environment, would they take it? Yes, they would, and that is what the health schools and the young woman and others who came to testify said. The young woman said: “My parents would’ve done anything to stop the pain that I was in when I had to go to school, because of my anxiety.” She thanked the health school, for one. That was a choice. It is part of the flexibility of the system that we applaud. That health school was able to step in and support that young woman with her education at the same time as she was under medical care and medical attention. She then transitioned back into mainstream school and she has transitioned back into the real world. She said of communities of online learning: “If I had had this option, I would never have come out of my room.”

The Minister says that there is no compulsion. People cannot be excluded because, quite rightly, there is reporting around expulsions and exclusions, and it will be watched if mainstream schools try to do this. But the Minister knows, just as I know, that people are strongly encouraged. When your child, when your student, comes home constantly upset because they are running into ructions with the school, and a school principal or a school counsellor or careers adviser or somebody suggests to you that there is another pathway that would make this easier, then you might just take that pathway.

So those are our concerns, and all we are saying is: let us keep it inside the sector, let us not open it up for private provision, and let us look at widening the scope of Network for Learning, now that we know that we have got the portal there for all these other things. That is one of the things that Network for Learning did, now that broadband is out and fibre is through to all our schools. Let us widen its capacity to start to certify and start to organise these online programmes so that our schools, through that portal, can go straight there and start to deliver out wider. Let us look at the schools, instead of using the current percentage of their staffing that they give to their e-learning networks, actually creating digital mentor teachers.

One of the side effects of what is happening is that those students who are doing online learning inside our schools are having to fit with the current timetable. That means they are often having to go to the library and study alone. There is quite a high drop-out rate, or quite a high fail rate, among those students. You must be very focused, very literate, and very self-driven. So instead of having our schools use their staffing percentage right now to try to fund the e-learning networks they have got, let us get the Network for Learning to do that, and let us use that component of staffing to create digital mentor teachers inside our schools. There is a way to deliver this that is better than actually just deciding it will go private.

Before I sit down, I am going to ask the Minister directly: will her Government support Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 293, SOP 297, SOP 298, SOP 306, SOP 296, and SOP 295? Will the Minister, and will the Government, support those SOPs? If we could just have a yes or no—and if not, why not—that would be great. Thank you.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I have got some rapid-fire questions for the Minister of Education, and I want to thank her for her engagement in this. The first is around the Official Information Act (OIA) and the Ombudsmen Act and why the Government has made the decision not to extend the provision of those pieces of legislation to communities of online learning (COOLs). I would note that they are receiving their funding from the Government, they are dealing with young people, and they are operating, effectively, on behalf of the State in fulfilling its obligations to provide young people with an education. Therefore, I am interested to know why the Government does not think they should be covered by the OIA and the Ombudsmen Act.

I would just make the quick observation that the Ombudsmen Act and the role of the Ombudsman has provided a vital safeguard in the case of systemic failure of the education agencies in at least one case that I am aware of, and that was the case at Hutt Valley High School where every education agency and the school failed some students who were the subjects of sexual abuse. It was the Office of the Ombudsmen that finally got to the bottom of that. Given the risks involved in opening out the provision of education in the way the Government is with communities of online learning, I would like to know why they are not being covered by it as well.

The Office of the Ombudsmen, in particular, raised a concern about the Minister having absolute discretion to accredit a community of online learning, and whether that was designed to avoid judicial review. I would like the Minister’s comment on that to ensure that any decisions made to accredit a particular provider are still subject to judicial review if appropriate process has not been followed. Volcanics eLearning Community suggested an amendment to specifically enable existing communities or networks of schools to seek accreditation collectively. The Government says that it would like to have more cooperation and collaboration amongst schools, and I would like to know whether the Government would entertain the ability of schools to collectively apply to become a COOL, because it seems to me that actually fits the definition of what it is talking about, which is communities of online learning. Why can communities of online learning that genuinely include a number of different schools not apply to be accredited? Why do they have to have, for example, a lead school applying for the accreditation?

NetNZ expressed concern about the ambiguity around the ability of a COOL to charge fees, and I share that concern. School education in New Zealand is, by law, supposed to be free, so we would be departing significantly from that fundamental tenet of our education system if we allow those enrolling in a community of online learning to be charged a fee. It means that they will no longer be receiving the free school education that they are guaranteed by law. So my question to the Minister is: why allow them that flexibility? Why not say that if they are receiving Government subsidies for their provision of education, as schools do—why should they not be precluded and prevented from charging a fee, as schools are prevented from charging a fee? I think that that is certainly something that the Labour Party is absolutely committed to.

The Government policy allows for COOLs to teach something other than the curriculum. The argument put forward by the Government is that this allows more flexibility to the COOLs, but The New Zealand Curriculum is already incredibly flexible, and it sets out our expectations for the types of skills and knowledge that young people will be taught. It is incredibly enabling, in terms of what it allows schools to do, so why would a COOL not be required to teach to The New Zealand Curriculum? The Minister will be given the discretion, through regulation, to determine how many, if any, registered teachers are required to teach.

There are two aspects to this that I would like the Minister to comment on, the first of which is how the Government will ensure that those who are providing education online through a COOL actually have the teaching skills necessary to impart that knowledge. The second is around safety, and student safety in particular. Through the accreditation process and the practising certificate process we ensure that teachers are police-vetted. We ensure that they are the appropriate people to be dealing with young people. I think it is worth noting that one of the big risks of the online environment for young people is that it is used as a grooming ground by people who would do young New Zealanders harm. So if they are not registered teachers, how will the Government ensure that those who are working with young people through the online learning environment are fit and appropriate people to be dealing with young New Zealanders? Their safety has to be paramount in these considerations. I personally think it would be much more beneficial for the Government to require that teachers are engaged in this process.

Then we come to comments that were raised during the Education and Science Committee process around the risk of an adverse impact on the schooling network. I come back to my question earlier on small rural schools. Let us say there is a small rural school in an area that has seven kids, and four of them decide to enrol in a community of online learning, leaving only three at the school. What guarantee can the Minister give that that will not then be used as the catalyst to say those other three kids should all then go to an online learning provider as well? How can the Government ensure that there is still a robust network of actual physical schooling provision around the country?

Finally, I would like just a bit more comment from the Minister. I mentioned one of the online safety requirements, and that is around ensuring the fit and proper persons criteria are fulfilled for those working with young people through an online COOL. But the second is the wider issues of online safety and how the Government will regulate to ensure that those who are providing education through a COOL are providing a safe learning environment. Online learning has a huge array of potential pitfalls, in terms of student safety, and I would like some further clarification from the Minister around how those issues are going to be addressed in the regulations that come forth next.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Perhaps if I just start with that last question first, since the member had quite a catalogue of questions. In terms of safety, this is something that we are focused on all the time, even for the very connectedness of the face-to-face schools. So a number of protocols and supervisory expectations are already applied to schools now, and I would expect that in the regulatory regime for communities of online learning those will also be applied.

In terms of safety of kids, the Vulnerable Children Act requires all those working with children to be vetted for safety and that would be applied here. In terms of the question around registered teachers, State and private schools that establish communities of learning will all be required to have registered teachers, as is the case now. For those that are not, the regime they are currently established under will pertain in that case. In terms of registered teachers, just as occurs now for partnership schools, the Minister can specify a minimum percentage of teachers who must be registered.

Coming to a couple of questions—well, actually, an observation that Ms Martin made, where she was recommending a particular approach to online learning but defining it as confined to within the sector. I think it just comes to a point that I do not agree that there is not value to be gained from drawing from the widest pool available. I know now, in fact, that not only New Zealand schools but schools worldwide regularly access the Khan Academy, and that is a private provider. In New Zealand the Mind Lab or the coding club or many others are not within the sector but, nevertheless, provide really good-quality learning. I do not see why we would confine the scope of our interest for New Zealand children simply within the sector. I think that applying a tough regime of selection will ensure that the best quality is achieved for our young people.

