Wednesday, 10 May 2017

WEDNESDAY, 10 MAY 2017

WEDNESDAY, 10 MAY 2017

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Points of Order

Seeking of Leave—Matter for Debate

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance on a point on which the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings appear silent, in respect of yesterday. I sought leave to introduce a bill to the House, and there were two points of order raised that, effectively, led to the House debating the merit, or otherwise, of putting the leave. I seek your guidance as to whether or not that is something that should be allowed to happen, and, if so, whether the member who originally put the leave should be offered a right of reply.

Mr SPEAKER: I will give further consideration to the matter that is raised, but when leave is sought, on occasion I will take points of order from people who wish to clarify what the leave is being sought for or whether they need further information as to whether they will then object to the leave being put. Once the leave is sought—by, in this case, Mr Seymour—my duty as Speaker is to put the leave, if it is in order. It is for the House to decide whether the matter proceeds further.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Ministers—Confidence

1. FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in all his Ministers?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): Yes.

Fletcher Tabuteau: How can Kiwis have confidence in either him or the Minister for Economic Development when he himself admitted to being puzzled as to why 92,700 Kiwis aged from 15 to 24 are not in employment, education, or training?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: In respect of our young people, the Government has spent a great deal of time and money creating a range of pathways for them, from school through training and into work. As the member has pointed out, there are a number of young people who are not on those pathways. Some of them have very good reasons for that, such as the large group of them who are caring for a family member. Some are overseas. Some will not have good reasons for it, and that is why it is important that services like our Youth Service find those young people and work out what we can do to encourage them back on track.

Fletcher Tabuteau: If he admitted that the problem with youth not being in employment, education, or training was just finding them, is that not a big admission that his comments of youth being lazy, drug-addled layabouts were an appallingly demeaning generalisation?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, and the member knows that that is not what I said. The member might also know that today’s young people in the age group he is talking about—17 to 25—are by and large much better young people than used to be the case when he was that age.

Fletcher Tabuteau: If he has finally conceded that New Zealand is a soft entry point for migration to Australia, then how can he have confidence in himself and his Minister of Immigration, who have been constantly warned about this problem on numerous occasions by New Zealand First?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Again, the member is wrong. I did not say that; what I said was that Australia has in the past said that. We are very confident in our border and immigration controls. What is important is that in a growing economy, we need people to do the jobs that have to be done in this economy. Unlike the member’s party, we do not want to shut down the economy because we do not like some people.

Fletcher Tabuteau: How can he have confidence in his Minister of Energy and Resources, given the Electricity Authority (EA) has cost New Zealand millions of dollars to achieve absolutely nothing in respect of transmission pricing?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I certainly have confidence in the Minister of Energy and Resources. The member may be aware that, actually, the Electricity Authority is completely independent of the Minister, and whatever decisions it makes about electricity pricing, it makes with the statutory protection that this Parliament gave it.

Fletcher Tabuteau: If the Electricity Authority is seeking costs from its advisers for doing such a poor job, can the rest of the electricity industry on behalf of its consumers seek costs from the EA for such a monumental waste of time and money?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: That would be a technical matter for the lawyers. I cannot second-guess whatever legal process is going on there, but it is great to have in New Zealand an electricity market that has led to falling electricity prices, when under previous Governments they were going up at the rate of 8 percent per year. We are very pleased with the way the electricity market operates.

Fletcher Tabuteau: How can he have confidence in his Ministers when, given a $1 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund in last year’s Budget, the number of completed houses under that fund came to zero, nil, nothing?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: If the member understood the fund, he would know that it depends on projects being put forward by councils. It turned out that councils had been saying they were short of money for infrastructure for housing, but they were not quite clear on which projects actually needed it. Now they are taking the fund seriously and they are negotiating. But we cannot give out a dollar until there is a project to give it to. I know that is not how that member’s party works, but that is how we work.

Fletcher Tabuteau: How can he have confidence in his Minister of Conservation’s continued “policy by press release”, when this Government’s real commitment to conservation is just $5.31 per hectare on animal pests and just $1.64 per hectare on noxious weeds?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have complete confidence in the Minister of Conservation. In fact, no Government has done such a good job of taking a long-term view about how to be good stewards of our conservation estate, nor has any of them spent more money, nor has any of them had the aspiration or the vision to strive for a predator-free New Zealand.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister have confidence in his Minister of Immigration in light of news today that a former Minister of Immigration allowed William Yan into the country against officials’ advice, and he has today pleaded guilty to laundering $40 million?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The first part of the question is in order—“Does he have confidence in the Minister of Immigration?”.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes, I do have confidence in the Minister of Immigration, who had nothing to do with that decision.

Fletcher Tabuteau: How can he have confidence in this Government’s biosecurity record and its Minister, when between 2008 and April 2016 there have been 148 biosecurity emergencies, with myrtle rust, unfortunately, among the latest?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do have confidence in our biosecurity arrangements, which are much more sophisticated than they used to be because of considerable investment and a lot of smart policy. But, in fact, the number of emergencies the member refers to tell us just how often our system is picking up incursions. In fact, incursions are not something determined by the Government. The myrtle rust, for example, has come, windblown, from Australia. I know the member thinks that his policy might have been able to stop that, but, actually, that is just how the world works.

Mental Health Services—Funding and Staffing

2. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his response to a mental health nurse who said they are so short-staffed they are working double shifts, that “they need to be consulting with their employers about the suitability of working those hours”; if so, does he know who sets the funding for DHBs that employ mental health nurses?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): Yes, I do know who sets the funding for district health boards (DHB), and that is the Government of the day. There is also an additional rule, as I understand it, that DHBs cannot spend less than they did last year on mental health, but they are also always free to spend more. Given the amount of extra money that they have had each year—I think, something like half a billion dollars extra last year—I would expect that they have been spending more on mental health, because demand has been growing.

Andrew Little: In the spirit of New Zealand Sign Language Week I will sign: “Supplementary question, Mr Speaker.”

Mr SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Andrew Little.

Andrew Little: I will continue practising. Does he know that cash-strapped DHBs closed 12 mental health beds in the last year after employees told their employers that they were too understaffed to safely care for their patients; and how is that a good result?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I know the member understands the way that the hospital system and the services are funded, and that is that they have local boards that make decisions about where the money goes. So if a DHB is in a situation where it feels like it does not have sufficient staff, it can spend the money to go and get the staff and increase the service. In fact, over the last 5 years the number of registered nurses in addiction services has gone up 23 percent, in community mental health it has increased 22 percent, and in hospital-based mental health services there are 12 percent more nurses. That tells you that DHBs are spending more on mental health services.

Andrew Little: Why is his Government requiring underfunded and overstretched DHBs to find $200 million of cuts by the end of the financial year?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is not characterising the way it actually works in the DHBs. They get a large amount of extra money each year, by far the largest allocation in any Budget this Government has overseen. They are expected to use their own judgment to make the best use of that cash. There are theoretical calculations about efficiency dividends and so on, but the core of it is that they get more money every year, which has enabled them to employ more doctors and more nurses, and provide more services.

Andrew Little: What does he say to the mental health worker who told the People’s Mental Health Report that mental health services are “stretched, inadequate and waiting for the inevitable to occur, another major incident.”?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: If that mental health worker observes some aspect of the service that means that there is a real risk, they ought to take it up with their employer. Their employers and the DHBs have—I mean, some of these organisations have budgets of over $1 billion and they have the opportunity to fill the gaps where they believe there is real stress or real risk. In fact, they are obliged to do that.

Andrew Little: Does he stand by his admission about people with mental health issues being caught up in the justice system that “in some cases, people have been dealt with inappropriately.”; if so, why is the Government not doing more at the primary level before people end up in the justice system?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: There has been a long-running issue about the delivery of mental health services in prisons, and there are statutory reasons why it is complicated. I understand more work is being done because the treatment of mental illness in our prisons was done very poorly under the previous Government, and has improved dramatically ever since.

Andrew Little: Does he regret signing off on consecutive Budgets that have cut funding for mental health services in real terms, resulting in some providers closing their doors and primary mental health care being cut here in Wellington?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Because that is not correct, I do not have regrets; nothing like that member’s regrets at recruiting Willie Jackson.

Andrew Little: Does he not accept that it is time for some fresh thinking; after 9 years of a deteriorating mental health system, we actually need to fund our mental health services properly and with a focus on helping people before they reach crisis point?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: One of the strengths of this Government is that it is always applying fresh thinking, fresh angles to well-understood or well-known problems. In respect of mental health, there has been more money but, of course, unlike Labour, we do not believe that endlessly more money answers every problem. We have got a much better understanding of which parts of the population are most vulnerable to mental illness, some of whom spend 20 or 30 years in our welfare system because they are under-treated. So our fresh thinking is about applying better ways of applying the money to those needs.

Julie Anne Genter: If short-staffing is not such a problem across the country, why are desperate parents reporting that children have to be suicidal or self-harming just to get help from the mental health system?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: In the first case, staffing issues are managed by the DHBs according to the plans laid out by their local boards, half of whom are elected people. They actually are the people who make the decisions about where the money goes. They can always apply more money to mental health, and they have been, when we can see that over 5 years there has been 20 to 25 percent increase in the staffing of most mental health services. With regard to those individuals, the response times, as I understand, are measured and have been improving, but there will still be families who are in distress because they cannot get the service straight away for their young person.

Julie Anne Genter: Will his Government commit to an independent nationwide inquiry into mental health services to ensure that we can get to the bottom of the structural problems in delivering those services and any need for increased funding, given what he described yesterday as “increasing demand and complexity”?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, I do not think an inquiry would tell us anything that is not known already. The issue here is not whether we spend a whole lot of resource on an inquiry; it is better decision making in DHBs, if they are overlooking need that they are meant to be meeting among their population, because they have to prioritise, and finding a better way, particularly, of approaching the issue of prevention in the case of mental health.

Julie Anne Genter: Does he accept that increasing population and increasing demand for mental health services mean that the amounts of increased funding that he has referred to simply have not been sufficient to meet the need out there in the community, and how bad will it have to get before his Government responds?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government and the Minister of Health and the DHBs have been responding to increased need. They are spending more, they are employing more people, and there have been quite dramatic increases in some services. I think there is almost double the number of people now in addiction services as there were 6 or 7 years ago. That is a massive expansion, and probably now you are more likely to get treatment than used to be the case. The Government will continue to respond to the need.

Government Financial Position—Reports and Outlook

3. SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the Government’s financial accounts?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): The Government accounts for the first 9 months of the current financial year show a surplus of $1.5 billion compared with a forecast surplus of $147 million at the half-year update in December, continuing performance ahead of forecast, as a result of good fiscal discipline and improved quality of spending. The Budget coming up later this month will provide an update on the fiscal situation and forecasts.

Simon O’Connor: What is behind the better than forecast performance of the Government’s accounts?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Core Crown tax revenue is $527 million higher than forecast for the 9 months, and $3.7 billion or 7.3 percent higher compared with the same period last year. Corporate tax continues to be the largest driver of that, with revenue being $673 million ahead of forecast. The result illustrates the underlying strength of the New Zealand economy, which grew 3.1 percent last year and added 137,000 new jobs in a 12-month period. It shows that if you have a strong economic plan and you stick to that plan, you can achieve real progress.

Simon O’Connor: How do our financial accounts compare with other countries?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Yesterday Australia released its Budget, and that had an underlying cash deficit of A$29.4 billion next year, with a forecast return to surplus by 2021. As a result, Australia’s Budget has seen a number of new taxes being added or increased. In New Zealand we have been through a major programme of getting the books in order, and that means that as a country we now have positive choices for our future that we would not otherwise have.

Simon O’Connor: How likely is New Zealand’s strong economic performance to continue over the medium term?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Further economic indicators out today suggest further economic growth over the medium term. ASB’s investor confidence has increased to the highest level since late 2014, with a net 25 percent positive rating, and ANZ’s heavy traffic index is now up 4.6 percent, year on year—a very important indicator. In addition, the IMF reports released this week forecast that our economy will grow over 3 percent in each of this year and next year. New Zealanders can have confidence in a Government that is united around its policy and is delivering results for Kiwi families.

Tax System—Changes to Tax Brackets and Working for Families

4. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement on tax policy to the House yesterday, “the Minister of Finance, who I am acquainted with, has not made any commitment in regard to any elements of the Budget package on 25 May”; if so, why did he say on the 28th of April, “We are not planning to do a reduction on rates this year”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): In answer to the first part of the question, yes, I do stand by my statement; to the second part, because it was an accurate answer to a question.

Grant Robertson: Regardless of what is or is not in the Budget, can he confirm that adjusting the tax brackets for inflation since the last tax changes in 2010, as tabled yesterday in Parliamentary Library figures, would see an $18 a week benefit to him and a $2.38 a week benefit to a person earning $48,000 a year?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I have not seen the details of the document the member tabled yesterday, but I can confirm that the Government has plans for its Budget, and on 25 May we will find out what commitments it has made in response to those plans.

Grant Robertson: Has total spending on Working for Families decreased while his Government has been in office?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That is a very specific question, and if the member would like to put it down in writing I would be happy to answer it.

Grant Robertson: Is the Child Poverty Action Group correct that it would take $700 million per year, or $2.8 billion over the Budget cycle, to restore the real value of Working for Families cuts made by his Government?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is unlikely to be correct—I have not checked its numbers. But, again, the member needs to understand that the Government took a number of decisions after it came into office to get rid of the decade of deficits that we inherited from the previous Labour Government, as reported independently by the New Zealand Treasury, which the member has added to his list of Government sympathiser organisations that he does not listen to. We did make a number of changes, we stand by those changes, and as a result we see the Government books in surplus today, while, in contrast, our friends in Australia are dealing with a large deficit.

Grant Robertson: Can he confirm that actually what happened was that his Government put in place a tax package where 40 percent of the benefits went to the top 10 percent of income earners, while he cut Working for Families for families earning $35,000?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Just because the member has written some talking points it does not make it true. The reality is that those tax changes were distributionally neutral across the—

Dr David Clark: Just because your laminated cards say it’s not true it doesn’t make that true either.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, the member can go back and have a look at some of the actual documents that were produced at the time that showed the distribution effects of the tax changes, which were broadly neutral across the spectrum.

David Seymour: Can the Minister confirm that the top 10 percent of income tax payers pay 37.7 percent of all income tax?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I cannot confirm the exact number for the member, but that does resonate in terms of the percentages.

Grant Robertson: Has he considered entitling his Budget speech “Taking credit for half-solving the problems that we created: the Steven Joyce story”, given the infrastructure and social deficits that have grown on his watch, or will he just go for the simpler “Steven Joyce: the real Slim Shady”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am sure the National Government would at least go with the statement that we are actually committed to our party’s policies, which is more than can be said for the Opposition this week, which seems to have a, shall we say, variegated view of what policies it has to adopt and does not have to adopt. This Government stands absolutely behind the decisions we have made, which have brought this country back into a fiscal surplus ahead of most other developed countries in the OECD. Mr Robertson, if he wants to today, can raise the issue of whether we should be in surplus, but I think you just have to look across the Tasman to know that those decisions were the right decisions.

Housing, Māori—Marae and Māori Housing Network Funding

5. MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party) to the Minister for Māori Development: He aha ngā karere o nā noa nei kua puta mai e pā ana ki te pūtea whakapauhia ki runga marae, ki runga whare?

[What recent announcements has he made about funding for marae and housing?]

Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development): Ā, tēnā koe i tērā pātai, ka mihi ki a koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare.

[Thank you in regard to that question, and so salutations to you, Mr Speaker.]

I was pleased to announce recently new funding of $27 million that will support marae and help more whānau live in safe, secure, and healthy homes. The $27 million package is made up of three parts: $10 million that will support Marae Ora, the restoration of whare, repair facilities, insulate wharenui and provide for Reo and tikanga wānanga; an extra $8 million will be allocated to Kāinga Ora, the Māori Housing Network; and a further $9 million will support Te Ara Mauwhare, or the Pathways to Home-Ownership initiative, which will trial innovative new approaches to helping whānau achieve housing independence.

Marama Fox: What differences in the lives of whānau will this funding make?

Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: It is a very fine question. Since it was launched in October 2015, the Māori Housing Network has supported hundreds of whānau throughout the country to live in safer, drier, warmer, healthier homes. There has been $36 million invested in more than 140 projects around the motu, which is just one part of the Government’s Māori strategy, He Whare Āhuru He Ōranga Tāngata. This new funding means that from 1 July we will have more than $25 million per year to support more whānau to access safe and quality housing, more marae to be warm, safe, and secure, and to be able to carry out the tikanga of their cultural and community roles, and trial innovative ways to help whānau into homeownership. We want to see more Māori secure in their own homes, and this new funding, we are hoping, will help them down that path.

Marama Fox: How has Kāinga Ora and the Māori Housing Network supported whānau?

Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: Kāinga Ora has supported and continues to support whānau housing aspirations. There have been 140 housing projects, support for 380 high-needs whānau so that they can live in those safe, warm, and dry homes. There is support for housing infrastructure for 176 new homes for whānau and support for the building of 63 new affordable homes, 36 papakāinga feasibility projects, and 60-plus workshops to help whānau achieve their housing aspirations. I recently announced a new papakāinga development at Wairarapa, for example, which includes a rebuild of their marae and six new homes. This development will allow whānau to live on their whenua tuku iho in affordable and healthy homes and support their marae. Finally, in March this year, five homes were opened in Waimārama, in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, as part of the first stage of papakāinga development. Three-bedroom affordable rental homes and two homes for ownership is a pretty good outcome.

Partnership Schools—Performance and Te Pūmanawa o Te Wairua

6. NUK KORAKO (National) to the Minister of Education: What recent reports has she received regarding partnership schools?

Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister of Education): I have received the second MartinJenkins evaluation report on partnership schools. I am pleased overall with the report. It demonstrated that for a relatively new model of schooling, partnership schools are delivering good progress on achievement, engagement, and attendance for students who are Māori, Pasifika, and from low socio-economic backgrounds. The report also highlighted that the flexible way in which schools were delivering for students enabled them to target support to where it is needed, provide individualised learning support, and engage with the community to raise expectations.

Nuk Korako: What advice has she seen on the differences between special character schools and partnership schools?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: I am advised that special character schools do not have the same flexibility that partnership schools have to deliver innovation for their students. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the Minister. If I have to deal with very loud interjections coming from my left during question time, I might have to ask somebody to leave the Chamber.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: There are large differences between the two models. In particular, special character schools’ funding is clearly allocated for property, staffing, and operational funding. Anyone implying that it would be a simple transition from a special character school to a partnership school does not understand our school system. Additionally, anyone implying that they would close those schools needs to be upfront with the cost to the New Zealand taxpayer and to those parents.

Nuk Korako: What information has she seen on Māori achievement under this Government, particularly for students from partnership schools?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: In 2008, when this Government came into office, one in two Māori students was leaving school with a minimum qualification of NCEA level 2. In 2016, 74 percent of Māori students received NCEA level 2. This has been achieved through a variety of initiatives targeted at Māori, including partnership schools. I am advised that 93 percent of students at partnership schools are priority learners, and this includes a significant proportion of young Māori. This achievement information shows significant progress for these students.

Chris Hipkins: How much of the $5.2 million spent by the Government on the failed 40-student Whangaruru charter school has been recovered following her predecessor’s decision to close the school last year? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am not sure where the interruption is coming from now, but the same message I gave to my left applies to the whole House. If this particular question is going to cause a lot of interjection, then members will leave the Chamber. I cannot be more clear than that, so do not complain when it happens.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: There is a legal process occurring, so we cannot confirm—it would be inappropriate to comment further—but what I can say is one of the strengths of the partnership school model is that we can close them when they are not performing.

Chris Hipkins: Does the debacle at Whangaruru not highlight the flaw in the charter school model, given that the Minister of Education Hekia Parata opened it against official advice; it used its set-up grant to buy a farm, which continues to be owned by it despite the closure; it did not employ qualified teachers; it was beset by drug use, absenteeism, and bullying; and even after the decision was made to close it, it got another $400,000 of taxpayer cash?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Well, it does not represent a flaw in the model. That is why we have clearly made a review of those contracts and we have changed the way that we manage a number of these contracts. But I just quote Peeni Henare: “The bottom line is, why would you stop something that’s working.”

David Seymour: Does the Minister agree with the following statement from the MartinJenkins report: “Sponsors have applied to deliver a [partnership school kura hourua] because they believe they have something valuable to offer and have a deep belief in the value of their approach.”?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Yes, I do.

David Seymour: Does she agree with Willie Jackson, at No. 21 on the Labour Party list, who said that “I think just about all the schools are doing well,” and that “there would be no reason, from my observation, to close any [partnership] schools [kura hourua].”?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Yes, I do agree with Willie Jackson. I just wish Andrew Little would. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Before I call the member for his further supplementary question, can I just remind him of Speaker’s ruling 174/3: “It is not reasonable to use questions from the governing party or its support parties to attack other members of the House.” [Interruption] Order!

David Seymour: Can the Minister confirm that the partnership school kura hourua policy has been endorsed as official policy of the Iwi Leaders Forum?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Yes, I can, and I can also confirm that I have seen statements along the lines of “The bottom line is, why would you stop something that’s working.” But I have also seen statements from a similar organisation, which said: “Let me be … clear, under Labour, Charter Schools will be a thing of the past.” [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The House will settle.

Mining in Conservation Areas—Coalmining

7. JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Conservation: How will a coal mine on conservation land support today’s Threatened Species Strategy announcement?

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Associate Minister of Conservation): on behalf of the Minister of Conservation: The Government recognises the importance of protecting important conservation values while allowing regional economic development. Conservation and mining are not mutually exclusive. No decisions have been made in respect of any proposed coalmine, and today we are highlighting our commitment to protecting native species through Minister Barry’s launch of the draft Threatened Species Strategy for New Zealand. This is a groundbreaking strategy. It aims to safeguard all our vulnerable threatened species and to set them on the path to recovery.

James Shaw: Given the high profile of the kiwi in the Threatened Species Strategy, how can the Minister possibly consider opening a coalmine in a kiwi habitat?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: The New Zealand Threatened Species Strategy—that is, the draft in consultation, and I do invite the member to be involved in that process—prioritises 150 species that we have selected to manage and to increase their population. Obviously, the kiwi is part of that, and the areas that it is found in will be looked after. It is the clear, measurable goals for the future that come from this strategy that will safeguard all our species.

James Shaw: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My supplementary question was in relation to coalmining, and she did not reference coalmining once in her answer.

Mr SPEAKER: No, the member needs to go back and have a look at his question. He talked about the Threatened Species Strategy announcement in the lead-up to his question. If he had asked the second part of his question alone, I might have been able to help him.

James Shaw: Does she stand by the answer given in her name in question time yesterday that the $22 million pay-off from Bathurst Resources coalmining company to the Department of Conservation (DOC) “did not happen.”?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: Yes, I do stand by my statement yesterday. What you said—an assertion that DOC was being paid off—is absolutely ridiculous. There is a longstanding practice that mining companies contribute financial resources to address environmental impacts of their mine. Moreover, these arrangements resulted in some fantastic conservation gains. For example, we have had long-term funding for kākā pest control, a 35-year biodiversity enhancement project for the Heaphy catchment, willow control in Lake Brunner, predator control for the blue duck protection, and the funding of weed-buster programmes.

James Shaw: So, to be clear, has DOC already received, or is it going to receive in the future, any part, or all, of the $22 million package from the Bathurst Resources mining company that is listed on DOC’s website?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: In the case of the escarpment mine at Bathurst, it has agreed to fund $22 million for pest and weed control. The payment schedule for that is tagged to the development of the mine. They have already made some payments, but it is only in its early stages.

James Shaw: What other areas of conservation land is she considering opening up for coalmining?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: The process, which the member may not be aware of, of any coalmining access applications is that they need to go to the Environment Court. It is not a decision that the Minister makes.

James Shaw: Can she explain to the House how coalmining on conservation land is in any way consistent with the Department of Conservation’s view that “Climate change poses a significant risk to New Zealand’s native species and ecosystems.”?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: Climate change is only one of many threats to our endangered species. These include predation, biosecurity incursions, pollution, and other pressures on their habitat. The draft strategy, which is designed to be a living document, is designed for solutions to all these programmes, and you will find that climate change will be considered along with all the other things. If the member believes that climate change is not being given enough emphasis, I suggest he submit to the consultation process.

James Shaw: Given that the strategy says that the survival of our threatened birds is the responsibility of everyone, will she now ask Steven Joyce not to take any more helicopter joyrides with coalmining companies over conservation land?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: I would like to focus on the threatened species strategy, because that is what we are going to be doing to protect our native species. It prioritises 150 species, and these have been selected to be managed to increase their populations. It will have clear, measurable goals for the future to safeguard all our vulnerable species and it will inform decision making on priorities and ensure that resources are allocated effectively. All New Zealanders can be, and should be, involved with this strategy. Kia ora.

Technology Sector—Research and Development Funding and Skills Base

8. BRETT HUDSON (National) to the Minister of Science and Innovation: What announcements has he made to support New Zealand businesses invest in research and development?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Science and Innovation): I was very pleased to announce an additional $74.6 million in funding for R & D growth grants through Budget 2017, to meet the growing demand for high-value, innovative Kiwi companies. Encouraging business R & D helps high-tech, innovative new Kiwi companies bring products and ideas to market sooner, which has significant benefit for export revenues. Worldwide, R & D is recognised as a key factor that underpins a businesses’ ability to innovate and keep up with the technological change by creating and using new knowledge. R & D growth grants is an on-demand, non-discretionary scheme that enables qualifying companies to claim back 20 percent of their eligible R & D expenditure. Growth grant funding is now at $140 million and is set to increase to $172 million by 2021.

Brett Hudson: What is the current state of New Zealand’s technology and innovative sectors?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The tech sector is New Zealand’s third-largest exporting sector, contributing $16 billion to GDP, and it is growing fast. It presents multiple opportunities for New Zealand and international investors. R & D has driven much of that growth. We have seen a significant increase in the amount that Kiwi companies are spending on R & D. A survey earlier this year showed that business R & D expenditure has increased 29 percent from 2014 to $1.6 billion in 2016. The Technology Investment Network, The Investors’ Guide to the New Zealand Technology Sector, which I launched yesterday with my colleague Simon Bridges, showcases the breadth and variety of technological companies in New Zealand. Our economy is strong and diverse. And the strengthening tech sector is an important part of that diversity.

Brett Hudson: What is the Government doing to meet the skill demands of this sector?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The Government is focused on ensuring that our education system is providing a generation of entrepreneurs and skilled workers who are able to adapt and meet the demands of innovative growth in a rapidly changing world. We have developed pathways for young New Zealanders to enter the tech sector, such as the Futureintech initiative. Yesterday I visited Lab in a Box, outside Te Papa. This is a project funded through the A Nation of Curious Minds: He Whenua Hihiri i te Mahara initiative, which this year funded 41 projects to inspire the next generation of scientists. Alongside this, the Digital Skills Forum brings together industry associations with Government agencies to identify opportunities to develop skills that the sector will need in order to continue its rapid growth. This is the sign of a sector that is in good health and is planning to meet its future demands.

Tax System—Negative Gearing and Property Speculation

9. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister of Revenue: Does she agree with the IMF that removing “negative gearing” tax breaks for property investors would help redirect saving incentives to other, potentially more productive investments?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Revenue): No. The member has got it wrong. The IMF does not describe the rules as a tax break. The rules applying to property are in line with the laws applying to other forms of investment.

Phil Twyford: What benefit is there to New Zealand from giving property speculators tax advantages—

Hon Steven Joyce: Especially if they have Chinese-sounding names, eh, Phil?

Phil Twyford: —wait, Steven—when negative gearing is primarily used by offshore speculators, with 35 percent of them not paying any tax at all?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: This Government does not intend to tax people on income they do not earn.

Phil Twyford: Why should we allow speculation in our housing market to lock out first-home buyers given that sales to property speculators with five or more houses in Auckland now make up more than one in seven of all sales?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: For a start, just because someone owns more than one house does not make them a speculator. That member should just ask some of his own colleagues in the Labour Party about that. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We will have just the supplementary question.

Phil Twyford: Why should we subsidise speculation on property for the wealthiest people given that 40 percent of the tax avoided through negative gearing goes to the top 10 percent of income earners?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Obviously, we do not. We just do not expect people to pay tax on income they have not earned.