To go back to Mr Hipkins’ questions about the Official Information Act and the Ombudsman: the approach we are taking here is that those accountabilities that currently apply to different categories of schools will consistently apply. So for those where businesses may be involved and they are not caught by those provisions, and they are approved because they meet the regime, then the accountabilities relative to them will be applied.

The member may have misapprehended the law in New Zealand, but there is no protection from being judicially reviewed, and so a Minister of Education—and an experience I have become regrettably somewhat familiar with. The public can be assured that they will retain the right to review a decision of a Minister of Education, or, indeed, any Minister. That is as it should be.

Blah-blah—oh, fees.

Chris Hipkins: Not blah-blah at all. They were good questions.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Sorry, I beg your pardon. Ha, ha! I beg your pardon. It is just that some of you have asked similar questions, and I have answered. I apologise to the Committee.

So, coming to fees: regulations will be set out for these about what can be charged. For example, Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu can currently charge some students, and does. Private providers will also be able to do that, but, again, that will be something that is contested in the setting of the regime and in the accreditation.

Finally, I will repeat—no, not finally. The member was also concerned about going outside The New Zealand Curriculum. Well, we already have the case in New Zealand where schools offer the University of Cambridge International Examinations or they offer the International Baccalaureate, and those are outside The New Zealand Curriculum. We also have kura that offer Te Aho Matua, which is not exactly Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, but it is outside in some regards.

Chris Hipkins: It’s additional to, rather than instead of.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: It is additional to, that is right. We are not suggesting that, you know, we are looking to actively find outside the curriculum. But I just want to remind the member that that diversity already exists in the system, and by introducing communities of online learning we are not introducing a new dimension that is not already at play.

And then one penultimate—parents choose. Nothing in this bill is saying a parent must use this type of school or that type of school. Parents know their children best, and will pick the best option and the best mix of options for them.

Rural schools: this is a challenge to us, whether we have communities of online learning or not. When the shepherd leaves with her four kids, you know, that could take two-thirds of the kids from a school. One of the best solutions we have found for this, or that we are putting in place, is not only to be able to connect in by broadband and so forth but it is also the communities of learning, so that they are part of a much bigger critical mass that gives them greater likelihood of being able to survive. So it is an ongoing challenge, and none of us have yet hit on exactly the right recipe to resolve that. Thank you.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): This is just going to be a very brief response, because—I just cannot let it go. So I came to Parliament to stand up for people who do not have a choice—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Well, I just want to—[Interruption] Sorry. Order! Whether or not the member can let it go is not necessarily completely over to her. The member will be aware of the constraints of this debate and repetition, and I have noted in some speeches that we are going round in circles, even within the same call, and being repetitive. So I will just warn her against that.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: OK—thank you very much, Mr Chair. If we are going to say that parents have choices, can the Minister of Education please explain to me about the choices of people whose children are excluded from school or get only 1 hour a week because they are hard to teach. Can we just have an explanation, as nothing in the existing Act protects them. How are we going to make sure that communities of online learning (COOLs) do not make things worse for them? Because they do not have the choice to say no when they have been excluded, and then parents are threatened with truancy if their child is not enrolled in a school. That is how they could end up in a COOL, and that is why I want an explanation as to how we are going to make sure that does not happen. Thank you.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I can only repeat for the member, Catherine Delahunty, that it is not schools that get to direct students to communities of online learning. Secondly, the issue of exclusion or stand down—there are natural justice provisions. Thirdly, the introduction of the idea of communities of online learning is not introducing that new unacceptable behaviour—and it is a behaviour of some schools that the ministry is working hard to deal with. We take great pride in our approach to special education and learning support, and where we are aware that is occurring we take action. Thank you.

JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): We have a world-class public education system in Aotearoa New Zealand already. Most of our schools have Bring Your Own Device. Blended learning is already happening in most of our schools. So why is there a need for communities of online learning (COOL) schools? Some of the submitters told us that we have too many schools. We have a shortage of teachers, however. Young people, they need interaction with each other in terms of building up their social skills and interrelationships with adults, including teachers. That is something that they cannot learn from a computer.

The Hon Hekia Parata’s communities of online learning proposal will see students sitting at home, probably in their bedrooms, in front of a laptop, receiving their instructions directly from a computer—most likely from a private corporation, probably an overseas private corporation. That is what this legislation will allow.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Order! I just want to draw to the member’s attention—she may not have been here through the whole debate, but the points she is making now have already been made several times by several speakers, and it sounds much more like a first, second, or third reading speech rather than a Committee stage. In the Committee stage we are looking at submissions that were made before the select committee and the discussion around that, we are looking at discussion of Supplementary Order Papers that are on the Table, and questions to the Minister. I invite the member to move to new material, please.

JENNY SALESA: So I would like now to comment on a submission to the Education and Science Committee by Bronwyn Cross, someone with over 40 years of experience as a secondary teacher, a parent, and a member of a board of trustees. What she told us in the select committee is that the communities of online learning are not about learning. I quote her: “New Zealand schools already use online learning to expand options for students but they do it in the context of a learning relationship which includes face-to-face support within a wide range of other collaborative school experiences”. COOLs, as it is currently being proposed, will take away the emotional content, students being able to learn how to have better working relationships with each other as peers and with their teachers. What it does is it will reduce the content transaction. She said: “It is a factory model designed to enable private, probably international, companies to make maximum profits from our children at the lowest possible cost.” That is directly from Bronwyn Cross.

She went further. She said that communities of online learning give parents options. She said that it gives them choice—at least that is what the ministry and the Minister will have us believe—but we are not giving parents a choice of different flavours of ice cream here; this is more about privatisation. She said that this COOL model has been plucked from the United States, plucked and plonked here in New Zealand, but it is a failed model from overseas—her words, not mine.

Another submission was made to us from Rural Women New Zealand. They told us that they have strong concerns about this proposal for communities of online learning in this legislation because it will allow the Government to give accreditation for online, private charter schools. Their concern was that they will be so affected, especially rural schools. Already they are facing closure of many of their schools, and they see that communities of online learning have the effect of closing even more of the rural schools. Another submitter told us, in her words, of communities of online learning, that “This is the death knell for rural secondary schools.”

There were a lot of concerns. The majority of the submitters who came to us in the select committee were against communities of online learning, and we should not be rushing through with such a proposal as this—something that is untested, something that we know from overseas countries has failed. Why are we rushing through with implementing it in the Education (Update) Amendment Bill? Thank you.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I will be repeating some things that, clearly, the member Jenny Salesa was not here to hear, but to assure and quell her anxiety that there is no interest on my part or that of my Government in delivering some kind of broken model for New Zealand students. What we have done, and what Governments through time have traditionally done, is looked overseas, looked at the research, and said: “What can we learn from that?”. And what we can learn from the US experience is that we need to cap numbers, we need to have more regulation, and we are proposing to do that.

If I can refer the member to clause 38, we are requiring that prospective communities of online learning must satisfy criteria that will include providing a safe and secure learning environment, providing an appropriate curriculum and tuition standard, having the capacity to meet pastoral care and student well-being responsibilities, and having equipment that is suitable for the curriculum that is being taught. New Zealand’s model of online learning learns from other jurisdictions and proposes to do it better. To give the submitter her full credentials, Ms Bronwyn Cross was also for many, many years the executive officer of the Post Primary Teachers’ Association. Thank you.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Chair. Firstly, can I thank the Minister for her answers to my last questions. It is absolutely an acceptable answer for the Minister to say at the end of the day: “We disagree.” It is really nice to have that as an answer on the table rather than the dance that we sometimes do around here. That is fine. That is what this place is about. It is about people disagreeing in debate, fighting ideas. At the end of the day, I do not agree with the Minister but she is in the chair at the moment, they are in Government at the moment, and this is what we are dealing with. So thank you for the honesty, Minister. I really appreciate it. This has been a really great process so far. It has probably been the most respectful you and I have been to each other for a long time.

Can I just ask a couple of things, though, Minister. I do want to go back to section 35ZJ, in clause 38. First of all, I want to say that the Minister made a point about why we could not take the Opposition’s perspective, which is actually to not open this up to private businesses, by using the Mind Lab as an example, and the Khan Academy. Can I just point out to the Minister that the Mind Lab and the coding school that she was referring to deliver subjects. So they deliver subjects—right? They are not delivering the full curriculum. Absolutely that is what we need to bring inside our schools—coding particularly. Let us bring real-life coding experts inside our schools to work with our senior students—and all examples given are senior students. So again the question stands: why primary students? And we are already doing it; let us just frame up what we have got before we go another step. But, as the Minister said, and well within her rights, we just disagree.

Just with regard to section 35ZJ(3): “A grant may be made unconditionally or subject to conditions determined by the Minister.” Can I ask the Minister why she feels the need, or why the Government or her officials feel the need for that grant to be made unconditionally—if she would not mind just answering that question.

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): I have a really quick question for the Minister. In a submission from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association, it pointed out that Treasury had noted that the option of online providers for students who are at risk of disengagement from school could be a route out of the formal education system, which is significant. I just wanted to ask the Minister whether she felt there was any need to provide further assistance to those students who are on that route into communities of online learning and whether or not they would need additional support to ensure that the nature of the risk of disengagement does not apply to them—or to help them, in this instance?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): In building on that point and having listened very carefully to the Minister Hekia Parata’s contribution, the question that I have is around children who have potentially disengaged and are part of an alternative education programme. If I am reading these clauses correctly, they imply that schools are accredited as communities of online learning. So it is possible that young people who are currently in alternative education could be part of a community of online learning. Whether or not the learning environment is conducive to what is generally the case in alternative education, we are trying to get these young people back into the education system and, more importantly, into the classroom environment.

My question really amplifies the comments made by Adrian Rurawhe. If alternative education students are part of a community of online learning environment, what further assessments are done to ensure that learning solely through technology actually improves the social and educational objectives and the broader aspirations of that young person? Also, is it possible for a young person to be excluded if we accept that the potential for alternative education is to provide communities of online learning to these particular students? Is there a possibility of exclusion, and then what is the next step for this group of students? I would hate to think that the communities of online learning may further disenfranchise already challenged learners within the education system, with no ability for them to pathway into a more appropriate learning environment. If the Minister can clarify that, that would be very helpful.

The other aspect is in relation to exclusions. Do the same exclusion criteria apply to those students who are vulnerable and potentially part of a community of online learning environment? What other remedy may there be or what obligation does the school or the community of online learning have to ensure that they have another pathway to continue to be engaged in another environment of learning that is more suited to them?

It certainly appears from the responses of the Minister that there is an ability to review the effectiveness of the communities of online learning. I can only take it from that that this provides the opportunity to improve the arrangements or the criteria that apply in this area. If that is the case, is the way in which the communities of online learning are reviewed going to be systematically assessed in such a way that you are streamlining the improvements to ensure that the best learning environment can occur through the utilisation of technology?

Lastly, given that the Minister has been thorough in responding to questions, is it the intention to include early childhood centres because of access issues in terms of providing communities of online learning, or is it for some other reason? It is not apparent to me. I was not on the select committee and I did not hear the submissions, but it appears that they can be included as a community of online learning, so I am asking what the purpose is. Kia ora.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Both the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Adrian Rurawhe make good points. We are concerned about this in the mainstream system, let alone in the introduction of communities of online learning. I would say to the members that rather than it necessarily being a negative experience, we may find that the opportunity to have online learning actually produces a better experience than has otherwise been the case. I have certainly had that recounted to me by students who were excluded or who were in alternative education and emailed me to say, more or less, “Hallelujah. If this had been around when I was going through my compulsory years of schooling, this would have been far better for me”. I think that makes the point that it is not a case of one-size-fits-all, and that the one size that does fit a student may include a blend. It might include both the alternative education option and some supplementary online learning.

The second thing to note is that any organisation can apply to become a community of online learning. It would have to go through the same rigorous requirements, including how it will serve the particular age group that it is proposing to serve.

In terms of whether or not these communities of online learning will be monitored, yes, they will be monitored. Sorry, I am just choking up at the possibilities. They will obviously be subjected to a regime of scrutiny because our purpose in adding this to the diversity of choices is to try to find the pathways that will work for every child. It is not every pathway; it is multiple pathways. And so yes, we will ensure that they are monitored.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Members, it is my view that it is now reasonable to move on to the next theme. Therefore, we shall move on to the debate on boards of trustees and management of schools, comprising clauses 73 to 97, clause 147, and schedule 2.

Clauses 73 to 97, clause 147, and schedule 2

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I want to take one very quick call at the beginning to deal with a stand-alone issue before I get into the issues around school governance—that is, to deal with a question around seclusion, because these provisions were added as the bill progressed. In my view, there is one remaining outstanding issue that I would like to work through. It is to do with the definition of “seclusion”. I just want to talk through that. The definition of “seclusion” as incorporated in the bill says: “seclude, in relation to a student or child, means to place the student or child involuntarily alone in a room from which he or she cannot freely exit or from which the student or child believes that he or she cannot freely exit.” There are some definitional issues around here that have prompted quite a bit of debate, including after we had deliberated on this section of the bill at the select committee because it was a bit of a last-minute addition.

The issue is really around the phrase “which the student or child believes that he or she cannot freely exit”. As schools and principals have pointed out, the authority-type relationships that exist within schools create some different understandings and expectations to what we might have as grown adults, in the sense that schools are concerned that this could be interpreted as if it gives a child an instruction to stay in a room and not leave. Because of the power relationship that exists there, the schools are concerned that that could be interpreted by the child as them not being able to freely exit. While the door might not be locked, for example—the door could be closed—the schools are concerned that the power dynamics that exist could result in the student being under the impression that they could not freely exit, and therefore the school could find itself in violation of the actual wording of this bill, if not the spirit.

The spirit is a good one, and one that we are absolutely in support of, which is that seclusion has no place in schools but “time out” does. “Time out” is a legitimate strategy in a school, and I know that schools use it. The kids who get amped up are told to go into a room, calm down, have some time by themselves, and come back when they have recomposed themselves. That is a legitimate behavioural management strategy—one that protects the teacher, the student, and the other students in the class. We do not want to create an environment in which schools cannot use that as a strategy because they are concerned that they might fall foul of the seclusion prohibition. I am not going to talk any further about that because it literally just relates to the issues of clarification around how that could be interpreted, to ensure that we do not end up inadvertently preventing schools from using a legitimate behavioural management strategy.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Given the way the member Chris Hipkins has characterised that, I think it would be helpful if we just dealt specifically with that before going on to the other parts of this theme. The first thing to know is that that definition has been carefully worked out by a cross-sector working group made up of representatives from the disabilities sector and from the Post Primary Teachers Association, the New Zealand Educational Institute, and the School Trustees Association, all of whom have completely understood the context in which this applies. It is important in terms of defining “seclusion”, because what we are saying is not allowed is to include those words “involuntary” and “belief”.