Phil Twyford: Why will National not crack down on property speculators when they are driving up house prices and denying young Kiwi families a chance of ever owning their own home?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I do not know where that member has been, but in the last 7 years this Government has introduced a number of changes that have tightened the tax rules on property. In 2010 we removed the depreciation on buildings. Since then, the amount of positive rental income received by landlords has increased by 53 percent, and net losses have fallen by 14 percent. We have increased the taxation on short-term speculative property investment through the brightline rule. This taxes gains from property bought and sold within 2 years and imposes a withholding tax of 33 percent on property sales for non-residents. In a number of Budgets—

Andrew Little: Tell us about homeownership. What’s happened to those rates?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —and I note that that member has never voted for one of them—we have taken steps to make sure that the Inland Revenue Department has extra funding to make sure it can enforce the tax rules in the property sector.

Phil Twyford: I seek leave to table data provided by CoreLogic that shows that one in seven property transactions in Auckland is going to property investors with more than five properties.

Mr SPEAKER: Is that information publicly available?

Phil Twyford: I do not believe it is.

Mr SPEAKER: The member is expected to know, because that question will be put.

Phil Twyford: It is not publicly available to the best of my knowledge.

Mr SPEAKER: On that basis, I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that information done by CoreLogic. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is objection.

State and Social Housing—Relocation from Auckland Assistance Scheme

10. JOANNE HAYES (National) to the Associate Minister for Social Housing: What announcements has he made about the results of the Relocation from Auckland Assistance scheme?

Hon ALFRED NGARO (Associate Minister for Social Housing): Yesterday I was pleased to announce a number of successful results from the Relocation from Auckland Assistance scheme. Since June of last year 313 families have, with assistance from the Government, taken the opportunity to relocate from Auckland. The scheme has allowed these often struggling Kiwi families to find better and cheaper accommodation options, and the potential to become increasingly independent. In fact, almost half of the families who received the relocation assistance have moved from Auckland social housing into private housing. The Government is well on track to meet its target of successfully relocating 400 families by the end of June 2017.

Joanne Hayes: What do these results mean for the taxpayer?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: For most, these results mean that the families who are struggling have the opportunity to succeed in communities that are able to provide better housing and employment outcomes for them. But the benefits are wider than that. On average, the Government saves the taxpayer $170 per week in subsidised housing costs for every family who moves out of Auckland under the scheme. In just 3 years’ time the Government will have saved well over $6 million in taxpayers’ money, simply by offering these families a fresh start. This is a true example of a win-win policy.

People’s Mental Health Report—Minister of Health’s Statements

11. Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statement about the authors of the People’s Mental Health Report, “they’re very left-wing, anti-Government protesters”; if not, when will he apologise to the 500 people who wrote their own stories about experiences with the mental health system as part of the report?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Yes, and my statement distinguished between the genuinely motivated story submitters and those ActionStation organisers with some political agenda. My quote was: “When you look at the people behind it, [you know] they’re very left-wing, anti-Government protesters.” As I say, ActionStation is back on Thursday with another, separate, anti-Government protest within the health area, and it could be back week after week with different topics. And just for the record, the ActionStation campaign coordinator is Mr Rick Zwaan, the Green Party’s Wellington election campaign coordinator, who used to work as Kennedy Graham’s researcher. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Supplementary question, Dr David Clark. [Interruption] Order! I have asked for less interjection from everybody so that Dr David Clark can ask his supplementary questions.

Dr David Clark: Has he read the report; if so, does he accept that its aim, as recorded in the executive summary, is to give space to the stories of what is really going on and going wrong in our mental health services?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes, I have read the report, and especially the executive summary, the first line of which is a totally false premise. It talks about $140 million being cut from health funding. Well, actually, health funding has gone up by $300 million, which kind of proves the point that this is a political document.

Dr David Clark: Does he think the contribution of Robbie, who described support services as expensive and inadequate, and which, he says, “almost drove him to take his own life”, should be dismissed as the experience of a left-wing, anti-Government campaign?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I have already answered that. Look, I think Robbie’s experience is worth listening to, but that does not change the fact that this report is produced by a group of people who are permanent anti-Government protesters. If the member does not believe me, go and look at their website. They will be back here, week after week, on subject after subject after subject, because they do not like the Government.

Dr David Clark: Does he think the contribution of Mike King, who “describes despair and hopelessness in the face of inadequate access to mental health services”, should be dismissed as the experience of a left-wing, anti-Government campaigner?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Look, I think the member needs to speak to Mrs King about how you think on your feet. I have answered that question already. The organisers are from ActionStation, and it is the permanent anti-Government, left-wing protester. Mr King is a very good man—Mike King, as opposed to Mrs Annette King—who is genuinely motivated, and I do not detract from his efforts. But, as I say, when you have people like Mr Rick Zwaan, who used to work for Kennedy Graham, and his friends from the Green Party, I think it is pretty obvious that this is political.

Dr David Clark: Does he think the contribution of “the many parents who submitted in regard of their children’s experience of huge waiting lists and lack of funding” should be dismissed as the experience of a left-wing, anti-Government campaign?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I point out to the member that he does not have to take all his supplementary questions, and if he cannot think of new material in response to the answers, he should just stop. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We will deal with them one at a time.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. For two answers in a row, the Minister began by insulting the questioner rather than addressing the question. But the main substantive point is that despite the abuse in that last answer, he did not even address the question that was asked.

Mr SPEAKER: On this occasion—[Interruption] Order! I have been increasingly worried about the interchange between these two members and some of the answers that have been given on occasion by the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman, but, on this occasion, when I consider the three questions that were asked, they were, effectively, the same question each time. Therefore, I can understand the frustration of the Minister in having answered the question the first time, he, effectively, gets the same question for the next two occasions.

Dr David Clark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That question, in my view, was not addressed, because he had talked about ActionStation, which is the compiler of the report. I am asking a specific question about the comments from the parents within the report. That is a very specific and non - politically loaded question.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I would like to assist the member, but when I consider the answer that was given to, I think, the second supplementary question, that, effectively, was an answer that was then quite suitable for the rest of the questions the member asked, which were, effectively, just drawing on the experience of someone else within the book. The Minister was quite clear in saying he is not in any way critical of the experiences that were detailed in the report; he was certainly critical of the authors who put the report together.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, is the problem with that not that the Minister is trying to write this off as being a left-wing conspiracy—that is the essence of his answer? I think it is quite proper for members of the Opposition to put instance after instance after instance that paint a different picture. I think the Minister should have to address each of those instances, rather than just cast aside a political insult telling him he should learn how to ask different questions.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not agree that it was a political insult. The question was answered. There was no attack on the various contributions that were made within that report by the Minister. There was certainly a feeling that the authors were not of the same political persuasion as the Minister. That is acceptable.

Dr David Clark: To clarify—

Mr SPEAKER: No. [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! Would the member please resume his seat. [Interruption] Order! Would the member please resume his seat. I have ruled on that matter. The member is now starting to challenge the Chair and debate with the Chair. That in itself will lead to gross disorder in this House. Question No. 12, Melissa Lee—[Interruption] Order! [Interruption] If I hear a further interjection from Carmel Sepuloni while I am in the Chair today, she will be leaving the Chamber. She has been consistently interjecting throughout question time in a very—[Interruption] Order! If the member wants to go now, I can make that arrangement very easily. I expect cooperation, particularly from whips, and the level of interjection that has been coming from Carmel Sepuloni throughout question time is unacceptable. When I rise to my feet, for those interjections still to continue is just not acceptable to this House.

Small Businesses—Digital Technology

12. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister for Small Business: What updates can she provide on how the Government is supporting small businesses’ uptake of digital technology?

Hon JACQUI DEAN (Minister for Small Business): As part of Techweek 2017, Digital Journey and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) have launched a Digital Journey assessment tool to support small businesses in the uptake of digital technology. This support includes a personalised action plan to help small-business owners save time and effort, and open up new opportunities to grow their business. Digital Journey is also an important part of our small-business roadshows, making sure that digital technology uptake is an important component of the success of our small businesses.

Dr David Clark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is New Zealand Sign Language Week, and sign language is an official language. I would like the Minister of Health to interpret his sign language that he was just giving to the House, Mr Speaker, which you did not see and which he was repeatedly directing at my colleague. It was, essentially, very rude. I think he should be asked, in New Zealand Sign Language Week, to explain what his sign meant.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order, but if there was a gesture across the House that I learn about by subsequently watching TV, I will certainly be taking further action on it.

Melissa Lee: What else is the Government doing to support small business uptake of digital technology?

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Through Government programmes such as the ultra-fast broadband roll-out, we are ensuring that New Zealand businesses can access faster internet to allow greater use of digital technologies. MBIE is progressing the business uptake of ICT, as outlined in the Building a Digital Nation report, which is part of our Business Growth Agenda. We are also ensuring that businesses can better connect with the Government using digital technologies. These include activities such as the Inland Revenue Department transformation project, ACC, and Business.govt.nz.

Melissa Lee: What is the benefit of increased use of digital technologies for small businesses?

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Digital technologies can improve market access, better target consumers, reduce time interacting with the Government and with compliance, and reduce time on day-to-day operations, such as inventory, staffing, transport, and invoicing. Research by Sapere Research Group in 2014 suggests that if firms currently making low use of internet services became more like high-using firms, it could be worth an additional $34 billion in productivity impact to the New Zealand economy. The National Party believes this is important to New Zealand’s economy.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister of Education): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I am proud to be the Minister of Education in a positive, pragmatic, future-focused National Government, led by a fantastic Prime Minister in Bill English. This Government is delivering results for young New Zealanders. We are ensuring that every young person in New Zealand can read, write, do maths, and be digitally fluent, and is healthy and able to compete in a modern world. We are united and positive, compared with the Opposition, which is in a shambles.

You cannot understand what its education policy is. Take partnership schools: it is very difficult to understand what it actually believes. If we listen to Chris Hipkins, he says: “Partnership schools are gone. The legislation will be repealed.” Willie Jackson says: “I truly believe in the partnership schools model.” The Opposition’s stance on partnership schools will not get a pass mark from me. Peeni Henare says: “The bottom line is, why would you stop something that is working?”. The reality is that for some of our most disadvantaged students—Māori and Pacific young people who are getting a chance in life—we do not know what the policy is under that Labour Opposition. It is more likely they will not get this chance in the future. These young people deserve better.

Take communities of online learning—again, a positive, pragmatic Government focusing on ensuring that young people get opportunities that they have never had before. What is the Labour Party’s position? It opposes it, on purely ideological grounds. In fact, what is the reason that the Labour Party opposes a lot of this education policy? It is because it is led by Andrew Little, who has a union background. That is the reality.

The reality is that National has a positive plan for education. We are investing more in ensuring that young people are in early childhood education. We are ensuring that Māori and Pasifika achievement is raised—in some cases in New Zealand by more than 20 percent. We had a fantastic previous Minister of Education. Can I acknowledge the Hon Hekia Parata for all of the amazing work that she has done.

We are amending the Education Act. We are delivering communities of online learning where there are achievement challenges that we have never had before. We are investing in behavioural services to help those young people who are more disruptive in the classroom. We are investing in oral language development. We are helping more young people than ever before. We are positive, pragmatic, and united, against the backdrop of a Labour Party that cannot even agree on one single policy. I am proud to be the Minister of Education under this Government.

JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): I would like to say that the director of the Department of Conservation said the other day: “We believe our nature will thrive when all New Zealanders engage their hearts, minds, and hands to conserve the natural environment.” And I think that it would be great if the Minister of Conservation actually took that advice, because we have a spectacle at the moment of a Government that, on the one hand, says it is committed to conservation, that it is committed to protecting the kiwi, that it has a strategy in place—that it launched this morning—for our threatened species, and at the same time wants to open up a portion of conservation land for coalmining.

I have to say, I am utterly flabbergasted because it is completely inconsistent to, on the one hand, say that you are committed to conservation—to be a Minister of Conservation and at the same time to even consider the notion of coalmining on conservation estate is utterly absurd. The Department of Conservation looks after a third of New Zealand’s land mass on half a percent of the Government’s Budget. I will just say that again: the Department of Conservation looks after a third of New Zealand’s land mass on half a percent of its Budget. It is right up against the wall. In real terms, its budget has been cut considerably over the course of the lifetime of this National-led Government. And now, you have the spectacle of a Minister of Conservation attempting to defend the notion of coalmining on conservation land. There is no way that you can have a kiwi protection plan, on the one hand, and say that you are going to be coalmining in a kiwi habitat on the other. There is no way to say that you are going to have a threatened species strategy on one hand, and to put a coalmine into a kiwi habitat on the other hand.

Not only that, the Department of Conservation itself—I am going to read this out from its website—says “Climate change poses a significant risk to New Zealand’s native species and ecosystems.”; in other words, the very thing that the Department of Conservation is there to protect. Climate change represents a significant risk to that, and what we know is that if the world burns its existing coal reserves—its existing coal reserves that it knows about—then there is simply no way that we are going to be able to keep global warming to under 2 degrees. In fact, 82 percent of the existing coal reserves on this planet cannot be burnt if you are to have any hope of keeping global warming to under 2 degrees. So the idea of having a coalmine on conservation land, digging up coal to be burned, and at the same time saying that you have got any hope, any hope at all, of trying to keep New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions down and keeping global warming to under 2 degrees is completely inconsistent.

Now today the Associate Minister said that there was a $22 million compensation package from a coalmining company to the Department of Conservation. Well, compensation for what? What is a compensation package for? It is compensating for damaging the environment, which in this case is a kiwi habitat. So the very nature of this pay-off demonstrates that we know that the coalmine is damaging the local environment down there. What is it compensating for? It is compensating for degrading the local environment, which is a kiwi habitat, and that raises the question: how can you possibly, as a Government, on the one hand say that you are committed to protecting kiwi, and, on the other hand, take 30 pieces of silver in return from a coalmining company that we know is going to damage the environment in which those kiwi live. It is an utterly absurd proposition.

The idea that you can have a coalmine in a kiwi habitat and maintain any semblance of a commitment to the environment, as a Government, is completely absurd. I think that none of this conserves the New Zealand environment. If you are going to have a Government that is truly committed to protecting New Zealand’s natural environment, you need to change the Government. And change is coming.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment): I have had the joy this week of getting around many, many businesses, as part of Techweek, where we are noticing and understanding the incredibly important role that the R & D and tech sector has in the New Zealand economy. This is a strong economy that we are living in at the moment—a very strong economy that is robust. It has generated 137,000 new jobs in the last year, and 29,000 in the last 3 months. Unemployment is below 5 percent and we have got good, strong growth in the next few years ahead. Young Kiwis growing up in this country are not leaving in droves like they used to. They know that they have the opportunity to succeed and flourish and reach their dreams in this country because we have a strong economy.

I have also had the opportunity to announce today a pre-Budget announcement of an extra $75,000 million going into Callaghan Innovation growth grants over the next 4 years. They are there to help support and encourage our businesses to invest in R & D, which they have been doing in big volumes over the last couple of years. We have seen a significant increase in investment in R & D over the last couple of years. And so I am proud of that announcement, but it is part of a broader innovation strategy that we have for this country. We want to see our New Zealand companies succeeding internationally and competing internationally around the world as strong, innovative companies.

What can the Government usefully do? Well, actually, the most useful thing that any Government can do is provide that strong, stable, predictable environment where people feel comfortable to invest. When we look across the House, the potential for strong, stable Government in the years to come, if the triple-headed monster on the other side were to get into power, is very slight indeed. When you cannot have the Labour Party even working out whether it supports a basic policy like charter schools, you know that it is internally divided.

We see around the world the consequences of Governments when they have been riven by internal dissension. In this country we have had an absence of that over the last 8 years as we in the National Party, with our coalition partners, have been lock step in unity and understanding, with a single sense of purpose. That makes a big difference in terms of raising the confidence that investors have in this country to invest. It is only, ultimately, people, individuals, making a decision to hire somebody, to start a new firm, to invest in R & D—they are the sorts of things that actually produce growth.

Aside from that, it is also important to invest in infrastructure and that is why we have invested so much money in ultra-fast broadband so that companies have access to high-speed internet. We also have invested very significantly in the science infrastructure that New Zealand companies can draw on. I mean, why do we invest the $1.3 billion a year that we put into science? Well, fundamentally, it is about—when I step back and ask what we are trying to achieve in Government, we are trying, ultimately, to raise the living standards of all New Zealanders. You can do that by strengthening the economy and making it more productive, but you can also do it by delivering better public services.

That is not the only thing that Governments do. Governments also try to preserve and enhance what is special about New Zealand, and that is the quality of our environment. But it is also our way of life, our social cohesion. We also have a contribution to make to the world. When you look at the contribution that science and innovation can make to those things, it is powerful. Good quality science can inform and empower our New Zealand economies to be more internationally productive, come up with ideas, and solve business problems. Science can also inform our decision making in Government, with better research-based and evidence-based decision-making, which is essential to good public policy.

When it comes to preserving what is special about New Zealand, I have had the opportunity over this week to visit some of the national science challenges, which are dealing with very difficult issues that we face around biodiversity about water quality, about housing—all those issues that the science community can help understand and better equip us to deal with those issues. We can also make a global contribution.

So that is why we invest as heavily as we do, and that is why I am so pleased that we are part of a strong economy. We have got so much optimism that, when we look over the next few years ahead, this is a country that is well-equipped with skilful young workers, people who are innovative, entrepreneurial, and determined to do well in this world. We have had a good, strong Government for 8 years and I hope that we will get another 8 years so we can strengthen that foundation for the New Zealand economy. Thank you very much.

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): Yesterday an open letter was presented to MPs on the steps of Parliament, and we saw very quickly in the response from the Government just how arrogant and out of touch it has become. That was personified in the person of Jonathan Coleman, the Minister of Health, who, today, again ducked and dived and avoided answering questions about the experiences of people within New Zealand’s mental health system. He refused to answer questions that were plain by referring to a previous answer where he said that his target was somebody who had done the compiling of the material and not the actual material itself. When asked about the specifics of that material—the experience of underfunding in the health system, under-resourcing, staff stretched, and people getting very close to taking their own lives—he was silent. He was silent on those matters.

I think that speaks to his inability to wrestle with the issue that New Zealand is facing right now, and that is a 60 percent increase—a 60 percent increase—in people accessing mental health services in the last decade. The system is creaking at the seams. The police are being called into wards. Senior nurses are leaving the service of those acute psychiatric units. People in the community are feeling abandoned. That is the world we are living in, and the Government does not seem to have a response, and, when it does have one, it is flippant—it is to dismiss as left-wing, anti-Government activists those who bring their concerns to Parliament. That is what the Minister said. He dismissed and diminished the experience of those people by dismissing and diminishing the way in which those experiences were brought to this Parliament for us all to see.

The requests in that report are not unreasonable; they are for an urgent funding increase for mental health. We know this Government has underfunded the health sector by $1.7 billion over the last 6 years, and that is a conservative estimate, using Treasury’s own figures, by independent research agency Infometrics. It discerned that when you look into health inflation, a growing population, and an ageing demographic, just to stand still the health system would have needed another $1.7 billion over the last 6 years. So, in that situation, where mental health is often the poor cousin, its funding has been starved. We understand that mental health funding has gone up around 28 percent over that period, while the need has gone up 60 percent. You do not need to be a mathematician to work out that that is a shortfall and that people will fall through the cracks and lived lives will be hit hard by the inability to cope and by the lack of support for those across New Zealand who are facing difficult situations and who are facing the challenges that come with mental health issues.

I think we would have also seen a different response if Labour had been in Government, because Labour is a party that cares about primary health, that cares about people’s lived experiences in the community, and that seeks to support people with early intervention, at a mild to moderate level in the mental health spectrum, to make sure that people receive the need early. That is what we will be doing as a party, and we will be soon be announcing the ways in which we are going to make that a more real experience—the ways in which fresh thinking can be applied to these issues to make sure that New Zealanders can be confident that their mental health system is able to respond to the need that is out there and that is growing.

I know that Andrew Little would have done a different thing if one of the members of his Cabinet had criticised the people who delivered the message—he would have pulled them into line. But we have, with Bill English, someone who has a failure of leadership. He is content to see that thing slide. He is content to let Jonathan Coleman stew in his own juices. He is not providing the leadership required to fix the sector and to address the issues—the independent oversight that has been called for, the additional funding that has been called for, and the review that is urgently needed to make sure that our mental health system is fit for purpose and is there to support the New Zealanders who need it most in their time of need.

Labour will be there for those people in a way that this Government has never been. So I would ask members of this House to consider whether, in this upcoming Budget, the Government could not be a little more generous in supporting those people who need it most in our society, because I think a Government is best judged by how it treats the most vulnerable amongst us.

Hon ALFRED NGARO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): There is a phrase I have often given in graduations or prize-givings, which is: “Education may be the power, but attitude is the key for change.” I believe that is critically important. I want to announce that I was very proud, nearly 3 weeks ago, up in Auckland, to be able to announce, as the Minister for Pacific Peoples, nine scholarships called the Toloa Tertiary Scholarships for education, which are particularly for graduates, in particular for the STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. We had nine that were awarded—$25,000 scholarships. There were 53 applicants. We now have, for the first time, again, another nine that were put through under this Government, to try to ensure that Pasifika are well represented in their place. It was pride of place for the families to see their young people do well. Why? Because education is critically important to them.

We can also say that, under this Government, its reputation in regard to education is critically important. Before, there were never targets. If you think about early childhood education, I am proud to say that, under this Government, the participation rate for early childhood education for Pasifika is at 92.5 percent—92.5 percent. Why does that become important? Because we know that if our young people, as Pasifika, do not have the opportunity to go through Te Whāriki and the early childhood education system and are not able to have the basic building blocks, then they often lag behind in regard to literacy and numeracy—92.5 percent is critical.

We can also see the results, as they track through the compulsory sector of education, in the NCEA results—80 percent for 18-year-old Pasifika students. That is critically important. I suppose what does become a concern, if we think about the whole phrase around “attitude is the key”, is, I think, the fact that with attitude it is the opportunity to choose. And the announcement by the Opposition that it will do away with partnership schools if it becomes the Government becomes a concern for our Pasifika communities and our Māori communities. Why? Because over 50 percent of those partnership schools—the 10 that are there—and 93 percent of the 1,200 students who are there are Māori and Pacific. Māori and Pacific. Why is it that they have chosen partnerships schools as an opportunity? Why? Because the mainstream system has been failing for a number of our kids.

It is a concern when the Opposition does not choose to support the voice and the concerns of our Māori and Pasifika communities, who are saying: “Give us an option. Give us a choice.” That is as simple as it gets: “Give us a choice.” I have been at the announcement, for instance, when there was The Rise UP Academy in Māngere—when Sita got up and when they got up and they turned around and said: “In Māngere, all we want is the opportunity to choose. Give our children a go. Give our children a go.” That is all they have asked for. The challenge of that is this: if the Opposition talks about how it is for Māori and Pasifika communities, why does it not give them a go? It is a small percentage of the whole of the educational sector, but, you know, 1,200 kids? It cannot even do that—it cannot even do that.

Here are the reasons why it all got a bit twisted: when Andrew Little thought he had his trump card—Andrew Little’s Willie Jackson. He thought he had his trump card, but here is where it got a bit sticky: Willie Jackson’s kura is a partnership school. He is also, too, a supporter of Whānau Ora, so it gets a little bit tricky; it gets a little bit hard. Those are the reasons why. It gets difficult for those communities, and I know that the other member who is here—he is not here in the House, and I cannot mention him, because he is not here—one of the Pasifika members in the Labour Party, over in Māngere, knows the fact is that, in Māngere, the Pasifika constituents there want this partnership school. They support it.

The Rise UP Academy is a Pasifika partnership school that is making a difference for these kids. But what will they say when they hear the words from Chris Hipkins? The Labour Party position on charter schools is crystal clear: “We don’t support their establishment. When we are next in Government, the legislation that allows for this creation will be repealed.” In other words, they will do away with it. Theirs is a divided house. Peeni Henare supports it. Kelvin Davis supports it. We know that is there as well. And Willie Jackson on the outside—what happens if he gets in? He supports it as well.

The challenge for that Opposition is this: we know we are doing a good job; the results speak for themselves. In fact, you can see it at Vanguard Military School with 92.7 percent, 94.2 percent, and 88 percent from National Certificate of Educational Achievement levels 1, 2, and 3. The proof is in the pudding. If you are making a difference, if it is successful, why would you take it away again? Why take away the freedom of a community? We are talking about 1,200 children—1,200 children—in the education system, a community of Māori, Pasifika, and others, saying: “Give us a choice.” But you cannot do that, because you are mean-spirited, you are unorganised, you are disordered, and you cannot make a difference. Partnership schools are making a difference for our Māori and Pasifika communities. Thank you.

JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): It is $1.7 billion. That is, essentially, the fiscal cut that this National Government has made in the health services. More importantly, what we see—very sadly, actually—is that this cut hurts our people. The kinds of people who are feeling the full effect of this cut are the people who are the most vulnerable: those who are trying to access our mental health services.

The number of people who are accessing or trying to access mental health services has increased by 60 percent—60 percent—since 2008. It is just unacceptable that while there has been an increase, a huge increase, in those who are trying to access mental health services, at the same time we are seeing funding cuts. What is also unacceptable is what we saw earlier on today: the response of the Minister of Health, the Hon Jonathan Coleman, saying of the folks who actually came and presented the People’s Mental Health Report to Parliament yesterday: “they’re very left-wing, anti-Government protestors.”

The folks who compiled this report, regardless of the party affiliation that they have, are 500 people who actually sent in how they experienced mental health services. Of that 500, 93 percent of them told us of problems and challenges they are experiencing when they try to access mental health services. Only 7 percent of them actually spoke about positive experiences that they are currently having with our mental health services.

We are all here as members of Parliament—121 of us. Many of us were voted in by people from our electorates, and some of us were voted in because our parties were voted in, because of the party vote. In this role, we should listen when people actually tell us that they are hurting. When over 500 people are telling us that the mental health services in New Zealand are not working for them, we should listen. We also had an addition to those 500 people: 12,800 who signed a petition. They signed it because they are calling for better services. They are demanding better public mental health services.

The full recommendations made by the People’s Mental Health Report—and, I must say, Labour supports many of them. The first that we support is the fact that we should restore the Mental Health Commission. This Mental Health Commission, we think, should never have been got rid of. The second thing that we support—one of the recommendations here—is that we should have a national education programme. We think that once we restore the Mental Health Commission, this is one of the things that the Mental Health Commission should look at. The report also calls for an inquiry into mental health services so that we identify what and where the most need is for funding, and we support that we should look into an inquiry about this. The last recommendation from the People’s Mental Health Report, which we also applaud, is the fact that it is calling for an increase in funding for mental health services.

In February of last year there was a call for a cut of $140 million from mental health services. After that call was made, several people actually came to Parliament, and we believe that because of that, the Government backtracked and gave back $20 million, especially to Canterbury.

A few weeks ago I had meetings with teachers, and several of these teachers were from Canterbury. They were telling me that, as teachers now of 7- and 8-year-olds, they are getting young 7- and 8-year-old kids who are still traumatised by the earthquakes. They were questioning why it is that it is so hard for them as teachers to refer these children on to mental health services.

We have a responsibility to ensure that we are adequately serving all of our people—our children in Canterbury as well as mental health service folks who are just trying to access services. When parents tell us that it is only when they say their teenagers are about to commit suicide that they can access services, there is something essentially wrong with that. They should not have to say that they are suicidal before they can access services. Thank you.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): It is an exciting time to be part of this Government. It is an exciting time for New Zealand right now, as this Government moves into delivering its ninth Budget and, of course, building on the fact that we have had some very exciting pre-Budget announcements. Why can we do that? We can do that because this is a Government that has brought about a growing economy—growing at over 3 percent. We have continued to diversify our economy, create jobs, and build on our free-trade agreements, building on our partnerships with the rest of the world so that we can trade, sell our goods and services, and create jobs and wealth for our New Zealand families.

With our accounts in surplus, it means we are, as a country, more resilient, and that gives us choices. As I said, this means it is a very exciting time for New Zealand and very exciting for us to continue to develop our social investment programme and invest in all New Zealanders, including our youth and our young people. As a mother in the Government and having two children, I find this extremely important. When we have children, we must invest in them, because they are going to be our future leaders, they are going to be the ones who continue to lead our country forward to greatness and make sure that this is an environment where all New Zealanders can thrive and achieve their dreams.