That then puts the concomitant responsibility on ensuring that communication is really clear when teachers are—as the member has already identified—using the desirable practice of time out or the continuum of other strategies that teachers have available to them to manage poor behaviour, or to help a student self-manage and destress. So I will be expecting the Ministry of Education to issue guidelines on those communications—again, worked out with the sector—to ensure that a vulnerable student understands what they can or cannot do related to managing their own behaviour.

So I hear what the member is saying and I hear what others have said in expressing concern about this. It has been difficult for the sector to advise on exactly what the definition should be, but we want to clearly be able to draw a line and say: “This is what seclusion looks like, and it is unacceptable.” Therefore, these self-managing or facilitation techniques are included in how we ensure that schools get support to communicate in ways that both the child and the teacher and, actually, the other children in the classroom can appreciate and respect what is going on. Thank you.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Yes, just on that point—because I think it is really critical—maybe some of these people are raising issues around whether it is saying “You may not leave.” versus “You cannot leave.” to the child. I am actually strongly of the view that some of our students—especially those with learning support needs—take things very literally, but I actually could accept the way Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 250 is written myself. I think that it is OK, but I am also aware that other people do not accept that, and so I am interested in whether there is any room to kind of look at “cannot” versus “may not”, because we do not want our kids to think they cannot physically leave a room. That is the whole point of getting rid of seclusion.

I guess what the teachers are saying to us is “Sometimes we want the authority to say ‘You may not leave this room.’”, but I hear the Minister on the issue of this having been talked through in terms of the legal implications, and I just hope that it does not end up being a legal battle over the words “may not”, which are not in the clause, and “cannot”, which is there at the moment. But I am taking a child’s rights approach.

Just on the issue of seclusion, I have Supplementary Order Paper 308, which just goes a little bit further, because I am very passionate about this. It is, rightly, removing the issue of seclusion and the opportunity to use seclusion, which is different from time out. We found out that a larger number of schools than we realised were doing it. I have a Supplementary Order Paper that talks about providing some alternatives in the law.

I know there are guidelines and there has been discussion, but families came to the Education and Science Committee and said that “If you take away seclusion, which we really want you to do, please give us something in the law so that we can go back when things go wrong or we can encourage schools.” So my alternative is that we should have nationally funded and compulsory professional development that equips schools and boards of trustees with the ability to identify and implement alternatives to the seclusion of a student or child, as defined in the legislation, and supports schools and boards of trustees to understand fully inclusive practice as a human rights issue for every child.

We know that there is huge diversity in schools’ understanding of inclusion at the moment. We know that there is great professional development, but it is opt-in, so it is not compulsory. We know that initial teacher education—our young teachers have had less than 3 hours in a 3-year degree on what inclusion is. We are taking away something that is very wrong and that we really need to get rid of—and I am all for it—but we really need to make sure that the schools know what to do next, legally. I know the guidelines will help, but I really think that unless we actually commit to how—we must really seriously connect to this professional development process, and that is about boards of trustees as well schools. It is about understanding fully. If you understand the fully inclusive practice of inclusion, then you have an alternative to seclusion.

Right now, I think we are taking away something that should never have happened, but I am not sure that schools—and I have seen some of this in the media—are very clear about what to do. So sending them a guideline will work only as well as their understanding of that guideline. If there is no compulsory professional development to understand what inclusion is from a human rights perspective, because that school has not sent its teachers to the ‘tips for autism’ course, or has not had that professional development and has not seen it as a priority—it is for those schools that I have put up this SOP, so that we actually cover off everything. I am all for this. Let us get rid of this abhorrent approach, but let us make sure that there is an alternative strategy so that schools do not feel that they have got nowhere to go.

So I will be interested in whether we need to do anything about the “may not”/“cannot” stuff. I am also interested in the views of people and the Minister in the chair, Hekia Parata, on my SOP, because alternative support is absolutely critical. Thank you.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Chair. Thank you very much to the Minister for the contribution there. I agree with my colleagues and say that New Zealand First will be supporting Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 308 from Catherine Delahunty. We will be doing so because this must end, but it cannot end without that gap being filled. What is happening with regard to professional development at the moment is that the School Trustees Association, certainly, has been given funding to better invest in upskilling our boards of trustees. This particular issue has not been an issue high on the agenda of that training at this time. But also if the professional development for staff is not funded by the Secretary for Education—and we have had it in numeracy and we have had it in national standards, and so on and so forth—from a central fund, then this will have to come out of the operations grant, and that is just another stretch on the operations grant.

So New Zealand First will definitely be supporting Supplementary Order Paper 308, because it must end, but if I understood the Minister correctly—and I absolutely believe that if I am right—then what we are saying is that a teacher can place a student inside a time-out zone and make a statement like: “When you’ve calmed down, you can come and see Mrs Kelly at reception.” That is a different way of saying “You may not leave this room.”—do you see what I mean? That is the sort of professional development—I know it might seem minor, but it may not occur to a person in the instance of aggression or the high tension of when, you know, the teacher has got 30 other students over there and is trying to deal with this. So if we can give guidance and give professional development around this concept to teachers, then we need to do so, rather than just remove what has been a terrible practice to date.

Also, the boards of trustees—this would come under their discipline policy. This is part of the area where boards of trustees need to be upskilled around their own policy around discipline, because the seclusion laws that are here now should be included in the discipline policy so that it makes it clear that that is not available. But it outlines clearly how time out, as opposed to a Kiwi suspension—because now what we have got is we have got those two things working in parallel. We all know that a Kiwi suspension is not appropriate, and that is outlined in the YouthLaw discipline procedures booklet, but we are talking about time out. How do boards of trustees—particularly, new boards of trustees—understand that to be the case? How are they going to recognise the difference, and how do they realise their responsibility about professionally developing their staff? So we support that SOP.

I am now going to come back to SOP 298, which is an SOP in my name that removes the capacity of the Minister to appoint a trustee as a presiding trustee. So I come back to the question that I was asking previously—wrongly—in the last theme. New Zealand First has no argument whatsoever about the ability of the Minister to appoint a trustee on to the board of trustees as an early intervention model. We understand that—absolutely get it.

But why, as the chair—as I mentioned before, I was the chair of Mahurangi College for many, many years. As the chair, I had no greater status than any other member of the board. I had only one vote. It was my job to make sure that the roles and responsibility of the board were met. I certainly had to sign off on all the documentation that had to be filed with the Government, with the Ministry of Education, but there were two things that were my role more than anyone else’s role.

The first was one of the most important relationships in the school, and that is the relationship between the chair and the principal. The concern is that the reason why the Minister or her officials have suggested that the Minister be able to appoint the chair is to take control of that relationship. If that is not the case then that is great, but if we could have an explanation as to why the chair, as opposed to a member of the board of trustees, who has the capacity to vote like everybody else and can put it there already—I would suggest that if the Minister has chosen an appointee, they carry status. They carry status. They would have an effect on the conversations around the table.

The other thing that the chair is the voice to the media. They, actually, then, when an incident happens in the school—the general practice is that the principal is the day-to-day manager of the school and normally would be the first to comment to the media. But it is the role of the chairperson of the board of trustees to then be the face of the parental organisation that actually speaks to the media next. So “Why the chair?” is the question.

Can I ask the Minister also around—and we are now talking about clause 81, and it is inserting new section 98A, “Minister may approve alternative constitution in certain cases”. This is around combining boards of State schools. One of the suggestions in one of the regulatory impact statements on this particular clause was that when boards are combined by the Minister, the make-up of the boards will become too unwieldy. They suggested that the principal, who is a trustee by right; the staff trustee; and the student trustees for secondary schools be removed to actually make any combined board more workable. Can I ask the Minister, around this capacity to create alternative constitutions, what she sees that that means for four schools, or two schools, or whatever. Has she taken on board those statements in the regulatory impact statement that suggest that the staff, principal, and student voice should be removed to make these combined boards more workable? That would be of extreme concern to New Zealand First. Thank you.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Mr Chairman, I was not quite—–

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member can speak from anywhere.