I am particularly pleased with one of the pre-Budget announcements, which is $40.7 million over 4 years to be invested into our education system, targeted at a cohort of young people who are at risk. So $34.7 million of this $40 million package will be invested in children with behavioural issues. We know that if these children are in school and they have issues, they cannot concentrate properly if these issues are left unaddressed. Not only do they put their own learning at risk but the disruption in the classroom means that other children’s learning is at risk. So this package is going to go towards better supporting them, putting supports and teaching around them that is specialised, to get on top of these issues and help them achieve, especially in the core subjects, so that they can go on and decide what they want to do in the future and build towards that, again, to achieve their hopes and dreams.

There is $6 million of that package going towards communication, to help children who have issues at an early age communicate better. That money is going to go into developing early childhood education teachers to better identify children who have communication issues, so that, again, we can get on top of those issues, help them communicate, which in turn helps their learning, so that they can go on to primary school, secondary school, earn their NCEA levels, and, again, achieve their hopes and dreams.

That is what this Government is all about: investing in education—over $11 billion in education, one of the biggest education budgets ever seen in New Zealand, to make sure that our youth are well supported and can learn and gain the skills to equip them for life in the future.

To end with, what I would like to do is celebrate some of the fantastic educators whom I liaise with in the Invercargill electorate. I would like to celebrate and acknowledge again, for the second year running, Invercargill Middle School. The teachers there have been named again in the Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards for their teaching style. Katie Pennicott and Stan Tiatia there have absolutely thrown deficit learning out the door, and they believe in tailoring programmes to meet children’s needs. They spend extra time with them, they look at their needs, and they wrap what is needed around them to make sure that every single individual student achieves. For that they are recognised and for that they are celebrated, and I cannot wait for them to do well, moving forward, as their students continue to achieve.

I would like to acknowledge also Oban school, which came to visit me today, a long way from Stewart Island. But, again, through the remoter communities package, it is doing well, and I celebrate its achievement.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I am thrilled to rise on behalf of “team New Zealand First”. I think what we have seen here in the House—and the public needs to notice it—is that the National Government is still stuck in the first-past-the-post environment. It continues to refer to “the Opposition this” and “the Opposition that”. That is the Labour Party it is talking about. The New Zealand First team is cohesive and we are future-focused, not just in here but also out there, as we climb up the polls.

This is a three-way race, this election. Have no doubt, this is a three-way race, and while those two parties are bickering, New Zealand First is getting on with the job. New Zealand First is getting on with talking about and creating education policy that actually works for education, and creating economic policy that actually works for our businesses. We are not buying into this back-and-forward slanging rhetoric; we are actually on the hustings, talking to those businesses, and talking to the real-life, practical solutions that we need to do to make Government work for New Zealand.

Last week I was at Warkworth Primary School. Many other members of Parliament were also asked to walk a day in the shoes of support staff, and I was at Warkworth Primary School. I find it fascinating—and Ms Dowie just remarked—that there is now another $34.7 million somewhere that this Government pulled out of a bucket after cutting, in 2009, all the specialist support staff for schools because it wanted to put in national standards.

Sarah Dowie: You didn’t listen, again—two ears, one mouth, Tracey.

TRACEY MARTIN: You may not know this, Ms Dowie. That is all right. You may not know what has actually happened, but in 2009 your Government cut the funding, and now the failures are showing. It left children out there.

We have got a little 5-year-old at Warkworth Primary School who has got type 1 diabetes. He gets funded by your Government for 21 hours. He is at school for 30 hours. He will go into a diabetic coma if he is not monitored all the time, but, somehow, Ms Dowie, your Government believes it is appropriate to fund him for only 21 hours.

Sarah Dowie: Eleven billion dollars into the education budget—$11 billion.

TRACEY MARTIN: Your Government has no idea what it is doing. That $11 billion is for property, Ms Dowie, and for charter schools. Nearly $1 million—$900,000—was taken by the sponsors of Vanguard Military School and given to a private company. How do you justify that, Ms Dowie? You make statements, platitudes, inside this House while knowing nothing and while walking around and swallowing the rhetoric that Mrs Kaye and Ms Parata feed you. Invest in your own education, Ms Dowie. Invest in your own education, because that is what New Zealand First will be doing.

Let us talk about the intensive wraparound service that this Government says—and Ms Parata stood up in this House and said that there is nobody on the waiting list for the intensive wraparound service. What she neglected to tell Parliament and the people of New Zealand was that, actually, at the beginning of this year the intensive wraparound service sent a message out to all the schools in New Zealand and said: “There’s no more room. Don’t apply.” So there is no waiting list because “There’s no more room. Don’t apply.”

That is a little piece of information the New Zealand public should know, and the reason why? The reason why this Government decided to reach into this bucket over here, which suddenly, magically, has got all this money in it, even though National has said for almost a decade now that there is no more money. It reached into this bucket because parents realised. Parents came with their special-needs children to the select committee and said “The system is failing. The Government said ‘We’re not putting any more money into it.’ ”, and those members over there know it because they articulated that statement. The Government was putting no more money into it. Suddenly, there was an uproar. Parents got up on their feet and started to make noise, and, suddenly, this Government found $34 million.

We had Pat Newman up in Northland making a call to newspapers because we have got children with knives threatening to kill themselves and others, and this Government originally said: “Call the police.” It originally said: “Call the police.” Now it has found some money, but is that not a shame? The polling—the polling.

I say to the New Zealand public that New Zealand First is the cohesive team that you need for the 2017 election. We will lead this Government after 23 September, so keep coming to us, voters of New Zealand. Keep coming to us. Look to our policies. Talk to our people, because both of those parties have let you down.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): A very wise political leader once said that a house divided against itself will not stand. What we see when we look across to the Labour Opposition is confirmation of a modern truism, in my view, which is that a party that is divided against itself will never lead. I repeat that for all of you who are wanting to hear it: a party divided against itself will never lead.

I have looked across at the Labour Party and assessed those members over the last 2 or 3 weeks with their list debacle, both in terms of trying to get somebody with slightly independent thought on to their list—then to demote him against his expectations—and the management of that within their party; and the charter schools performance in the last 24 hours, where they have two or three people in their party who hold the view that, actually, you know, it is quite right to have children and parents at the centre of their thinking. But, no, the captain’s call has come over the top and said: “No, we’re going to back the teacher unions and the unions over the parents and the students.” And, of course, we have heard the suggestion of Māori prisons. Again, that has been kiboshed from the top. I am sorry, there is no—

Louisa Wall: You can take it. You can implement it. Go for it.

TODD MULLER: You can put on a forced smile when you come here, when the Labour Party speaks here for every hour at question time. You can feign energy to the extent that, as a caucus, you might have it, but at the core is the fundamental truth that you are divided within yourselves. You do not have leadership, you do not have a united vision, and the rest of the country can see it.

The National Party, over the last 8½ years, can be defined by competence and professionalism. To the New Zealanders who may be watching this today, I accept that not everything we have done over the last 8½ years will have got your support, but I bet that in your heart of hearts you know that when you apply the challenge and criteria of competence, professionalism, and the ability to navigate the country through difficult times and deliver for the majority of New Zealanders, there is only one party that can deliver, and it has delivered over the 8½ years. In your heart of hearts, those who are watching will know that the Labour Party simply does not have the inherent coherence and collective view to be able to mount an effective campaign.

I am very, very proud of the record that this Government takes into the election, and that in particular is going to be enforced by what we hear over the next 2 weeks, when the Budget comes out. The fact that we can sit here after what the world has gone through, and what a number of economies are still going through, and talk to the second or third year of surpluses and a number of surpluses going in front of us; the fact that we are able to spend an extra $11 billion on infrastructure, which will mean $23 billion of infrastructural spending over the next 3 years on roads, on hospitals, and on schools; the fact that we have 252,000 New Zealanders involved in the construction industry and we have got 45,000 New Zealanders involved in apprenticeships; and the fact that we have an economy that is performing in the top two or three in the world—that gives us choices. The fact is that this Government—the National Government—can apply those choices to the benefit of all New Zealanders, we can look to retire debt, and we can look to invest in the social needs of this country. We are not underpinned by an old idea of the winners on the social stage being those who spend the most, but we are a party that can apply a logic around how to invest, from a Government agency perspective, in partnership with NGOs, to actually deliver a real outcome.

This is a party that is prepared to be able to put its money where its mouth is in that respect and to be able to do it in a considered way that delivers real outcomes. When you overlay that—the level of competence and professionalism that we have seen as we have run through into the start of this year—I think the contrast is extraordinary. When you pivot to the city that I, along with Simon Bridges, have the privilege of representing, which is Tauranga and the wider Western Bay of Plenty, the sense of momentum and optimism and ambition that the city is experiencing at the moment is extraordinary. There are high levels of migration, high levels of employment, high levels of labour participation, and some of the lowest times of applicants for jobs that we have ever seen. It is an extraordinary time to be part of a community that is so upbeat, so confident about their future, and I am very sure of and very supportive of another 3 years of a National-led Government. Thank you.

JAN LOGIE (Green): On the back of hearing how great the economy is for New Zealanders, I want to lay down a challenge for this Government: I want it to turn its economy to working for women. When this Government first came to power, one of the first things it did was shut down the gender pay equity employment unit within the State Services Commission, and it stopped plans to end the underpayment—otherwise called “exploitation”—of school support staff, amongst other women workers in the Public Service. There was a brief moment ahead of the 2011 election, in the wake of public outrage over a business leader suggesting that women get paid less because we bleed and have babies, when John Key strode through the outrage to say that National would have a look at the bill I have in front of the House this evening.

But then the Government intervened on behalf of the employers when it came up against Kristine Bartlett and her union and other caregivers wanting equal pay. It was only when court after court ruled in favour of those women that the Government decided it was time to start negotiating their fair pay. So we need to be clear that, up to this point, this Government has been no friend to women.

The Government was forced to settle with caregivers, and there is no mistaking that this is a phenomenal victory that will go down in the history books—a victory for working women. But I have to say that it is not pay equity, and that is explicit in the agreement in the settlement. The money will still be phased in over 5 years, and this is despite the Employment Court ruling that economic arguments were used to justify slavery and, as such, were not appropriate considerations when it came to ending the exploitation of women’s labour. The Government ignored that point and all of the options that were available to it to immediately end the exploitation of those incredibly hard-working people.

But on the heels of all the amazing energy around that settlement and the public congratulations, the Government has now put out the draft for its new equal pay legislation. And you might hope that that would continue on in the vein of that settlement, but no. What it does is make it harder for women coming afterwards to get equal pay. This bill overturns a key court ruling. It introduces an additional criterion that women will have to prove in order to be able to make their case, it only allows women access to employer information once they have proven the merit of their claim, it removes the standard right for back pay if the dispute is resolved by determination, and, not to mention, it restricts the right to strike for pay equity.

The Government says it wants to make it easier for women to claim pay equity without having to go to the court, but it is neglecting the fact that this settlement for the Kristine Bartlett case was not made in the court. It was made through negotiation, proving that the decisions of the Employment Court actually work in the environment of the Employment Relations Act. So why is the Government messing with this model, which has delivered? This ruling is how the 55,000 women got paid more, and now the Government is seeking to undermine those very rulings that are delivering for women, just like it did with family carers.

So tonight, in this House, my member’s bill is coming up for a vote, and tomorrow consultation on the Government’s dodgy draft bill will close. The Green Party is fighting for women to be paid more, with real solutions that will make a difference. This is an opportunity for the Government to do something to be on the side of women for once. The Government had to settle the equal pay claims of Kristine Bartlett and 55,000 others—it had no choice. Now the Government has a choice on two bills, and the choice needs to be for women.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Well, the last few weeks have been utterly disastrous for the New Zealand Labour Party, and I take three key things away from the debacle over partnership schools and its list. I take away that, first, Labour is hopelessly internally divided; secondly, Andrew Little has absolutely no authority over his own caucus; and, thirdly—and most importantly—Labour is not ready to govern this country.

Let us start with internal division. Nowhere is this better evidenced than in the absolute debacle over partnership schools. It is easy to forget that this controversy inside the Labour Party has a long history. It is not just from the last few days and weeks. Kelvin Davis lost his associate education spokesmanship for attending a partnership school fund-raiser in defiance of his leader. Peeni Henare went with him, as well.

Why is it that a lot of Māori MPs inside the Labour Party want to support partnership schools? Because they know they are making a difference. They are working. They are targeting young Kiwis who have traditionally missed out on the educational advantages that others enjoy. It is a new model of school and an innovative approach to tackling educational disadvantage, and it just staggers me that the social democratic party—or, at least, the allegedly social democratic party—that is the Labour Party cannot get on board with something as progressive and as equitable as partnership schools. The biggest proponent of partnership schools worldwide was Barack Obama. They have been implemented in democratic states around the United States, and the Labour Māori caucus knows they are working.

Then we get to Willie Jackson, who said “I truly believe in the partnership school model.”, and who criticised the Labour education spokesperson, Chris Hipkins, and gave him an E for his bill that purported to shut down partnership schools. As Peeni Henare said, why would you want to stop something that is working? He said that that is the bottom line. So Labour is hopelessly internally divided.

Chris Hipkins said: “Don’t worry; the policy is crystal clear.” Well, it is clear as mud. Willie Jackson, who is going to potentially—if is he ranked high enough—enter the Labour Party caucus after the election, runs a partnership school and Peeni Henare goes to fund-raisers for partnership schools, but Chris Hipkins says they will be closed down and Andrew Little says: “I can’t answer that for you. I just don’t know.” So those members’ policy is not crystal clear. It is as clear as mud.

But it is not just about partnership schools. Whether it is Māori prisons, with Adrian Rurawhe and Peeni Henare and Kelvin Davis backing the policy and Andrew Little going against it, or whether it is Poto Williams writing press releases with public relations companies against Labour Party candidates—I will just repeat that; a member of the Labour Party caucus hired a public relations company to write a press release about a future, putative member of the Labour Party caucus—those guys are hopelessly divided. They are a festering cesspit of hate and hostility.

The second takeaway from the last few weeks is that Andrew Little has no authority over his caucus. He has been writing cheques to people that they cannot bank. He told Willie Jackson he would be ranked in the top 10 on the Labour Party list. Well, that did not come true. He told Trevor Mallard that he would be ranked in the top five and he is only in the 30s—that has not come true. He has been rebutting Kelvin Davis. He has been rejecting the advice of all of his spokespeople. Kelvin Davis is the Labour Party’s corrections spokesperson, who feels it is OK to freelance on corrections policy and have it denied by his leader, but that has not stopped other members of the Labour Party caucus coming out in support of him.

These guys cannot run a coherent policy, they cannot run a stable Opposition, and that is actually the third and most important point—the Labour Party is fundamentally not ready to govern this country. I echo what my colleague and friend Todd Muller said earlier, which is, basically, that if you cannot run yourselves, how can you expect people in the country to vote for you?

The New Zealand people are not going to vote for the rabble that is the current Labour Party. I will just repeat what has happened in the last few days: you have Labour Party spokespeople issuing press releases about candidates for office, opposing them; you have complete internal division over what those members’ policy is on partnership schools; and you have spokespeople criticising other spokespeople. That is not a party that is ready for Government, and that is why on 23 September, I am confident that the New Zealand people will vote for the return of the strong, stable Bill English - led Government.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I seek leave under Standing Order 358 to make a personal explanation in relation to matters raised by the previous speaker in relation to me.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection for that personal explanation? There is not.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Chris Bishop, when he was speaking, indicated that Andrew Little had given me a specific undertaking with regard to a list position; that is not true.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to speak as the last speaker in this general debate. I actually want to start with a quote from our Prime Minister, Bill English, and it is about social investment: “intervening early to help the most at-risk people lead better lives and become more independent.” That is the social investment philosophy, which then begs the question: who is the most at risk?

I would like to highlight some information from Youthline that was presented in 2016. What Youthline told us was that 150 young people a week are missing out on help. That is 7,800 children and young people who are calling Youthline every year, who are missing out on help. Those who are suffering from extreme depression have risen from 6,909 to 14,996. That is a 117 percent increase. Those who are suicidal have gone from 7,241 to 8,291. That is a 15 percent increase in young people who are suicidal.

Interestingly enough, if you look at who supports Youthline, 60 percent of its funding comes from grants and philanthropic donors, 20 percent from partners and sponsors, and 20 percent from general fund-raising. The Government is not mentioned there. I would have thought that people who ring Youthline are actually those most at risk. And why is it relevant? It is relevant because 579 New Zealanders between July 2015 and June 2016 committed suicide. New Zealand has a shocking suicide rate, and some, like Nicky Stevens and Shaun Gray, unfortunately, died in mental health wards within our district health boards.

We have got a huge problem, and it seems that the Government will only intervene if you fit its criteria. Markers for being at risk, from its perspective of its social investment, are that you have some sort of Child, Youth and Family involvement; that you are supported by a benefit from birth; that you have a parent in prison or on community service; and that you have a mother who has no formal qualifications. Well, I wonder how many of those 7,800 children and young people who ring Youthline every year, whose needs are not met, meet that criteria. At the moment, the Government does not care. It does not care about those 7,800 young people not receiving the support that they need.

I want to highlight ActionStation—particularly, Marianne Elliott—and its people’s review of the public mental health system. It actually launched it on 5 September last year, and it launched it because it wanted to find out about people’s experiences of our mental health system—family’s experiences, people themselves, and mental health professionals. It had over 500 people take the time to make a submission to say how the mental health system treated them. For 93 percent of those 500 people, it was a shocking experience, it was a terrible experience, and their needs were not met.

What did some of them say about that? Well, actually, one of the women who was contacted, Lou—whom we all know; some of us are Facebook friends of hers—said that she got some pharmacological support. They gave her some mental health drugs, but she was offered no counselling and got no support. I know that in her experience—and she has shared this publicly—there were times when she wanted to end her own life. She ended up at the Wellington public hospital and waited for hours on end before she had access to a mental health professional. Lou is still with us, but she is with us, I believe, because of people who are passionate about the mental health service in New Zealand. The people from ActionStation and the people who have participated in the people’s review are standing up and making a stand and holding this Government to account.

I think that our suicide statistics are something that is a national shame, and it is a shame that we continue to ignore. I agree that we should have and we should reinstate, as the Mason report recommended in 1996, the Mental Health Commission. We disestablished that commission in 2012. We ended up with the Mental Health Commissioner, who is attached to the Health and Disability Commissioner, and, to be fair to him, he is looking at individual cases. But that is not reforming the system. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Arbitration Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 12 April.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Actually, it is a pleasure to follow on from the speaker who has just resumed her seat, Louisa Wall, because this takes us back to when we left off, I think, on the last members’ day, when she had just made a very constructive contribution on this bill, my Arbitration Amendment Bill, and I was responding to some of the very useful and constructive points that she had made, including that the arbitration system in New Zealand is, generally, set up very well.

We are one of the least corrupt places in the world. In fact, we have been rated by Transparency International as the least corrupt country in terms of public sector perceptions of corruption; that includes our judicial systems, our courts, our police, and all of those very fine people who keep this a good and safe country to live in. Also, the member had pointed out that we base our arbitration framework on the model law, adopted in 2006, created by the United Nations to provide a model for best practice, and that we ratified the 1958 New York Convention on the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. So we are, generally, a good system when it comes to arbitration.

But there are a couple of small issues that do need to be resolved. It really did surprise me that the New Zealand First spokesperson did not agree with the submission of the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand—a very, very fine institution—on some key issues. For instance, the presumption of confidentiality—and this would be a rebuttable presumption—is something that is required. I will give a couple of examples that it cited in a memorandum that was circulated to all members of this House and to all parties, and I would be surprised if the New Zealand First spokesperson, who is usually very assiduous, had not actually read it.

There would be a number of cases that we could refer to that have seen family trusts go into the courts and actually cause great public hurt, pain, and further suffering for families who are already grieving. The three recent disputes that it cites are the estates of Michael Erceg; the very fine judge, the late Sir Robert Chambers, who contributed so much to this country in his judicial capacity; and Hugh Green. These were bereaved families who did have a dispute over the settlement of the trust and the estates of those people.

It is far better that these sorts of matters are dealt with in a respectful and a private way. It is, frankly, nobody else’s business, and to have these matters dragged through the courts because a rebuttable presumption of confidentiality does not exist, in my view, is actually cruel, and it is something that we should change. This is in line with the global trend towards the arbitration ability of trust disputes, and this is evidenced by the International Chamber of Commerce laying this out in its standard clauses, which it publishes, and also by a recent decision in the New South Wales Court of Appeal. So I think this is a good bill, and I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Arbitration Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 107

New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee.

Bills

Youth Employment Training and Education Bill

First Reading

Darroch Ball: Mr Assistant Speaker, I move that—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No, no. You say “Mr Assistant Speaker”; I say “Darroch Ball”.

Darroch Ball: Mr Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Your turn now.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): I move, That the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider the bill. If the House wants an opportunity to understand what genuine social investment is, it need not look any further than the Youth Employment Training and Education programme, or YETE programme—what it offers, whom it targets, and why the House must vote for it, at least to see it through to select committee.

At present there are 90,000 young people aged between 15 and 24 who are not engaged in education, employment, or training, otherwise known as “neets”. There is no denying that is a colossal number, not least for its rather alarming increase, given there were 71,000 youth in this position just a year ago. It is a number that is a cost to the public finances to the tune of millions of dollars a year through lost earnings and costs to mental, justice, and social services. All we are asking is for just a fraction of that cost to be truly invested with some common sense before they become disengaged, before they leave school with no skills, before they leave with no qualifications, and before many of them leave with no hope.

Unemployed, disengaged youth numbers have never dropped below pre-2008 levels. We are not getting it right. Of the young people who spend a majority of their youth disengaged, almost 40 percent end up accessing mental health services, more than a third are sentenced to a custodial or community sentence, and over 40 percent end up on a benefit for more than 5 years at some stage in their life. If ever there was a cohort of candidates for proper, proactive social investment, this is it. We are not getting it right for our country, and we are not getting it right for our young people. These high numbers of youth in this situation result in high youth unemployment, with other various social issues, both immediately for them and throughout their futures, all of which drains the country’s social service resources. People who access a benefit as a teenager make up 70 percent of New Zealand’s future welfare liability. We need to act before they become disengaged and before they are reliant on the State.

There is a certain number of youth who have little or no direction, who struggle to establish goals or to develop formal, positive, and progressive career pathways. These youth can struggle academically and socially. Within the formal education pathway, there is potential for these youth to exhibit antisocial behaviours, including truancy, disobedience, and other anti-establishment traits. The evidence, data, and research show specifically that the activity rates of teenagers who began their first long-term “neet” spell at 15, 16, or 17 were slower to recover. It is a vitally important developmental age bracket, 15 to 17. They need another option. With 90,000 “neets”, whatever is currently happening is simply not working.

The Youth Employment Training and Education Bill introduces a voluntary pathway that ensures that they still gain a basic level of literacy and numeracy but that the individual is developed to their potential and prepared for adulthood beyond 18 years of age. This opportunity aims to increase the number of young people entering employment or training by improving their self-discipline, self-confidence, motivation, and initiative within a culture of respect, cooperation, teamwork, and tolerance. Through this bill, we wish to demonstrate the value of learning that is not specifically geared towards academic pathways and to address the pressing needs of those youth.

New Zealand First is proposing an employer-led, full-time employment option through the Ministry of Social Development in partnership with the New Zealand Defence Force. Youth between the ages of 15 and 17 will be able to leave school, as they can now, and move directly into this programme. At 15 they will still need parental permission to do so, as they do now. However, this is not just for youth who are still at school. This is for all youth of that age who believe this programme would be the best fit for them, targeting those youth currently unemployed and disengaged. The Defence Force currently has a youth development unit that has an existing arrangement with the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Education, and the Tertiary Education Commission. We intend to use the same purpose and basic structure of the existing Defence Force youth courses to create a larger and expanded social-service, full-time employment programme.

Currently, the Defence Force runs the Limited Service Volunteer, or LSV, scheme on behalf of Work and Income. It allows 17- to 24-year-olds to attend a residential course in the army environment for 6 weeks. This is a highly successful course, targeting those youth who are disengaged from other formal pathways. YETE will expand and fully fund the army’s youth development unit, where it will run the residential full-time employment programme over 3 years. It will encompass apprentice trades, including, amongst others, automotive, building, construction, and hospitality trades, as well as non-apprenticed vocational training, including, amongst others, driver and trailer licences, non-apprentice hospitality skills, and skills in support services. Life skills training will also be included, in areas such as health and safety, first aid, civics, ethos and values, and physical training—all within the army environment.

Throughout this programme, participants will be paid a training wage, where they will be expected to pay for their own board and food but have a portion of their wages placed in a savings account as part of their overall pay. Local governments and community organisations will utilise the programme to complete community work, which will give these youth a sense of ownership and belonging within their communities. Finally, there will be an expectation for graduates to remain in New Zealand and work for 2 or 3 years, along with a 12-month post-programme incentive for employers of graduates that will form part of the current existing flexi-wage scheme.

The initial costings per individual for this programme are approximately the same cost as for employing a full-time private soldier in the army, with obvious huge potential for both fiscal and social cost savings in the future. It makes both social and long-term economic sense. New Zealand First is seeking an initial pilot scheme of a few hundred youth to attend this programme. That means the current infrastructure can handle this level of expansion; it is existing and ready to be used. The infrastructure is there, the demand for a programme like this is there, and all we need to do is implement it.

With this bill, there is direct potential to improve the percentage of youth who are unemployed and disengaged. It has been identified that 15- to 17-year-olds who experience a “neet” spell will likely have one again after they are 20 years old. What is needed is proactive investment before they become inactive. These youth will have the ability to become trade experienced whilst being paid, and paid work plays an important role in social well-being. For many young people, income from paid work has a major effect on their standard of living, provides financial independence, and allows them to save for the future.

Feedback we have received from organisations such as Business New Zealand, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association, careers guidance organisations, youth workers, and people who have experienced apprenticeship training in the Defence Force has shown the potential benefit of this programme and the need for it to go to a select committee. Many young people and parents I have spoken with have told me that they wish they had a programme like this for their kids, or even for themselves.

All that New Zealand First is asking for is a chance for this programme’s true potential to be discussed, dissected, and submitted on in a select committee. It will be the first step that needs to be taken if all parties in this House are genuine and even searching for solutions for our youth. This will not solve the entire issue of 90,000 disengaged and unemployed youth, but it has the potential to save a good number of them from starting the spiral of dependence on the State and a lifetime of problems stemming from the current failure of the system, which is simply not letting them get a fair start and not letting them get a fair go.

Importantly, this is not just another army boot camp. It is based on the working and successful LSV model, which has been proven to work and which this Government has identified works for these young people. Essentially, all we are wanting is some real investment in expanding the reach of what a programme like this can achieve. This is not just another boot camp; it is an employer-led, full-time employment training pathway. It will give those youths an opportunity to start their lives skilled and ready, an opportunity that they currently simply and demonstrably do not have. Every party in this House should vote in favour of this bill, and in doing so they will be acknowledging that, at the very least, it is worth the discussion. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call Joanne Hayes, I am going to—I chose not to interrupt the member under Speakers’ ruling 53/4, which is regarding the reading of speeches. I think the member—we are in the third year of this Parliament, and therefore the inexperienced-member exemption does not apply. While it is a very important matter and I know that the member cares deeply about it, it is not a deeply technical matter. There were not lots of figures or quotes or anything like that in his speech, and therefore I just want to warn the member that when he has another shot, in an hour’s time: please do not read your speech.

JOANNE HAYES (National): Before I start my contribution, I just want to congratulate Darroch for having his bill, the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill, pulled out of the ballot. As I was sitting here listening to the member Darroch Ball’s contribution, it almost harked right back to many, many years ago, when you could join the army at the age of 16 and you could, from there, start off on the basics and move your way through to a career if you wanted to. It does hark back to those times. I have a brother-in-law who is in his fifties now, and he was recruited into the army when he was 16 years old. But things have moved on since then, and I know that the army does require that recruits who are recruited into the army do actually have NCEA level 2 in education to do with English and mathematics. They do require that.