CHRIS HIPKINS: I know. I was not quite anticipating that, but my notes are down here at my desk, so I am very pleased to take a call on this particular section. I have only a relatively brief contribution on this, around the changing of the rules around school boards of trustees. I realised as I was preparing to speak on this that many of the points that I wanted to raise around statutory interventions regarding boards we had actually grouped into the first theme, so I cannot talk about them in this one. But I do just want to say—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Correct.

CHRIS HIPKINS: —I will ask for the Committee’s indulgence for just a moment—that I support the additional interventions. I think they are a welcome thing.

It does actually relate to schedule 2, which sets out the power and functions of a school board of trustees and how it can operate. One of the concerns that has been raised by boards in executing these functions is that if they ask for additional advice from the Ministry of Education, the default position has been to appoint a limited statutory manager, when many of them have been saying “Actually, we could execute these functions much more appropriately if there was some gentler intervention available to the Government and to the Minister.”, and I welcome the changes to that.

I have got some questions around the online meeting provisions, if you like, and the ability, effectively, for a board to pass a resolution but not in a meeting. Subclause (13) of clause 40, “Meetings”, in the new schedule 6 being inserted by clause 147 into the Education Act 1989, says that “A resolution signed or assented to in writing (whether sent by post, courier, or electronic communication) by all members is as valid and effectual as if it had been passed at a meeting of the board correctly called and constituted.” The question that I have got is whether unanimity is too high a threshold for that.

School boards, under this provision, would need to convene a meeting to make a single decision if one member of the board dissented from that decision, and it seems to me that that is quite a high threshold. If the decision is a relatively straightforward one and the board is trying to avoid the unnecessary expense and complication—bearing in mind that these are volunteers we are talking about—by passing a resolution by email when, for example, it is getting a written confirmation of the members’ agreement, why unanimity? Why not simply say—maybe the threshold for an absentee decision, a decision without a meeting, should be higher than at a meeting. But if the resolution could be passed by a majority at a meeting, why would it need unanimity for that resolution to be passed using a non-meeting mechanism?

It seems to me that what we are trying to do here is to not unnecessarily require the volunteer parents, who sit on school boards of trustees to attend meetings when there are non-controversial matters, say, between meetings that could be dealt with by simple resolution—and I have been part of committees where resolutions are agreed to via email. Provided there is written confirmation that the majority of members agree—in fact, we do it in some select committee processes in this Parliament—that is a very sensible thing to do. It means we do not have to meet in order to agree on a mere formality. So that is a question—why the majority?

The second point that I want to ask is around the combining and splitting of school boards of trustees, and how these provisions relate to the provisions around communities of learning, which we are going to be debating further. Some of the anxiety that has been raised by people within the educational community is that the provisions in this legislation for communities of online learning, combined with the ability of the Minister to combine school boards of trustees, could lead by default to the community of learning becoming the default governance arrangement for schools in a particular area. That is an interesting debate to have, and I am actually open to the debate.

There are a whole lot of reasons why Tomorrow’s Schools has led to a sort of silo mentality when it comes to schools. There is an interesting debate about how we break out of that, and communities of learning is part of the discussion and this provision allowing the combining of boards is part of the discussion. What I am interested in is where the Government sees those two policies intersecting. Is it the Government’s desire to have the ability to create a single board of trustees for a community of learning? It seems to me that the two legislative instruments in this bill are being dealt with separately, and it is not always clear how they link. So I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on that.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): If I could just go back to a couple of points raised by both Ms Martin and Ms Delahunty in respect of, in the first instance, seclusion. The first is that the bill provides for guidelines to be established already, so I do not think that an extra provision of that nature is necessary. Training is already in place. Workshops on managing challenging behaviour are available to schools, and it seems to me that schools should be in the position of saying “This is something that we really do need to get to grips with because we have these challenges.”, and the ministry will respond. Where there are behaviour management plans, the ministry can provide specialist advice—and will do so—to those particular schools.

In terms of the distinction between time out and seclusion, I agree with the members that it is really important. It does depend on body language as well as verbal communication, and also the context that has been established for kids. To say that a teacher cannot make a kid go into time out—whereas the seclusion that we are getting rid of was involuntary—there are already guidelines on how to use time out and what alternatives there are to seclusion. Those were circulated to all schools last year, when this issue became pressing. So guidelines, general training, and specific interventions are available.

On the matter of the appointment of a trustee—and, thank you; I agree that there are times when that might be necessary—again, I want to put this in the overall context of what the bill is seeking to do, and that is to provide a continuum of interventions. Right now, the threshold to intervene when a school is clearly in trouble is so high that the intervention is actually either a statutory manager taking over one, some, or almost all functions, or putting in a commissioner and removing the board altogether. So the bill sets out a continuum that begins at a much lower level that says: “Look, we think there’s a problem here. Can we come and work with you towards the appointment of a new trustee on to the board?”

The idea that that trustee might also be appointed as chair is still a much lower-level intervention than a commissioner. If a Minister were to make that appointment, it would be circumstance-specific, because that might be what is deemed to be required, but, moreover, that chair would have only one vote, whereas a commissioner, obviously, becomes the board. So it is in the context of greater flexibility of interventions, it is in the context of what is fit for the circumstance of that school, and it is in the context of not going to some of the more stringent options to help a school recover.

Coming to questions that have been asked most recently by Mr Hipkins—although there was also a reference by, I think, Ms Martin—a reduction in numbers would occur only where there were four or more schools that were combining and there was no suggestion that that should be particular positions on the board, and all of it would be after community consultation. The point of governance, of course, is to be effective, not simply to have as wide a representation—well, sorry, we do want to have wide representation, but it also has to be manageable.

In terms of a question asked by Mr Hipkins, there would be only two categories of reasons for combining boards: (1) where there were performance issues or (2) where it was requested. And, certainly, it does admit the possibility that, over time, communities of learning might say: “Actually, instead of having 10 boards, we’d like to have one with more effective representation—one with good community participation.” But it certainly does not prescribe that that should happen, and every question before a board must be decided by majority—which is what you were concerned about, Ms Martin.

I think I have covered all the questions that have been asked, and if I have not, I would be grateful to have them repeated to me. Thank you.

Clauses 98 to 116 and 144

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I think they have been covered, and therefore, there being no members going for calls, we will now move on to the next theme, which is the establishment of and types of schools—comprising clauses 98 to 116 and 144.

I will just say to members that one of the disadvantages of having a former Minister in the Chair is that he does recognise a lot of it, and this theme is not that complicated, there is not that much change, and it is a bit of codification. So it is probably a bit of—

Hon Hekia Parata: Narrow.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well, it should not take quite as long.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I am speaking to clauses 98 to 116 and clause 144, which refer to the integration legislation, and, specifically, I want to talk about the absorption of the integration legislation. I want to speak to my Supplementary Order Paper 294. What that tries to do, under clause 144, is to put back into new section 442(2): “Subject to subsection (1), no prospective student may be refused enrolment at a State integrated school on the grounds of—(a) religion, race, or socio-economic background; or (b) lack of willingness of the parent to make financial contributions to the school.”

We did ask at the Education and Science Committee why this was being removed. It was fuzzy, I am sorry. It was fuzzy from the officials as to why we needed—if everything else was being absorbed, why this was being removed. If I can just go into the reasons, how the removal of this clause can actually affect what is going on inside State integrated schools, once they are absorbed inside the Education Act 1989 is shown, for example, in the case recently when my offices were contacted by a student who was forbidden to go to chapel because their parent had not paid a particular bill. The integrated schools are going to become—they are State schools. They are State integrated schools.

No other State school can actually demand that things be paid for the delivery of the curriculum. If going to chapel is part of your timetable, if going to chapel is part of the everyday life of the school, then why would a school be able to stop that student from participating in that particular school-wide activity due to the inability or unwillingness of a parent to pay a fee? So the question, actually, to the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, is: why has that been removed, and will she support Supplementary Order Paper 294 to reinstate it?

There was another—well, actually, I will probably leave it at that. If the Minister is able to answer that question—why has there been the removal of new section 442(2), and if State integrated schools are going to be treated the same as every other State school when it comes to the capacity to provide free, high-quality education, then why will they be allowed to refuse enrolment based on religion, race, or socio-economic background?

We recognise that there are protections for their special character in every other clause inside this absorption. Every student who goes there knows that if they go to a Catholic school or a Hindi school or a Te Reo Māori Christian Catholic school, that is the special character of the school. But the schools should not be able to refuse enrolment based on religion, race, or socio-economic background. So if the Minister could answer, please, why that clause was removed in the first place.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): While the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, is thinking about it, I would just like to support Supplementary Order Paper 294 by Tracey Martin. I will just cover some very short points, because I know that repetition is not welcome in this debate. The reason that I raised the issue of including the rights of the child and various other UN conventions in the first theme is that they protect us from discrimination, and this is a discriminatory clause.

It could be argued that private schools have the right to refuse children on these grounds; I do not know whether they do. But State-integrated schools that receive State money in increasing amounts—and that is part of what we are dealing with integrated schools at the moment—should not have this power. So I just want to make that point, and that is why we need some tests in the legislation, we need the conventions, and we also need to put this clause back in so that it is fair.

It is just blatantly unfair. It is potentially an abuse of human rights, and you cannot discriminate—sorry, you would never do so, Mr Chair. The Government should never enshrine this kind of discrimination against the human rights of students because of race, economic status—these things are just unacceptable. It does not do the integrated schools any favours that they came and asked for this to take place, and that it is in the legislation. It does not do them any favours. It actually makes us all look bad, and it should not be allowed.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Tracey Martin, and then the Minister.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but there is another question. It is around new section 153(1B) inserted by clause 106(1), new section 154(2B) inserted by clause 107(2), and so on—“the Minister’s absolute discretion.” It is in the insertion of new section 154(2B): “A decision to close a school under subsection (2) is in the Minister’s absolute discretion.”

I just wonder whether the Minister in the chair, Hekia Parata—along with answering the question around why new section 442(2), which was to be inserted by clause 144, was removed—could speak to these “absolute discretion” clauses and say whether they are an extension of the conversation that was had at the Education and Science Committee and through regulatory impact statements about removing the requirement for the Minister to consult again. When I say “again”, if I can just outline, when there is a suggestion that a school should close—let us take Redcliffs School, for example—due to an act of God, that is fine, but the ministry has to go and consult around the options for that school. Then the ministry comes back to the Minister, and it might make a recommendation that that school should close.

At the moment, before this piece of legislation goes through, if the Minister makes a decision that the school will close, there is a requirement to go back to the community now that the community knows that that is the actual decision made—not one of a line of options; the actual decision made—and for that Minister to re-consult the community. That is what happened at Redcliffs School.

What I am trying to get to is whether these clauses, new section 153(1B) and new section 154(2B), which say “Minister’s absolute discretion”, are reinforcing—and I think it might be somewhere else in the bill—that there is no longer a requirement for the Minister to go back to communities like the Redcliffs School community, but once the ministry has outlined all the options and it goes away and tells the Minister what it thinks the Minister should do, the Minister makes a decision and that is it. If Minister Parata could please address those two questions, I would be most grateful.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I will just answer the questions that have been asked in the last wee while. The first thing is in respect of clause 144. The answer to that is that the Human Rights Act covers far more than this clause, and that is why the bill has referred to the Human Rights Act instead of inserting a definition that is much narrower in this bill. That is the first thing.

The second is that schools cannot refuse enrolment based on religion, because the Human Rights Act protects that. The third question is in terms of consultation. Does absolute discretion remove consultation? No. Thank you.

SUE MORONEY (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate, which we are conducting in a different way to what we have done before. So I hope I will be on theme in asking Minister Parata, under clause 99, in particular—I have not had the opportunity to sit on the Education and Science Committee, so I just want some reassurance around the repealing of the definition of “correspondence school”. Also, in clause 105, we are repealing section 152 of the Education Act 1989, which outlines the role of The Correspondence School. I just want some reassurance that this is not disestablishing a feature of our current education system—a feature that is particularly important to people in rural and isolated areas. I am certain that this is not a stalking horse for getting rid of a very important part of our education features, but I would like some reassurance from the Minister about why the definition is being removed and why the section of the Act that currently relates to correspondence schools is being repealed by the amendment bill that we are debating today.

Further, may I also request from the Minister some discussion about new section 156, “Designated character schools”, in clause 109? I just want to convey an issue that is currently being debated in the Waikato area, and I seek some reassurance that this is not a way that a Minister could use their discretion to address this particular situation. It is the situation of agreements that have been reached about school transport for pupils from outlying areas who are wanting to attend schools of special character. I want some assurance that this particular provision about the Minister’s discretion in designating which schools are character schools and which are not is not going to be used to deny those students education support in getting transport from outer areas to those schools of special character, because certainly that is a debate that is alive and well in the Waikato region at the moment and is of some concern. Those parents want certainty that the agreement that was established by the education department to allow school transport to be available for those children to travel from outer areas into Hamilton to special character schools will remain.

So those are two areas that I would just like some reassurance on from the Minister. The Correspondence School—will it remain? I believe it probably has a different name now, but do the features of that for people in rural and isolated areas still remain? Also, of course, it is sometimes a factor that is used in alternative education. So that is another group of particularly vulnerable students, and I want an assurance that that service is going to remain available to them. The other area is the issue associated with the designation of character schools—to ensure that it will not be used to, I guess, allow the Ministry of Education to cut costs in terms of school transport options.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I call Chris Hipkins.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Mr Chairman, you anticipated that I was about to stand before I had even made it all the way to my feet, so I thank you—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I could read the member’s mind.

CHRIS HIPKINS: I thank you for that. I could not let this particular provision pass without making a brief comment. I had some trepidation when I discovered that the Minister of Education was proposing to incorporate integrated schools into the Education Act 1989. I remember having a conversation with Brother Pat Lynch about this many years ago where he described the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act as like the integrated schools’ equivalent of the Treaty of Waitangi. He was at the time vehemently opposed to any change to that, so I have been keeping in regular contact with the proprietors of integrated schools as this legislation has progressed, to ensure that they are comfortable with where we have got to. They are indeed comfortable with the changes that are being proposed now, although they did have some suggestions along the way.

It is important to note that that Act is being removed and incorporated into the main Education Act on the basis that there are not any substantive policy changes unless they have been specifically agreed to. There is actually a contract, if you like, between the integrated schools and the Minister and the ministry around that. We have worked through the Education and Science Committee, and, I guess, through our back-channel processes, to ensure that the changes are consistent with the heads of agreement that were reached. I have been advised that they are, and on that basis the Labour Party is comfortable with supporting this.