My brother-in-law is now a commissioned officer. He started out, as I said, as a lance corporal and moved right through. He became a non-commissioned officer, and then he became a commissioned officer. One of the things that he has said to me, on numerous occasions, is that he would like to make sure that young people who are coming into the armed forces do have basic education abilities and qualifications.

When we start to look at this bill, we are looking at a starting age of 15 years old, while the legal age to leave school is 16 years old. If we start looking at young people at the age of 15, say, going in under this bill and being recruited into the armed forces, we are requiring the armed forces to pick up an almost custodial positioning within the organisation. That does require extra support for the young people who are going in. They will have many other issues besides the issue of actually getting into the armed forces and being woken up at 5 o’clock in the morning and being told that if they get into trouble they are going to be sweeping that court with a toothbrush in the wee hours of the morning. They are actually going to go through all of those things, and not very many 15-year-olds who are failing in the system will actually accept that. To be honest, they will tell the sergeant major where to go, and that is not what I believe this bill is all about.

I look at the many things this Government has done for youth within the Youth Guarantee programme. That is for 16- to 19-year-olds. We are all very familiar with what this Youth Guarantee scheme is all about: it is about supporting young people to get qualifications at NCEA level 2. That actually helps to put in a base for them—an educational base—that they can launch off from. This is a Government that provides all of the tools and the background so that young people can launch into their careers—into whatever career they want to do.

There are also opportunities that this Government has put in place for young people, such as the Gateway programme. My son went on the Gateway programme. He went into carpentry. He went in and tried his hand at carpentry, and he came out with some amazing skills. He ended up not working in that area, but it opened a door for him so that he could actually start aiming his education towards the area he is best at, which is working with his hands. We also have service academies. These service academies are put in place for young people to go in and have a go at whatever service they want to try their hand at. They have an opportunity to opt out if they find they get to a certain point and find out that it is not really for them.

We have a number of other opportunities that have been offered to young people that start them out as little wee cadets. They can move up and through—and it is usually through the air force base. They can start in the community and work their way through. It is called the Cadet Corps, and it is voluntary for the young people. It helps parents to move their children towards those particular fields, and it acts as another pathway into an area of one of the three armed forces.

This bill actually deals only with the army; it does not deal with the air force or the navy—it does not do that. This is what the member is actually saying—he talked about the army. There is also trade training. These programmes offer some amazing opportunities for Māori and Pasifika within the building area. When I look at and turn my face towards Christchurch, and we start looking at focusing on that area, we have Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, which offers trade training for young Māori, who can join up and become building apprentices. As we know, Christchurch has had great need for builders, and we had to train some young people into the building trade. Māori trade training has been able to offer them that. They also offer pastoral care for those Māori students as well.

As another example, I used to work for a seafood industry training organisation many years ago, and we had various polytechnics and providers that supported young people into the seafood industry, to train either as deckhands or as fisher people on the boats or on shore. One of the biggest areas that they had to put together was a pastoral care programme that looked after these young people so that they could successfully progress through. That is what this bill is actually asking for: it is asking for the armed services to put together not only custodial care but pastoral care around these young people.

We also look at New Zealand Apprentice. A big area that we have reintroduced back in is New Zealand Apprentice, because, at one stage, we trained a lot of people in academia and we got lots and lots of people with qualifications at university and tertiary level, but we forgot about the trade training area. This is how the New Zealand apprenticeship schemes came about.

Those are some of the things that the Government has come along and put in to support young people into positions. When I start to look at some of the unintended consequences—that is, this thing about offering this programme to 15-year-olds when we know that the compulsory school-leaving age is 16—what this bill is actually doing is encouraging young people to leave school at 15: “It’s OK, we’ll look after you. We’ll just throw you on this programme.” It is not a very good message. And what about young people who want to enter the army and have to go through and sit all the exams to get into the army, yet 15-year-olds can just trot on in there through this bill.

I have already talked about the New Zealand Defence Force having to have extra people around to support the young people in whatever pastoral care they need, but, I guess, really, the areas of concern are some of the contractual implications with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD)—that MSD would have with the New Zealand Defence Force, also additional to the Limited Service Volunteer programme that we have got. There are also the cost implications. I think the member said the cost is a fraction. Well, I do not think a cost of around $23.4 million is a fraction; I think it is a lot of money. I am saying to the member that you will need to go back and redo and have a look at the actual programme and the bill that you are proposing here in the House today, because there are so many holes and gaps, without any consideration of what is already in place for young people.

As I wind up my contribution today—as I said to the member—I congratulate Mr Ball on having this bill drawn. I think there is more work to go in. There is a lot of pastoral care information that needs to go in. You are trying to take us right back to the 16-year-old recruit from back in the day when my brother-in-law was recruited into the army. He had a long history with the army, and of all the recruits who went in when he went in at 16 years old, you can count on one hand the number of people who stayed in the army past age 30. So it is not an answer to everything, it is not what the member proposes it to be, and I think it sends out some very, very damning messages to our young people.

Darroch Ball: Your National Party policy?

JOANNE HAYES: It does. It sends out some damning messages to our young people, and I think more work needs to be done. That is why I cannot support the bill. Thank you.

JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Labour supports this bill through to select committee. Labour is supporting the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill, by Darroch Ball from New Zealand First, because it believes that addressing the huge issue of those of our young people who are not in education, employment, or training is something that we should seriously have a conversation about. We should actually refer this bill to select committee and talk about the fact that we are not serving too many thousands of our young people. To me, it is a shame that under this National Government, since it came into power in 2008, we have seen an increase in those young people under the age of 24, an increase to over 90,000 people.

The speech that we have just had from National Government member Joanne Hayes, basically, ended—I was waiting and waiting until I heard whether the Government supports this bill or does not support this bill. We did not actually get to that until the very end. To me, it is a shame that the Government is not supporting this bill. Why is it not supporting this bill?

You know, in 2013 one of the sectors in Auckland, the construction and infrastructure sector, came with a report that it did together with Auckland Council. That report was really detailed. The sector presented it to the Minister at the time, who is the finance Minister now, and it was really detailed in that it actually set out that by next year, by 2018, we are going to be short in skilled labour by up to 32,000 people. That is 32,000 people whom we need to build up the city of Auckland, the largest city. These are carpenters, civil engineers, plumbers—you name it.

That was several years ago. We are now in 2017, and what do we see? What has this Government done? Has it actually fixed this issue? Do we have the skilled labour that we need from our own young people here in Aotearoa New Zealand? The answer to that is no. It is no.

Just last week we had another sector, the service sector, come and launch a report here in Parliament, and it told us that in 3 years, by 2020, it projects that it will need 200,000 trained people. Two hundred thousand new jobs—that is great. We celebrate new jobs. But the sector is worried. It is worried about where those trained people will be. I am too. When we have over 90,000 young people under the age of 24—that is, essentially, the population of Palmerston North—who are not trained and not skilled, and we have that many people whom we need in the service sector as well as in the construction and infrastructure sector just in Auckland, we have an issue.

When we have a Government that is not even willing to sit down under a select committee and actually listen and have a conversation about why it is that it is not serving our young people—it is not even willing to do that—we have a problem. The bill that Darroch Ball is proposing is based on the Limited Service Volunteer programme—a programme that we know has 85 percent of enlistees graduate, and a programme that has 60 percent of them then find work. I do not see the sense in why we do not even agree—why the National Government does not even agree—that we should sit down at a select committee and have a conversation about what we should be doing to ensure that many more of our young people are skilled and trained and that many more of our young people are not falling through the cracks, from the compulsory sector through to tertiary education, to apprenticeships, and to employment.

This is something that the National Government should absolutely agree to. We need more of our young people to be trained. We need to ensure more of our young people, especially those who are already being failed by this National Government, get into some training—that they actually get employed. What this bill proposes is one of the solutions. It is a step in the right direction, and it would be a shame if the National Government continued on with not agreeing with this bill that Darroch Ball is proposing. Thank you.

JONO NAYLOR (National): When I was listening to the first speech on this debate from the member sponsoring the bill, Darroch Ball, it felt a little bit like I was sitting in a silversmith’s workshop, watching a craftsman with his lathe fashioning the ultimate silver bullet that was going to fix the woes of New Zealand’s young people who are not in education, employment, or training. It was a very passionate speech; one that, I guess, really highlighted the benefits that have come from the Limited Service Volunteer programme and the benefits there are in military training for young people. That is not what I think any of us are in dispute about today.

I can think of numerous people who have been through military training. I think of my own colleague Andrew Bayly. I think you would look at the fact that he has managed to get to both poles in his lifetime—probably, his military training was useful for that, and other things in his career. Other members of this House, including this bill’s sponsor, have had military training, and it has been very beneficial to them. There is no doubt in my mind that for individuals who undergo military training, there are some benefits.

I also have lived for the last 30-odd years in the city of Palmerston North and over that time have come into contact with many, many people from the New Zealand Defence Force who have been through military training. I look at some of the jobs that they are doing now and cannot disagree with the fact that the training they have had is very, very beneficial, that it equips them for a huge number of different things in their lives. As I said, very good training—very good for our community in Palmerston North, very good in so many ways.

However, there is a little bit of an issue that I have around this particular proposal. The first one is this: to simply say that because a programme that lasts for 6 weeks is successful, we should somehow just say “Oh, well, let’s do it for 150 weeks.”—that therefore, it would be better as well to simply say “Let’s take something based off 6 weeks and do it for 3 years.”—to me, that seems like a little bit of a leap. Why is the magic number 3 years? Why not 12 months? Why not 24 months? Those sorts of things have not necessarily been outlined, and so I think there is—

Darroch Ball: 15 to 18 is 3 years. Wake up, Jono.

JONO NAYLOR: I can do my maths. I can do my maths, but just because—why not let them out when they are 17 or 18?

The issue that I have around this, too, is that introducing something where we are actually promoting young people to leave school at 15 sends a very different message from what we are trying to say at the moment. We are saying to young people: “Stay in school. Keep going to school. Get NCEA level 2.” And I know that the member has said that they would receive literacy and numeracy education to get their NCEA level 2 literacy and numeracy levels done. But it does not necessarily mean that they have achieved NCEA level 2 in its entirety just because they have achieved the literacy and numeracy credits. I think there is potential, under a programme like this, that we actually short-change young people from potentially having the types of broader experience that they might get by remaining in school and potentially going on to other programmes.

I would also have a little bit more sympathy for this programme—because I am not saying that it is a bad programme in its own right—if there was nothing going on in this space already. But there is. As Jo Hayes indicated earlier, there are the Youth Guarantee programmes going on, there is Gateway, there are youth services going on. I know, in particular, the success—again, talking back to the benefits of some of the military training of service academies, I think of Queen Elizabeth College in Palmerston North, where I live, and being able to go and visit that school. I have seen the great work they are doing with the service academy—the great sense of pride that those young people are gaining from the level of training they are getting through the military service academy, the discipline they are learning. But, guess what, they do not have to leave school to achieve that. Just because military-style training is beneficial, it does not mean we have to extract people from a school environment and stick them into another environment for them to receive that.

Finally, 15- and 16-year-olds, in my opinion, are ultimately still better off in their families where possible, where it is applicable, and where it is beneficial for them, rather than being shipped off to go and live somewhere else. I think there are some custodial issues that we would need to address in a programme like this. If we are asking the military to take, sort of, a loco parentis over this situation with these young people, I think that is a lot to ask of it. I will not be supporting this bill, well intentioned though it is.

BARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe, e Te Māngai. I rise to speak about this bill and commend Darroch Ball for introducing it. This is an absolutely important aim, as other speakers have said. The number of young people not in education, employment, or training totals around 90,000; 21 percent of those kids in that cohort are Māori, 17 percent Pasifika, compared with a total of 11.5 percent for the overall population. We note that the number of people who are not in education or training has increased dramatically under this Government. So we commend this bill in terms of coming up with a solution to the problems of unemployment, unrest, crime, violence, and, above all, the waste of the potential talent and the lives of young people. It certainly makes it worthwhile for this House to be considering new initiatives.

The Green Party supports programmes that engage young people: work readiness in order to build skills and confidence, the expansion of apprenticeships and vocational training, providing vocational advice and career guidance, and programmes for participation in work in the community. These are the kinds of programmes that we think are part of the mix that can start to address these problems.

I am also very aware that the concept of boot camps and military training has a long history in New Zealand. We recognise that boot camps were introduced in 1971 but then abandoned in 1981. And the Government’s programme for boot camps in 2009 had a fairly mixed record, shall we say, with a cohort of 40 youth. It was found, in the evaluation, that half of those youth have subsequently reoffended and that, in the 6 months following their leaving the service, 10 youth had committed 126 offences—within 6 months.

By contrast, there have been some positive results from the Limited Service Volunteer programme, which this programme is largely based on. That programme being run by Defence and the Ministry of Social Development has had a number of successes in terms of getting young people into employment. However, there have also been some poor evaluations of it. In particular, in 2003 it was found that teens had been assaulted, abused, and mocked, according to a military police investigation. That gives rise to considerable concern when we are talking about 15- to 17-year-olds, because, as we know, the Limited Service Volunteer programme is for youth of 18 and above.

So we are concerned about introducing 15- or 16-year-olds into the military system, and for that reason and for some of the concerns that come from overseas experience with similar training institutes in the defence forces, we have reservations. We do not think this is necessarily the best option to pursue going forward, although we commend the initiative in addressing this problem. Unfortunately, we are unable to support this bill. Thank you.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): I want to start by congratulating Darroch Ball on his bill being drawn from the ballot, but I am taking this call to oppose this bill. As a great believer in education, I believe that every child should get the opportunity to do well in their life and in education—it could be through a traditional pathway, it could be a vocational pathway through partnership schools, or it could be secondary or tertiary programmes that we deliver through Youth Guarantee programmes. Our education system has been strengthened a lot under this National Government, and we are seeing some really good results. I hear a lot of positive feedback when I am out and about talking to schools, talking to parents, talking to students.

So this bill—Darroch Ball’s bill—the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill, is based on the 6 weeks’ Limited Service Volunteer programme, which is for 17- to 25-year-old people who are on jobseeker support and is delivered through the Ministry of Social Development. That programme is for only 6 weeks, and, yes, we are getting some good outcomes, but there is a big difference: that is for 17- to 25-year-old people.

Darroch Ball’s bill is to allow 15-year-olds—yes, young people; 15-year-old people, who will require parental consent—to take up a 3-year full-time programme with our New Zealand Defence Force. This will be non-deployable, non-combat—that is understood—but what this bill wants to achieve is that these young people will gain numeracy and literacy skill, to at least NCEA level 2, and vocational training while being there. So that part of the bill makes me feel that we are shifting the responsibility for educating our young people from our education system to our New Zealand Defence Force.

The bill does not explain how everything would work. It does not explain the New Zealand Defence Force’s custodial role. It does not tell us what the operational impact on the New Zealand Defence Force will be. It does not tell us what the role of the Ministry of Social Development will be, or how both the Ministry of Social Development and the New Zealand Defence Force will be delivering this programme.

If this bill is just to give better outcomes for young people, we already have several programmes in place, as we have heard from colleagues on this side. We have the Gateway programme to provide work training for young people from year 11, we have service academies to provide more engagement in learning, we have Youth Guarantee to help 16- to 19-year-old young people to achieve NCEA level 2, we have Youth Service, and we have extended Youth Service to 18- and 19-year-old young people. We want to see that these people are in education or in some form of training so that they can get into employment. We have special programmes for Māori and Pacific people. We have Māori and Pacific trades training to help them to get into trade industries, which helps people aged from 16 to 40, and then we have employment programmes for Pacific people.

So there are several programmes available already for these young people, and they are giving us some really good results. Not just that, in education we have communities of learning, which is a new way of helping our young people achieve better in education. About communities of learning: when I am talking to schools in Mount Roskill, where 11 schools are part of the communities of learning, the feedback is great. It is about schools coming together as a group and coming up with shared goals to help students in those schools.

So, talking about the achievements of young people, helping them to do well in life, we have seen a significant increase in the achievements of Māori and Pacific students at NCEA level 2. There are ways, through our education system, that these young people can achieve numeracy and literacy skills through to NCEA level 2. Not just that, it is also about setting good role models for these young people so that they can do well in their lives. Through our social investment approach, we have seen that there are fewer children now in benefit-dependent families. They see the adults around them taking up training courses and going to work, so that helps them to decide what they want to do in their life. So, yes, they understand, by seeing the adults in their family, that they should stay in education because, in the long run, that is going to help them do well in their life.

Overall, I feel that this bill is not thought through properly. There could be some unintended consequences. As some of my colleagues on this side have mentioned, some 15-year-old young people might think that it is very attractive to get into the army instead of staying in school. So that is why I do not support this bill. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call Iain Lees-Galloway, I am going to invite him to do what really the last three speakers have not done, and that is to address the bill. I call Iain Lees-Galloway.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I support the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill at first reading, and I believe that we should take it to select committee. One of the great things about our parliamentary process in New Zealand is that an idea that is perhaps not absolutely perfectly formed, that perhaps needs the input of officials and needs the input of submitters from outside Parliament, where a few things need to be debated and thought through—we can take that idea to a select committee. We can give the public the opportunity to have their say, we can hear from officials, and we can craft a piece of legislation that does the job that is intended by the author of it and that everybody around the House can support.

When listening to the contributions from members opposite, who are voting against this legislation, they have all said that there is an issue here that we need to address. They have all congratulated Darroch Ball on bringing this bill to the House. They have all said that the number of young people who are not in employment or in work or in training is unacceptable. Some of us have been prepared to admit that it has gone up while the National Party has been in Government. And yet we have members opposite who say that they are not going to vote for this bill, which seeks to address that issue, because it might do this or the evidence might not be clear over here.

For members of a party that has put so much stock into charter schools, for which the evidence is very hazy, to say that they are not prepared to support this even to select committee, just because they are not convinced or they think there might be some unintended consequences—I think that is incredibly disingenuous.

The evidence for and against putting young people into military-style programmes is balanced. If you look at the evidence around the world, there is some evidence that putting young people through military-style programmes can improve their employment prospects and can improve their educational outcomes, and there is some evidence that is not quite so strong. It is quite similar, actually, to the level of evidence around charter schools, which that Government is prepared to support.

So let us take the bill to select committee. We do not think this is a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination. But we do think there is an issue here. There are 90,000 young people who are not in school, not in work, and not in some form of training. When we announced our Ready for Work programme, which we think is somewhat analogous to this—the idea of getting young people into a guaranteed 6 months’ worth of work to get them work-ready—there were only 71,000 young people not in work, or in school, or in training. That number has now gone up to 90,000, and it shows absolutely no sign of reversing.

So all the things that the National Party members have listed as the reasons not to support this bill actually are not making a difference. So why not take this one to select committee? Why not acknowledge that we do need to try some different options? Why not acknowledge that the public sector—in this case, in the form of the Defence Force—might actually have the resources to provide an opportunity for young people to turn things around?

What this bill provides for is not a wholesale shift into this programme. It is a pilot programme. It is an opportunity to test out an idea. We can do that at select committee. Even if we pass the legislation, we could do that by testing out this idea by actually putting it in place and seeing whether it works.

But the Government is not even prepared to go to select committee. Why is that? One, because it might actually have to talk about its abject failure to keep young people in school and in work; and, two, because the arrogance of the Government is such that it cannot stand to see an idea from the Opposition actually have an opportunity to fly—to actually have an opportunity to go to select committee and talk about it.

I have not heard one argument from the Government members as to why they are voting against this bill to even go to select committee. I say to the National Government: you are failing 90,000 young people, which is more than the population of my city of Palmerston North, who are not in school, not in work, and have no hope and no opportunities. They have been written off by Bill English as being “pretty damned hopeless”. Here is a bill that offers an opportunity for them. Why will you not vote for it?

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise to take a call to speak against the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill. Can I first acknowledge Darroch Ball for reflecting on the opportunity to connect young people with the benefit of discipline and for putting forward this bill. I acknowledge that he shared with us when he first came here, 2¾ years ago, his own life journey—that the military was a key part of what he believes, looking back, has made him the person he is today. I acknowledge that, and I appreciate that that, no doubt, was no small part in the thinking that he brought to this piece of legislation.

But I do have three or four points that I would like to explore in respect of this bill that underpin why I am not able to support it. Firstly, and this is linked to the previous conversation around how formed or otherwise this bill is, from what I can see—and there is very limited explicit information around this bill—this is hellishly expensive. It could potentially be north of $20 million, even for a pilot for 500-plus people. That is a significant cost, particularly when there is no detailed business case, if you like, to underpin it.

Our side has just been criticised for opposing something that is not perfectly formed. I would counter that by saying that, in my view, there is actually a threshold of working through how the legislation would actually be operationalised and how it would actually work and the associated costs, which it is reasonable to assume has been done as one considers legislation for the first time. In my view, that is absent, and for me, personally, that is part of the reason that I cannot support the bill.

The second issue for me is there have been conversations already this afternoon that the Limited Service Volunteer (LSV) model does work, and it does. It is a short, 6-week programme, and for some of those participants it has been life changing. They have been able to move from that programme after 6 weeks and on to work and full-time work. But there is a significant involvement by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) in picking the individuals who are most likely to succeed within that LSV framework, and there is a significant amount of wraparound services that are provided by MSD for these people as they progress through the 6-week course.

At the core of this bill is a vision that our Defence Force, essentially, has the capability—and, indeed, should prioritise its capability—in providing those wraparound services and support over the 3 years that these students would be required to go through this programme. That is a very large leap, in my view, and one that I do not think is sufficiently substantiated to warrant support through a first reading. Our Defence Force has a very clear mandate and is appropriately focused on delivering that for the benefit of New Zealand. Asking it to participate in a 3-year trial with the level of need that these people inherently require in terms of wraparound services, I think, is a step too far.

Finally, there is the view—it has been expressed, and I agree with it—that in terms of priorities, the No. 1 priority must still remain that we keep our 15-year-olds and 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds at school for as long as possible, to give them the opportunity to get access to as many skills as possible to enable them to move into effective employment. This bill obviously has a lot of passion behind it, but I think that when you reflect on what we are currently doing—the significant number of projects that the Government has in this space, and the intensity that LSV requires in terms of wraparound services—the assumption that that is therefore a model that is best placed for our Defence Force to apply is ultimately flawed, and that is why I will be voting against it. Thank you.

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, otirā, tēnā tātou katoa. It is a pleasure to take a call on the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill, and I congratulate Darroch Ball on bringing this bill to the House. I can share with the House that as I travel around my electorate, youth unemployment is always within the top five issues that people talk to me about all the time. Having 90,000 young people not in any training, employment, or education is an indictment on this National Government, and, actually, I believe that Parliament needs to do something constructive about it. That is why I support this bill. I support it also because we need to be creating new conversations around how we can support communities to support their young people.

I have not heard one single compelling reason why the National Government is not supporting this bill. We need to have a new look at how we are focusing on young people. I believe that we are not doing enough in this country, and that is why this bill—although, yes, maybe it is not perfect, I believe there is sufficient detail within this to go to a select committee, and it could benefit from that process. Most importantly, it is to let the people have their say on this bill, and if there are issues that people have, then they can be addressed, I am certain. I am certain that if Parliament works constructively together, then we can actually address the issue of so many young people being disengaged. We have a looming problem in this country because of that.

There are dire consequences for inaction, and that will be the legacy of the National Government if it continues to do nothing about it, with a Prime Minister that refers to them as “pretty damned hopeless.” We need to address that. I believe that we can work through all of those issues. I believe that we need to invest now in those young people.

There were some points that have been brought up in this debate—for example, that this bill encourages young people to leave school early. That is not the case. The reality is that within those 90,000 young people, a significant number of them are 15-year-olds. My comment on that is that we are not doing enough for those young people. This bill at least provides an avenue for some of them to address that issue. I commend Darroch Ball also because he has actually addressed it within the bill.

This bill proposes to amend the Education Act and to address the issue that a young person of 15 years of age who is not part of this education and training will be considered as though they are in school. My further comment to that is that it is a far better option than having young people sitting at home, doing nothing, and not in any kind of education or training.

We simply cannot afford—our country cannot afford—to have so many young people disengaged from education. We have to do something about it. We have to do it now or, as I have said, we will be creating a legacy of dire consequences for the future. We have heard in this House people complaining about things like incarceration rates. Well, if we do not do anything about it, that is what we are consigning young people and their futures to. We need to address it. We cannot sit idly by. Our future depends upon it—our collective future in New Zealand. I say to the young people of this country: you deserve much, much better. Kia ora.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): I had a very sort of unusual experience just a few minutes ago when I found myself agreeing with a Green Party member—that was with the words of Barry Coates, and I do invite Mr Ball, actually, to address the questions that Mr Coates raised around that programme that was around about 10 or 15 years ago and the failure that that programme was. It is all very well to talk about the Limited Service Volunteer (LSV) programme as being a success, and it is, but that does not mean we can simply just expand it and somehow create greater success; it is quite a different programme. To me, your programme, Mr Ball, looks and smells and seems to be very similar to a programme that has already proven to have failed in the past. So that is the first thing.

The second point I would like to make is that there seems to be, at least in the language in the Bills Digest, some sort of compulsion to participate in this programme if you find yourself as one of these—I think Mr Ball calls these people—“school drop outs who were languishing on the unemployment benefit.” I am not sure that there are 90,000 of them, but nevertheless, in the bill, I read some sort of compulsion. Please clarify: if you cannot make it through to 15 in this case, but let us just say 16 or 17, you are not in a Youth Guarantee scheme, you are not in a Gateway scheme, you like the service academies that are out there—because I am assuming your bill is about voluntary participation in a scheme—you are enjoying the service academies, you have already participated in those, and you are thinking of a career in the military, that is the pathway that I am anticipating as the entry point for these people, for these youth. Then, of course, you did not like the Māori and Pasifika Trades Training Initiative and you failed the Pacific Employment Support Services, or whatever it is.

So I am interested to hear from you, Mr Ball, whether it is compulsory, whether these people have to have failed, or participated in and dropped out of, not just secondary school but also all these other initiatives that the Government has as options for those young people not in education, employment, or training, “neets”, or youth—or even those school-leavers, as they may not even be “neets”. So that is the second point.

The third point is that I am also concerned at the age group that your bill applies to. We have already talked about the pastoral care that would be required. I am assuming—and I apologise if I make the wrong assumptions—that these camps would be in a boarding house situation. You would live on campus, you would get up in the morning, you would run around the block, you would be forced to do 100 sit-ups, and then you would go and do your apprenticeship training, and so on and so forth. So I am concerned about the age of these participants. I believe that we should do everything to keep people in school and that if they are not set up to participate in school, then there are other options, like the charter schools. So I would be interested to hear your thoughts vis-à-vis this bill with regard to charter schools. Is there a role that charter schools can play for the people whom Mr Ball is talking about?

Fletcher Tabuteau: We’ll just stick to this bill.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: No, well, it is a similar—there is no reason why you cannot have a specialised charter school - type call-it-whatever-you-like.

Darroch Ball: Because then it’s not a school.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Mr Ball, your bill does recommend—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Come back.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: —doing training for apprenticeships. You talk about the NCEA and the ongoing education in the camp, in the school, so I do not see it as too dissimilar, especially given the age group that you are talking about.

But, overall, I cannot support this bill, obviously. I think it does feel like a silver bullet, and I think there are a lot of well-intended purposes to the bill, but the way that it is laid out and the end result are not, I believe, what the member is looking for, so I cannot support this bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Darroch Ball—5 minutes in reply.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): Well, how utterly disappointing. I am not disappointed for myself or for the party; I am disappointed for those 90,000 young people who have just seen that the Government cannot even be bothered to take the bill through to the select committee to discuss it. It cannot even be bothered to understand that over the last year the number of those young people not in education, employment, or training, “neets”, has increased by 20,000. It does not even want to discuss it.

What is even more frustrating is this: the question I want to ask every single member of that National Government who stood up is whether they have actually read the bill. Have you read the bill? The second question is: have you seen this? Have the members who have spoken from the National Government backbenches seen this? This is a 10- or 11-page information booklet that was sent out to every single party in this House explaining in detail every single question that they asked.