I think it is worth noting in the Committee that the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act had its origins in the third Labour Government, under Norman Kirk, and Norman Kirk described it as unfinished business when it was introduced. The Labour Party has always been, I think, quite proud of the bringing into the system of the schools, because the Catholic schools would have all collapsed financially had this Act not been passed in the first place. So I am satisfied that we have kept faith with the original intent of that Act in incorporating it into the main Education Act.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I stand to give three assurances. The first is that Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu is not disappearing. It is appearing in different parts of the bill with a modernised section, fully consulted with te kura. In terms of special character designation, this is not intended to do anything other than simplify the process of designation, and speaks not at all to any of the entitlements that then go along with having become a designated special character school.

As to the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act and its incorporation into this bill, again, I can assure the Committee that that was fully discussed in detail with the proprietors, and reflects the agreement reached with them.

I thank all of those bodies for the work that we have done to get to this stage. Thank you.

New clause 38A, Part 2, clauses 117 to 143 and 145(1) and (2), and schedule 3

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Thank you, members. I think we have had questions asked and answered, and I think it is reasonable we move on to the next debate, which is on Miscellaneous provisions: new clause 38A, Part 2, clauses 117 to 143 and 145(1) and (2), and schedule 3. Is there anyone who wants to speak to those?

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very excited about this because I get to talk about my remaining Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). I am actually not sure what number it is, because I have got the earlier draft, but it inserts new clause 130A, which, in effect, would give—

Tracey Martin: 305.

CHRIS HIPKINS: SOP 305, is it? Thank you very much. In effect, it would give the teaching community the ability to elect membership of the Education Council. This is something that has come very much to the fore in the last week or two, following the Education Council’s decision to release its draft fee structure for the coming years.

The Education Council has a mixed history in terms of the debate around its establishment. I am not going to rehash all of that now. That would certainly prolong the debate extensively, and I do not want to do that, but I want to say that the council is off to a good start and I do want to give the new Education Council credit for that. It is doing a good job of winning the support and respect of the teaching profession, and I want to acknowledge that.

But there has been a bit of heat around its proposal to significantly increase—more than double—the fees that teachers pay for their practising certificates each year. That has generated some resentment from the teaching community, not necessarily because it is not willing to pay that fee but because if it objects to it, it has no real ability to change the council. There is no election to the membership of the council, and I believe in that basic principle of no taxation without representation. So if the council is going to have the power to tax members of the teaching community, which it does, then the teaching community should have the ability to elect representatives on that council, and that is what my Supplementary Order Paper does.

So just to run through the main provisions of it, it would still allow the Minister to appoint six of the 13 members of the council—so not quite the majority, but the balance of the members—and that would ensure that there can still be a good diversity and a good representative spread amongst the membership, but the majority of the members would be elected by the profession. So the seven elected members would be drawn first from the early childhood sector—elected by early childhood teachers—then from the primary sector, and then the secondary sector. One teacher educator would be elected from teacher education providers.

One of the things the Education Council does now is regulate the standards for initial teacher education, so having teacher educators represented on the council makes a lot of sense. There would be a principal representing the primary sector, a principal representing the secondary sector—and the intermediates would have to decide which of those they wanted to be included under—and there would be a head teacher, senior teacher, or supervisor representing early childhood education. So it ensures that those three parts of the system—early childhood, primary, and secondary schools—all have representatives both at the practising level, or the teaching level, and at the leadership level, and it then gives the Minister the power to appoint the balance of members to ensure a good diversity and spread on the council. I support the SOP I have put forward, naturally, and I commend it to the Committee.

The other part of this provision that I would like to address at this stage is the disestablishment of Careers New Zealand. I sat on the Government Administration Committee and the Education and Science Committee, and I cannot remember which one Careers New Zealand reported to. I think it was the Education and Science Committee. But, effectively, where some of its most recent presentations got to was that it has departed a long way from the remit it had when it was first set up and, effectively, now it runs a very good website. But the question is whether we need a separate statutory body to run a website. I am not convinced that we do, so I support the disestablishment of Careers New Zealand. If what it is doing is running a website, then, actually, that can be done by any number of other Government departments, and probably much more efficiently.

The second fundamental question to ask is where careers advice is best delivered. I think the best careers advice is advice that is intricately linked with the individual student’s programme of study. Therefore, it is actually best delivered within the institutions, both tertiary and secondary, that young people—and older people—are studying within. I take the example of a year 9 student beginning secondary school, for example. The careers advice that is going to be best for them is advice around how they design their NCEA programme of study as they progress through secondary school.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): We are speaking on clauses 117 to 143, 145(1) and (2), and schedule 3—miscellaneous—which includes Part 2. There are six Supplementary Order Papers on the Table on these particular clauses, and I hope we get the opportunity to traverse all of them.

Can I first of all start with clause 140, which inserts new section 410AA, “Competence Authority”. This is a good move. This is a good move, and one of the reasons why New Zealand First believes that this is a good move is that it will finally, we hope, put out there into the public the very intensive appraisal and competency process that our teachers already participate in. But it is relatively behind closed doors. So to raise the status of the profession, there must be trust by the general society that what is actually already happening—the really intense appraisal of our teachers and the competency to do this when it needs to be questioned—has a body to allow this. We believe that that will go directly to raising the status of the profession.

Just with regard to Chis Hipkins’ Supplementary Order Paper 305, New Zealand First will be supporting this. We believe—and we have always said—it is appropriate for teachers to have the right to elect their representatives on to the body. This was a major conversation during the creation of the Education Council, and the Education Council came to the select committee recently—and it is doing a fabulous job, actually. It is doing a fabulous job. Its members are well chosen. They are highly qualified people who have, strangely enough, actually been elected to the top of their profession—most of them. So we take that on board—and the Minister is nodding—and we give a pat on the back where it is deserved. They are doing a really, really wonderful job. However, the problem is that it is at the whim of Ministers. And, again, can I just point out that some of us may be those things in the future, so we understand that when we criticise the current circumstances and suggest different parameters, some of us may have to live with them in the future. It is about the vulnerability of being at the whim of a Minister in the future.

I move on to Supplementary Order Paper 297. This is just a small, niggly little change of language. In clause 49, new section 77(ab) refers to “form 1”. There is no such thing as form 1 any more. It is year 7, and if we are going to modernise the Education Act 1989, then let us actually use the language that is used inside our education system.

I then go on to Supplementary Order Paper 307. Unfortunately, we cannot agree with the Labour Party or with the National Government with regard to the absorption/disestablishment of Careers New Zealand. We do not see this as a time when there should not be an independent body outside the education system. It should be expanded and should be working more closely with industry. It should be doing more workforce planning, and it should be part of those that then inform the Tertiary Education Commission through the vocational pathway skills that are required. So we do not—we cannot—support the Labour Party perspective with regard to the abolishment of Careers New Zealand and its absorption under clauses 119, 120, 122, and 128 in this area.

There are now three other Supplementary Order Papers still on the Table. I go to Supplementary Order Paper 299, which is also in my name. This would delete clause 131A. This is around the chief executive of Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu no longer being required to be a registered teacher. We feel that that is a move that is a step too far. Te kura is a registered school, and therefore its leader should be somebody from the education profession who understands education, as opposed to opening the door once again for a business professional to be at the head of an educational facility. So we would request the support of the Committee for Supplementary Order Paper 299.

Supplementary Order Paper 291, again in the name of Chris Hipkins, is around some of the dates. It goes to clause 2, and it goes to the dates on which the Governor-General, by Order in Council, would be able to implement this Act. We will be supporting Mr Hipkins’ Supplementary Order Paper 291. It also inserts, in clause 38, new section 35X(3), around communities of learning. It says that a community of learning must teach the New Zealand Curriculum and be able to demonstrate an understanding of all these other Acts. It is interesting that the purpose of this is to provide a new, creative legislative framework for communities of online learning, and this Supplementary Order Paper would delay its implementation so that we could have a more thorough analysis of policy proposals that have been suggested in it.