What we have heard from the Government members is evidence that not only did they not read the bill properly but the front bench obviously failed them in passing on the information booklets that they needed to read as responsible members of Parliament and members of Government to make decisions for the most vulnerable people in our country. They have not done it. Not only did they not read the bill, not only did they not read the information booklet, but they did not listen to my speech. Half of the questions that they have been asking were included in my speech; the rest were covered in the information booklet.

It is a silver bullet, they say. There is no silver bullet. In my speech, I acknowledged that this is not going to solve the entire problem of the 90,000 “neets”, which has been caused by this Government. The levels of unemployed, disengaged youth have never been lower than the pre-2008 levels, and that is a fact. They have increased by 20 percent under this Government. And what did we hear: “Is this compulsory?”. Of course it is not compulsory. If you had been listening, you would have heard that I said it was voluntary—if you had been listening, if you had bothered to listen. What we heard was a whole list of current programmes that this Government is producing for our young people—for our unemployed, disengaged young people. That is a total juxtaposition, as I said in the House yesterday, of the actual reality of what is happening. They do not listen. They do not want to listen to the fact that the number of “neets” has increased under this Government and that the current situation—the current courses that they are offering these young people—is not working.

I acknowledge what the Labour Party members have said: that this is not the perfect bill. We have come out here and said this is not the perfect bill. In no way can it be a perfect bill if we do not go to the select committee, if we do not hear from the experts. But, you know, the people I wanted the Government to listen to are the people I have spoken to, the parents I have spoken to and the young people I have spoken to, over the last year about this bill and just how much they know and how much they wished that their children who are not suited to school, who are not suited to the formal education system that is currently failing them—how anything that the Government is coming up with to help those kids who drop out or get disengaged is not helping them. I wanted them to listen to those submissions, to how they were saying that this is a programme that they wish they had for their young people, that this is a programme that they know their nephew or niece or sister or brother would have absolutely suited. The young people themselves have come to me and said: “I wish there was a course like this.”

I am not making this stuff up. I was a schoolteacher, I was a youth worker in the community, and I was in the army and dealt with young people who came off the bus, spent 6 to 8 weeks in the army on the Limited Service Volunteer training programme, and changed the way that they lived their life because of genuine adult involvement. What we have got is the research and data and information that shows that we need to start this earlier, at 15. That is what this bill would have done, and this National Government has shown that it does not give a damn about those young people.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 45

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

Noes 74

New Zealand National 58; Green Party 14; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Motion not agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 45, Noes 75.

Bills

Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I move, That the Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Government Administration Committee to consider the bill. This bill has its genesis in a similar piece of legislation that was drafted by my former colleague the Hon Shane Jones, who identified a hole in our administration of what is a very core part of holding Governments, Government departments, local governments, and various other agencies of the State accountable to the public, who elect them and who fund them through their taxes. That is, that there is really no financial penalty for the Government departments that drag their feet and deliberately stop the Official Information Act working as it is.

So Shane Jones came up with this idea, which I think is quite a sensible one. It was that the Ombudsman, when the Ombudsman gets a complaint and finds that it is well founded, has the ability to recover their costs—that is, the Ombudsman’s costs—from the Government department. That is what this bill does, in essence, and I want to explain why it is necessary and why this aligns the incentives that those Government departments should be under with the aims of the legislation.

Ombudsmen have been around in New Zealand for quite a few decades now. I think it was 1975 that Ombudsmen were first introduced, or it might have been even earlier—was it in the 1960s? But, in any event, in 1982 the responsibilities of Ombudsmen were extended when the Official Information Act was passed. That was the time when this Parliament said that in order to have properly accountable Governments and Government departments, there should generally be transparency of the documents that they hold and those documents should be able to be accessed by the public by making a request to the central government agency or the Minister’s office, or to local government in the case of local government, and they have got a duty to provide that information to the public, except for some exceptions.

There are some well-seated exceptions. They include that you do not want to destroy the incentive for Government departments to give full and frank advice to their Ministers and you do not want to be forcing Governments to breach legal professional privilege—they have got the right to keep their legal advice confidential. There are some commercial negotiations that also should not be made public, and there are also some exceptions relating to highly personal information. But, other than those exceptions, there is a duty on the Government under the Official Information Act to make that information available to the public.

As things sort of transpire through history, you know, things get distorted. There is a bit of an ebb and flow to these things, and the Official Information Act came in in 1982 because Government was not being open enough. After then, Governments improved, and I think Government departments and Governments have been pretty good overall at complying with the Official Information Act. But none the less you see this slow decline over time, as Governments and Government departments get a little bit less willing to hand over what they should be handing over, and they fight before they hand over the documents and they become obstructive.

Is this happening in New Zealand? Well, I think it is, and I want to give a couple of instances. The number of complaints that the Ombudsman gets is about 3,000 a year, or a bit more than that, but roughly 3,000 complaints a year. Some of those complaints are because the way in which Government departments fight against the disclosure of that information means that it takes many years to overcome. Some of that has been because of underfunding of the Ombudsman, which is in part being fixed because this Parliament voted them more money—not the Government, but this Parliament; that is how the Ombudsman is funded, by a parliamentary vote and not by a Government vote—but none the less there is still a large number of outstanding old Official Information Act requests.

This, in my opinion, is all the more important to fix nowadays, given that the media are so pressed given the collapse of their revenue model. The media now do less investigative journalism than they used to because they have not got the paid staff to do the investigative journalism that they used to be able to sustain before they lost all of their advertising revenue to the internet. That means that they make fewer Official Information Act requests, I would say, and it also means that they are less assiduous in following them up because they just have not got the time to do it. So this makes it all the more important that the Official Information Act works properly. Does it work properly all the time? No, it does not.

What is a recent example? In this House we have recently had what I think was scandalous behaviour in respect of the Saudi sheep saga. We know as a matter of public record that the Auditor-General eventually got to the bottom of it and showed that there was poor practice around multimillion-dollar payments to Sheik Hamood Al Ali Khalaf from Saudi Arabia, and at one stage the Minister appeared in the House and said that we were doing that to settle a legal claim or a legal risk—both of those words were used at different times. So we made requests under the Official Information Act to try to get to the bottom of this because it seemed very unusual for the New Zealand Government to be paying a man $4 million, plus more than a million dollars to fly sheep to a farm in the desert, plus about another $6 million on that farm. You know, it was a lot of money, it just did not make sense, and it had been hidden from the public.

So we went about making our inquiries. We had all sorts of difficulties getting to the bottom of that. You know, even to this day I do not have a lot of the documents. We have given up because, of course, the Auditor-General, essentially, got to the bottom of it, but we actually did not get to the bottom of it through the Official Information Act. When documents were eventually released, they were released in this great gush of documents that was a pile about 5 inches long—and it is good that those documents were released—but they were full of redactions and those redactions did not make sense. Those redactions said things like “commercial sensitivity”. Commercial sensitivity of a negotiation that has finished? How can that be when there were only two parties? It is not like there was some open tender where people would be disclosing their methods of how they would compete for contracts. There was only one party involved, the deal had been done, and the money was being paid.

Well, you know, those redactions—we appealed to the Ombudsman. Did we get satisfaction through there? No, we did not. Was that the Ombudsman’s fault? Well, perhaps in part. I am not criticising the current Ombudsman, but, you know, they did not jump to it as fast as I would have liked, partly because they were so pressed with all of the other ones that they are dealing with.

If you create an incentive that you can ping the Government department that is being obstructive, well, for a start, you have got more money for the Ombudsman to follow through what needs to be followed through, and if there are too many of those things that are not being complied with by the Government, then the Ombudsman will get more and more money to do what needs to be done and could take on some more staff.

But, as importantly, that would be a trigger for this Parliament, through a select committee, to say to those Government departments: “Why is it that you keep getting pinged for costs by the Ombudsman? You’re obviously not complying with the Official Information Act. We don’t think that’s good enough.” So this Parliament would be putting accountability mechanisms on the chief executives of the Government departments, who can cause this to be done properly.

Final point: the other thing that has gone wrong recently in New Zealand—and this is not just under the current Government. It happened under the prior Government as well, but there is a slide whereby it gets worse year by year. It is that there has been this corruption—not “corruption”; I do not mean that. There has been this over-extension of the no-surprises doctrine. The no-surprises doctrine is now being used to say: “Oh well, actually, nothing should happen that Ministers don’t like or that is going to embarrass the Government.”

That is not how the Official Information Act is meant to work. Government departments ought not to be seeking permission from their Minister’s office to release something; they should be doing their duty. They might tell their Minister that it is happening, but they should not be seeking approval to do it, or negotiating through ministerial advisers and Government departments for that to happen. I know that that is happening, we all know that that is happening, and it needs to be stamped out.

Some overseas jurisdictions criminalise that. They say that it is a criminal offence for the Government department to negotiate with the powers that be above them before they meet their duties under the Act. That would have been one approach and, you know, maybe we should look at that as a country.

This approach is less harsh than that, but none the less I think it is worthy. It will assist the media to do their job, it will assist members of Parliament to do their job, and it will assist interested members of the public to get the information that they, by law, are entitled to. It is not changing the legal test as to when information is able to be legitimately withheld. It would aid in the proper implementation of the Official Information Act.

Debate interrupted.

Voting

Correction—Youth Employment Training and Education Bill

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Before I call the next member, there is a correction to the vote on the Youth Employment Training and Education Bill. The correct vote should be those in favour 45, opposed 74. The record will be amended accordingly.

Bills

Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa, tēnā koutou katoa. It is a pleasure to rise to take a call on the Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill in this first reading debate, and I want to begin by firstly congratulating the member David Parker on having his bill drawn and, actually, on the constructive and well-reasoned approach that he takes to all measures but to this bill in particular, which I am sure is a very, very well-intentioned piece of legislation.

I think it is important to reflect on the fact that New Zealand is well served by our Ombudsmen. It was a very positive innovation when it was brought into place here in 1975, well ahead of many equivalent jurisdictions. We took, I guess, some guidance from our friends in Scandinavia, which are also countries that are rated very, very highly in terms of good governance, a lack of corruption, and transparency of Government.

I think it was Denmark that first introduced an Ombudsman in 1955—so, 20 years before New Zealand introduced this. And, of other countries with which we might compare ourselves, for instance, Canada, another common law jurisdiction with Her Majesty the Queen as head of State—at the provincial level, it began to introduce ombudsmen, or officers equivalent to an Ombudsman, such as an inspector-general or a public advocate. The term parliamentary commissioner is also used and reflects a similar functionality. The provinces of Canada introduced ombudsmen throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.

But we were certainly ahead of our Australian friends, who introduced them a year after us in 1976, the Austrians in 1977, and other countries such as Barbados, which waited until 1980. The Belgians did not introduce an Ombudsman until 1997.

Matt Doocey: Only 170 more countries to go.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Ha, ha! Gibraltar was not until 1999. The EU, which, of course, purports to be a very well-run and transparent supranational organisation, did not introduce the function of an Ombudsman until 2013. So we were leaders in this, but, also, the service of the ombudsmen and the transparency that they provide—particularly in, as the member David Parker has referred to, the investigation and follow-up around Official Information Act (OIA) requests, particularly those where the person making the request is not satisfied with some element of the response—is very important, and it is something that we take seriously.

So we are committed to the Office of the Ombudsmen, but the reason that I will not be supporting the bill in this debate is that we actually have no reason to believe that the Office of the Ombudsmen is in any way underfunded. I think, when this bill was introduced, there may have been greater cause to believe that some closer look at the provision of funding for the office was required, but I suspect it has been overtaken by events, and I hope that some of the information that I hope to relate in this debate might convince members that that is indeed the case.

We believe that the office is not underfunded, and, actually, the imposition of a cost recovery scheme in and of itself would not be without risk, and it may actually undermine some aspects of the complaints process. In fact, we think that there are—

Hon David Parker: How? How would it do that?

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: —several other mechanisms by which productivity of the Ombudsman’s office has been improved, and I will go into those, Mr Parker.

Since this bill was added to the ballot in 2012 the increase in funding for the Office of the Ombudsmen has been about two-thirds. The baseline funding back in 2012 was $9 million, and the Ombudsman received $15.2 million in the last year’s Budget. So that is an increase of two-thirds. From the numbers we have had a look at, the productivity rate of the office has similarly increased. We have seen a fall in the number of complaints on hand, which is now down to 1,339, and the figures that we have been provided with suggest that the backlog that the office is working through should be halved by June of this year—so we are talking next month—and completely cleared by the end of June 2018, which is a year earlier than had been initially planned by the office.

The figures to hand show that more than 70 percent of the complaints received since 1 July 2016 have been resolved within 3 months of receipt, and this rate is currently heading towards 90 percent. It is the view of the Office of the Ombudsmen that by the year 2020 no complaint will take more than 12 months to resolve. We have to bear in mind that we are dealing, in some cases, with complex complaints that maybe run to many, many pages, that are absolutely peppered with detail, and, as the member said, some official information that is released contains multiple redactions, and there may be multiple causes for complaint within any one release.

I would want to point out to the House that the redactions that are made in information released from Government departments are often made for incredibly good reasons and for important reasons, and, as a former official, during my 10 years with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade—I had no responsibility, I should comment, on redacting any of the live sheep export information. The gentleman is actually Sheikh Hamood Al Khalaf, not Mr Ali Al Hamood as the member says. But I did not deal with that particular case in terms of redactions. But in redacting information, most of the officials whom I have seen in practice take their job very, very seriously and, under section 6 of the Official Information Act, redactions are made for important reasons. So section 6(a), for instance, removes information that prejudices the national security of New Zealand and the defence of the Realm. This is a very important point. This is the first responsibility of any Government, to ensure that information being released will not prejudice the security of our country.

Section 6(b) includes information that is entrusted to us from other countries and that we have accepted on the promise that we will not release it. The maintenance of law is covered by section 6(c). And we go on—the safety of people, so information pertaining, for instance, to the operations of New Zealand personnel abroad would often be covered under section 6(d), or the economy of New Zealand—information that may be damaging or injurious during trade negotiations. There are some very good reasons why that information is not released publicly at the time, and it may be 20 or 30 years down the track. I would note that many departments are now taking a proactive approach to going through information that can be released publicly, even before any period of time has expired when it might otherwise have been looked at. They are proactively working through their archives. But my point is that there are often good reasons why information should be withheld, and the information that we have seen, including comments from the Office of the Ombudsmen, is that the processes that it has are working well.

So some of the changes in its practices that have improved the performance of the office and are delivering much better results are changing the focus on an early resolution and adopting more flexible practices in its office. This includes, for instance, transitioning to working almost entirely electronically and undertaking much more of its interaction with Government departments by phone calls rather than—telephone interviews, which can be documented and duly recorded, minuted, and used to form a proper record. But, of course, it is much quicker and easier, not to mention cheaper in terms of travel, than necessarily going to the offices of the Government departments and agencies in question.

It has also employed some specialised staff who have a degree of expertise in the area that they are working on. This is not merely a legal and administrative role; sometimes a specific subject matter knowledge is advantageous in terms of resolving the complaint or the query in a more timely but also, hopefully, more accurate fashion. It works very closely now with the State Services Commission, and it has been proactively improving the general understanding of how the Official Information Act works throughout the public sector.

The member mentioned journalists—the media who often rely on the OIA as a means to, quite rightly, hold the Government to account but also to gather information that might be the source for newsworthy publication or it might, in fact, corroborate other people whom they have interviewed in their processes. I think the general understanding of how the OIA works is good among Government departments, and there may be even further gains that can be had by ensuring that others also understand how it should work. And they have produced guides and moved material—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member’s time has expired.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Well, I have to say it has been quite disturbing to hear the member opposite me, Paul Foster-Bell, just get up and give a defence of the increasingly disturbing practices of the withholding of information, which this Government has taken us down the road of, and which is, ultimately, the complete opposite of transparency. It exposes what I consider to be a really disturbing factor—that the transparency index, which is held up as being the great measure of New Zealand, is actually very shallow and does not get under the surface of the real issues and the real practices where democracy is being undermined.

I am hoping that all of you in the House have been listening to Radio New Zealand’s 9th Floor series, which are the interviews with previous Prime Ministers. I want to refer specifically to the interview with Geoffrey Palmer, where not only did he say that Government is like theatre but he expressed huge concerns about what he described as the great failure of the democratic system in New Zealand. I think we need to pay attention to that and look at what are the measures, the levers, of democracy that we have and how well they are functioning and how they could be improved. This is a bill. It is a small bill. It is a small measure. But it is a bill that is intended to strengthen democracy, not to undermine it. I am afraid that what the member has just done is give a defence of the undermining of democracy in our country.

I also just want to touch on the important role of media as our fourth estate to hold the executive of our Government to account. Also, I want to touch on the role of Opposition, no matter who is on the Opposition benches, in being able to access information from the executive to hold the executive Government to account. These are critical parts of democracy. We must be constantly scrutinising them and asking whether they are fit for purpose and whether they can be improved. This is a small measure in this bill that goes towards doing that.

The Ombudsman has an extremely important role to play in our democracy. I note that the Chief Ombudsman—he is not so new now—Peter Boshier, referenced, in a recent speech, a visit he had made to Vienna to a meeting of the International Ombudsmen’s Institute, where there are 90 ombudsmen’s offices—and I am not going to list them—around the world. They describe their role as being “to protect the people against violation of rights, abuse of powers, unfair decisions and maladministration … to improve public administration while making the government’s actions more open and its administration more accountable to the public.”

Yet what we have here is an administration where there are nearly 2,000 complaints that are the result of Government not making information available. There are complaints of which many are years old. I have four such complaints currently before the Ombudsman that go back to 2012, and I am just one person. All of the members of the Opposition parties would have complaints sitting with the Ombudsman. Almost every journalist in the country would have had problems getting information from the Government, and will have complaints before the Ombudsman that go back years.

I think that the member across there does not understand what this bill is about. It is not trying to address an underfunding issue; it is addressing an issue of providing an incentive to Government departments to do what they are supposed to do under the Act, and to provide information. If they do not provide information, they are fined, and that matter goes before Parliament. That is accountability.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): I rise to take my call in opposition to the Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill. I must disagree with the last speaker, Clare Curran. I in no way found Paul Foster-Bell’s contribution disturbing. I felt the contribution of giving us a background of the evolution of ombudsmen’s offices through a range of countries was very enlightening. I think when you take a look at history, it gives us great comfort as we step forward and think about new ways of working. So I would like to thank Mr Foster-Bell for that contribution and for his contribution tonight.

There is a great game of rugby this weekend. The Hurricanes are playing the Crusaders, and in any game of rugby, players have got to be nimble and show dexterity. I do not know whether the Hon David Parker has ever been compared to a nimble rugby player before, but I must say, he was—

Hon David Parker: I was one. I was one.

MATT DOOCEY: Well, there you go. He was one. So he was a nimble rugby player, and I think that shows through. Did you notice how he was on his feet—how he was able to shift from one narrative to another? Let us be honest, this bill has been in the ballot for about 5 years, and it was probably put in there in the days when the Ombudsman’s office was perceived as being underfunded. So cost recovery was about how we fund the Ombudsman’s office. Well, the perception of it is it sits on the ballot for 5 years and then it gets pulled, and then he starts to do his research, and he starts to think: “Well, actually, when I see that the Ombudsman’s office, since 2012, has had a funding increase of 70 percent—

Hon David Parker: Why did they need that? For non-compliance.

MATT DOOCEY: —from $9 million to $12.5 million—[Interruption] I will give him this: he is a smart man, so he has obviously thought to himself: “How do I reframe this bill? How do I get the narrative right? OK. All right, let’s pitch cost recovery as a financial punishment. Let’s take that approach.” But one of these things—and I must quote David Shearer, whom I always felt was impressive on a members’ night when he used to say: “This is typical of the Government; it’s a policy solution waiting for the problem.” And I think—in the words of David Shearer—that is exactly what this is. This is not about cost recovery in this sense. I mean, let us look: if we are going to throw policy ideas around like this, what are the unintended consequences?

So if this is a financial punishment for an agency that is not complying, does that mean an agency that is pretty well resourced can just pay its way out of not complying? Let us think this through. Why do we not think of other ways? In the end this is about the complaints process. We are hearing a lot about the Official Information Act, and, really, probably, this is fundamentally what it is about. But, overall, if you were to look at the metrics of the Ombudsman’s office, from 1 July 2016, 70 percent of complaints were resolved in 3 months. I would have thought that was pretty good. Currently, the rate is that 90 percent of complaints are resolved in 3 months. We are working towards 2020—by 2020 there will be no complaints lasting longer than 12 months.

There will be plenty of people in this House who have managed complaints processes. And when you look at that, time is not necessarily the definitive factor. We all know that in a complaints process there is the variable of complexity. So sometimes taking time is not a problem. Taking time is the ability of the person to investigate it to its fullest and come out with a finding. It is not only about the finding and the investigation; it is also the learning—the learning and understanding. A good complaints process should have a good feedback loop on how that learning and knowledge will then go back into the institution to improve it.

So I think we need to look at a range of issues, but, unfortunately, this bill will not get to select committee. There is some thought of putting a bill through to the select committee stage, to get it kicked around a bit and to see where it will end up, but, fundamentally, I think this bill is flawed, and that is why I oppose it. Thank you.

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): The Green Party supports this bill because the Official Information Act (OIA) is a critical part of our democracy, and that has been discussed in New Zealand political and legal circles now for a very long time. The issue is the cost. The cost of investigation and the cost of the office should not hinder the transparency that we value as part of our democracy. It should not hinder good governance, and if it does, we need to address that. And I think this bill is one small step towards helping to address the concern that cost constraints hinder our democracy and reduce the transparency of our Government, and citizens deserve much better than that.

In recent times various ombudsmen over the years have raised very serious concerns with Parliament and with MPs about a failure by Government departments, in particular, driven largely by the political will, if you like, or the political intentions of the Ministers at the head of those departments. They have raised concerns that those departments have not responded to the Official Information Act in a way that is in line with the spirit of the law, or, indeed, with the letter of the law. That is a real concern, when Government departments are refusing to engage with the OIA, as it was designed to provide information to citizens. We have had one Ombudsman describe it as a paralysis of democracy, the hindrance that Government departments put in place and the barriers that Government departments put in place for citizens accessing information to which they are entitled. The delays have operated as a paralysis of democracy.

We have had concerns in more recent times, when the Chief Ombudsman, Beverley—

Hon David Parker: Wakem.

METIRIA TUREI: —Wakem, described the lack of funding and the inability for the office to be able to deal with the level of complaints that it gets as appalling. There was one description by an Ombudsman that we may as well kiss democracy goodbye if the OIA does not work properly. I mean, these are very serious concerns from those who are running these offices and who are responsible for protecting the rights of citizens to information from the Government about the decisions that their Governments make.

We have had the previous Prime Minister of the National Government admit that he knows of Government departments that deliberately delay the release of information to citizens, contrary to the letter of the law. I mean, it is not even a breach of the spirit of the law; it is contrary to the letter of the law. That Prime Minister had no problems with the idea that Government departments are breaching the law in order to provide political protection to the Ministers who are making decisions. Colleagues from National have painted quite a rosy picture of the situation with the Official Information Act, but in fact the picture is much worse when you are talking to the people who are engaged in the process. The Prime Minister in question, John Key, who admitted to accepting that Government departments would deliberately delay information in order to protect the political interests of the National Government Ministers, used to also say: “Nothing to fear, nothing to hide.” So on the one hand, you know, he argued that if they had nothing to fear, they had nothing to hide, and on the other hand he celebrated the fact that Government departments deliberately delay information.

So this bill is simply a means to ensure that Government departments have an incentive to follow the law, because they do not want to be suffering financial penalties as a result, or having to bear the costs of those investigations—an incentive to work with the office to make sure that the investigations that the office is engaged in proceed quickly and openly and transparently, as they are required to do under law. It is actually very much a kind of National kind of corporate, neo-liberal approach to make those departments pay for the costs. Actually, I am surprised that National is opposing it. It is very much within the value set of the National Party—I am kind of surprised by that. But it is actually quite a small measure to provide that incentive for Government departments to meet the requirements of the law and act in service to the New Zealand public, who deserve information that they are entitled to in a timely and reasonable way that is not being withheld—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry, the member’s time has expired.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise to take a short call to speak against the Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill. I am not one of these MPs who rush every time it is member’s bill draw time to see the biscuit tin being shaken, but I know a number of my colleagues do, on both sides of the House. What I can assure the House is that when the particular tin was shaken a few weeks ago, and this particular bill fell out, my learned colleague David Parker was not watching the tin, waiting with bated breath, to see whether his opportunity to make a difference in the New Zealand political situation was going to appear. In fact, he was sitting right beside me, and I do not know who was more shocked when he got the email—

Hon David Parker: More pleased.

TODD MULLER: Sorry, more pleased, or shocked, or both. He had to recall: “Did I have something in there? What was it? When did I put in there?”, and so on. I could see some scurrying of papers as he sort of got his head around the fact that 5 years ago he was motivated to take—

Hon David Parker: No, that’s not right. I had one out that you voted down recently.

TODD MULLER: Well, it seemed a long time ago, anyway—2012, according to these notes, which come from our communications team, so I am sure they are 100 percent accurate.

The point is that here we are having a conversation about a potential resolution that I think most of us would agree is trying to find a solution to a problem that arguably might have existed 5 years ago, when the Office of the Ombudsmen was under, arguably, a bit of pressure in terms of funding. But I think one can cogently argue that events and budget investment have subsequently taken this particular issue over and resolved many of the concerns my honourable colleague Mr Parker had when he took to his pen all those years ago.

In particular, there was the increase in spending that we have already discussed here—it was lifted by 67 percent from $9 million to $15 million. And particularly, I think, and we heard it discussed by my colleague Paul Foster-Bell, not only has there been an increase in funding that has resulted in the backlog, which was real, being addressed, largely—and certainly it will be largely cleared, I understand, by June 2018, which is year faster than planned—but, as often is the case, it is not just the money and the increased funding that have gone into the office that have made a difference. It has been the change in both people and process that has lifted the productivity of the Ombudsman’s office. My colleague Paul Foster-Bell stepped us through that, but, for completeness, I think the focus on early resolution and more flexible practices makes a whole lot of sense, and particularly the drive to have electronic and phone engagement, as opposed to, necessarily, always having to pack up and go and visit people face to face. The specialised staff that has come on board, which Paul Foster-Bell spoke so eloquently to, I think, has certainly assisted, and so has making the process more visible to the public by putting it out on the website and creating a greater understanding amongst agencies in respect of the guides and the role of the Ombudsman and how it progresses.

The other area that I have been impressed with was the statistic that now 70 percent of complaints are resolved within 3 months of receipt. That does not talk to an office that is critically underfunded. Indeed, it talks to an office that was under pressure, has had significant increase in funds relative to its initial budget, employed more appropriate and specialised people, rationalised and improved its processes, and is delivering a result that I think by any measure is effective. We have got a good outcome. So I think the intent had merit all those years ago, Mr Parker, but now, in my view, events and funding have overtaken this as an issue. Therefore, I do not see any reason to support the bill. Thank you.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to, I do not know, argue the point with people on the other side of the House who cannot be bothered making cogent arguments. They seem to imply, Mr Muller and Mr Doocey, et al., that more spending on this implies greater transparency, compliance, and accountability. That is the premise of their entire argument, and I do not know whether they have noticed, but for us on this side of the House, and for the media, it is getting harder and harder to get timely and meaningful information out of Government departments—more and more every day. I have to commend Mr Foster-Bell, before we go to the dinner break, for a beautifully irrelevant contribution.

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

Debate interrupted.

Amended Answers to Oral Questions

Question No. 7 to Minister

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Associate Minister of Conservation): I seek leave to correct a statement I made earlier in the House today.

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

Hon NICKY WAGNER: In answer to question No. 7 today, I said that access applications for coalmines go to the Environment Court. Although that is true in many cases, in the first instance decision-making power resides with Ministers.

Bills

Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): I think what the National members opposite need to realise and acknowledge is that this bill put before the House this evening by the Hon Mr Parker is not just a cost recovery exercise. Yes, that is in the title, but the reality is that this is about disincentives and this is about internalising the cost of non-compliance to Government departments, and in particular the Government. They need to feel the pain, as it were, of not complying, not being responsive, and not being fully transparent. This, I remind the members, is a very small step in that direction. This is about non-compliance. It is about making those departments accountable, and we need to move on. I just want to ask the members opposite whether they could get with the programme. We need a Government that is accountable.

It is best to simply finish on commenting on the current state of the fourth estate, and say that it is undermanned, under-resourced, and it seems at the moment that the Government is—how do I put this politely—playing the situation. We, the members opposite, and the media are not getting the information that we want in a timely fashion. When we do get it, Mr Parker brought up several examples of redacted information well past the time that it was due.

I just want to conclude by saying that New Zealand First absolutely supports this bill. We do support it through the first reading. We would like to hear what the public has to say. We would like to hear what the experts have to say on the issue, and I would suggest to the members opposite that this would be a good conversation to have in a select committee. Thank you.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Getting with—what did you say? Getting with it? Getting on the same planet? Getting up to speed and on action? Mr Tabuteau, this bill was put in the ballot 5 years ago.

Hon David Parker: No, it wasn’t.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: OK, when was it put in the ballot, Mr Parker?

Hon David Parker: 6 months ago.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Well, it was Mr Shane Jones’ member’s bill, and it is way out of date, way past its use-by date.

It is interesting coming into the latter part of the debate, you do learn a lot of stuff around the history of the ombudsmen—from Mr Paul Foster-Bell, for example. I did not realise we were one of the first countries to create that position. And, of course, we continue to lead the development of the Office of the Ombudsmen.

As I say, this bill has passed its useful date. I was a little bit surprised to see David Parker’s name on the bill because I thought it would not be a typical bill from Mr Parker. The last one that I saw from Mr Parker, at least, was the Minimum Wage (Contractor Remuneration) Amendment Bill, and that was an interesting bill. It had a bit of substance and there was good debate around that. But this—this is well past its use-by date.

There are two strands to the bill, that I can see. The first is around funding. It is called a cost recovery amendment bill. So the question is whether the Office of the Ombudsmen is underfunded. Does it need to cost recover in the first place? The statistics from the Office of the Ombudsmen tell us that 70 percent of new complaints are dealt with within 3 months. They have reduced their number of complaints on hand to under 1,400, and they are on track to halving the number of complaints by 30 June 2017. In fact: “It is clear that soon we will have no backlog.” So that does not look like an office that is underfunded. They are getting the job done efficiently and effectively.

The problem, also, with the idea that you go cost recovering from an independent agency is that the perceived independence of that agency must be lost.

Hon David Parker: Why?

ALASTAIR SCOTT: It is important—well, because if you are paid by a second party you are only interested in increasing the business with that second party, if you are going to get paid for it. If there is any transaction based on the volume of business then there is a perceived incentive to do more business, and that is what we cannot have in an independent Office of the Ombudsmen.

The second strand to this is that the fine, or the cost recovery fine, if you like, the cost to do business, should be, according to Mr Parker, an incentive for the agencies to behave—to behave more appropriately, quicker, faster, and more efficiently in getting their answers to the office. But, again, it is out of date.

We need only go to the Ombudsmen’s office’s website to see, only 5 days ago, 5 May 2017: “Inside the Office of the Ombudsman—An update on what’s going on in the Office of the Ombudsman to increase openness, accountability, and good administration.” This was a speech by the Chief Ombudsman—so only 5 days ago. The thing that has surpassed the notion of this bill is that there is a huge amount of transparency. The transparency is what I think David Parker is looking for in this bill, to get those agencies to act more quickly. It is not a fine, a compliance cost, or a cost of recovery that is going to motivate those agencies to behave. It is daylight, it is transparency, and that is what the Office of the Ombudsmen has been doing and will continue to do. It leads the world in transparency and lack of corruption, and I commend the office for doing the work that they do.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you. I am very pleased to stand and support the Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill. I think that the speeches we have heard from Government members show a fundamental misunderstanding of the bill and what it will achieve.

The Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier recently described the Official Information Act as the linchpin of openness and accountability. Yet, under this Government, we have seen a politicisation of the Act. We have seen the Prime Minister describing how his Ministers will help ensure that departments wait until the 20-day deadline for the release of official information just to slow down the whole system. We have seen large redactions in documents that are released. We have seen journalists and members of the Opposition routinely denied information. When the former Chief Ombudsman Dame Beverley Wakem did her report Not a game of hide and seek in December 2015, she concluded that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the Official Information Act but that it was the way in which the Act was being executed that was the problem, that there was gaming of the Official Information Act going on, that departments were putting off releasing information until that 20-day period, and that information was not being provided in a timely way. While she concluded that there was no evidence of direct political interference, there was certainly an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust amongst those working with the Official Information Act, both inside and outside the Government. It is this problem that this bill will actually go some way to redress.

It has been quite surprising that the Government has rejected the notion of the Ombudsmen’s office being able to recover costs from Government agencies, because, of course, under the Resource Management Act (RMA), Nick Smith changed that Act so that councils have to discount the cost of processing resource consents to applicants if they exceed the 20-day processing time that is set out in the Act. Can I quote the Minister for the Environment: “I know some councils are uncomfortable with these financial penalties for lateness but if it is good enough for the goose it is good enough for the gander. Councils put penalties on rates if they are paid late so it is fair enough that when councils are late, they too face financial penalties.” So if this Government has put in place penalties on councils when they are late in processing resource consents under the RMA, why is it not supporting this bill, which would do something similar in allowing the Ombudsmen’s office to recover costs from Government agencies when they miss that 20-day deadline, which is in the Official Information Act, to ensure that information is provided in a timely way?

The presumption at the heart of the Official Information Act is that information should be released unless its release is prejudicial to New Zealand security, an individual’s personal privacy, a company’s commercial position, or those constitutional conventions that protect free and frank advice by officials to Ministers. But it is the Government that is undermining that presumption that information should be released by politicising the way in which the Act is implemented, by ensuring that chief executives and senior staff game the system, effectively, by delaying release and putting those big slabs of blackness through documents that are eventually released.

Yes, this is a small step; yes, the Ombudsmen’s office is making substantial progress in reducing its backlog of complaints; but this bill is about ensuring that Government agencies comply with the timelines in the Act. It is not, as members opposite have tried to suggest, dealing with the issue of how the Ombudsmen’s office is actually performing, because, with that extra funding that the Parliament voted, the office has been able to employ additional staff and has been able to get on top of the backlog.

But there are still problems. In terms of Government agencies, the statistics that were released for the first time earlier this year about compliance with the Act did show that at least a quarter of Government agencies were not able to provide official information on time, for at least 80 percent of the time. So that is a quarter of Government agencies that are not meeting the deadlines under the Act. This bill will go some way to encourage them to do that by their having to ensure that the Ombudsmen’s office can recover costs.

BRETT HUDSON (National): I rise in opposition to this, the Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill. There are three areas I will cover if time permits. The first is the issue of resourcing, because, of course, the bill claims very clearly in its explanatory note, despite what the previous speaker, Eugenie Sage, said, that this is all about resourcing the Ombudsmen’s office, which it claims is under-resourced. But, as the previous speaker did acknowledge, since 2012, when this bill was first in the ballot, funding has increased by over 67 percent, from $9 million to just over $15 million. More importantly than simply the money, it is acknowledged that the office is getting well on top of its workload and, in fact, was forecast to clear the backlog, I think, a year sooner than had been projected earlier.

Another point I would like to make around that resourcing is that it is a typical failing, I would argue, with Labour members—and it dates back to the previous Labour administration—that they claim that simply throwing more money at something is going to fix the problem.

Hon David Parker: It doesn’t throw more money at it.

BRETT HUDSON: Well, it does, because if you are recovering costs, presumably, you are going to use that money to do something. It is, through another channel, throwing more money at a problem. They do not map out what they will do with it. They do not map out what that additional resource will deliver. They just say: “Give us more money; everything will be fine.” We saw that when we took office in 2008. The Labour administration had just thrown money at the Public Service, and, actually, it was more money for less delivery. So, actually, it does not give a lot of confidence: the way the bill claims to do something but not show how.

That is further reinforced by the lack of policy detail, something that is also endemic in Labour members’ bills in this term. So let us see what this is going to do. It is not necessarily going to charge an agency if it is late—no. We have got no idea what it is going to do, because what it says is that the Ombudsman will determine and specify what costs can be recovered and the conditions under which they can be recovered. So the member is asking Parliament to endorse something where we do not actually know what the conditions are and what costs could be recovered when, where—and we do, certainly, know from whom. That is typical them. That is typical of the way they approach their members’ bills.

The potential risk from that is that if the Ombudsman sets the bar a bit low, then we could, quite frankly, and I am certainly not going to accuse anyone of making spurious complaints to the Ombudsman, find a lot of situations where—because, presumably, if they undertake the investigations, they are going to want to recover the cost during the investigation, not afterwards—costs are being recovered from agencies where, ultimately, the investigation finds that there were no fundamental grounds to the complaint. That risks the Ombudsman then deciding that in order to help protect a potential unfairness, potentially, where agencies are being charged unreasonably, then they will actually toughen up the criteria for permitting those complaints to be investigated. Equally badly, they could even set the bar too high for the grounds to initiate the investigation. Equally, both of those risk, in effect, diminishing access to the services of the Ombudsmen and the power that the office can operate under.

So I would argue that Parliament should be determining that policy, or, at least, Parliament should have a very clear idea about what is in the scope, really, of what the Ombudsman might be determining, or, in fact, maybe even Parliament should make the determination. But the detail is not there. It is simply not there. I do not believe that we, in good conscience, could support that.

The third point that I would make—I think this is something that any member putting forward a member’s bill is subject to—is how the public might perceive the motivations behind it. I watched and listened to the sponsoring member’s speech to introduce this bill, and, with no pun intended, he laboured the agri-hub situation repeatedly through that 10 minutes. I have to wonder whether the public, viewing that speech and looking at this bill, may well form an opinion of their own that perhaps the member is a little unhappy with the results of that investigation—the findings that, fundamentally, showed no deep wrongdoing or corruption. The member was unhappy with the findings of the investigation and believes that, with just a little bit more money, the Ombudsman could have uncovered the wrongdoing and corruption that he is so certain was there. All he needed was a bit more money to prove it. I reject this bill and call on other members to do likewise.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I do not have to defend my conduct in respect of the Saudi sheep saga. I think the Auditor-General’s report is public record of that disgraceful piece of history in New Zealand. The point I was making is that we could not get to the bottom of it through the Official Information Act. It took the Auditor-General to do it because we could not get there under the Official Information Act. We did get there, through the Auditor-General.

I want to deal with some of the points that have been made. The last contribution by this man, Brett Hudson—I do not know; the lack of logic in that. He stood up and said we do not need this legislation because since 2012 there has been a 66 percent increase in the funding of the Office of the Ombudsmen, in order for the Ombudsman to do his or her job—66 percent. Why, Mr Hudson, do you think they needed a 66 percent increase in budget to do their job? Because Government departments are not meeting their obligations, and therefore people are complaining to the Ombudsman, and the Office of the Ombudsmen is having to spend 66 percent more than they used to in order to make Government departments do what they should do.

That is proof that there is need of another intervention. Instead of, as the member would have it, just chucking another 66 percent budget into the Office of the Ombudsmen and spending an extra many millions of dollars every year to make Government departments do what they ought to do, why do we not create an incentive for them to do it, without having to spend all of that extra money through the Ombudsmen’s office? That is what this bill would do.

I heard that there would be unintended consequences, and someone else said that that was going to increase the business of the Ombudsman, or something like that. The Ombudsman does not control the flow of complaints. The Ombudsman has to act on complaints. It is only when they receive a complaint from members of the public that they can act upon it. It is the public who makes complaints, not the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman has to respond to complaints. I think that deals with that particular issue. I do want to thank Paul Foster-Bell for correcting the name of Sheik Al Khalaf; I am sorry I got that wrong.

There is no doubt in my mind that we do have a slowly degrading compliance with the Official Information Act. We do have the no-surprises policy being taken too far, and I think if you talk to any journalist or Opposition MP they will say that, more often than not, they are taken to the end of the period under the Official Information Act if it is embarrassing to the Government, and then they are often refused documents. And then, if they get them, they are subject to redactions that are unjustified. And some of this is driven by the desire of departments to please their Minister, rather than just independently, as they have a duty to do by law, abiding by the terms of the Official Information Act. I know that concerns the Ombudsman.

In respect of the backlog of complaints: that is true. I agree that backlog is being worked through well by the Ombudsman. And I am not criticising the Ombudsman. What I am doing is trying to create an incentive. I think the most powerful part of this incentive would be that if Government departments were often recalcitrant, then it would actually come up in financial reviews. I know that I, as an Opposition member, would have as one of the questions on the annual review of the Government department: “How often were you pinged by the Ombudsman?”. And, actually, if someone was pinged frequently I would be asking the chief executive and I would be raising it in the report back to Parliament to say that it looks like this department, according to the Ombudsman, is not doing this properly.

The Ombudsman can be trusted to exercise their discretion appropriately as to when they ping a Government department, but I can tell you, in some of these cases that I have had experience with I have got no doubt—absolutely no doubt—that there was wilful obstruction on the part of the Government departments in disclosing what legally ought to have been done.

And what was the consequence for them? None. What was the effect of it? Delay. What was the political effect of delay? The Government got off the hook. That is why they were delaying in the first place, and that is why they were making the redactions. I would hope that this bill does get the support of sufficient members in the House. It is clear that the National members are not going to vote for it, but we will see whether some of these other parties—like the ACT Party, which says that it believes in appropriate incentives—whether their vote comes through. Thank you.

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

Ayes 57

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 62

New Zealand National 58; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Motion not agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 58, Noes 62.

Bills

Equal Pay Amendment Bill

First Reading

JAN LOGIE (Green): I move, That the Equal Pay Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Government and Administration Committee to consider the bill. This bill was developed by my colleague Catherine Delahunty. It was developed after a meeting we both attended, sharing New Zealand research that showed an increasing gender pay imbalance for students in the first 5 years of graduating.

When Catherine Delahunty launched this bill in 2011, some people said the difference in men’s and women’s pay was not a result of discrimination, and that her bill—this bill—was unnecessary. Then the Employers and Manufacturers Association boss, Alasdair Thompson, made our case for us, saying: “Look at who takes the most sick leave. Women do, in general. Why? Because once a month they have sick problems. Not all women, but some do. They have children that they have to take time off to go home and take leave of. I don’t like saying this because it sounds like I’m a sexist, but it’s a fact of life.” This was great proof that bias and discrimination are alive and well, at least in some parts of our business community.

With this evidence and the overwhelming anger of many New Zealanders, in June 2011 the Government said it would take a look at this bill. It then won the election in November, and the rest—more accurately described, I think, as “subtle dismantling of rights”—is history.

This bill will not deliver pay equality for women by itself, but it is an important step forward rather than backwards in this struggle, which has been fought for far too long. This bill provides transparency so that women can find out if they are being paid less than male colleagues for the same work. It provides a prompt for employers to consider whether there may be unconscious bias in their pay decisions. It will also provide much more accurate information for us to track the causes of the gender pay differential. In all reality and truth, this is a very small bill, and what it does is very simple. But, nevertheless, these simple interventions could be a game-changer for at least some women.

This bill sits within the continuum of efforts for gender pay equality that started with the suffragettes. After women won suffrage, in 1893, equal pay was next on their political agenda, and that work is still continuing today. Women are still fighting, 124 years later, to get paid the same as their male colleagues. The Equal Pay Act 1972 and the Human Rights Act 1993 made it very clear that it is illegal in this country to discriminate on the basis of gender. We have a strong legal commitment to paying the job, not the gender. And yet, 45 years on from the Equal Pay Act, women’s average hourly earnings are still 13.6 percent less than men’s, and that is 22.9 percent for Māori women and 28.4 percent for Pasifika women.

In the 1990s, we did make some progress in righting that imbalance, but since that time the inequality has become entrenched, and that is not because we have reached the point that we cannot do anything more; it is because we have stopped doing anything much at all. The way the gender pay imbalance has been tracking, it will take until at least 2062—2062—before women finally get equal pay. It is predicted that we will be able to colonise the moon by 2022. I have got to say, I do not think that equal pay should be harder than colonising the moon. So enough already, eh? I think it is time Parliament got proactive on this. This bill will not, by itself, fix the imbalance and achieve gender equality in Aotearoa. But we do know by now—thanks to Kristine Bartlett and the unions—that our Equal Pay Act can also be used to deliver equal pay for work of equal value, a major contributor to the imbalance.

This is the next obvious area for action: addressing conscious and unconscious bias. Research commissioned by the Ministry for Women and published this year found that traditionally understood factors, such as education, occupation, industry, or part-time work, accounted for only 20 percent of the pay imbalance. Eighty percent of wage inequality is caused by differences in behaviour between men and women, as well as either conscious or unconscious bias that negatively affects women’s opportunities for recruitment and wage advancement.

Other research analysing productivity and pay rates in private firms found that the difference in men’s and women’s pay cannot be justified. Recent Australian research counters the myth that women just need to learn to negotiate. It found that women are willing to negotiate for pay, but it is just that men are more likely to get the pay increase at the end of the negotiation.

Yes, there are other factors to this problem, but there is plenty of evidence of conscious or unconscious bias in employment pay offers and progression. It is not always the Alasdair Thompson - type sexism; it can also just be good people not having a prompt to reflect or second-guess their instinct. I have got an example from my own experience here, within my team, where a man with less experience was offered pay two grades higher than a woman with significantly more experience. We found this out only because we have a very close unionised team who share information. The people making the decision, when challenged, were upset that anyone would suggest they were biased, but they dropped his pay offer to be equivalent to hers.

They are good people. I know they were not intending to discriminate, but the reality is that we are all affected by these biases. They exist in our society, and they will come out in this situation. How much better would it be to have a system that prompted reflection ahead of time, that built us that check in to our decision making? Discrimination is illegal, but it is pretty hard to find out whether you are being paid less for doing the same job, especially as it is quite normal for contracts to prohibit or discourage discussing pay and salaries. It should not be by accident that women find out they are being paid less. How can we stamp out discrimination when the only people who are able to identify it are those who are doing the discriminating?

The Ministry for Women, on its website, tells employers to “Be transparent. Have clear targets, measurements, and reporting—this is critical to building an effective gender diversity plan.” This is Government advice, and that is what this bill does; it provides the simplest possible framework to achieve the Government’s advice. A lot of companies are doing this, and they are finding that it pays off in terms of lower turnover and happier staff. This has not overburdened their businesses; it has helped their businesses.

This bill requires employers to add gender to the payroll data that they are already required to collect, and to send it in to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment once a year, along with the particulars of all equal pay determinations. It enables employees to access the information in gender-aggregated form. I fail to see how that could be excessive. I hope that everyone in this House will put the interests of women first, tonight, to move us forward instead of backwards in this journey towards equal pay. Thank you.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): The dilemma of equal pay is not isolated to New Zealand; it is a global issue, and absolutely one that does need to be addressed. There is no denying the significance of this issue and how very real the fact is that bias and perceptions about women in the workforce are a key factor in driving the gender pay gap.

The Equal Pay Amendment Bill does have merit, and the Government is sympathetic to the aims of the bill. However, we do not agree that the proposed changes set out by the member Jan Logie, who has put this bill forward, will effectively mitigate the issue of pay inequality, and therefore we cannot support this bill going through the House.

Pay equity is the principle that women and men should receive the same remuneration for doing jobs that are different but of equal value. This is distinct from equal pay, which is the same pay for doing the same job. Pay equity issues can stem from an undervaluation of work predominantly performed by women over time. The bill put forward by the Opposition proposes changes that would require employers to provide gender pay gap information to employees on request so that they may be able to identify potential discrimination. However, this is only part of the issue. The differences could also reflect legitimate, non-discriminatory factors, such that remuneration and time records do not record. Gender is not the sole issue in consideration when determining remuneration points.

The bill also poses major privacy risks. As the Opposition has always been against any form of potential privacy breaches, if a business owner in charge of a small business with only half a dozen employees starts passing out this information, then the personal identification of particular employees in this business is likely to be at risk. It does not actually take very much to work out who that employee might be. It could breach the most basic of privacy codes.

Thirdly, the bill proposes an independent reviewer to consider and advise how to mitigate these risks, but the bill resolutely fails to make clear how the reviewer would be appointed, the extent to which they could use this data, and what they could do with it. These are greater risks in themselves. How many independent reviewers would you need to conduct this sort of review in each and every business? If you just think about the businesses up and down the country, it would take quite a lot of work to be reviewing them.

Again, this bill has no limit on the use of the information that is collected. Where does commercial confidentiality fit within this bill’s directive? Nowhere in this bill does it explicitly state that a reviewer, employer, or employee could not disclose the information. So that is unethical. The bane of the small businesses that I come across every week in this country is the complexity and cost of compliance. This bill, if it were to proceed, would be another layer of red tape. People do not mind complying with worthwhile issues, but the administrative nightmares that happen and accompany layer after layer of bureaucracy are what people get turned off by in the first instance. It is purely administrative. Further administrative costs are signalled where the bill requires employers to send wage, time, and gender records for each employee to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for publication. This sort of data is already being collected.

To be frank, this bill seems nice on the outside, it is wrapped up in a pretty bow, but when you actually get into it, under the surface, there are a lot of fishhooks. There is no refined detail. The process is not well-thought-out in places to ensure that a fair and equitable process would result. The bill is out of touch, and it is late to the play, because the Government has already made legislative changes in initiatives that go towards addressing some of the contributors to the gender pay gap. Without question, this issue cannot be solved overnight. But this Government is actively working to ensure it is being progressed in the appropriate manner. It is this Government that is delivering tangible solutions that are being felt by women in workforces right across New Zealand.

This Government is leading the work to reduce the gender pay gap in the public sector, and it is encouraging employers to address this issue in the private sector. We are not hiding the gender pay gap, and we are not pretending it does not exist. The State Services Commission recently introduced the annual publication of gender pay statistics for all Public Service departments. The publication of statistics like these enhances transparency and helps us figure out where we need to be looking next in order to mitigate the situation. Yes, the statistics are not the best; in fact, some of them are galling. However, the State Services Commission is intent on providing the right information, in a timely manner, to all agencies to help them understand and address the drivers of the gender pay gap, in order to mitigate and reduce the effects of it.

New Zealand has an absolute rock star of a Minister for Women in our Deputy Prime Minister, Paula Bennett. Our Minister is an advocate for women. Every day, she is out there encouraging, supporting, and endorsing women. She takes this portfolio—and recognises its upmost importance—into all of her other portfolios, including State services and police. The Government introduced legislative changes, including extending the right to request flexible working arrangements to all employees and reducing barriers to employment for women looking for a greater work-life balance. This actually does not apply to just women; it applies to men just as well.

We also introduced the “Keeping in Touch” provision to paid parental leave, for parents taking this leave. This increases women’s access to career development opportunities. The Government is also updating the Equal Pay Act to ensure it is better equipped to provide guidance to pay-equity claims and can provide a practical and fair process for employees to follow if they feel they are not being paid what their job is worth due to gender discrimination. Exposure of the draft of the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill has been released for public consultation to ensure that the wording in the legislation is clear and workable for employers and employees. Consultation closes tomorrow, on Thursday, 11 May. So legislation will be planned to be introduced.

The Government set up a joint working party on pay equity last year, made up of representatives from unions and business, to come up with a process and set out a set of principles for resolving pay equity. The pay equity bill is a step towards closing the gender pay gap and ensuring that the female-dominated industries are paid fairly. It reflects this Government’s commitment to working for New Zealanders. The Ministry for Women has commissioned research on the causes for the gap for women, which is assisting the ministry to understand the potential further actions it needs to take to reduce the pay gap for women on different incomes. Research found that 80 percent of the gender pay gap is unexplained. This shows that factors such as differences in behaviours and choices between men and women are driving the majority of trends in the current national gender pay gap.

The Ministry for Women monitors the Government’s target of 45 percent women’s representation on State sector boards and committees, and Minister Bennett has announced that the Government met the target in December 2016.

While given this platform, I want to acknowledge, out there in rural and provincial New Zealand, the women who are working on farms. I would like to acknowledge Hayley Hoogendyk, who as recently as last weekend was the first woman to take out the “farm manager of the year” at the Dairy Industry Awards. She is 28 years old and she manages a 600-cow property. She is breaking down barriers, and she is breaking through ceilings. The reason I give you that message is that we need to study where these women are coming from and what they are doing to bridge the gap, so that we can actually help all women do it and so that it is targeted and focused. I clearly oppose the introduction of this bill. Thank you.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I wonder if we ought to get the member who has just resumed her seat, Barbara Kuriger, a glass of water so she can swallow that very difficult dead rat she has just had to swallow on behalf of the Government. I was not going to expect anything less than that because—let me give you a little history lesson with regards to the National Party and its record on supporting pay equity. In 1990, when the fourth Labour Government passed the Employment Equity Act, what was one of the first things the incoming National Government did? It scrapped it. What else did it do? Not long after Labour established the Department of Labour’s pay and employment equity unit, the National Government came in and it disestablished that. Not only that, but it repurposed the money that was given to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

If this member across the Chamber is talking about the Government’s record in terms of gender and pay equity, I have to say to Mrs Kuriger that I am sadly disappointed. I actually rate her as a member. I think she is very talented and very competent, and I would think that she would be the type of member who would stand up for issues related to women and gender equity. So I apologise on behalf of your Government for you having to swallow the dead rat that you have just had to swallow. I want to commend my colleague and friend Jan Logie, because this is a great piece of legislation. It is small but perfectly formed, and what it does is it talks about adding transparency to the process.

That is what it talks about—just adding some transparency to the process. So we can say to those good employers who actually pay the women in their organisations exactly what they pay the men: “Good on you. Ka pai. That is exactly what you should be doing.” And for those others who do not do it—look to their example. It is not that hard. All you need to do is tick a box, send it into the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and lo and behold you have complied. It is really easy. How hard is it to change a mindset? It is about showing some leadership and that is what this bill does—it shows some leadership and adds transparency.

I am really disappointed in that member who has just resumed her seat because I know that she is very engaged in parliamentary processes that look at raising gender representation for women. I have to say I am a proud member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association’s women arm, the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. Why I raise that is because our tenet is twofold—it is to raise gender representation and it is to mainstream the issues that impact on women. As women parliamentarians, each and every one of us has got a responsibility to stand in this House and say that when there are pieces of legislation that impact on us, we have got to get behind them 110 percent, and we have to bring our male counterparts with us. I have to say that in our party that is exactly what we are doing. We are saying that this is a great bill. It actually says that we are taking some leadership and we are demonstrating to the companies and the businesses of New Zealand that this is how you do it. I am really disappointed that that member and her Government have taken the stand that they have.

The other thing I want to mention about this piece of legislation is that if, actually, as a Parliament or as a Government or as the executive, we took the view that we could put our legislation through a gender lens, this bill would actually top the list. In terms of supporting the issues of women, this bill actually meets the mark. If we looked at budgeting in terms of a gender lens, this bill goes a long way to supporting women to actually have the economic empowerment that they deserve. We are not going to do anything in this country about reducing the rates of violence or around ensuring that women actually get the fair deal that they deserve until we look at their economic empowerment, and that is what this piece of legislation is saying. It is saying that as a Government we can take some leadership, we can actually put our policies through some lenses, we can say to business: “All you need to do is actually be transparent and open with the people of New Zealand, and we will celebrate you for doing so.”

We are coming up to supporting breast cancer awareness week and all the issues that our women need to be arguing for in this Parliament, and I have to say I am so disappointed—I am absolutely, really disappointed—in this Government for its stance on this.

JOANNE HAYES (National): I stand to take a short call on the Equal Pay Amendment Bill, put up by the member Jan Logie. I think that when we start looking at things like this where we are looking for transparency to reduce gender discrimination, and we are asking employers to tick boxes, we do not see how wide this thing could actually impact and the risk that it puts women under when an employer is made to tick a box as to the pay equity within their business. It is not one of those types of things that you can put to employers to make them do without any comeback—without any comeback—from the employer to actually find a way to not do that. And what does that mean? It puts at risk some women’s positions in their jobs.

If you want to have an example of equal pay for equal work, let us have a look at a job as a shearer. A lot of people look at that job as a shearer and they think: “Ugh! It is a dirty stink job.” But it pays well—it pays well to shearers. A woman shearer gets paid exactly the same amount per sheep as a man shearer. They do equal work for equal pay. A woman who works in a shearing gang as a rousie or a woolhandler gets the same as their male counterpart. So when you start to look at positions like that, you will find that, yes, women come and go; but they come and go under the understanding that they will get exactly the same as their male counterparts will get.