I go to the final Supplementary Order Paper on this particular section, and that is Supplementary Order Paper 309 in the name of Catherine Delahunty. This would insert new clause 38A, which would create a parent advocacy council. We will be supporting this Supplementary Order Paper because we feel that, as I was mentioning before, if in the disciplinary hearing process a student is excluded or expelled from school, at this time—under current legislation—the Ombudsman is the only port of call for parents if they want to argue that issue. A parent advocacy council was supported by the Ombudsman because they know what their workload is. They know the delay. They know how long that student is outside the education system when the parent is unable to get any other mediation or advocacy service apart from their own.

Probably the fact that it is just called an advocacy council may be a bit misleading. We think that there should be a mediation role of this council. Strangely enough—

Catherine Delahunty: It’s in the bill.

TRACEY MARTIN: —thank you, Ms Delahunty—it is inside the explanatory note. That is great. So we would strongly recommend, and we would hope that the Government would support, this particular Supplementary Order Paper in order to give parents somewhere else to go.

Often what we heard was that it was predominantly the special needs students who had to fight and fight and fight—children with autism and Tourette’s and so on and so forth—and who needed to have this service available to them. They do not want to take schools to court. They do not want to go through the process of waiting 12 months for the Ombudsman’s office because it is so overwhelmed by work at the moment and so under-resourced. They want an opportunity to go to a body that will mediate between them and the school, that will advocate on behalf of their children, and that will gain them access to services that the Minister and the ministry say are there, but, unfortunately, they are known to very few people. That was the answer that the Minister and the ministry gave around the inquiry into students with dyslexia, dyspraxia, and autism spectrum disorders—that the services are all there, but there is a lack of understanding. So perhaps the parental advocacy body could be the body that would keep that information in play, and people would know what it was. Thank you.

Catherine Delahunty: Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I have got a dilemma now, because I looked to Catherine Delahunty earlier and she chose not to take a call—[Interruption] Well, the effect of that appears to me to be pretty unfair because what it means is that if I give Catherine Delahunty a call when she had not previously sought one, it means that we will not finish when we would have otherwise finished. I think I will err on the side of being generous to the minor party and give her a call, but I want to remind members that if they want a call—especially at the end points of a debate when we are discussing relatively narrow areas—they should ask for it.

TIM MACINDOE (Senior Whip—National): I seek leave for the Committee to continue until 1.10 p.m. or until the completion of the Committee stage, whichever comes sooner.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Is there any objection to that? There is objection. OK, we will move to the votes.

DAVID CLENDON (Musterer—Green): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I understood that before the point of order from Mr Macindoe, you had awarded a call to Catherine Delahunty.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Did I actually call Catherine Delahunty? I think I indicated that I was going to. Did I?

Hon Members: Yes, you did.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I apologise.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): I will keep it short. I understand this is a new process, and the reason I did not take the call was so that the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that my colleague was talking about could be finished. I am not trying to spin out the debate.

Tracey Martin has actually talked quite a bit about SOP 309. It has got some history around the lack of opportunity for parents to appeal. The courts are not always the best place. We have suggested the Ministry of Justice because of discussions that we have had with the Children’s Commissioner. You would have thought it may not be the best place for it, but this really is just about setting up a parents’ advocacy function to advise the Government, to be the mediator and arbiter. So it does have quasi-legal functions, and we would like to see a parent voice, because at the moment the boards of trustees cannot deal with some of the issues. Parents are left with nowhere to go.

This is not necessarily the final solution or the best model, but this is what we wanted to put up so that people could start considering how we might get the parent voice at a national level—when the systems are failing—to be part of the Education Act 1989, because right now we do not have anything. So I just want to put that on the table. I think it is important. Thanks.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No, we have had sufficient debate—

Tracey Martin: It’s not about a call.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): What are you trying to do?

Tracey Martin: I am just actually asking for clarification on why you are mentioning that we have to tie this up. There is nothing in the determination from the Business Committee—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No, there is no obligation, but my view was—and my view is—that we have had some major parts where there was longer debate than was expected, remembering that normally the debate on Part 1—on the substantive thing—would probably have been about an hour and a half, or 2 hours. We have had a debate that is quite a lot longer than that. It has been a high-quality debate. There is no obligation to finish, but my view is that the member has had a couple of calls, Mr Hipkins has had a call, Ms Delahunty has had a call, and we have dealt with the matter, so I am now going to move to the votes.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Hekia Parata to clause 2 be agreed to:

in subclause (6), replace “28 April 2017” with “19 May 2017”.

Amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 292 in the name of Tracey Martin to clause 4 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I seek leave for all of the amendments on the three Supplementary Order Papers in my name to be put as one question.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Can I just make a process suggestion here, and it is that we move through the amendments as they are on the Order Paper, but I will listen to the votes and if the votes are the same, we will not go through the business of everyone having to tell the Clerk. I will just declare the result. Are people happy with that? OK. If there is no objection, we will take Mr Hipkins’ three Supplementary Order Papers together.

A party vote was called for on the question that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Papers 291, 304, and 305 in the name of Chris Hipkins be agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): A party vote is called for. The Ayes are 58, the Noes are—

Tim Macindoe: So you’re casting a party vote—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I listened really carefully, and I am convinced that the Ayes are 58 and the Noes are 61, and Mr Hipkins’ three amendments are lost.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Papers 291, 304, and 305 in the name of Chris Hipkins be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendments not agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): We now move to Catherine Delahunty’s amendment. Ms Delahunty, do you want your amendments grouped? Are other people happy with—no, you are not?

Tracey Martin: I am sorry, but there is at least one of Ms Delahunty’s that we would have to object to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): OK. No, that is fine.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 300 in the name of Catherine Delahunty to clause 4, new section 1A(2)(e), and the following amendment be agreed to:

in clause 4, new section 1A(2)(f), after “the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,”, insert “the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,”,.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 301 in the name of Catherine Delahunty to clause 4, new section 1A(3)(a), be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 302 in the name of Catherine Delahunty to clause 4, new section 1A(3)(c)(iv), be agreed to.

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

Ayes 46

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14.

Noes 73

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

Amendments not agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 58, Noes 61.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Would you be able to use the actual number of the Supplementary Order Paper?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The trouble is that some of them are on the same—I will. I will, as well.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 303 in the name of Catherine Delahunty to clause 4, new section 1A(3)(c), be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 293 in the name of Tracey Martin to clauses 9 and 10 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 295 in the name of Tracey Martin to clause 38, new section 35T(1), be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 296 in the name of Tracey Martin to clause 38, new section 35T(1)(b), be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 306 in the name of Tracey Martin to clause 38 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 309 in the name of Catherine Delahunty to insert new clause 38A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 297 in the name of Tracey Martin to clause 49 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 298 in the name of Tracey Martin to clause 60 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 26

Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 93

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 308 in the name of Catherine Delahunty to clause 96A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 307 in the name of Tracey Martin to clauses 119, 120, 122, and 128 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 299 in the name of Tracey Martin to clause 131A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 294 in the name of Tracey Martin to clause 144 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 61

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

Amendment not agreed to.

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

Ayes 61

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

Noes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

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

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I apologise. On the vote on Supplementary Order Paper 302, can I please request that the New Zealand First vote should have been recorded as opposed to Supplementary Order Paper 302?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I seek the leave of the Committee to adjust the voting record for that Supplementary Order Paper accordingly. I do not think we need to go back and work out the numbers. All right? We will leave that to the discretion of the Clerk to put in the record. Any objection? There appears to be none.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 1.07 p.m. (Thursday)