I think my colleague Barbara Kuriger’s speech was a very good one because she pointed out a number of things that this Government has done towards reducing that gap between male and female pay, but especially around pay equity, which is currently being looked at at the moment. I think that when you start to look at things like that—and I understand that when the member put the bill in, all the work that the Government had been doing around pay equity most probably had not come to the fore, but it has come to the fore now. It is a little bit like this particular bill has come forward and a lot of things have happened prior to it, and that is why I think it looks a little bit outdated.

I am not saying to the member: “Your bill’s so far out there it’s a waste of space.” It is not. I think that what the member may need to do is go back, look at all of the legislation that has gone through to do with women and pay equity, and equity of women, and start to develop a more solid bill around those things rather than put this particular bill forward—something that is out of date. It is one of those bills that many of us women on this side sit and look at and think: “Yes, well there could be a lot of work done to actually make this bill a strong bill that actually resonates with the current things that are happening within this side of the House and the legislation that is going through.”

Iain Lees-Galloway: You’re lucky no one’s watching this, Jo.

JOANNE HAYES: Oh no, I know that there are people, because they text me and they go “What a fabulous speech you made.”, and I go: “Thank you so much.”

Simon O’Connor: He’s mansplaining, anyway.

JOANNE HAYES: He is mansplaining. I do not know what mansplaining is, but anyway—although I commend the member for putting forward the bill, I do encourage her to please look at the work that has been done. Let us get some harmonisation with the bills that are there and the work that the Government is doing and let us see whether we can do all of this for womanhood together.

Carmel Sepuloni: I thought you said it was going to be a short call.

JOANNE HAYES: As I wind up my contribution—my short contribution—I just want to say that, yes, I am sympathetic towards what the member is trying to put together, but at the moment I cannot support the bill. But I thank her anyway. So thank you.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill to select committee, and I do so with the full support of every single member of my caucus, which is three women and nine men. I do so because—let us be clear—I have seen this once before from the National Party. I remember Hone Harawira’s feed the children bill, when the National Party members sent out the women—sent out the women—and it sent out the Māori women particularly, to argue down why we should do something very simple and very easily done, and with absolutely no cost, to support New Zealanders. I have seen this before.

I would not be surprised—I am going to put $2 on it that Melissa Lee takes the next call. I am going to put $2 on it. I am going to put $2 on the fact that Simon O’Connor may take a call at some stage to explain why the men of the National Party caucus do not believe that women need pay equity, do not believe why business—business, which asks for transparency in every single contract that it has. Business, which wants to make sure that it has an equal playing field with anybody else in this country, is going to deny that to the women in New Zealand. And, I have got to say, what a ridiculous move politically, when 52 percent of the voting public are women—not smart, guys. I do not know who is running your campaign—possibly Mr Joyce is still running your campaign—but, boy, are you off the mark.

For the benefit of the last two National Party contributors, let us be clear: these are two more little boxes, saying “Male” and “Female”, that are added to a form of all this information that already goes to the Ministry of Business, Information and Employment every year. It is not a new form, Ms Kuriger. It is not more red tape. Your Government put in place this red tape. All that Jan Logie is asking for is two more little boxes and one tick. Crikey dick, ladies, let us get with it.

The other thing about this is that one cannot deny, and the Government members stood up and said—and, actually, that was really interesting from Ms Hayes. She stood up and said: “This bill is outdated because this Government has done this and this and this and this for pay equity.” The gap is getting bigger. The gap between men with children and women with children is 17 percent—17 percent between men with children and women with children. Then, when you get down to men without children and women without children, we get to 5 percent, so in the middle we have got an average—right? So it is there—we know it is there.

What did this Government do? After a series of court cases where it was forced by a woman to actually front this issue, it finally did some changes. It finally did some legislation. What those members down the other side have done to try to avoid any more court cases with regard to the support staff in schools is they are trying to actually create some sort of approach of “Well, you can negotiate and we’ll tell you how you can negotiate. But, really, it’s on you, ladies, to have a choice.”—and I say “ladies” knowing that that is a condescending phrase, because that is the way this Government treats women, right?

That is the way this Government treats women, to the point that it took away the budget from the Ministry for Women. The last Minister for Women was outside Cabinet, so she did not even have a seat at the table, and members of this Government rant on about boards being 48 percent women—good on you! We are actually talking about the women who are doing the cleaning. We are talking about the women who are working in our rest homes. We are talking about the women who are now electrical apprentices, like my niece. I want to make sure that when she is qualified, she will get the same as any man.

I want to create an environment where, if an employer is paying a woman less, they can explain why. But without the evidence, how do we make them explain why? It is not that hard.

The National Government has sent the women out and thrown them under the bus. Shame on you, National, for doing that to your women MPs, and I am so sorry that that is the party you are part of, ladies.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I understand the member Tracey Martin has made a wager that a man is not prepared to take a call, but she will just have to make do with me on this occasion. In making a brief contribution on this Equal Pay Amendment Bill, can I begin by congratulating you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is wonderful to see you back here in this House.

The Equal Pay Amendment Bill, in the name of Jan Logie, amending the Equal Pay Act (EPA) 1972, is something that is worthy of this House’s consideration. I congratulate the member on bringing it here, and I know that her intentions in advancing this are absolutely genuine. I have got the pleasure of working with the member on the cross-party parliamentary rainbow network. I have genuinely enjoyed that opportunity to engage on issues, including those of the transgender community. That is one of the aspects that does trouble me a little bit about this bill, in that it requires employers to gather and collate the information pertaining to the gender of their employees.

This is an issue that we have discussed in the parliamentary cross-party rainbow network because I had concerns about a proposal that came to the group that this information on gender identity be gathered in census format, as well. The reason I have a concern about that—and I appreciate that it can be done with the very worthy motivation of trying to understand the problems faced by that community and devise social policies that can help people. But I also have a concern about the State, employers, or anybody gathering information that can be incredibly sensitive to the people involved. It may be information that they do not share publicly widely beyond themselves, sometimes, or maybe only with their immediate family or their very closest friends. So I do have a concern about requiring employers, on one hand, to be completely gender-neutral—and I agree that they should be when they are making their employment decisions—but also telling them they will have to inquire as to their employees’ gender. Frankly, I do find that a little bit concerning.

This Government has a proud record on advancing gender equity issues, and I would point to the recent achievement of 45 percent of appointees to Government boards being women. This is a measure that has been achieved by the very proactive approach of senior Ministers, and I have seen this myself in their approach to appointing board applicants. They make sure that if candidates are of equal merit, a woman applicant is appointed in order to lead to greater gender equity. We know that in the workplace and at the board level, greater input and decision-making by senior women leaders leads to better decisions and better outcomes on those boards.

So this is a Government that is in the process of updating existing Equal Pay Act legislation and amending the Employment Relations Act to implement a number of recommendations on pay equity, with the goal of providing fair but also practical processes for women, men, and those of any gender in our workforce, particularly those who feel they are not being paid what they are worth for the job they are doing, where that feeling is due to gender discrimination. So I think we should not jump the gun on this. We should follow the process that this Government has, sensibly, been engaging in, and this comes on top of a number of other initiatives that have been announced by Ministers over the last 8½ years of this very good, very sound, very sensible National Government.

Turning to some of the other provisions of this bill, increasing the maximum penalty for a breach of the EPA to align with the penalties under the Employment Relations Act—again, this is something on which I sympathise with the member’s intention. I believe she is trying to add real teeth, and the message does need to get through to employers that it is absolutely unacceptable to discriminate on the grounds of gender, or, actually, of anything else, in my view. They should not be discriminating on race or sexuality or political preference. It should really come down to the ability of the person to do the job.

But I do think the bill is problematic, as some of the data that would be collated does not actually give a full and genuine picture. Basic earning rates, for instance, do not give a full and genuine picture of the amount of work being done, at what level, and of the equity of the comparative workloads. Thank you.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I am getting thoroughly sick of hearing Government members stand up in this House and tell us that they support the intent of a bill and then vote against it, because we actually have a system—this is breaking news for the members on the Government benches—in this Parliament that deals with exactly that. This is the first reading. At the first reading, it is our decision: do we agree with the broad intent of this bill? If the answer to that is yes—which I heard from Barbara Kuriger. She supports the intent of this bill.

Hon Member: So does Jo Hayes.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I am not quite sure what Jo Hayes said—I never am—and Paul Foster-Bell, he told us that this was a bill worthy of Parliament’s consideration. Well, if it is worthy of Parliament’s consideration, vote for it at first reading and send it to a select committee so that we can consider all the issues that you have raised, so that we can listen to the officials, so that we can listen to the experts, and so that we can listen to—I am sure—the thousands of people who would want to come and submit on this bill. But the truth is—and the members opposite know it—they do not support equal pay. They do not support any moves to make our workplaces fairer for women. That is the truth of it, because if it was anything different, they would be voting for this legislation.

Barbara Kuriger told us that she is voting against this bill because it does not solve the pay gap. This bill will not solve the pay gap, so Barbara Kuriger is going to vote against it. Of course it does not solve the pay gap, but if we applied that test to everything that would make some step towards reducing the pay gap, we would not vote for anything. You would not have even gone into the pay equity settlement if you thought that that was not going—because it is not going to solve the pay gap. It is going to make a tiny, tiny dent in the pay gap, but it is a step in the right direction, which is why it was the right thing to do, and that is why voting for this legislation is the right thing to do.

So do not come to this House and tell us that you support the ideals behind this bill. You do not, because you are not voting for it. You do not support equal pay. You do not support better rights for women in the workplace, because if you did, you would be voting for this bill.

Simon O’Connor: Why is he mansplaining this?

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: There is an old saying, and it is that—[Interruption] Si has. He has found a new word. He is a clever boy. He has found a new word, and he is throwing it around as much as he can. There is an old saying, which is that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that is what this bill seeks to do.

That is all this bill seeks to do. It is to collect some data so that we have a better idea of what is driving the pay gap, and so that we might be able to get employers and the people who are going through the employment process, who are interviewing candidates and who make the pay offers to successful candidates, to actually stop and think about some of those unconscious biases that do exist. It is simply a mechanism for getting us to stop and think about that—that is all—and, yes, it is part of the progress that we have to make towards closing the pay gap. It is not a difficult thing to do.

I found even more disingenuous than the approach that the National members are taking towards their vote on this bill for Paul Foster-Bell to come here and say that he is worried about privacy breaches if we were to collect information about what men get paid and what women get paid. This is from a Government that wants to collect the names and personal details of victims of sexual violence. Those members are saying that they are concerned about the potential privacy breaches of collecting information about what people get paid. Well, there is a word for that, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I do not want you to kick me out, so I am not going to say it. But we all know what it is, and we all know that that is what they are when they come to the House and make claims like that.

I have got 1 minute left and I just want to say this, because other members have mentioned pay equity. The pay equity settlement is the result of campaigning and work over a number of years by unionised workers. It has not come about from the largesse of the Government opposite. It was backed into a corner by a very savvy, very comprehensive union campaign that gave it no option but to settle, and I want to congratulate Kristine Bartlett and the unions involved in that pay equity settlement.

But do you know what? I want to see more—not the legislation that the Government is bringing to stop that happening in the future. I want to see more settlements that make sure that not just women but all working people get decent pay, get paid what they are worth—a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. That is what we stand for on this side of the House, and that is why we are voting for this bill. They don’t, they won’t, and they know it.

MELISSA LEE (National): Mr Deputy Speaker, before I make my contribution on this bill, I would like to congratulate you and welcome you back to this wonderful House—lovely to see you smile. To the member Tracey Martin across the benches, you owe me $2, mate. Just in case you actually need proof of whether the member in front of me actually spoke ahead of me just to win the bet, I can show you the speaking list to confirm that Paul Foster-Bell’s name was, in fact, ordered in that way.

Just for some members who were actually wondering what mansplaining is, that speech from Iain Lees-Galloway was a perfect example of mansplaining. It is a man standing up and yelling and screaming and trying to tell women what to think. I just want to say that you do not have to yell and scream in this House. We do actually hear you and you make some points well, and I think we are all very passionate in this House.

I just want to congratulate Jan Logie on having her member’s bill drawn from the ballot. All of us put bills in the member’s ballot and, you know, whenever there is a ballot, we do wonder whether our bill is going to be drawn from the ballot or not. Some members are more lucky than others, and mine has been in there since God knows how long.

The issue of gender and pay is, in fact, an important one, as previous speakers have said, and how we actually view it and how we hope to address that issue—obviously, we have different ways. I believe it is actually an important issue that this House has to have a discussion on. I think it was Barbara Kuriger who said that bias and perception about women in the workplace is driving our gender pay gap, and it is important that we achieve good and fair outcomes for all employees. I would like to note that in the House, however, the Government is, in fact, doing something to address the issue, and I will come to that a little bit later on.

The member’s bill proposes changes to mandate employers to provide gender pay information to employees to help identify potential discrimination. On first look, this sounds like a good idea and reasonable, but, you know, as other members have actually said, there is a privacy risk, as wage data does not always give the full story. Wages can vary based on hours, time, and other important factors like experience when deriving one’s pay. Actually, we are now at the heart of Privacy Week. For those of you who did not know, there is in fact a Privacy Week—this week is actually the week of privacy.

The bill concerns the privacy of employees and the company that they work for, and that has to be noted. Privacy can be a particular problem in smaller businesses, where there is a small number of employees, and sometimes, you know, the pay differences could be identifiable. It may be the right thing to actually raise the issue, but the effect that it might have on other employees—it is not necessarily their fault that they are actually earning more than their counterparts, and the fact that they might actually get hatred from a fellow workmate could be something that might produce disharmony in a workplace and that can lead to an unproductive workplace. When you have few staff and when men and women are in similar roles, it is clear that the privacy of the minority would be impacted on and the identity of the higher earners would be identified, and that could be a problem.

I know that Barbara Kuriger talked about the administration costs, so I will not actually go into that. But I read a while ago—I mean, most of us actually hate the idea that women are getting paid less for the same work. I think we all agree on that factor.

The fact is that the Government has been promoting and trying to achieve good results on State sector boards, where I know people have mentioned the figure of 45 percent. That was achieved in December of 2016. It is really unfortunate that the NZX-listed companies do not have such good results—their boards are only 17 percent women—but the Government is working towards its own pay equity legislation. The exposure draft of the pay equity bill has actually been released for public consultation to ensure that the wording in the legislation is clear and workable for employers and employees. The consultation is closing tomorrow, in fact, and the legislation is planned to be introduced soon.

So I am looking forward to that piece of legislation, which has actually been consulted widely on. I believe that it will a strong step towards closing the gender pay gap and ensuring female-dominated industries get fair and reflective pay, supporting hard-working New Zealanders. Hence, I cannot support Jan’s bill.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to rise in support of this Equal Pay Amendment Bill. I particularly want to pay tribute to Jan Logie and to Catherine Delahunty, and I want to say: you are a rock star, Jan. You are a true rock star—not someone else mentioned in the House earlier today.

I actually want to start with a quote from Dr Jackie Blue, who challenges our Minister for Women, who, she noted, has been vocal about information her ministry released earlier this year to support this bill to select committee. And what information was that? That was information that the Ministry for Women and Auckland University of Technology released that said 80 percent of the gender pay gap is due to both conscious and unconscious bias. And what does that mean? Bias—an inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair. We also noted from that piece of research that there are pay differentials between working mothers and fathers, of 17 percent, and the labour market gender pay gap is 12 percent.

So what is this bill going to do? It is going to create transparency in workplaces so that we all know which employers are not paying women as much as men. That is the hallelujah moment, everybody.

I am going to take a bit of a different slant on this legislation in terms of its relevance. I want to note the White Ribbon accreditation process in Australia. This is about workplaces that commit to eliminating family violence, essentially. What that programme does is it builds on existing gender equality and diversity programmes. So it is about strengthening a culture of respect and gender equality at all levels of the organisation. It is about responding to and preventing violence against women, supporting all employees to challenge inappropriate behaviour, and strengthening gender equality within the broader community. Because, guess what, everybody: family violence is preventable.

So this bill is directly relevant to family violence. If that Government is going to tell New Zealanders that it is committed to ending family violence and it has got a bill before the House, the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill—well, this piece of legislation is equally as relevant to that kaupapa. Family violence being preventable actually is about an ecological model of changing behaviour. So how do we change behaviour? We change behaviour by highlighting inequality or practices that are unfair to women. That is what this piece of legislation will do. And then it actually becomes a determinant of that workplace or the sector to want to address it. But how can you want to address it if it is not transparently out there, so that there is something we can do about it?

Accredited workplaces under the White Ribbon Workplace Accreditation Programme demonstrate effective leadership. They drive social change. They strengthen gender equality. And, in doing so, guess what? They help stop violence against women. I think, actually, employers and organisations such as Countdown are going to lead in this area as well. We saw earlier this week that Countdown has released a transgender policy. How awesome that Countdown, as an employer of 18,000 people, is going to take the step of having a transgender policy that is all about respect. It is all about people being supported in their transition. It is all about transparency and, fundamentally, it is about the rights of workers in the workplace.

I think Countdown and The Warehouse—because The Warehouse in Australia is a White Ribbon - accredited organisation—are actually going to show up this Government. The reality in this space is the Government is not showing the leadership, the Minister for Women is not showing the leadership, the Prime Minister is not showing the leadership, but corporate New Zealand is showing the leadership because, actually, it cares about its workers. That is fundamentally what this piece of legislation is about.

Do you care about the workers in your workplace? Do you want to help create a gender-equal society? Well, if you do—and if that National Government truly was committed to reducing family violence in the community, then it would support this bill, at minimum, to select committee. Let us have the discussion. Let us see where it fits. Let us show how committed we are to making sure that women and men are treated equally in New Zealand. I 100 percent support this bill. Kia ora.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): I can assure you that my presentation will not be a testosterone-fuelled speech, for obvious reasons. This Government absolutely recognises the significance of this issue. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind about the bias and the perceptions about women in the workplace and how that is driving the gender pay gap. We do agree across this House about that and we do want to close that gender pay gap, but what we do differ on is how we get there. Although we are, as everyone has said, sympathetic to the aims of the bill, we do not agree on the proposed changes and the detail within the bill. I am not quite sure how long the bill has actually been in the ballot, but it may have been there for quite some time, because things have moved on, and there have been some significant changes made that, perhaps, make this bill obsolete.

The Government already has its initiatives and legislation in place, and they go well on the way to addressing some of the concerns that are already raised and are contributing to the gender pay gap. We have made legislation changes that will address some of the contributing factors. We are, in fact, in the process of making legislative changes to the Equal Pay Act and amending the Employment Relations Act 2000, and they will implement recommendations on pay equity, providing a practical and fair process for employees to follow. We are leading the work to reduce the gender pay gap in the public sector, and that is a massive piece of work with actual tangible results already.

One of the aspects of the bill that is causing quite a lot of concern is the impact it will have on employers and the need to provide additional administrative cost and effort by providing so much detail about employees: sending their wage, time, and gender records to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) for publication, when, already, Statistics New Zealand can provide that data. So the irony is that we are discussing that during Privacy Week, as my colleague Melissa Lee pointed out.

As you will all be aware, the Minister for Women is the Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon Paula Bennett; that is the regard in which we hold this portfolio. This Minister and her ministry have commissioned work on the causes of the gap for women, and that is helping the ministry to understand how we can implement further action. We know that 80 percent of the gap is unexplained—the research is telling us that, and it does shed light on the drivers of the gender pay gap. There are things such as the behaviours and choices between men and women, and the unconscious and conscious bias that drives the majority of those current gender pay gaps. The ministry is also running a project to profile 12 leading New Zealand companies working on gender-equity initiatives. There is no doubt—and the data is very clear on this—that boards of directors who have women perform better. There is no doubt.

So we are leading by example. The Ministry for Women monitors the Government’s own target of having 45 percent of women’s representation on State-owned boards and their committees. It was very pleasing that the Minister announced recently that the Government has already met its target. But we are not just paying lip service to it. We have made it a requirement of chief executives to report and plan for how they are going to address the gender pay gap, so when we do our annual reviews—and I was pleased to be a part of that this year—when the State enterprises come in for their annual reviews, we can actually asked the question about what they are doing and how successful they are at closing that gender pay gap and having women in executive roles on their boards.

But, I guess, for us, the demonstration of putting our money where our mouths are was the settlement that the Government recently announced—a $2 billion settlement—for some of the health sector’s lowest-paid employees, predominantly women, and those, of course, are the women in our healthcare and our disability rest home care. We are putting our money where our mouths are.

JAN LOGIE (Green): That was a pretty depressing display from that side of the House, I have got to say. We have heard a lot from the Government: that this bill is unnecessary; that this Government has got it sorted; and that Theresa Gattung, a huge number of women business leaders, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner, Jackie Blue, the business and professional women’s organisation, the Graduate Women New Zealand, the National Council of Women, and the New Zealand Public Service Association have all just got it wrong for asking the Government to support this bill. The Government knows better than all of those business leaders and women in our communities!

The Government members are telling us that they have got it sorted because they are introducing pay equity legislation that is out for consultation at the moment. I think it is important to put on record in this House that that draft bill will actually make the case for equal pay for the same job a personal grievance issue. It will risk making it completely invisible in the entire system. They are actually restricting the right to strike for pay equity. They are restricting women’s access to information—women are able to get employers’ information for work of equal value only after they have established a case. Then they are adding extra criteria that women are going to have to prove and they are extending the comparator, overturning a court decision. And they are standing here in this House telling us that they give a toss about women’s economic equality. It is damn clear to me from their actions that they do not, and what they have been doing tonight is entirely consistent with that.

I hope that everyone in this House realises how frustrated women actually are. This has been a fight that has been going on for 124 years. It is time to step up with some solutions. Stop putting your fiscal bottom lines and your sense of what might be an “inconvenience” for an employer before the human rights of women in this country, because it is time for women to get economic equality, and that is going to take action.

Sure, there are some things that we could resolve in select committee in terms of gender diversity. I think that would be a great discussion to have in select committee. Sure, there is a question about whether the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment would provide guidance, to be able to add the detail around the independent assessors or whether that should be put in legislation. Sure, let us do that in select committee.

We have heard, though, that this is just an unbearable weight that businesses could not carry—that is what I have heard from this Government. Yet, somehow—I do not know—Norway, Sweden, and Finland all have similar provisions in their legislation for income transparency, and, strangely, those three countries are in the top four most equal countries between men and women’s incomes. Huh! I don’t know, maybe there is a connection there!

Then we are seeing, as well, that Government members are talking like this is impossible. I get a sense that it is ideological for them. But yet, in the UK, the Liberal Party has introduced a pay transparency system that will involve it from next year. It will be publicly ranking businesses.

Catherine Delahunty: League tables.

JAN LOGIE: League tables for businesses on gender pay equality. My bill is not going anywhere near that far. That is a Liberal Party in the UK that is going so much further than this does. It is doing it because it thought businesses would come to this point themselves, and then it realised that they will not and they do not.

The Green Party and the members on this side are committed to taking whatever actions we can to end this inequality, and I thank others in this House tonight who put justice and equality first. Kia ora.

A party vote was called for on the question that the Equal Pay Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): While the Clerk is doing some adding, I want to both remind my colleagues on my left not to interject while votes are being taken and also ask my old classmate to refrain even from supportive interjections during those periods.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Equal Pay Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 59

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2.

Noes 60

New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) on behalf of the Hon Ruth Dyson (Labour—Port Hills): I move, That the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill. It is an opportunity that I have on behalf of the Hon Ruth Dyson to make some opening comments on this particular bill. The thing about it is that the mood on mining in New Zealand has changed. In fact, it is a generational shift, and a generational shift such that people really want to see New Zealand, and the pristine places that we cherish and love so dearly, protected. So this bill is designed to ensure that the world heritage sites that are currently listed, being Te Wāhipounamu - South West New Zealand World Heritage Area in the South Island, the Tongariro National Park, and the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand, are added to schedule 4 of the Conservation Act so that mining cannot occur. But more than that, there are a number of sites that are going through the process to be identified as world heritage sites, and the prospect of adding them to schedule 4, also, under this type of mechanism gives greater assurance to communities that have fought long and hard not only so that there is an opportunity to protect their sites so that we can all cherish them but so that the prospect of mining will not be entertained, because they are included within the schedule 4 definition.

If we look at the bill, it is a very simple bill in nature, yet it achieves so much. If we consider the sites that are referred to and some of the things that have happened, we probably would not even think twice about the common-sense approach to ensuring that in the first instance this type of bill will go to the select committee so that communities can make submissions on things that they hold dearly in their hearts about these particular areas. Take the Waikoropupū Springs, for example. Earlier this year the community rallied together. There you have a very pristine environment. I visited there. The footprint for tourism is quite minimalistic, but when you go there you know there is something special about that place. When that community got together, because of the potential of the way in which water might be affected—here is the thing: I think even though this bill will ensure that mining will not occur, it takes another step forward to support the aspirations of communities to protect places like the Waikoropupū Springs, Farewell Spit, and the Kahurangi National Park. I think that is a good thing. It is a good thing because, again, when we consider some of these other areas in Fiordland, and the waters and seabed of Fiordland, it is such a beautiful place. In fact, you have to go in by boat, and when you get there the ecosystem is such that you have freshwater species and saltwater species, and it is just amazing to see if you have never been there before. The blue cod is fantastic, and the kina are so huge that we could only look at them. Again, if this is the type of opportunity that we have to ensure that places like this can be included in schedule 4, then we can assure ourselves that we can protect, again, against the prospect of mining.

Along the West Coast, and I note that the member Maureen Pugh is here in the House, there was a lot of concern around the aeromagnetic surveys of land in about 2012 from Haast to Karamea. In fact, the local mayor just recently expressed concern about this particular member’s bill and what it would do to mining along the West Coast. What it would do is actually send a signal that we are serious about ensuring that the identity of our natural landscapes can be protected to the highest degree possible. What it would do is send a signal that we need to think about other types of ways of using other types of resources to build walls, and things like that. I read, in fact, just the other week how plastics were being used—repurposed from the sea—to be able to take the place of tarseal, and that is innovation. So we can use alternative ways, instead of stone and rock, to do certain things, and there is an opportunity there. I do not know why there has been such a strong impression against the potential of this bill, but I do know that if we at least get this bill to the select committee, so people can have a say—their concerns about it, their support for it—then we have a better opportunity to ensure that we are not only being realistic in what we want to try to achieve with this bill but actually touching the sentiments and the hearts and the whakaaro amongst many people in their communities who want to see greater and stronger protection mechanisms for their natural environment.

Of interest to me, in particular, in terms of the tentative new world heritage sites, was actually a place close to my heart; it is the origins of where my mother comes from, up in Northland, and in particular where her tupuna yields from, which is around the Kerikeri Basin area. What you have there is, I guess, a coming together of two cultures. You have got the oldest building. That is situated in the Kerikeri Basin next to the Stone Store. You have got a pā site. You have got both cultures colliding, if you like, and giving you a good sense of how the early history of New Zealand was formed. Again, I do not think people really want to see mining happening in that area. I actually think that what they would like to see is less degradation of the area and to look at how to reduce the impacts of the pressure of tourism in the area so that it can be maintained to a quality that we can ensure will be there for another 100, 200 years. I certainly support that.

I support the intent of the bill. I am pleased that my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson brought it to the House so that everybody can consider it with the degree of necessity that it needs to be given. The bill is consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and that has been affirmed by the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. If there are any concerns against the intent of the bill, I think they will be to ramp up negative hype around the potential impact on mining interests. I represent the Hauraki-Waikato area. The Karangahake Gorge is one such area where there is a very strong sentiment of local people around the issues to do with mining, albeit goldmining has been happening in the area for some time. But can I say that in my opening comments when I said that the tide had turned—here we have people from all walks of life getting together. They want the Karangahake Gorge to be protected. They want to ensure that the natural features can be maintained and sustained. They want to ensure that young people get the full opportunity and benefits of going to places like the Karangahake Gorge. They are the same types of communities across a diverse representation of a New Zealand community who hold those special characters in the same way as people who treasure the Waikoropupū Springs, the Kerikeri Basin, the Waitangi Treaty grounds, the Kermadec Islands, and Whakarua Moutere, the North East Islands. There are communities and interest groups that would be absolutely overwhelmed if this just got to a select committee so it could get a fair hearing.

I hope that if members on that side of the House take a call, they take the call based on some real sentiment and relevance to where their communities are at in relation to some of these named areas that I have commented on tonight. I hope that when they get up to speak they give the House, and anyone listening to this debate, a really good reason why it should not go to a select committee so that everybody can have a say. I hope that when they get up and say what the sentiment is in their own community, they are prepared to front up to those other communities that would be overwhelmed to see it get over the first hurdle. I hope that when members on the other side of the House get up and speak to this bill they will see the sense in ensuring it gets to a select committee so that all communities can have a say, and they can tell Parliament what they hold dear to their hearts.

I know that the environment, and the ongoing protection of it for future generations, is absolutely important. This bill will go a little bit further to ensure that mining does not occur in schedule 4 lands, and that we have a mechanism to add lands into that particular schedule. Tēnā koutou.

Debate interrupted.

Voting

Correction—Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call Maureen Pugh, I am informed that on the Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill the declared vote was 58 to 62. Members will work out that there are not that many members here. The vote was actually 57 to 62. The record will be altered.

Bills

Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): I have pleasure in standing and speaking to the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill tonight in its first and, hopefully, last reading. What an honour it is for me to take a lead call on behalf of the Government on behalf of the people of Westland—the people of Westland—who did not have a voice in the preparation of this bill. As my colleague across the House said, this bill does send a signal. Well, I have got a signal for the other side of the House from the West Coast, and it says: “Hands off.” The purpose of this bill is to take World Heritage status land and place it into schedule 4.

I have no problem with the Tongariro National Park; it is already a national park. It is 796 square kilometres. In the Subantarctic Islands, it is 764 square kilometres—I have no problem with that. Where I do have a problem is Te Wāhipounamu - South West New Zealand World Heritage Area—26,000 square kilometres, and that area is made up of a large part of Fiordland and Westland. It is already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). It is already protected by the Conservation Act. It has huge guardianship, and we respect that. But these areas in Westland are where I have the greatest concern. There are currently 30 mining licences active on this land or that overlap this land. Of those, 25 are currently being worked. The bulk of those—the bulk of them—are below the mean high-water mark. At high tide all evidence of them is gone.

This is a lazy piece of legislation. It inserts seven words—seven words—into the Crown Minerals Act of 1991. I doubt the member who proposed this bill has even thought about the impacts. There are a couple of operations in South Westland that clearly have not been considered. Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio has a proposal to retrieve Aotea stone—very special to them—known as Hine Aotea. She is a very special healing stone, and it presents an opportunity for Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio in South Westland. There is 170 hectares of their land that overlaps into this proposal. They also have a proposal for a goldmining operation down there. Very little else is on the horizon for Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio.

This Government has faith in the potential of the West Coast. It has invested in the development of its regional growth study. There are major economic developments that exist within the tourism sector, and there are a whole lot of packages being worked on now. We have been working on this for over a year. A big part of tourism is about being able to get there, and for those people who may not appreciate it, it can rain on the West Coast, and when it does we have our rivers and roads under threat. But thanks to the Minister of Transport, he does keep our highways open.

But if we cannot guarantee access, we are struggling to encourage the investment that we need in the built infrastructure and in the places for people to do things and stay. But that only matters if they can get there. One of the problems that we have got with this bill is it ceases all ability for quarrying and for gravel extraction. So when you want to maintain a road or a river, I am sorry, but now on the West Coast you have got a 350-kilometre round trip to cart a truckload of rock. How many times are you going to need to do that to make any significant work on a piece of road or a river?

Under this proposal, gravel extraction and quarrying ceases. All active mining permits are stopped. Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio—I am sorry, but all of your plans are now in the bin. The growing schist business that has been developing over years—sorry, that is all stopped. Industrial and building rock business—sorry, it is all over. Everything you have invested in that business—sorry, it is all over. Intergenerational farms—we have got a family who for five generations have had grazing licences in South Westland; sorry guys, Ruth wants those.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

Dr Megan Woods: Come on, show some respect. How long have you been in this House?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am now going to ask the member on my left who is trying to assist me, I am sure—if she really wants an answer, it is 33 years. But I am now going to ask the member to call members by appropriate names.

MAUREEN PUGH: I appreciate that, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am sorry, but Miss Dyson wants your land, West Coasters.

There is no grandfather clause built into this bill. That means that the day after Royal assent, all of that activity ceases, and there is no compensation. So, DOC, if you want to maintain your tracks or protect a hut, sorry, there is no material. You have got to go all the way to Whataroa to get it.

This issue cuts to the heart of all that is dear to those who live on the West Coast, and it is an insult. Who are you to tell us that all we have maintained and protected for generations is, overnight, out of bounds, locked up, and untouchable? It is bureaucrats and do-gooders who do not even live on the Coast, who have probably never spent any time there, or even been there, who are always trying to tell us how to treat our land. We have kept our native forest intact. Where is yours, I ask those who live in your clear-felled, concrete jungles. This is theft. If you want to rob us of the right to live by and on the land that we have managed for generations, then this bill is going to do it.

But nobody talked to anyone on the West Coast. The proposer of this bill did not talk to local iwi and did not even talk to the mayor of the district. The mayor of Westland district has 13 percent of available land—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am now going to ask Mr Bayly to go and sit in his seat because his interjections are coming through the microphone system and it is causing complaints, at least from me. I am slightly deaf and it is getting very loud. [Interruption] Your seat.

MAUREEN PUGH: As I said, no one has talked to anyone on the West Coast about the impact of this bill. Well, I have talked to them, and I can tell you that they are not happy—they are not happy. If there was ever an example of how the Green virus is infesting the Labour Party, then this is it.

We have heard Forest & Bird recently talking about the slow creep of land going for mining. Well, what about the sprint that is under way to confiscate land that is potentially productive? I am talking about land in the Buller—45,000 hectares about to go into national parks. We are just asking to keep doing what we have been doing for generations as guardians of the land on the West Coast.

Hon Jacqui Dean: Where’s Damien O’Connor?

MAUREEN PUGH: And where is the electorate MP for West Coast - Tasman? Nowhere to be seen. In fact—

Dr Megan Woods: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is not appropriate for a member in the House to question the whereabouts of a member.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): It is certainly a convention that members do not, and I am sure this member will not repeat that.

MAUREEN PUGH: You can be sure, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The “Green-Labour Party” does not care about jobs. The National Government does care about jobs. We will take the pragmatic, sensible approach, because we understand that humans can live, work, and play in our environment, and still care for it. We will oppose this bill—vehemently oppose this bill. I am at a loss to know why some members from the other side would even be considering this when there is so much opportunity over there and so much land available, and when other cities and towns have clear-felled their native forests and we have not, and now those members have become the conscience for the rest of New Zealand. It is totally inappropriate, and I am so pleased to be sitting on this side of the House, where we can take a pragmatic approach and look after people and their futures. I certainly oppose this bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am just going to indicate now that that mike is turned off. Mr Bayly can return, if he wishes, from the wilderness.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): When I came down from my office to take a call on this bill, I did not anticipate that it was going to get either quite so spirited or personal in the debate, and I do not think that speech reflects well on that member, Maureen Pugh, at all. To make it personal against someone who brings a member’s bill to this House simply lacks any sense of grace. To claim, for example, that Ruth Dyson does not know the West Coast—well, maybe this actually speaks to what the previous speaker should have done, and that is actually find out some information before she gave that speech. In fact, Ruth Dyson lived on the West Coast for many, many years, Ms Pugh, and I suggest that maybe when you come down to the House to discuss a member’s bill you make it more in the realm of a constructive discussion.

Let us think about this: the Great Wall of China, the Historic Centre of Prague, the Pyramid Fields from Giza, Versailles, the Acropolis, Vatican City, the Taj Mahal, Petra, and the Palace of Westminster. These are other Unesco World Heritage sites. These are the equivalent sites to what we are asking to be protected in New Zealand. You would not think that from this speech that we have heard. This is a very simple bill. What it does is it seeks to do something that is not currently on the statute book, and that is to provide protection for our World Heritage sites that are in place at the moment.

The bar for becoming a Unesco World Heritage site is, in fact, very high. It is an international accreditation that has a very long process. So, in addition to the handful of World Heritage sites that we currently have, there are currently some additional sites that are going through the process. In order for them to even be on the list to be considered, the potential sites need to be nominated. It is these sites that are named in the explanatory note of my colleague Ruth Dyson’s bill.

We heard from Ms Pugh, the list member from the West Coast, about the great future of tourism and the threat that this bill offers. Well, I would like to reiterate: the Great Wall of China, the Historic Centre of Prague, Vatican City, the Taj Mahal—are these areas that have been jeopardised by the fact that the Governments of those countries could not mine those sites? Or have they perhaps seen some value in them, actually, other than digging them up? Ms Pugh could at least let this bill go to the select committee. It could go there, and the committee could listen to the communities. It could see the very clear thing that is being asked: that these are places of national significance, in terms of either our natural history or our history of the nation.

One of the sites named in the explanatory note is the Treaty Grounds at Waitangi. Is the National Government suggesting that we should dig it up to see what is under there, or does this have other value to us as a nation? The Government will not even send this bill to the select committee to have a rational discussion about it—one that does not get personal, one that does not launch into hysteria and talk about “Green viruses”, but one that asks: “Should we have a statutory protection for our World Heritage sites on our statute books? While we are at it, should we be thinking about the sites that we actually want to put through an international process to get accreditation?”. I do not for a moment believe that we are that short-sighted as a nation that we cannot see the value in what we have as a country and be proud of our history, be proud of what we have, and want to protect it.

The speech that we heard showed that there is not any ability to have any fresh ideas, any fresh thinking, about what our future holds and what our country is. I want to make sure that there is a legacy left for future generations in this country, and that involves protecting our heritage—both our natural heritage and sites of historical significance. Other countries have had the foresight to do it, and I do not for one moment believe that New Zealand, as a nation, cannot take the same kind of stand to protect what is precious to it as a nation. Thank you.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Mr Assistant Speaker, it is a pleasure to be speaking from this very nice seat here in the debating Chamber. It is my pleasure to be talking on this bill, the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill, and I did not think I would be hearing things about Giza.

I must admit, I was very persuaded by that very good list member from the West Coast, Maureen Pugh. I thought what she said earlier was very pertinent, very appropriate. I have listened to a couple of the speeches from the Opposition already, and it is just that I am not persuaded by the arguments, and I just wanted to reflect on some of the things that I have heard. Before I do that, I just want to reiterate what this bill is about. This is obviously about classifying certain World Heritage sites into schedule 4, which is, basically, a national park status. It affects some of the key areas in New Zealand, such as Tongariro National Park, the Subantarctic Islands, and, of course, parts of Fiordland—in particular, Te Wāhipounamu.

As the list member from West Coast noted, there are 30 mining licences already in operation, and some of them are undertaking some very valuable activities for the West Coast—particularly, it was noted, quarrying activities, metal quarrying activities, also the Aotea stone, but also the schist business that we heard about, which is a growing business down there. It was also noted that there are only 25 of these licences in operation. I think one of the important points that the list member made was that many of these activities—in fact, the bulk—occur between the mean high tides, which means that when the sea comes in and goes out, you cannot actually see any impact of those activities at all. I think that is a very pertinent thing.

It raises one of those issues that I think cuts across this bill, which is: how do you safely combine strong environmental and conservation requirements and desires alongside appropriate economic activities that fulfil and meet the wishes of people? What I think, in this case, one of the issues here—in fact, it raises three issues. First of all, how did the 30 existing licences get approved? I note that for each of those 30 licences, it would have required the approval of the Department of Conservation (DOC) for access, and it would have required the approval of the local authority. And, as I understand it, those approvals, those consents for activity in those very precious areas, are highly difficult to get and are subject to a great deal of consent requirements.

The second issue that it raises: should further licences be issued? And this starts to raise the issue around economic activities on the West Coast: what is appropriate in terms of supporting the communities on the West Coast? I think that is a very fundamental issue that cuts across this bill.

And the third issue it raises is: what do we do about the existing use rights? What do we do about the existing property rights of those people who have legitimately gone through the long and expensive process of getting a consent, not only from their local authority but also from DOC. It raises issues around compensation, and it raises a number of very significant property rights issues. And I am not sure, in the commentary on the bill—and nor have either of the two previous speakers from the Opposition raised any of those issues, and I think that is a serious deficiency in their argument.

I think, also, the importance of the natural environment—I think we all understand it. We all have a deep desire to make sure that the conservation estate of New Zealand is well maintained, is protected, but the issue is around how you bring about prudent economic activities that are of low impact, that are appropriate in the circumstances. I think that is the issue that we are talking about tonight, and I am very concerned that this bill has not had the blessing of, or consultation with, local iwi and is, in fact, opposed by the local mayor. On that basis, I must oppose this bill.

MOJO MATHERS (Green): Of course the Green Party is proud to be supporting this bill. We commend the Hon Ruth Dyson for bringing it to the House. We support this bill because we value our greatest heritage sites.

Now, as that previous speaker Megan Woods has pointed out, these sites have been areas that are so outstanding that they have been granted World Heritage status—World Heritage status—and the bar for that is set very high—very high indeed. To be included on the World Heritage list, sites must be of outstanding universal value and meet one of 10 very stringent criteria, ranging from being a masterpiece of human creative genius through to areas that contain threatened species of outstanding universal value, from the point of view of science or conservation. So let us make this quite clear. We are talking about the highest possible value, not just in New Zealand but in the world, to be included and granted World Heritage site status.

And what are we going to do? We are going to open them up to mining? I am not talking about little greenstone harvesting and stuff like that; we can easily sort that in the bill at select committee. We are talking about wanting to stop and protect these areas from things like open-cast coalmining—the most destructive forms of mining. That is what we absolutely do not want to see in a World Heritage site. So for us the choice is really simple. Do we leave the door open for multinational mining corporations to destroy areas of special significance and deny present and future generations their heritage, or do we extend the legal protection over our greatest heritage areas? For us this is absolutely a no-brainer because at the moment these areas, our places of outstanding beauty of special significance, are coming under pressure from all sources for economic exploitation.

This bill we regard as an effort to secure proper and appropriate protection for some of the most precious heritage areas so that they are safe from the most destructive forms of land use. We are talking here about mining. It is timely to be having this conversation because, as we have seen recently in the news, National seems to be hell-bent, one way or another, on opening up high-value conservation land to coalmining—high-value conservation land that is home to thousands of New Zealand’s iconic species. That has just been absolutely confirmed for me by the speeches that National members have given today in the House.

When we consider that there are nearly 3,000 species that are threatened in New Zealand, and a further 3,000 are believed to be endangered but cannot be classified as such because not enough is known about them, and all that stands between us and witnessing the mass extinction of New Zealand’s precious species is time, then habitat destruction is not helping. Mining does not help to protect these species. You cannot say on one hand that we are going to protect threatened species like the kiwi, and on the other hand open up kiwi habitat to mining and coalmining. They are not compatible, no matter how you spin it. We should not be mining any land of high conservation value or high cultural value—not in our national parks, not in our schedule 4 lands, and certainly not in an area that is a World Heritage site, because it is impossible to put back what has been destroyed. We need to love it, we need to protect it. We will support this bill.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): I rise to take a call tonight in opposition to the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill, in its first reading. This is a bill designed to add World Heritage sites to schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act 1991.

Can I start by acknowledging the first call on the Government side, from Maureen Pugh, the member of Parliament based down on the West Coast. I must say, personally, I thought that was one of Maureen Pugh’s best speeches in the House, and I think it shows what happens when a member of Parliament stands up and is connected to what they are saying. This was in total contrast to the lead speaker from the Opposition side, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who stood up and very much did not believe what she was saying. Compare that with Maureen Pugh, who was emphatic—a typical Coaster, who knew—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The first thing we will have is Louisa Wall withdrawing and apologising for interjecting while I am on my feet.

Louisa Wall: I withdraw and apologise, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member Matt Doocey is a relatively new member but should know that one cannot get up in this House and say that members do not believe things they have told this House. The member will withdraw and apologise.

MATT DOOCEY: I withdraw and apologise. For me, the first speaker from the Opposition did not have the energy and the commitment of our first speaker—which shows when people in Wellington are trying to decide things for the people who actually live in that local area and know the impact there will be on it. I think a bill like this epitomises that.

We had Megan Woods, who talked about why World Heritage sites as a collective should be put in schedule 4. But I think, for her, her argument showed the flaws in this bill. In fact, every World Heritage site is completely different. I think that was the point that Maureen Pugh was trying to argue tonight—that on the West Coast there is an ability to look at the extraction of minerals for the benefit of the local economy. If it is a mere fact that mining is a problem—and the Hon Nanaia Mahuta did talk around protecting against the prospect of mining—what if we were able to safely mine? Is that an issue then?

I think, for me, in opposition to this bill, is that the speakers so far were unable to get up and prove why they are prejudiced about this. I believe that when we see a lot of young Kiwis going away every year—in the Kiwi tradition—and they travel to many countries, they quickly learn, in a globalised world, that a country that has a competitive economy actually protects its environment. All you need to do is to go to the many Third World countries around the world to see how they do not protect their environments.

To come up with this binary argument that it is either a developed economy or protecting the environment in fact is not real. It is not true. What happened to the memorandum of understanding between Labour and the Greens? Why is the Labour Party grandstanding on a Green policy that actually does not have much fact behind it? Why can we not protect our environment as well as support the local economy?

No wonder Maureen Pugh got up today so animated. We have people saying we do not want to bottle water in New Zealand. The West Coast has so much water, but other parts of New Zealand do not. So what we should be doing is working out what fits and what works in the local economies of New Zealand and the local communities of New Zealand. That is why I think putting all the World Heritage sites into schedule 4 will not allow that ability for local communities to decide what is right for them.

The West Coast—what a fantastic place. It is the region that time forgot. Everyone loves the Coasters. But I will tell you what: they get a hard time. And then they pick up the paper and read about bills like this, bills without any consultation. Why would you put a member’s bill in the ballot and not even go and talk to the people whom it affects? Where is the consultation? No one has answered that question tonight. Where is the consultation? On this side of the House we believe that we can develop our local economies and also protect our local environments. Thank you.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am very pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and on behalf of my colleague Denis O’Rourke to take a call in this first reading of the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill.

New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. It is not because we do not believe in and support the environment of this beautiful country that we call home; it is, in fact, because we do. I want to begin by echoing some of the sentiments of my fellow Waimakariri-based MP—in fact, my MP—Mr Matt Doocey, who mentioned the very, very passionate speech by Ms Pugh in support of the Hon Damien O’Connor’s constituents. I am sure that Damien O’Connor has similar sentiments. I do hope that during the course of this bill’s passage through this House, however long that might be, he has an opportunity to express those sentiments in support of his constituents, because I am sure that he does agree with many of them.

What this bill comes down to is not about extraction versus anything else. It is about extraction done in a sensible way. We live in a country and in an economy that relies on the extractive industries. It relies on mining, it relies on forestry, and it relies on primary industries. Everything around us is a reflection of that. The timber in this House is rimu, milled from the forests on the West Coast. This microphone—the cap around the top is made of urethane foam, which is sourced from oil. This metal thing here—I do not know whether it is steel or aluminium, but it comes from the mining industry. The carpet on the floor is a product of the farming industry. The seats here are leather. They come from farming as well. All of this is part of the extractive industries. All of us here today, in this House, we came here in cars, in taxis, in trains, whatever, made out of steel, powered by fossil fuels—all of them the products of the extractive industries.

We drove on roads that are made out of gravel and are sealed with bitumen, which are the products of the quarrying and mining industries. This activity happens. It happens and it supports our lifestyles and our way of life and our economy. It will happen somewhere if we want to live this lifestyle, whether we like it or not and whether it is in our backyard or not. We live in a part of the world that is probably the most beautiful. We have beauty for Africa in this country. This country is probably the most glorious expression of God’s love for mankind that he gave us this earth to live on.

When we look at this list in this bill—and it is quite a short list, I can see that—

Maureen Pugh: Seven words.

RICHARD PROSSER: Yes, seven words, my colleague says. When we look at this list of the areas that are intended to be added to schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, it starts with the Kahurangi National Park, and the next area is the waters and seabed of the fiords of Fiordland. It also talks about the Napier art deco historical precinct, the Kerikeri Basin, the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, the Kermadec Islands, and the Auckland volcanic field. No one in their right mind is even going to apply for, let alone think about, mining in Napier’s art deco district. They are not going to think about mining the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. They are not going to think about the Kermadec Islands. And, certainly, no one in their right mind is going to go digging a mine in a volcanic field. So it all comes down to the Kahurangi—not just that but other areas that are determined to be World Heritage areas in the future by the United Nations, which we actually do not have any control over.

It comes down to the West Cost—the West Coast, which gets the rough end of the pineapple, as Ms Pugh intimated. The West Coast, which supplies a great deal in the way of what goes in to build this country: the coal, the gold, and the timber—the extractive industries. The minerals and the products that supply the good things in life that the rest of us enjoy, and that greenies and Labourites and other people in urban areas in this country who have never been there enjoy the fruits of, without realising the effort, the struggle, and the economic contribution that the people of the West Coast make to this nation through the extractive industries.

We can have both. We can have the wide open spaces, we can have the pristine clean, green wilderness, and we can have mining as well, as long as it is done properly. New Zealand First supports that being done in ways that tick all of those boxes, most importantly in ways that take a proportion of the wealth—the royalties—from that extraction that comes back to the Government and send it back to that area whence it came. New Zealand First supports the environment, but we cannot support this bill.

JOANNE HAYES (National): What can I say after such an amazing speech? Hopefully, Hansard gets that recorded right, because I thought that Mr Prosser’s speech echoed everything that my colleague Maureen Pugh articulated so passionately in her contribution at the beginning of this debate. I too agree that you can have a balance between the environment and mining and economic development—all balanced in harmony with each other. I agree that what it is about is driving the economy in a harmonised way with the environment.

I was quite surprised to learn that nobody had spoken to the West Coast Regional Council, that nobody had spoken to Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio , and that nobody had taken the time to go out and have a discussion about putting this bill forward. When we start looking at the prospect of iwi in their various rohe and we look at the opportunities—the economic opportunities—for iwi, here we have one hapū, Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio on the West Coast, that had not even been given an opportunity to have any input, any discussion about something that will affect their ability for economic development on the Coast.

As the member Mr Prosser had said, the West Coast is the most important economic area for the South Island, when it comes to the extractive industry. It is a small area, it is a long, drawn-out area, yet the amount of money that can be generated from that area is humungous. When I sat and I listened to the way he explained how everything in this room is a product of the extractive industry, I was absolutely stunned. When we do start to look at this, this is the importance of the extractive industry, with mining being part and parcel of that industry.

I am taken aback by the information and detail around the various mining licences that have come forward, which have been revealed through this particular bill, whereby we have 19 small beach sand gold operations operating, and that when the tide comes in it wipes out all evidence of them being there. That never ever came to discussion. It was through the investigation of everything around this bill that that was brought forward, and we start to see that that information, which should have been included when the bill was being drafted, was, basically, not there.

I want to say that when my colleague Maureen Pugh got up, being the ex-Mayor of West Coast Regional Council, she knew exactly what she was talking about. She is the one who has the passion; she brings the voice of the Coast. I have been to the West Coast as a guest of Maureen Pugh, and I have sat and I have listened to the many people I have met—businesses, regional councillors, the lot—talk about the admiration they have for Ms Pugh for how she gives voice to the people of the West Coast, and she has done it in talking to this bill.

Hon Simon Bridges: By George, she’s done it!

JOANNE HAYES: She has done it by talking to this bill. I am very proud of what she has done. I am very proud of the work that she continues to do for the West Coast and, to be honest, I cannot support a bill that will actually wipe out economic development on the Coast. Thank you.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I find it astonishing that there are Government members here who are opposing the recognition and protection from mining of our three World Heritage areas—sites that Unesco has recognised as being of international significance and value to all humankind.

The Green Party is very pleased to support the Hon Ruth Dyson’s bill, the Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill. We have got these three World Heritage areas in New Zealand: south-west New Zealand Te Wāhipounamu, the Subantarctic Islands, and Tongariro. There are only 878 sites internationally that Unesco has recognised as being deserving of World Heritage status, and we have three of those in New Zealand. Tongariro was the first site to be recognised internationally for its natural and cultural landscape values: the spiritual and cultural values of those mountains, which were given so generously by Tūwharetoa to be our first national park.

South-west New Zealand has got astonishing values, with our ancient beech, kahikatea, rimu forests, the snowcapped mountains, and the rivers, wetlands, and lakes of that region. It is recognised as being an outstanding example of our geological history, our evolutionary history, and yet only part of south-west New Zealand is protected from mining as a national park: Westland Tai Poutini National Park, Fiordland National Park, and Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park. There is an extensive area of conservation land, from Gillespies Beach near Fox Glacier right down to the Hollyford River, that is open to mining. Given this Government’s plans to continue with its extractivist economic policy to increase mining on the West Coast, we need this bill to protect those areas of the South-west New Zealand World Heritage site that are outside national parks.

This economic development study, which the Government—the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)—has commissioned for the West Coast, has at its heart increasing mining on the Coast. It is proposing what the Government is calling a single window for considering applications for more mining, and what that means is that the provisions of the Conservation Act will be given much less attention. You will have the district councils and the regional council coming together in a whole-of-Government process with central government agencies like MBIE, and giving that tick to mining applications.

We will have the Department of Conservation (DOC), which once upon a time would have seriously looked at the ecological impacts of mining on the conservation estate, being suppressed and told to grant consent, because under this National Government we have seen DOC reduced to a mere shadow of its former self in terms of advocating for conservation.

So we need this bill, particularly in south-west New Zealand, because of the extensive areas that the Government wants to open up for mining as part of its regional development strategy on the Coast. This document that MBIE has put out—and the Ministry for Primary Industries has put its name to, as well, and that the Ministers have signed off on—is all about more mining.

It also proposes selling off conservation land on the West Coast, and that is because of the pressure that the mining industry is putting on the Government. I think that was symbolised tonight in the TVNZ item where Minister Joyce had been flown around the West Coast by Stevenson Mining to look at the Te Kuha site. He was labelled the “Minister of Conservation”. We have Steven Joyce as Minister of Finance telling the Minister of Conservation that conservation land is going to be opened up to more goldmining, more coalmining, and more extractive industry, which will destroy its conservation values.

The Green Party recognises the international value of our World Heritage sites and wants them protected from destructive mining operations. We are very happy to support this bill.

NUK KORAKO (National): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Huri noa i Te Whare nei e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Tonight there have been impassioned speeches on both sides of the House around this Crown Minerals (Protection of World Heritage Sites) Amendment Bill. If you want to talk about impassioned speeches, I had one just a few hours ago with some of the representatives of Te Māhaki ki Makaawhio. One of the things that they were very, very disturbed about was actually the lack of consultation, which has been highlighted here quite well this evening. One of the things that they were upset about was the fact that they did not know that this particular bill was actually going through the House, so that highlights the fact that there was a lack of consultation.

When we look at the Te Māhaki ki Makaawhio people, they are the real people of the greenstone. They are the ones who actually are the kaitiaki of Te Wāhipounamu. That area is very sacred to them, down in the south-western side of Te Wai Pounamu.

One thing that they have asked is that when looking at this bill and when you look at Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu claim settlement, what they have given there and what they have received—when we took a look at Aoraki mountain, that was given back to Aotearoa New Zealand. Then, when you look at those sites, what they feel around this bill is that it actually extinguishes a lot of their rights, particularly to take the very, very scarce Aotea pounamu and also another piece of pounamu, which is found only down there, called snowflake. That pounamu is really what these people are about.

They also said tonight that there are protections here under the Conservation Act. There are protections here, particularly around mining. The fact is that when they look at the local industries there—I mean, if suddenly this bill was to go through, you know, they own part of those businesses there that actually have no impact whatsoever on the environment or on conservation. They are small businesses of extraction, and if this happens then part of their businesses will be wiped out.

What they are asking is why we do not have some faith here, because there is actually legislation in place that these particular places can be protected. What they are also asking is why we cannot be unique, as we are. Why can we not work together to cohabitate, down in these areas, where there is a local economy that needs to—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.